The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Pre-Trial Hearings

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*********

We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

*********

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

 Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death.

However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.

I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.

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“Why can’t you be reasonable?” judge asks military in case to limit secrecy in Bradley’s trial

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The CCR argued its case at the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces today for transparency in Bradley Manning’s court-martial trial. Judges questioned why the government forced the issue to come to court at all.
By Nathan Fuller. October 10, 2012.

The CCR’s Shayana Kadidal

During oral arguments in the Center for Constitutional Rights’ lawsuit against the government seeking public access to basic court documents in Bradley Manning’s court-martial trial, judges for the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces demanded the government explain why it wouldn’t simply provide these documents in the first place.

When Army lawyer Capt. Chad Fisher said that the court wasn’t constitutionally required to provide public access to documents like prosecution briefs, transcripts, and rulings, Judge Margaret Ryan interrupted him to ask what she called a “common sense” question.
“Why can’t you just give it to them? Instead of making this a constitutional case, why can’t you just be reasonable?”

Fisher was unable to directly answer the question. Instead, he gave an array of responses that circumvented the basic issue: he repeated his belief that the court wasn’t obliged to make these records public, he said the fact that the public could attend the hearings meant they were “open,” he complained that the defense wasn’t asking the proper authority, and he reiterated the government’s position that the availability of FOIA provided sufficient public and press access.

The five judges repeatedly questioned and challenged each of Fisher’s points, particularly the idea that FOIA requests, to which the government frequently takes weeks, months, or even years to respond, provided sufficient and contemporaneous access, especially considering the fact that FOIA requests in this case have already been denied. They also pushed back on Fisher’s claim that “Nothing has been withheld” from the public and the press, based on the idea that attending the hearings amounts to fully accessing the proceedings.

“How is oral argument sufficient if you can’t read the briefs?” one judge asked.

“It’s not as if they’re speaking a foreign language,” Fisher responded.

But as journalists from the 30 major media outlets who submitted a supportive brief in this case explained, the media (and therefore the public) needs these documents to adequately cover the case:

“Journalists rely heavily on court documents to gain and provide to readers the background of and context surrounding a legal controversy — awareness and understanding of which is often necessary to accurately report on the dispute. Prior access to the materials also allows reporters, the overwhelming majority of whom have no legal background or education, to process the oftentimes complex legal theories at their own pace, or to interview a legal expert who could explain the issues, so they are better equipped to understand what is transpiring in a proceeding they attend.”

Shayana Kadidal, the CCR lawyer arguing in court today, similarly contended earlier this year that providing openness-in-name-only effectively “choked off” coverage of Manning’s hearings.
But the judges, not seemingly satisfied with Fisher’s responses, kept returning to the more elemental point that the government could avoid this litigation and a potential ruling that would affect courts-martial to come by simply turning over the documents requested. The court already has a process in place to redact documents, the judges noted, and parties settle extrajudicial matters with a compromise out of court all the time, so it seems perfectly feasible for the government to comply with the CCR’s reasonable request for access to the documents.

In the midst of this questioning, Fisher did concede what the CCR has long observed: that Guantanamo tribunals – hardly beacons of transparency – were less secretive than Bradley Manning’s court-martial, because the public could access filed briefs and transcripts to those proceedings.
The CCR’s Kadidal fielded a similar though not quite as lengthy barrage of questioning from the appeals court judges. The first issue they raised was whether this court even has jurisdiction to make a ruling on this case, as their jurisdiction has been narrowly limited and it isn’t clear that they have standing to make a ruling that affects the press and public alike. Kadidal responded that the government hadn’t raised this issue in their replies, and so he would need an additional 10 days to file a supplement that addresses the court’s jurisdiction.

Judge Ryan also wanted to know whether there was precedent for this court to compel the production of documents that didn’t yet exist. She was referring to the CCR’s request for transcripts of RCM 802 conferences, the private telephonic meetings Judge Denise Lind holds between Ft. Meade hearings with both the defense and the prosecution. She also wanted Kadidal to account for how exactly the documents would hypothetically be produced: who would transcribe the hearings, or who would pay a stenographer?

Kadidal responded that an audio file would be acceptable, but on the issue more generally, he said he believes the court should make a First Amendment ruling granting the press the right to these documents and let lower courts adjudicate the logistics. Judges replied that it was unclear that the First Amendment affords contemporaneous access to these documents: in other words, it might be wholly constitutional for the court to provide these documents after the fact.

Kadidal will submit his jurisdictional supplement in 10 days, and the government will submit a reply less than a week later. It’s unclear when or if this court will issue a ruling, or when exactly the parties might return to court. We’ll update our coverage of this case as it unfolds.

 

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Take action! Pressure the military to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

 

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

 

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*********

We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

*********

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

 

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

 

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

 

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death.

 

However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

 

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day. I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.

****

Take action! Pressure the military to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

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Pressure the military to do the right thing. Call the military Public Affairs Office at Fort Meade and demand that transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents must be made available to the press and public! Call 301-677-1361 then sign the letter below!
By the Bradley Manning Support Network. October 9, 2012.

Bradley Manning will have spent 983 days in prison before his trial begins in February.

This Wednesday, October 10th, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) will argue before the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces to bring transparency to the secretive trial of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Army PFC Bradley Manning. This hearing is open to the media and public. CCR attorneys will argue that the military must make transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents available to the press and the public.
“Public scrutiny plays a vital role in government accountability. Media access to the Manning trial proceedings and documents is critical for the transparency on which democratic government and faith in our justice system rests,” said CCR Legal Director Baher Azmy at the time of the initial filing. CCR has called Manning’s proceedings more secretive than tribunals at Guantanamo Bay in many aspects.
Let’s show our support by putting pressure on the military to do the right thing. Transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents must be made available to the press and public!

