ORGANISE AN ACTION ON 1 - 8 JUNE TO DEFEND INTERNATIONAL WHISTLEBLOWER BRADLEY MANNING Register your action here
	“If the public, particularly the American public, had access to this information, it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan, it might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day … I felt I accomplished something that would allow me to have a clear conscience.” Bradley Manning
			A man of exceptional courage and principle In a statement he read in court on 28 February 2013, gay US Army PFC Bradley Manning proudly admitted having leaked information to Wikileaks in order to inform the public of US war crimes and government skulduggery that was being kept from us. He faces charges up to life in prison. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the third time in a row.
1 - 8 June: International Actions to Free Bradley Manning So far actions in Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, UK, USA, Wales…

Bradley Manning’s court-martial begins 3 June The Bradley Manning Support Network is calling for a week of actions across the US and around the world from Saturday 1 June to 8 June. On 23 February, an unprecedented groundswell of international support for Bradley emerged when 70 communities in 19 countries took action. Some actions already planned: Canada: 1 June, Rally at US Consulate in Toronto Germany: 31 May, Meeting at Clearing Barrel GI Café, Kaiserslautern. 1 June Solidarity Rally in Berlin, Brandenburg Gate. South Korea, 3-8 June Press conference and demonstration at US Embassy in Seoul. UK: 1 June, 2 pm Picket outside the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London US: 1 June Rally at Fort Meade, Maryland, where the court-martial will take place. Information on latest actions here. Join your nearest protest or organize a solidarity event in your area, register it on the BMSN website, and let us know about it so we can help publicise

Other ways to support Bradley · Write your local press why you support Bradley’s courageous whistleblowing. · Translate this message and/or send to your networks. · Demand media access to the trial, and that court records be released. See BMSN Action Alert. · Show the Collateral Murder video at meetings / put on websites / local TV programs. · Demand San Francisco Pride reinstate Bradley Manning as Grand Marshal · Send messages of support to BMSN. (cc payday@paydaynet.org and we’ll publish on our website.) · Sign Daniel Ellsberg’s petition (Pentagon Papers whistle-blower). · Write to Bradley

	"Let us follow the example of Bradley, let’s battle for peace, let’s battle against wars, without fear of reprisals, let’s learn from Bradley to be truly human." Hugo Blanco, Director of Lucha Indigena, Perú		“This material [passed to Wikileaks] has contributed to ending dictatorships in the Middle East, it has exposed torture and wrongdoing in all the corners of the world”. Julian Assange Wikileaks founder, who remains in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, protected from extradition to Sweden and to the US
Payday men’s network payday@paydaynet.org US: PO Box 11795 Philadelphia, PA 19101 / 215 848 1120 UK: PO Box 287 London NW6 2QU 020 7267 8698Queer Strike queerstrike@queerstrike.net PO Box 287 London NW6 2QU 020 7482 2496 freebradde Germany www.freebradleymanning.de

Sister Assata: This Is What American History Looks Like

Alice Walker
May 13, 2013
Alice Walker's Garden

I believe Assata Shakur to be a good and decent, a kind and compassionate person. True revolutionaries often are. Physically she is beautiful, and her spirit is also. She appears to hold the respect, love and friendship of all the people who surround her.