Call the military Public Affairs Office at
301-677-1361.
Ask them what can be done to improve the situation.

Ask the Fort Meade Public Affairs Office to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

First Name

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Email

Dear Fort Meade Public Affairs Office, As a concerned citizen I ask that you investigate and pressure those in charge at Fort Meade to do what they can to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial. This Wednesday, October 10th, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) will argue before the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces to bring transparency to the thus far secretive trial of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Army PFC Bradley Manning. They demand that transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents be made available to the press and the public. Please let me know what can be done. Thank you.

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The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Pre-Trial Hearings

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*********

We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

*********

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death. However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.     

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.

I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.       

************

Courtroom notes, Bradley Manning’s motions hearing: October 17, 2012

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Bradley Manning returned to Ft. Meade today for another motions hearing. Judge Lind will rule tomorrow on the defense motion to compel witnesses in the next hearing and on whether an author made Collateral Murder’s contents public at least a year before Bradley’s arrest.

By Nathan Fuller. October 17, 2012.

AP photo of PFC Bradley Manning

Developments since last hearing in August:
To start today’s motion hearing for PFC Bradley Manning, Judge Denise Lind recapped for the press and public what has taken place since court was last in session. 1) After reviewing the approximately 700 Quantico emails that the prosecution had tried to hold back from the Defense, Lind ruled against the prosecution, finding all but 12 were relevant. 2) On September 28, Lind largely granted the government’s redactions and substitutions for DHS, Department of State, and CIA documents. 3) Before litigating the defense’s speedy trial motion, the parties need to agree on a chronology of relevant events thus far. The prosecution sent the defense a 231-page document, which was rejected because it was a non-searchable PDF, mostly consisting of extraneous content. Continuing their strategy of ongoing delay, the prosecution then sent a 20-page Word document still containing irrelevant information, which the defense will be forced to review and whittle down into an appropriate timeline.

The prosecution refuses to provide an accurate portrayal of the pretrial timeline, because, as Coombs noted in his motion, the prosecution’s repeated and unjustifiable delays point “unmistakably to the conclusion that PFC Manning’s statutory and constitutional speedy trial rights have been trampled upon with impunity.”

Innocent until proven guilty: could others have been responsible?

A major issue today was David Finkel’s 2009 book The Good Soldiers, which the defense says includes verbatim transcript excerpts of the ‘Collateral Murder’ video. The government doesn’t believe the court should recognize that the transcripts are “verbatim” and doesn’t believe they definitively prove that Finkel was in possession of the video before its 2010 release. Judge Lind will compare the video and the book excerpts and rule tomorrow on whether she’ll take judicial notice of Finkel writing a “verbatim” transcript.

On the defense’s motion to compel witnesses, Lind will rule tomorrow when the court resumes at 1:00pm EST. The witness testimony requested would give more background on the prosecution’s extensive and potentially illegal pretrial delays.

Prosecution continues to block evidence showing lack of harm.

Fearing that evidence be introduced showing Bradley Manning to be a whistleblower deserving judicial protection, the prosecution continued its attempts to gag all references to the lack of harm caused, particularly a defense list of statements made by government officials. These include comments by the Defense Department’s Geoff Morrell, a White House press release, letters between Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Senator Carl Levin, a Defense Department briefing, a State Department briefing, Andrea Mitchell’s interview of Joe Biden, and a transcript of Congressman John Conyers speaking to the House of Representatives on the beneficial effects of WikiLeaks’ releases.

The government initially rejected most of these items because the defense submitted a number of news articles citing the quotes at issue, calling the news stories “hearsay” that didn’t directly reflect the government’s positions. But since Coombs has now provided the government briefs themselves, the prosecution opposes the majority of the statements on relevancy grounds. The prosecution’s Captain Morrow appeared to take issue with a CNN article as opposed to a newspaper article (such as from the New York Times), because the CNN post appeared on the Internet instead of in print.
The only reason the government wants to suppress these already-public statements, Coombs contends, is to obscure the fact that the whistleblower who released these cables to WikiLeaks brought no harm to U.S. national security.

 

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Mimi’s Last Chance, Circa 1963

Mimi Murphy knew two things, she needed to keep moving, and she was tired, tired as hell of moving, of the need, of the self-impose need, to keep moving ever since that incident five years before, back in 1958, with her seems like an eternity ago sweet long gone motorcycle boy, Pretty James Preston. I knew this information, knew this information practically first hand because the usually polite nod or wave but loner Mimi Murphy had told me her thoughts and the story that went with it one night after she had finished a tough on the feet night working as a cashier at the refreshment stand in the Olde Saco Drive-In Theater out on Route One in Olde Saco, Maine.

That night she had passed me with a bottle of high-end Scotch, Haig &Haig, showing its label from a brown bag in her hand while I was going down the stairs in the rooming house we lived in on Water Street in Ocean City, a few miles from Olde Saco. A number of people, including Mimi and me, were camped out there in temporary room quarters after the last of the summer touristas had decamped and headed back to New York, or wherever they came from. The cheap off-season rent and the short stay until the next summer crowd showed up requiring no lease drew us there. Most residents, mostly young and seemingly unattached to any family or work life kept to themselves, private drinkers or druggies, a couple of low-profile hustling girls who didn’t bring their work home, guys maybe just out of the service, or between jobs, and so on. I had seen a couple of guys making passes at Mimi to no effect but thought nothing of it since they also targeted the hustling girls too. Ditto there.