A Wall is Just a Wall, ,
I don’t know why, given where we are with dronefare, but I didn’t expect the man making the announcement about Assata Shakur being the first woman “terrorist” to appear on the FBI’s most wanted list to be black. That was a blow. I was reminded of the world of “trackers” we sometimes get glimpses of in history books and old movies on TV. In Australia the tracker who hunts down other aboriginals who have, because of the rape and murder, genocide and enslavement of the indigenous (aboriginal) people, run away into the outback. He shows up again in cowboy and Indian films: jogging along in the hot sun, way ahead of the white men on horseback, bending on his knees to get a better look at a bruised leaf or a bent twig, while they curse and spit and complain about how long he’s taking to come up with a clue. And then there were the “trackers” who helped the pattyrollers during our four hundred years of enslavement. When
pattyrollers (or patrols) caught run-away slaves in those days they frequently beat them to death. I’ve often thought of the black men whose expertise at tracking fugitives helped bring these terrors, humiliations and deaths about. When I was younger I would have been in a rage against them; not understanding the reality of invisible coercion, and mind and spirit control, that I do now. Today, only a few years older than Assata Shakur, and marveling at the unenviable state of humanity’s character worldwide, I find I can only pray for all of us. That we should be sinking even below the abysmal standard early “trackers” have set for us: that the US government can now offer two million dollars for the capture of a very small, not young, black woman who was brutally abused, even shot, over three decades ago, as if we don’t need that money to buy people food, clothes, medicine, and decent places to live.
What is most distressing about the times we live in, in my view, is our ever accelerating tolerance for cruelty. Prisoners held indefinitely in orange suits, hooded, chained and on their knees. Like the hunger strikers of Guantanamo, I would certainly prefer death to this. People shot and bombed from planes they never see until it is too late to get up from the table or place the baby under the bed. Poor people terrorized daily, driven insane really, from fear. People on the streets with no food and no place to sleep. People under bridges everywhere you go, holding out their desperate signs: a recent one held by a very young man, perhaps a veteran, under my local bridge: I Want To Live. But nothing seems as cruel to me as this: that our big, muscular, macho country would go after so tiny a woman as Assata who is given sanctuary in a country smaller than many of our states.
The first time I met Assata Shakur we talked for a long time. We were in Havana, where I had gone with a delegation to offer humanitarian aid during Cuba’s “special period” of hunger and despair, and I’d wanted to hear her side of the story from her. She described the incident with the New Jersey Highway Patrol, and assured me she was shot up so badly that even if she’d wanted to, she would not have been able to fire a gun. Though shot in the back (with her arms raised), she managed to live through two years of solitary confinement, in a men’s prison, chained to her bed. Then, in what must surely have been a miraculous coming together of people of courageous compassion, she was helped to escape and to find refuge in Cuba. One of the people who helped Assata escape, a white radical named Marilyn Buck, was kept in prison for thirty years and released only one month before her death from uterine cancer. She was a poet, and I have been
reading her book, Inside/Out, Selected Poems, which a friend gave me just last week. There is also a remarkable video of her, shot in prison, that I highly recommend.
This is what solidarity can look like.
The second time I saw Assata, years later, I was in Havana for the Havana Book Fair. Cuba has a very high literacy rate, thanks to the Cuban revolution, and my novel, Meridian, had recently been translated and published there. However, this time we did not talk about the past. We talked about meditation. Seeing her interest, and that of Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly, and others, I decided to offer a class. There under a large tree off a quiet street in Havana, I demonstrated my own practice of meditation to some of the most attentive students I have ever encountered. The mantra: Breathing in: “In,” breathing out: “Peace.”
I believe Assata Shakur to be a good and decent, a kind and compassionate person. True revolutionaries often are. Physically she is beautiful, and her spirit is also. She appears to hold the respect, love and friendship of all the people who surround her. Like Marilyn Buck they have risked much for her freedom, and appear to believe her version of the story as I do.
That she did not wish to live as an imprisoned creature and a slave is understood.
What to do? Since we are not, in fact, helpless. Nor are we ever alone.
I call on the Ancestors
by whose blood
and DNA
we exist
to accompany us
as always
through this lengthening
sorrow.
And to bear witness
within us
to all that we are
aware.

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SAVE THE DATE and get ready to March Together in the DORCHESTER DAY PARADE! Sunday, June 2

Dorchester People for Peace will be marching again this year in the Dorchester Day Parade on June 2 along with our friends and allied organizations. Every year Dorchester People for Peace reserves a place in the parade, then invites our friends. Together we bring our vision and our values to thousands of people along the four-mile route. Join us this year!

Our message will focus on ending the war in Afghanistan and opposing any new military intervention in Iran or Syria; reducing the military budget; and funding urgent needs at home in our neighborhoods and communities. Thousands of marchers and parade watchers will see our banners and get our anti-war flyers!

Marchers will gather around Noon in Dorchester Lower Mills (Richmond St.) with the parade kick-off about 1pm. We’ll have our after-Parade barbeque and celebration at Jeff Klein’s house, 123 Cushing Ave. from about 3:30pm. More details as we get them.

WHERE: Lower Mills, Dorchester

Richmond Street between Dorchester Ave and Adams Street Look for the Dorchester People for Peace van You can’t drive or park anywhere near there on Dorchester Day, so travel early and travel by T (to Ashmont Station on the Red Line, Butler or Milton on the Mattapan trolley) …. Or park a ways away and walk. Please let us know if you can make it by responding to this email, writing to info@dotpeace.org or phoning 617-288-4578

BRING: A sun hat, comfortable walking shoes (it’s four miles), water. You can bring a banner for your organization if you have the people to carry it.

COOKOUT: After the parade at Jeff Klein’s, 123 Cushing Ave (near the end of the parade and near Savin Hill T station)

Dorchester People for Peace works to end the wars; to build a multi-racial peace movement against violence and militarism at home and abroad; to oppose budget cuts, racism and political repression. 617-282-3783 * info@dotpeace.org

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*** We Have Some Unfinished Business From The 1960s To Tend To- A Struggle To The End- For A Workers and Baby-Boomers Government! –Say What!