Since I had never bothered Mimi, meaning made a pass at her (slender, no, skinny, Irish red-heads with faraway looks and no, no apparent warm bed desires, that year and in those days not being my type after tumbledown broken-hearted youthful years of trying to coax their favors to no avail over in the old Little Dublin neighborhood around the Acre in Olde Saco), she must have sensed that being contemporaries, she was twenty-one then and I twenty-two, that maybe she could unburden her travails on a fellow wayward traveler. And she was right, and she did as she invited me up into her room with no come hither look but with no fear, no apparent fear, anyway. After a couple of drinks, maybe three, of that dreamboat scotch that died easy going down (I had been down on my uppers for a while and was drinking strictly rotgut low- shelf liquor store wines and barroom half- empty glass left-overs but that is my story and not Mimi’s so I will move on) she loosened up, taking her shoes off before sitting down on the couch across from me. Here is the gist of what she had to say as I remember it that night:

She started out giving her facts of life facts like that she had grown up around this Podunk town outside of Boston, Adamsville Junction, and had come from a pretty pious Roman Catholic Irish family that had hopes that she (or one of her three sisters, but mainly she) might “have the vocation,” meaning be willing, for the Lord, to prison cloister herself up in some nunnery to ease the family’s way into heaven, or some such idea. And she had bought into the idea from about age seven to about fourteen by being the best student, boy or girl, in catechism class on Sunday, queen of the novenas, and pure stuff like that in church and the smartest girl in, successively, Adamsville South Elementary School, Adamsville Central Junior High, and the sophomore class at Adamsville Junction High School.

As she unwound this part of her story I could see where that part was not all that different from what I had encountered in my French-Canadian (mother, nee LeBlanc) Roman Catholic neighborhood over in the Acre in Olde Saco. I could also see, as she loosened up further with an addition drink, that, although she wasn’t beautiful, certain kinds of guys would find her very attractive and would want to get close to her, if she let them. But from all evidence she didn’t let them, lately anyway. Just the kind of gal I used to go for before I took the pledge.

About age fourteen thought after she had gotten her “friend” (her period for those who may be befuddled by this old time term) and started thinking, thinking hard about boys, or rather seeing that they, some of them, were thinking about her and not novenas and textbooks her either she started to get “the itch.” That itch that is the right of passage for every guy on his way to manhood. And girl on her way to womanhood as it turned out but which in the Irish Roman Catholic Adamsville Junction Murphy family neighborhood was kept as a big, dark secret from boys and girls alike.

Around that time, to the consternation of her nun blessed family, she starting dating Jimmy Clancy, a son of the neighborhood and a guy who was attracted to her because she was, well, pure and smart. She never said whether Jimmy had the itch, or if he did how bad, because what she made a point out of was that being Jimmy’s girl while nice, especially when they would go over Adamsville Beach and do a little off-hand petting and watching the ocean, did not cure her itch, not even close. This went on for a couple of years until she was sixteen and really frustrated, not by Jimmy so much as by the taboos and restrictions that had been placed on her life in her straight- jacket household, school and town. No question she was ready to break out, she just didn’t know how.

Then in late 1957 Pretty James Preston came roaring into town. Pretty James, who despite the name, was a tough motorcycle wild boy, man really about twenty-one, who had all, okay most all, of the girls, good girls and bad, wishing and dreaming, maybe having more than a few restless nights, about riding on back of that strange motorcycle he rode (a Vincent Black Lightning stolen, not by Pretty James, from some English guy and transported to America where he got it somehow, the details were very vague) and being Pretty James’ girl. One day, as he passed by on his chopper going full-throttle up Hancock Street, Mimi too got the Pretty James itch.

But see it was not like you could just and throw yourself at Pretty James. That was not the way he worked, no way. One girl, one girl from a good family who had her sent away after the episode, tried that and was left about thirty miles away, half-naked, after she thought she had made the right moves and was laughed at by Pretty James as he took off with her expensive blouse and skirt flying off his handle-bars as left her there unmolested but unhinged. That episode went like wildfire through the town, through the Monday morning before school girls’ lav what happened, or didn’t happen, over the weekend talkfest first of all.

No Pretty James’ way was to take, take what he saw, once he saw something worth taking and that was that. Mimi figured she was no dice. Then one night when she and Jimmy Clancy were sitting by the seawall down at the Seal Rock end of the beach starting to do their little “light petting” routine Pretty James came roaring up on his hellish machine and just sat there in front of the pair, saying nothing. But saying everything. Mimi didn’t say a word to Jimmy but just started walking over to the cycle, straddled her legs over back seat saddle and off they went into the night. Later that night her itch was cured, or rather cured for the first time.

Pouring another drink Mimi sighed, poor Pretty James and his needs, no his obsessions with that silly motorcycle, that English devil’s machine, that Vincent Black Lightning that caused him more anguish than she did. And she had given him plenty to think about as well before the end. How she tried to get him to settle down a little, just a little, but what was a sixteen old girl, pretty new to the love game, totally new, but not complaining, to the sex game, and his little tricks to get her in the mood, and make her forget the settle down thing. Until the next time she thought about it and brought it up.