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

The following is in the nature of a stream of consciousness reflection on recent political struggles and the slight breeze that I am feeling starting to push back against defeats of some forty plus years since we last had a shot at “seeking a newer world” and that old-time breeze that pushed me first into the political fray.

***
As fate would have it sometimes a certain conjecture just falls into place for no particular reason other than happenstance, or so it would appear. As noted below I have been on a tear of late trying to get, young and old, but mainly my baby-boomer contemporaries, to get back into the political fray, and if there already to ratchet up their activity, and their political drifts leftward away from the all too familiar liberal complacencies. But that happenstance business is just a front because while one strand of the memory jog occurred just recently with the struggle over the events in Afghanistan and the Middle East in general and those whispered conversations about olden day struggles another strand had been spent on a now extensive review of much of the music from our youth, the youth that came of musically age just at that moment when we began to call rock ‘n’ roll music our own.

And that jail breakout music got reflected, at some level, in the way we looked at the world. We felt that although the world was not of our making, and not what we wanted it to be, it was up for grabs to go in our direction, at least for a cultural moment.

The core of that review of the music of our generation, strangely enough given its imprimatur, was a rather extensive compilation of CDs put out by Time-Life Music (you see what I mean) as its Rock ‘n’ Roll Era series. While the compilations give a wide selection of the most recognizable music for a number of years from about the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s (basically pre-British invasion time, no not the War of 1812, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, groups like that) the real draw for this reviewer was the cover art that accompanied each CD. Those covers, more than the bulk of the music (after all there was a musical counter-revolution of sorts in the late 1950s in reaction to the Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry way to sexy implications of their music) , evoked in me (and I am sure they would in you as well if you are a baby-boomer), a flood of memories. Such subjects as“hot” 1950s cars, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants complete with to-die-for cute car hops serving them off the arm, the high school dance scene. And so on. I have reposted one such effort below:

"This 1964 art cover piece with its drawing of a high school girl (school used as backdrop here to let you know, just in case you were clueless, that the rock scene was directed, point blank, at high school students, high school students with discretionary money to buy hot records, or drop coins in the local juke box), or rather her high heel sneakers (Chuck Taylor high tops, for sure, no question, although there is no trademark present no way that they can be some knock-offs in 1964, no way, I say). The important thing, in any case, is the sneakers, and that slightly shorter than school regulation dress, a dress that presaged the mini-skirt craze that was then just on its way from Europe. Naturally said dress and sneakers, sneakers, high- heeled or not, against the mandatory white tennis sneakers on gym days and low-heel pumps on other days, is the herald of some new age. And, as if to confirm that new breeze, in the background scouring out her high school classroom window, a sullen, prudish schoolmarm. She, the advance guard, obviously, of that parentally-driven reaction to all that the later 1960s stood for to us baby-boomers, as the generations fought out their epic battles about the nature of the world, our world or theirs.

But see that was so much “wave of future” just then because sullen schoolmarm or not what Ms. Hi-Heel sneakers (and dress, yah, don’t forget that knee-showing dress) was preening for is those guys who are standing (barely) in front of said school and showing their approval, their approval in the endless boy and girl meet game. And these guys are not just of one kind, they are cool faux beat daddy guys, tee-shirted corner boy guys, and well, just average 1964- style average guys. Now the reality of Ms. Hi-Heel sneakers (and a wig-hat on her head if you remember the song) proved to be a minute thing and was practically forgotten in the musical breeze that was starting to come in from Europe (that British invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones mentioned before) but it was that harbinger of change that the old schoolmarm dreaded and we, teenagers, especially we teenagers of the Class of 1964, were puzzled by. All we knew for sure, at least some of us knew , was that our class, at least for a moment, was going to chase a few windmills, and gladly.

That is the front story, the story of the new breeze coming, but the back story is that the kind of songs that are on this CD with that British invasion coming full blast were going to be passé very soon. Moreover, among my crowd, my hang-out crowd, my hang-out guy and girl crowd of guys who looked very much like those guys pictured on the artwork, if not my school crowd (slightly different), the folk scene, the Harvard Square at weekend night, New York City Village every once in a while folk scene, the Dylan, Baez, Van Ronk, Paxton, Ochs, etc. scene was still in bloom and competitive (although that scene, that folk scene minute, ironically, would soon also be passé).

Thus 1964 was a watershed year for a lot of the genres, really sub-genres, featured in those CDs. Like the harmony-rich girl groups (The Supremes, Mary Wells, The Shangri-Las, Martha and the Vandellas, Betty Everett) and the surfer boy, hot-rod guys of blessed neighborhood memory (Ronnie and the Daytonas, The Rivieras, and The Beach Boys, a little). But it was also a watershed year for the guys pictured in the artwork (and out in the neighborhoods). Some would soon be fighting in Vietnam, some moving to a commune to get away from it all, and others would be raising holy hell about that war, the need for social justice and the way things were being run in this country. And Ms. Hi-Heel sneakers? Maybe, just maybe, she drifted into that San Francisco for the Summer of Love night, going barefoot into that good night. I like to think so anyway.

Watershed year or not, there are some serious non-invasion stick-outs here. Under The Boardwalk (great harmony), The Drifters; Last Kiss, Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers; Dancing In The Streets (lordy, lordy, yes), Martha and the Vandellas; Leader Of The Pack (what a great novelty song and one that could be the subject of a real story in my growing up neighborhood), The Shangri-Las; Hi-Heel Sneakers, Tommy Tucker (thanks for the lead-in, Tommy), and, the boss song of the teen dance club night, no question, no challenge, no competition, Louie, Louieby the Kingsmen”

Note: Those familiar with leftist, Marxist-oriented politics are familiar with the slogan- fight for a workers government. If you will observe in the headline to this entry I have posited a workers and baby-boomers government. No, not to be silly or flip, although I know how to do both, but to make a point. A point that always bears a certain repetition when dealing with variants of this workers’ government slogan. In places like Egypt today, or better, in the old Czarist days, in Russia, the slogan would have been expanded to something like a workers and peasants government. And that gets to the real point. Although we Marxists argue, and argue strenuously, that when the deal goes down there are only two decisive classes in the modern era- the capitalists who own the means of production and the workers who produce the profits and emphatically do not own the means of production. But that begs the point, a little. In the age of capitalism other classes, and parts of classes, have been spun off. Thus, the question, even in the United States, of allies for the working class requires a broader slogan (at times) than just the generic workers government slogan that graces these pages on most related entries. Today’s entry reflects the very real possibility that our best allies might be those who are coming of retirement age, the post- World War II baby-boomer generation.

Now back in the 1930s when there were many more small and family farmers than there are today the proposition of a workers and farmers government was posed as a cutting-edge slogan by our political forbears. And, of course, somebody, some smart- aleck young Marxist who was trying to be silly or flip (probably a college student from New York City where young Marxists were as thick as fleas) noted that there were more dentists in the United States than farmers at that time. Now, from painful personal (and expensive too) experience, I actually could get behind the idea of a workers and dentists government. But that specific variant is just adding to the main point above, the algebraic nature of a workers and XYZ government as a fighting slogan. So for now my workers and baby-boomers government has a certain flare, especially until the grey beards are in the minority of most of the rallies that I have seen lately. Please though don’t expect me to take a job in the Commissariat of Elder Affairs when we win. No way.

Getting to Ft. Meade to support Army whistleblower Bradley Manning

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To date, nearly 1,000 people have RSVPed to come to the June 1st demonstration at Ft. Meade. We look forward to having you join us! Below is some information to make planning your trip to Ft. Meade easier…
Buses
Charter buses are scheduled to Ft. Meade from the following cities: NYC, Washington DC, Baltimore and Hartford, CT.
Find directions from airports to charter buses OR from Amtrak and Greyhound stations to charter buses in Baltimore, DC and NYC using public transit.
If you’re arriving at the BWI Airport on June 1st, there is also a regional bus from the airport to Arundel Mills Shopping Center (Bus 017), from which you can then take the CTC K to the Main Gate. The entire trip is approximately 45 minutes. For a Google Maps public transit view of this option: http://alturl.com/3ehis
Still interested in organizing a bus or van from your city? We’re offering small grants to help.
Driving to Ft. Meade
From most locations, driving will be the quickest way to access Ft. Meade. If you plan to fly into the area and rent a car, priceline.com and hotwire.com are two useful sites for finding budget rentals.
Free parking has been arranged at Meade Heights Elementary School, 1925 Reece Rd, Fort Meade, MD 20755. This parking lot is only half a mile (11 min. walk) from the the Ft. Meade Main Gate.
Additional parking is available at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, 1140 Reece Road, Severn, MD 21144. This parking lot is one mile (24 min. walk) from the Ft. Meade Main Gate. We’ll try to shuttle folks along Reece Road.
There are a small number of unrestricted parking spaces along US 175; however, do not park in the the mini-shopping centers or the Weis Market near Blue Water Blvd.
Housing options
Search Priceline for hotels near Ft. George G. Meade, MD
View a list of other hotels in DC, MD and VA.
Mass housing options
There are also two campgrounds in the area, Cherry Hill Park near Washington D.C. and Greenbelt Park in Greenbelt, MD. The campground fee is $16.
Navigation
Google maps usually has up-to-date road and public transit information. You can also download apps and links for navigation in the DC area, MD and NYC
Carpooling
If you are able to offer rides to others, please e-mail emma@bradleymanning.org with your planned departure date, time, location, and how many seats you are offering. Carpool information for those looking for rides will be posted on this page as it becomes available.
Ft. Meade Security
Our event on June 1st will take place outside the Fort Meade Main Gate at 175 Maryland and Reece Rd. However, if you plan to stay to attend Bradley’s court martial, which begins June 3rd, you’ll need to be prepared to go through security checkpoints.
To enter Ft. Meade, you’ll need a government issued ID, such as a state issued drivers license or passport. Non-US passports are accepted. Be prepared to remove any shirts or buttons that show support for Bradley Manning while on base.
The courtroom is located 1 mile past the main gate, and maps are available at the Visitor Control Center immediately inside the gate and to the right. There is parking by the courtroom, space allowing. To drive onto Ft. Meade:

• Have your up-to-date vehicle registration
• Have your up-to-date vehicle insurance (printed copy–not a electronic version on your mobile phone)
• Obey posted speed limits (they are strictly enforced by military police–especially for “special visitors”)
• Be prepared to cover “political” bumper stickers on your vehicle with tape

Unlike most trials, the government is refusing to release any official transcripts of the trials. It is up to the public to attend, and comment on, what happens inside the otherwise secretive court room. Thank you for your support and please join us at Fort Meade!

Mass Rally for Bradley Manning! Ft. Meade, MD. June 1, 2013

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Join us at Fort Meade in support of Bradley Manning. By the time his court martial begins in June, he will have spent more then 3 years in prison. All for having done the right thing, for having exposed war crimes! Saturday, June 1, 2013 RALLY FOR BRADLEY AT FORT MEADE

By the Bradley Manning Support Network, February 25, 2013.
• 1pm Gather (Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland)
• 2pm March
• 3pm Rally and Speak Out
Sponsored by the Bradley Manning Support Network and the national Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War organizations, with the help of Courage to Resist, and many other groups.

RSVP to this event on facebook.

LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING THERE: DRIVING INFORMATION, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, LODGING INFORMATION.
Get on the Bradley Manning bus! Click here for information for buses from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, Willimantic CT, New Brunswick NJ, Philadelphia PA.
After more than three years of imprisonment, including nine months of torture, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning’s trial is finally scheduled to begin June 3, 2013, at Fort Meade, Maryland. The outcome of this trial will determine whether a conscience-driven 25-year-old WikiLeaks whistle-blower spends the rest of his life in prison. Bradley believed that the American people have a right to know the truth about what our government does around the world in our name. We the People must send a message to the military prosecuting authority, and President Obama, that Bradley Manning is a patriot and heroic truth-teller.
June 1st is the International Day of Action to Support Bradley Manning. Join us at Fort Meade on the eve of Bradley’s court martial. Solidarity actions are welcome at bases, recruiting centers and US
embassies worldwide. We ask that Veterans for Peace join us in cosponsoring these historic events.
Get on the Bradley Manning bus! Click here for information for buses from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, Willimantic CT, New Brunswick NJ, Philadelphia PA.
LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING THERE: DRIVING INFORMATION, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, LODGING INFORMATION.

——————————-
Monday, June 3, 2013
ATTEND THE BEGINNING OF US v. BRADLEY MANNING
7:30am – 8:00 am, enter Fort Meade at Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland
9:00 am scheduled daily start of hearings at Magistrate Court
4432 Llewellyn Avenue, Fort Meade, MD. It is 2 miles from the Main Gate.
The court martial is expected to last 6-12 weeks. Supporters are encouraged to attend as many days of this trial as they are able.
——————————-