Maybe, if you were from around Adamsville way, or maybe just Boston, you had heard about Pretty James, Pretty James Preston and his daring exploits back in about 1957 and 1958. Those got a lot of play in the newspapers for months before the end. Before that bank job, the one where as Mimi said Pretty James used to say all the time, he cashed his check. Yes, the big Granite City National Bank branch in Braintree heist that he tried to pull all by himself, with Mimi as stooge look-out.

She had set him up for that heist, or so she thought. No, she didn’t ask him to do it but she got him thinking, thinking about settling down just a little and if that was to happen he needed a big score, not the penny ante gas station and mom and pop variety store robberies that kept them in, as he also used to say, coffee and cakes but a big payday and then off to Mexico, maybe down Sonora way, and a buy into the respectable and growing drug trade.

And he almost, almost, got away clean that fatal day, that day when she stood across the street, an extra forty-five in her purse just in case he needed it for a final getaway. But he never made it out the bank door. Some rum- brave security guard tried to uphold the honor of his profession and started shooting nicking Pretty James in the shoulder. Pretty James responded with a few quick blasts and felled the copper, dead. That action though slowed down the escape enough for the real coppers to respond and blow Pretty James away. Dead, DOA, done. Her, with a tear, sweet boy Pretty James.

According to the newspapers a witness had seen a tall, slender red-headed girl about sixteen across the street from the bank just waiting, waiting according to the witness, nervously. The witness had turned her head when she heard the shots from the bank and when she looked back the red-headed girl was gone. And Mimi was gone, maybe an accessory to felony murder or worst charge hanging over her young head, and long gone before the day was out. She grabbed the first bus out of Braintree headed to Boston where eventually she wound up holed up in a high-end whorehouse doing tricks to make some moving on dough. (She mentioned some funny things about that stay, which was not so bad at the time when she needed dough bad, and about strange things guys, young and old, wanted her to do but I will leave that stuff out here.)

And she had been moving ever since, moving and eternally hate moving. Now, for the past few months, she had been working nights as a cashier in the refreshment stand at Olde Saco Drive-In to get another stake to keep moving. She had been tempted, a couple of times, to do a little moon-lighting in a Portland whorehouse that a woman she had worked with at her last job, Fenner’s Department Store where she modeled clothes for the rich ladies, had told her about to get a quick stake but she was almost as eternally tired at that prospect as in moving once again.

So Mimi Murphy, a few drinks of high-shelf scotch to fortify her told her story, told it true I think, mostly. A couple of days later I saw her through my room’s window down on the street in front of our rooming house with a suitcase in hand looking for all the world like someone getting ready to move on, move on to be a loner again after maybe an indiscrete airing of her linen in public. Thinking back on it now I wish, I truly wish, that I had been more into slender, no, skinny, red-headed Irish girls with faraway looks that season and maybe she would not have had to keep moving, eternally moving.

[Some research by our rooming house denizen later in the “Adamsville Gazette” for 1958 revealed that the police had chalked up the James Preston bank hold-up and security officer murder and his subsequent death as the act of a lone gunman. They did not pursue the red-headed girl lead for long. The Murphy family, in an unrelated article, had put out a one thousand dollar reward for any leads to the whereabouts of their daughter, Mimi.-JLB]

Join Veterans For Peace On Veterans/Armistice Day Sunday November 11th In Boston For An Anti-War March And Program

FromThe Partisan Defense Committee- Free Bradley Manning!

FromThe Partisan Defense Committee- Free Lynne Stewart

FromThe Partisan Defense Committee-Free Mumia

From Occupy Boston

From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-

Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.

Markin comment:

I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!

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Markin comment:

This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.

Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League

A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)

Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"

Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."

The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.

Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."

The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.

The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.

The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.

Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."

The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.

Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
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Report by the Central Authority to the League [346]

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Written: September 14 1847;
Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 602;
First published: Gründungsdokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten (Juni bis September 1847), Hamburg, 1969;


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Brothers: Working Men of All Countries, Unite!
Three months have now passed since the Congress was held and its Circular was dispatched to you; we therefore now send you another report on our activity since then, and give you a summary of the present state of the League.

We regret that we are unable to send you very encouraging news, but we have resolved to tell you the plain truth, be it encouraging or disheartening. Some of you may well think that emphasis should always be placed on the bright side of the situation so that people should not lose heart; we on the contrary are of the opinion that all should know the enormous and diverse difficulties with which we have to contend. Real men will not he deterred by this, but on the contrary spurred on to new activity.

As long as our League is not strongly and firmly established, as long as it fails to intervene effectively in the course of events, our influence will be insignificant. Admittedly we now have a new basis, and in some places people seem to work with new enthusiasm but on the whole we are still far from the position we should have reached long ago. When the Congress Circular was dispatched we hoped we would receive favourable and definite replies to it from all quarters. The Central Authority had enclosed with it an accompanying letter calling attention once more to the points requiring a response and requesting prompt and definite replies.[347]

So far we have only received a definite reply from the Brussels [yesterday we received a letter from Leipzig, for details see below] circle, other places have only acknowledged receipt of the Circular, thanked us for our efforts, made some general comments, and no more.

What is the cause of this negligence and where is it going to lead us? Many German proletarians are anxious to liberate themselves, but, if they do not set about the task more energetically than they have done so far, they will indeed not make much progress. We can’t wait for things to fall into our lap. Many people are hindered in their activity by their mental sluggishness; others talk a great deal but when money contributions are requested they pull long faces, make all manner of excuses and give nothing; others again possess a large share of bourgeois cowardice, see policemen and gendarmes at every turn and never believe it is time to act. It gives one the gripes to see all the goings-on. The majority of the proletarians, and the most active at that — those in Silesia, Saxony, Rhenish Prussia, Westphalia and Hesse have poor or indeed no leadership, at least no communist one.