PARKING for June 1st

Free parking has been arranged at Meade Heights Elementary School, 1925 Reece Rd, Fort Meade, MD 20755. This parking lot is only half a mile (11 min. walk) from the the Ft. Meade Main Gate.
Additional parking will be available at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, 1140 Reece Road, Severn, MD 21144. This parking lot is one mile (24 min. walk) from the Ft. Meade Main Gate. We’ll try to help shuttle folks along Reece Road.
There are a small number of unrestricted parking spaces along US 175; however, do not park in the the mini-shopping centers or the Weis Market near Blue Water Blvd.
Portable toilets are expected to be available.
Join us in the courtroom for the trial beginning June 3, 2013. Drive (or taxi) to the Fort Meade Visitor Control Center at the Fort Meade Main Gate (all the other gates are for military ID holders only), Reece Road and US 175, Fort Meade, Maryland. We suggest arriving when the visitor center opens at 7:30am, and certainly before 8:15am. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9am daily. The multiple layers of security take time to navigate, and procedures often change from day to day. Each person will need a valid state or federal photo ID such as a driver’s license, state photo ID card, or passport. Foreign passports are accepted. Anyone driving on to Fort Meade will be required to submit their driver’s license, vehicle registration, and printed (not digital) proof of insurance. Your vehicle will be subject to search, and you may be required to cover over political bumper stickers on your vehicle. Consider walking on base if there are any questions at all regarding your vehicle and paperwork.
The proceedings will be held at the Magistrate Court, 4432 Llewellyn Ave, Fort Meade, MD 20755 (this is one mile from the Visitor Center). Electronic devices, including cell phones, computers, cameras, are not allowed in the courtroom, and should be left in your vehicle.
There are no pre-registration requirements for the public to attend the proceedings. However, those wishing to attend as credentialed media should contact the US Army Military District of Washington Public Affairs Office at 202-685-4645.

LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING THERE: DRIVING INFORMATION, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, LODGING INFORMATION.
Get on the Bradley Manning bus! Click here for information for buses from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, Willimantic CT, New Brunswick NJ, Philadelphia PA.

Boston Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out Part Of An International Day Of Solidarity-Saturday June 1^st Park Street Station – 1 PM

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us At Park Street Station In Boston On June 1st At 1 PM For A Stand-Out In Solidarity Before Bradley’s June 3^rd Trial

Plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. Check with the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/for information about going to Fort Meade from your area.

If you can’t make it to Fort Meade come to Park Street Station on June 1^st in support of this brave whistle-blower.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

 

June 1-8: Take part in the week of action for Bradley Manning

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Can’t make it to Fort Meade on Sat., June 1st? Help sponsor travel for others — each $20 will cover a bus ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to come Please note “Bus Sponsor” in the comments field when making your tax-deductible donation.

Join us at Fort Meade. June 1, 2013

June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison and the start of his trial. The June 1st Ft. Meade protest for Bradley Manning will be the largest action of our campaign! People across the nation (and the globe) will converge on Ft. Meade to stand up for the Army whistle-blower who risked everything to give the public real facts about our government’s wars in the Middle East and foreign policy worldwide.
Join Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, LGBT activist US Army Lt. Dan Choi, former US diplomat US Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.), and former soldier Ethan McCord–who rescued the wounded children in the van in the Collateral Murder video—and hundreds of our supporters of heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade. Together we’ll make history.
Visit our new guide to transportation & lodging near Ft. Meade for help planning your trip.
For those unable to travel to Ft. Meade, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Bradley Manning Support Network, are also calling for solidarity actions from June 1st-June 8th worldwide. So far events have been registered in the following cities:

Los Angeles 6/1/2013, San Francisco 6/1/2013, Portland, Maine 6/1/2013, Tuscon, AZ 6/1/2013, Honolulu, Hawai`i 6/1/2013, Tampa, Florida 6/1/2013, Boston, MA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013,

London, UK 6/1/2013, Heidelberg, Germany 6/1/2013, Berlin, Germany 6/1/2013, San Diego, CA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013, Tallahassee, Fl 6/2/2013, Tampa, FL. 6/6/2013, Montrose, CA 6/7/2013,

If you have planned an event or action, please register it on our website so we can promote it to other supporters in your area. Interested in organizing something but want some ideas, materials, or help contacting other activists in your area? Contact farah@bradleymanning.org for assistance!

***Where Hip-Hop Nation Corner Boys Meet The Be-Bop Night Corner Boys- A Nod To J. Cole's "Dolla And A Dream"

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

On the face of the matter it would seem improbable, very improbable, that a leading voice of the hip-hop nation today, j. cole, and an old reprobate radical  mired, deeply mired if the truth be known, in be-bop 1950s rock and roll, now called the classic, uh, geriatric age of rock and roll would have any points of intersection. Moreover mired, mission mired before the flame goes out, in youthful transistor radio (for the clueless check Wikipedia) memories and so preoccupied with transmitting those memories for the ages (cyberspace ages anyway). And if it hadn’t been for happenstance that I ran into a young woman, Kelly, at a political event, an anti-war rally, and mentioned to her that I was somewhat bewildered by the lack of political or social focus in what I had heard in today’s music and she mentioned some of j. cole’s stuff that she was crazy about that would still have been so. Naturally, since like I said I am also in the midst of a craze of my own in trying to present archival material from the 1960s that had some social content, I checked out some of his lyrics.