We therefore call upon all members of our League once more to rise up at last out of their sleep and set to work, and we demand that first of all definite replies to the Congress Circular be sent in so that we can at least know whom we can count upon.

After the Congress was over we sent the Congress Circular, the new Rules a the Communist . Credo’ and an accompanying letter from the Central Authority to ten towns in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany and Sweden where we have communities. In addition we sent out from London two authorised emissaries to America, one to Norway, one to Germany and one to Holland. All promised the Central Authority to work to the best of their ability and to set up new communities in the places in which they settled and to put them in touch with us.

In accordance with the resolution adopted at the Congress the League’s new newspaper [Kommunistische Zeitschrift] should have begun to appear in August... and we had been promised articles and also financial support for it; all League members were moreover requested to give all the help they could. Unfortunately here again most promises have been confined to words alone. Apart from the Brussels circle, which for the time being made a monthly allocation of one pound sterling for printing expenses and five francs for propaganda and Brother Heide [Wilhelm Wolff] who sent us an article, we have received nothing so far. The editorial commission, which from one week to the next was being promised the necessary articles, was finally compelled to do everything itself, so as at least to be able to get the specimen issue out. If we do not receive better support in the future than we have received so far, we shall not make any progress here either. In order to set up our printing-press properly, so that besides the League newspaper we can also print leaflets and small pamphlets, we still need another 600 francs. We are not in a position to raise this sum in London alone.

Since the Congress Circular was sent out we have received news from the following places.

Sweden. We received a letter dated Upsala, May 23 from our emissary who travelled to Sweden via Helsingör, crossing the whole country on foot. Here in London, having nothing else, he had filled his kitbag with communist leaflets which he successfully took over the border into Sweden. He writes that in all towns where there are German workers, he called on them in their workshops, distributed our leaflets among them and found their response to our ideas most enthusiastic. Unfortunately, since he did not find any work he was unable to stay in any one place long enough to set up a community. In Stockholm he transmitted to the local community (our communist outpost in the North) the first two circulars from the Central Authority,[349] and his news lent the Brothers there new heart. From Stockholm he went to Upsala, from there on to Gävle, where he worked for a time, and is now on the way to Umei and Tornea. A communist emissary among the Lapps!

A member of the League who arrived in London from Karlskrona informed us: Brother C., who was previously working in Paris and London, has set up communities in W. and there are already over a hundred League members there now. The Brother from Karlskrona gave us C.’s address and we shall be sending him this Circular together with the New Rules and a special appeal for the League members there. From Stockholm we have received a letter dated July 8 saying that our Brothers there are most zealous supporters of our principles. A public attack on communism made by a local priest was countered by a League member, Brother Forsell, in a pamphlet written in Swedish in which he expounded our principles to the people as well a Sweden’s biggest newspaper, the Aftonbladet, also defends communism against the clerics. We were also told in the letter: “The educational society here in Stockholm, which we were formerly able to regard as a gateway to communism has now unfortunately landed in the clutches of the philistines. On the other hand the democratic element within the local Scandinavian society, [350] of which we are all members and which has one of us as President, is pure and unsullied and it is from this society that we recruit our members:” Immediately on receiving this letter we made handwritten copies of the Congress Circular, the Communist Credo and the Rules in Latin characters (since most Swedes cannot read German letters) and then sent them everything by post. We are now waiting for their reply to this dispatch.

Germany. Approximately six weeks ago an emissary from here went to Berlin taking with him letters from us for the Brothers there, and, in order to put new heart into them, exhorting them to be steadfast. He was to spend only about a week there and then travel to Leipzig, from where he was to send us a report. We are expecting news shortly.

The Brothers in Br. acknowledged receipt of our letters and promised to send us a detailed reply in the immediate future, which they have not yet done.

The Brothers in Hamburg acknowledge receipt of our letters and express their regret that the name League of the just has been changed and wish the former name restored: they also inform us that it is not at all to their liking when the supporters of W. Weitling and Grün are exposed to such hostile criticism, as was the case in the Congress Circular. They call for moderation and unity and write: “Whether someone stands one rung higher or lower as regards the main principle, that is no reason for us to persecute him and cause a split, for how do you think we can make an impact if we take such a one-sided approach. We attract all forces who wish for progress and then seek to win them over to our ideas gradually by persuasion.”

We must reply to the Brothers in Hamburg that the reasons for the change in the name notified in the Congress Circular are significant ones and that if no important counter-arguments are put forward, the Central Authority will defend the retention of the name Communist League at the next Congress. This latter name says clearly what we are and what we want, which the previous one did not. League of the just says everything and nothing, but we must be definite. The Hamburg Brothers would do well to read the reasons given in the Congress Circular once more — if they can refute those arguments then we shall agree with them — we have no right to take mere emotions into consideration.

As regards the second point we stress that we are in no way persecuting Weitling’s and Grün’s supporters, but purely and simply representing them in their true colours. It is time we came to our senses and therefore we can no longer waste time on dreamers and system-mongers who have no energy for action — we will drag no corpse along behind us. Grün’s supporters are people who chatter a great deal about equality without knowing what the word means, who criticise everything except themselves, in other words, opinionated men who talk a great deal, but do nothing. We are no elegant bourgeois and therefore do not beat about the bush but say what we think, i. e., call things by their names.