 

The distance between a young black man growing up in the ‘hood of Fayetteville, North Carolina (to speak nothing of that huge army base at Fort Bragg that drives the life of the town) in the recent past, post-civil rights marches time, “post-racial” time and a 1950s be-bop rock white kid growing up in “the projects” turned out not to be so far after all. The connection: a simple lyric taken from j. cole’s Dolla and a Dream about how his mother, blessed mother of course, blessed now that time has shown us the error of our ways in those titantic mother-son battles, had to sew patches on his pants “to make do” when he was young. No heavier social message needed to grab this writer’s attention. I remember, and have written elsewhere about, my own hand-me-down patched non-fashionista childhood. I remember being given my older brother’s cast-offs to make due and in turn passing, if it was still possible to do so with such cheap Wal-Mart- like materials onto my younger brother.

Then there was a family famous story that concerned me about the time when I was in elementary school trying to impress a non-projects girl at a school square dance demonstration and had cut up one of my only two or three pairs of pants to give myself a righteous farm- hand look. When my mother, who was invited to, and attended, the dance demonstration, saw what I had done she started yelling at me about my disrespect for her and my father by ruining those pants when she had no way to get more in front of everybody. I got holy hell about that for weeks. And, needless to say, had no chance, nada, no go, with that girl after that. Yah, it was like that.

Small stuff, silly in the great Mandela scheme of things, but it points out that tough reality of wants, constant wants, down at the edges of society, down among the projects dwelling, where everything is no, can’t do, can’t have, forget it, and you don’t need that anyway. And points out as well the hard reality that down in those mean streets the struggle for existence takes up far too much time. The struggle for the daily bread, literally on some days, takes the better instincts of our natures and numbs then up, makes the pursuit of those higher goods seem ridiculous. So anybody, any “gangsta” had (has) a great gravitational pull for kids trying to fill up that empty want hole.

Then it started like it always does in the big fight against wants, started just like the generation before me, the old 1930s corner boys making all their noise (and winning junior corner wannabe admiration). Started simply with a “clip” here (grabbing stuff from stores, usually jewelry stores and record shops and slipping it under, well, under something, your coat, your underwear, whatever), the jack-roll there (the usual victim some older resident of the projects, an easy target, and easily left behind unlike going uptown and facing that cop madness trouble), maybe a small time gas station robbery or extortion racket as you moved up that food chain (armed, armed against any thought of resistant. See the romance of the gun has a long pedigree, long before it became the tool of choice, or necessary, in the midnight drifter world). Cheap jack stuff, petty stuff when you realize the personal and social cost, but stuff to make those want blues go away, for a while until that craving comes back. Yah, maybe you don’t know what I mean but hell my brother j. coles knows what I mean, knows damn well what I mean.

 

Dolla and a Dream lyrics- j. cole

For all my ville niggas man,
All my Carolina niggas man, (lights off and shit)
All my real niggas, no matter where you come from

A dolla and a dream, thats all a nigga got
So if its about that c.r.e.a.m., then I'm all up in the spot.
I was raised in the F-A-
Why a nigga never gave me nothing?
Pops left me, I ain't never cry, baby, fuck him, that's life.
And trust me I'm living,
Look what a nigga made out,
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
Momma sewing patches on my holes,
Man, our hoes couldn't put this flame out.

Straight up, I got my back against the brick wall,
I'm from a world where niggas never pop no Cristal, it was pistols.
You pass through, you better pray them bullets missed y'all,
I thank the Lord He let a nigga make it this far,
A lot niggas don't, a lot of moms weep.
I gotta carry on, all the weight is on me.
You never know when a nigga might try to harm me.
Rest In Peace that nigga John Lee,
I pour liquor, homie.

It's foul, but yo the world keeps spinning,
Gotta keep winning, get up off this cheap linen,
Nigga Imma eat, even if it means sinning,
Niggas want beef, Imma sink my teeth in 'em.
Pause, I go harder, I am all about a dollar.
You niggas street smart? I'm a motherfucking scholar.
So trust me, I ain't stopping 'til my money is long,
So much dough, them hoes will think I'm rocking money cologne.

Have a model at the crib waiting, "Honey, I'm home."
Cooking greens for a nigga, give 'em plenty, a dome.
It's funny, we dream about money so much its like we almost got it,
Until we reach up in our pockets, its time to face reality,
The ville is a trap nigga now,
And if you ain't focused you gonna be here for awhile, yeah.