For over ten years moderation, forbearance and unity have been preached in the League and with all this preaching, with all this brotherly love we have accomplished virtually nothing, and last year the League almost collapsed entirely. We must put an end to this; it’ Is wrong to demand that we should spend our whole life on trifles and idle dreams. Our opinion is that 100 active members are better than 1,000 of whom half are indecisive and lukewarm. Instead of looking back and helping the lame to catch up, we march boldly forward, which will probably get others to their feet somewhat more nimbly as well. The Brothers in Hamburg incidentally do not seem to have got very far with their moderation, for they make no allusion to the dispatch of money for propaganda and printing, and as for the League’s newspaper they declare that they are only in a position to take a few copies in view of growing unemployment.

We must make it clear here that every member of the League is bound to take a copy of the newspaper; if he is not able to pay for it, then the community he belongs to must do so for him.

Once more, Brothers, let us not allow all our strength to be undermined through untimely moderation, through lumping together opposing forces and thus become a laughing-stock for the other parties. We can make a powerful impact, if we only have the will, and if we do have the will there is only one thing we need courage! courage! and once again courage! If people are unable or unwilling to go as far as we do — all well and good; if their intentions are honest, we shall not cease to respect them, but when we are called upon to step backwards in order to join up with such people, then we reply: Never!

Not long ago our Brothers in Leipzig wrote that several members who had been intimidated by the somewhat stark terms of the Central Authority’s circular had withdrawn their membership. The others promised to remain loyally united and work to the best of their ability. We can only congratulate the Brothers in Leipzig on having rid themselves of people who lacked the courage to behave as men. The letter which we received from Leipzig yesterday was already written in a quite different and more forceful style than previous letters, which shows that the community there is no longer dogged by indecisiveness.

First of all the community in Leipzig believes that it was necessary to phrase the Credo in terms more scientific and more suitable for all social classes. They suggest an almost complete recast and give their reasons for this. We shall put the suggested changes before the next Congress for discussion. The Central Authority agrees with the majority of the points listed in their letter. The community states further that apart from copies of our newspaper for all the members, they wish to take an extra 12 for distribution. If all communities were to follow the example provided in Leipzig, the League’s newspaper could appear weekly and at half the price. We request that all contributions for propaganda and printing that have been collected should be sent in as soon as possible. We hope that a second community can soon be set up in Leipzig; if this does not however take place this community could adhere to those in Berlin"'; we shall take the necessary steps for this.

From Mn we have received no news, nor do we know any address there, for our correspondent in that town is supposed to have left for Paris. We shall try to restore contact with the communities there as soon as possible.

We were unable to send the Congress Circular to Mainz by post. It was not until four weeks ago that a member from here left for that destination with whom we dispatched everything. Thus we could not have received an answer from there yet. In a letter which we received from the Mainz members some time back we were informed that a second community was about to be set up, which means a circle will be formed. Our Brothers in Mainz are being constantly subjected to police harassment, but this only serves to spur them on to work all the more energetically for our cause. Credit is due to the gallant proletarians in Mainz; if people were as active as that all over Germany, our prospects would be brilliant.

Holland. In Amsterdam an educational society has been set up which is in touch with us and has competent men. Three weeks ago we sent an authorised emissary there to set up a community.[352]

America. The emissary who this spring set out for New York from here paints us a sad picture of the state of the League in the New World. In New York the League had already made remarkable progress when Weitling arrived. and sowed discord there. The meetings were soon the scene of violent disputes and the result was that the whole set-up collapsed. The communities in New York had earlier always been urging us to be moderate and begging us most earnestly to be reconciled with Weitling. After they themselves, a fortnight after Weitling’s arrival, entered into a bitter conflict with him, our correspondents there lost heart to such an extent that they no longer wished to write to us any more so as not to have to reveal the sad state of the League there. This is what the emissary sent to New York writes; in this situation he himself was unable to do anything in New York and has now left for the state of Wisconsin, where he promises to promote our cause to the best of his ability.

In Philadelphia there are still several League members whom we have earnestly begged to set up communities there again. We have instructed the two emissaries who left from here for New York and Philadelphia to do their utmost so that the League may be restored in the above-mentioned places, in accordance with the improved Rules.

France. In Marseilles things are as before. A number of members from Lyons have gone there, promising to do their very best to inject new life into the League.

From Lyons we have received word that the League members are sparing no effort in our work and are discussing the Credo. The Lyons circle endorses the new Rules with the exception of Section VII, concerning conditions of memberships The Lyons members believe it to be unnecessary to demand that new members take an oath for there are countless cases of people taking all manner of oaths and not keeping any of them; attention should be paid mainly to conduct. We call the Lyons members’ attention to the fact that no oath is demanded, but only the new member’s, word of honour. The Lyons members also write:

“Since now in September we are again in a critical position, we beg you to ask the Parisians if they could not spare a few competent members, who would be ready to make a sacrifice for the common cause and settle in Lyons for a time. The old members all want to leave here and we are therefore short of people who can take over the leadership.

“So try to prevent the possibility of this community breaking up.

“As for the newspaper which you will be putting out, we cannot yet stipulate how many copies we can take, because everything will change.

Not a word about money for printing and propaganda.

We urgently request our Brothers in Paris to send a few competent members to Lyons as soon as possible.

From Paris we have been informed that the Rules have been unanimously endorsed there, that the Credo is being discussed in the various communities and that the membership has increased considerably. We have not yet heard anything about the results of their discussions or any news as to whether money is being collected for printing and propaganda. But it must be said to the credit of the Parisians that they recently made significant money contributions by sending a delegate to the Congress.’ and an emissary to Switzerland.’ It unfortunately emerges from a private letter written by a Parisian League member. and handed to the Central Authority, that there are still many people in the Paris communities who have not yet shaken themselves free of Grün’s nonsense and Proudhon’s most strange ideas. Oddly enough, these people, who are members of the Communist League, seem to reject communism; they want equality and nothing else. This inner split also seems to be the reason why we so seldom receive any news from Paris. Proudhon has become such a truly German philosopher that he no longer knows himself what he wants; Grün has made Proudhon’s ideas still more obscure, [353] so it is now clearly impossible to demand that the people who follow these two really know where they are going. We urge Proudhon’s and Grün’s supporters to read Marx’s Misère de la philosophie, which we have heard has already been translated into German.[354] Then they will see that their state where all are equal and which they demand with a great deal of talk and fuss is no different from that of today. This leads people round and round in circles, chasing false ideas, only to end up where they started.

We call upon the Communists in Paris to stand firm together and to work to rid their communities of these false ideas. If Grün’s and Proudhon’s supporters insist on their principles, then, if they wish to remain men of honour, they should leave the League and start working on their own. There is only room for Communists in our League. As long as there are followers of Grün in our communities, neither they nor we can conduct effective propaganda; our forces will be divided and our young people low in spirits; so separation is better than an internal split.[355]

Weitling’s expelled supporters have again sent us a long letter in which they inveigh against us and the Paris communities maintaining that it is they who are the real Communists. At the end of their letter they ask for a reliable address for they have further instructions for us. Yet they make no reference to the fact that they, although in the minority, appropriated the whole Paris League’s treasury which one of them had in his keeping. Such behaviour most certainly accords with their leader’s theory on theft.

We wrote to them in very polite terms saying that we had acted in accordance with our duty and convictions and would also insist on what we considered to be right. Their abuse could not therefore hurt us. We sent them the address they asked for but have not heard anything more from them since.

Switzerland. The Central Authority informed the Brothers in La Chaux-de-Fonds of the imminent arrival of an emissary’ and urged them to work with all their might towards a reorganisation of the League in Switzerland.

The Berne community has of late appeared in a somewhat dubious light. We were informed that they were planning to bring out a communist newspaper, Der Wanderer and our support was requested.

We sent off 25 francs and a remittance for 50 francs to Lausanne and La Chaux-de-Fonds. However, this money was used by the Berne members to print leaflets by Karl Heinzen, who even then had already shown himself to be the bitterest enemy of the Communists. On June 29 we received another letter from Berne which informed us that the Young Germany[356] group were making use of all possible means to work against the Communists in Switzerland and urged us to found a press organ as soon as possible. At the same time they sent us a small leaflet entitled Der deutsche Hunger und die debts Fürsten and asked for voluntary contributions so that the “Kriegsartikel”, “Vorbereitung”, etc., might be more widely distributed. It was stated: “Certain members of the republican party may well have noble intentions, our worthy Heinzen for example, but his hands are tied; he is not the soul of the German republican movement but its right hand for the moment, etc.”

Heinzen attacks the Communists most violently; yet, the Berne community is printing and circulating his pamphlets and seems to be in close touch with him. This appeared to us suspicious and indeed still does so. We do not want to let ourselves be led by the nose; every honest man must hold up his banner for all to see today. So we wrote a serious letter to the Berne community asking for a prompt explanation, but as yet have received no reply.

Our emissary writes from Geneva that our affairs are progressing in a most heartening way there. Two League members succeeded in setting up a community in Geneva this spring. While the emissary was there a second came into being and a third was planned. In addition there is a public society there which is being “ed to train efficient Communists. In Geneva our party seems once again to have found a firm footing, and if our Brothers there continue to work as hard as before, then the Communists in Switzerland will soon be stronger than ever. Weitling’s expelled supporters, our emissary writes, have already sent to La Chaux-de-Fonds several letters full of the most shameful personal insults to several League members and calling upon the local members to join them. However the communities in La Chaux-de-Fonds have not complied With those people’s solicitation and are waiting till our emissary arrives before giving them a final answer. From Geneva the emissary contacted Petersen in Lausanne who still enjoys quite significant influence among the Communists in Switzerland. We hope the former will succeed in winning him over for our movement’.

Weitling’s followers in Paris have sent a certain Hornschuh as their emissary to Switzerland with the money stolen from our League, in order to bring the communities there over to their side. This Hornschuh is at present in Lausanne. Before that he was in London; we therefore know precisely what he is and can assure you that he is quite incapable of any kind of propaganda work. He is a horribly tedious windbag and in other respects worth precious little as well. When he left London he asked his community for a small advance for the journey promising to pay the money back in the very near future. The community granted him 25 francs. Two years have passed since then and Hornschuh, despite frequent reminders, has not paid anything back yet. It is really sad that people like Hornschuh, whose sole purpose is to indulge their laziness and self-conceit, still find opportunities to squander away the proletarians’ hard earned money.

Our emissary is now touring the towns on Lake Geneva and will then visit La Chaux-de-Fonds, etc. He asked us for additional funds to be able to make this journey and we immediately sent him 50 francs, which we were obliged to borrow however, since our resources are exhausted.

Belgium. In Belgium our prospects are good. Since the Congress two circles have been set up in that country; we have not yet established direct contact with the one based in Liège but are expecting letters from them any day.

The Brussels circle is in touch with the Rhenish Prussia people [357] and working most energetically. It has already set up a singing and an educational society[358]; both are led by League members and serve as a preparatory school for the League.