***Poet's Corner-William Wordsworth's Ode To The French Revolution As The Anniversary Approaches

William Wordsworth's famous ode to the beginning of the French revolution is full of all the youthful enthusiasm such a world historic event can elicit. Even in stuffy old Georgian England among the young, the radicals, and some of the plebeian masses the idea that one could break from the ancient regime, from taking humankind, taking French humankind anyway, where one was a mere subject of some arbitrary happenstance (although in England one should have reflected on one’s own monarchial state as well) to a cry of freedom citizen struck a deep chord throughout Europe and the Americas . No wonder the French went crazy, and in almost all classes too, began calling each other citizen, it certainly had a certain cache. At the beginning.

Of course we have now seen enough revolutions to know that they not only have their own cycles but that they, the great ones anyway, English, American, French, Russian, Chinese, are stern task-masters, make simple social patterns long established explode and create new forms, maybe many forms, before they are spent and not a few things go awry as well. Including the hard fact that revolutions have tended to devour their own. Then many a former fellow-traveler, rightly or wrongly, gets cold feet, gets a feeling that this revolution stuff is a lot more complicated that he or she had bargained for. And so they find reasons, rightly or wrongly, to move away from, to disown what they once proclaimed from the rooftops. Such, alas, has been the hard human experience thus far as we try, essentially, to struggle against the three great tragedies of life; sex, death, and hunger. It has been that last one that most modern revolutions, especially ones espousing socialist goals have, concentrated on.

And that seeming plebeian task is, perhaps, why, while there have been some creative artists associated with revolutions that the norm has been that such types, have shied away from non-artistic revolutionary movements. The exceptions like Milton in the English Revolution, Wordsworth in the early French Revolution and Gorky in the Russian Revolution have been driven by stronger political motives, for a time anyway. One also thinks of Andre Breton and the Surrealist whose Manifesto of Revolutionary Art was written in conjunction with Leon Trotsky’s efforts to form a new revolutionary international after the demise of the initial energies of Russian Revolution under Stalin. However , when one looks closely at the relationship between creative artists and revolutionary movements one notes the sparse numbers who have adhered to such movements welcome as they are.

That Wordsworth, like many another former 'friend' of revolutions over the ages, went over to the other side when things got too hot does not however take away from his efforts here in the fresh bloom of the French Revolution.

The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—

Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

William Wordsworth

Biggest week of actions yet! Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Week of action for Bradley, June 1-8 Can’t make it to Fort Meade on Sat., June 1st? Help sponsor travel for others -- each $20 will cover a bus ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to come. Please note "Bus Sponsor" in the comments field when making your tax-deductible donation. Join us at Fort Meade. June 1, 2013 June 1st will mark the beginning of Bradley Manning’s fourth year in prison and the start of his trial. The June 1st Ft. Meade protest for Bradley Manning will be the largest action of our campaign! People across the nation (and the globe) will converge on Ft. Meade to stand up for the Army whistle-blower who risked everything to give the public real facts about our government’s wars in the Middle East and foreign policy worldwide. Join Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, LGBT activist US Army Lt. Dan Choi, former US diplomat US Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.), and former soldier Ethan McCord--who rescued the wounded children in the van in the Collateral Murder video—and hundreds of our supporters of heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning at Ft. Meade. Together we’ll make history. Visit our new guide to transportation & lodging near Ft. Meade for help planning your trip. Buses to the Ft. Meade rally for Bradley are now confirmed from Washington DC, Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and New Brunswick (NJ). Learn more about buses to the Fort Meade demonstration. For those unable to travel to Ft. Meade, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Bradley Manning Support Network, are also calling for solidarity actions from June 1st-June 8th worldwide. So far events have been registered in the following cities: Los Angeles 6/1/2013, San Francisco 6/1/2013, Portland, Maine 6/1/2013, Tuscon, AZ 6/1/2013, Honolulu, Hawai`i 6/1/2013, Tampa, Florida 6/1/2013, Boston, MA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013, London, UK 6/1/2013, Heidelberg, Germany 6/1/2013, Berlin, Germany 6/1/2013, San Diego, CA 6/1/2013, Seattle, WA 6/1/2013, Tallahassee, Fl 6/2/2013, Tampa, FL. 6/6/2013, Montrose, CA 6/7/2013, If you have planned an event or action, please register it on our website so we can promote it to other supporters in your area. Interested in organizing something but want some ideas, materials, or help contacting other activists in your area? Contact farah@bradleymanning.org for assistance! Three new Bradley Manning shirts available Our shirts are US-made, sweatshop-free, and printed by union labor. Shirts are $22.50 each, and the flag is $50 – a donation amount that includes shipping and processing. Proceeds help subsidize bulk organizing materials for regional activists. Orders are filled and shipped by Courage to Resist. Online store Help us continue to cover 100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today.

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