The Rules were adopted in Brussels; however two alterations were proposed for discussion at the next Congress. The first concerns letter (e), Article 3, section 1 and the second — Article 21, Section V.

The Brussels members write: “We hold it for unpolitic to forbid League members to belong to any political or national organisation, since by doing so we deprive ourselves of all opportunities for influencing such organisations.” Further on in connection with Article 21, they add: “If the present period were a more revolutionary one, the whole activity of the Congress would be hindered by this restriction. We recall that in 1794 the aristocrats put the same demand before the Convention, in order to paralyse all action."[359]

We request the communities to consider these proposals more closely and to give their delegates to the next Congress appropriate instructions.

As regards the Communist Credo a good number of important alterations were suggested, which we shall put before the Congress for discussion.

As was mentioned above the Brussels circle allocated 25 francs for printing and has agreed to send 5 francs for propaganda work each month. We call upon the other circles to follow this example as soon as possible.

London. The new Rules were unanimously adopted in London and lively discussion of the Credo is in progress in all communities. The local circle authority will be sending us all suggestions for amendments and additions as soon as the discussions are over. During the last two months a large number of League members have left London but we shall have filled the resulting gaps soon. The educational societies provide us with preparatory schools, whose great benefit makes itself felt more and more with each passing day.

In the London circle a remarkable sense of unity reigns and members are keen to devote all their energies to our cause. In the last six months we have spent here over 1,000 francs for pamphlets, etc., for the journal a postage and printing costs, Congress expenses, emissaries, etc. In addition, each member has to pay threepence a week into the educational society[360] fund and, besides, hardly a meeting goes by without private collections being made for the needy. Over half our members are out of work and in dire straits, which means it is becoming impossible for us to bear all these expenses alone as we have done hitherto. We are therefore forced to request all circles and communities most earnestly to contribute as much as they can and as soon as possible to the complete installation of the League printing-press, continued publication of our paper and propaganda work: at the present moment our resources are completely . exhausted. In the past we always used to send out money as soon as it was requested and so we believe we can rely on you not to leave us in the lurch now.

The specimen number of our League newspaper sells well in London and arouses great interest among the foreigners living here. We have displayed it for sale in several bookshops and newsstands. We have sent copies to all our regular addresses and have another 1,000 still available, so that we shall be able to send off copies wherever they are required.

With this we come to the end of our report on the state of the League and our work; you can judge now for yourselves how things stand and whether the Central Authority has done its duty as the executive body of the League over the last three months.

You will appreciate that although active work is being carried on here and there, as we noted at the beginning of this letter, in general we are still far from the point we should have reached long since. We therefore hope, Brothers, that you will now muster all your strength so that we shall make rapid steps forward and that in the next report we shall be able to give you more encouraging news than has been the case so far.

However, before closing this letter we must ask you to pay particular attention to the following points. We earnestly request that:

1) All circles and independent communities, if it is at all possible, must elect a delegate to the next congress and see to it that he will be able to come to London on November 29 of this year. You know that we were unable to adopt any definitive decisions at the First Congress[361] and that it was thus considered necessary to hold a second one this year. The Second Congress will be most important because it has not only to formulate the Communist Credo but also to determine the final organisation of the League and its press organ and the future pattern of our propaganda work. It is therefore absolutely essential that as many delegates as possible attend this Congress. Brothers! — We hope that you will not shrink from any sacrifices which the fulfilment of your duty may require;

2) All circles and communities, which have not yet made any collections for printing and propaganda work must do so without delay. If everyone contributes something, then we shall be in a position to engage in forceful action. Without money we cannot carry on any propaganda work. Those circles and communities which have already made collections should dispatch the same to us as soon as possible;

3) All circles and communities, which have not yet sent in definite replies to the Congress Circular should do so without delay;

4) All circles and communities, which have not yet informed us how many copies of our newspaper they wish to take should do so at once. In addition they should inform us of the best and most reliable ways of dispatching the paper to their respective localities;

5) All circles and communities should inform us whether communist propaganda is being carried on in their particular region and if so what form it takes;

6) All members of the League should send to the editorial office essays and poems. Several members promised essays for the first issue, as observed earlier, but these promises have not been kept: we can only attribute this to negligence, which definitely ought not to be prevalent in our organisation.

Hoping to receive favourable and definite news from you soon, we greet you in the name and on behalf of the Central Authority.

Karl Schapper, Henry Bauer, Joseph Moll

London, September 14, 1847

P.S. just as this letter was to be printed, letters arrived from our the case so far. emissaries in Germany and Switzerland.

From Germany it was reported that the enthusiasm of our Brothers in Berlin is extraordinary, particularly since the important events there.[362] The government has indeed played straight into our hands. Our principles were made public through the uproar about the Communists, and the people, instead of being scared away by these principles, became enthusiastic for them. The emissary concludes his letter with the words: “Brothers, we can look to the future with confidence-there are efficient men on every side who are championing the just cause.”

The news from Switzerland also sounds highly favourable. The League is organised there and now established in more than ten different localities. Petersen has been won over. The emissary writes: “In La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle I believe we have the best and most devoted members of our League. Their courage is unshakeable.” Bravo, Brothers-forward! Weitling’s expelled followers have been turned away wherever they went. The misunderstanding with the Berne community has been clarified. We now declare that we were unjust towards the Brothers there. They adhere firmly to our principles. We are extremely happy to be able to announce this.

More details will be supplied in the next report.

The Central Authority
Karl Schapper, Henry Bauer, Joseph Moll

London, September 14, 1847