14,000 Demand: Free Lynne Stewart Now!

Workers Vanguard No. 1024	17 May 2013

14,000 Demand: Free Lynne Stewart Now!

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

As we reported two months ago, the family of class-war prisoner Lynne Stewart is waging a desperate fight for a “compassionate” release to obtain critical medical treatment. The 73-year-old Stewart has been battling breast cancer, which has metastasized and spread to her lymph nodes, shoulder and lungs. Following bouts of debilitating chemotherapy, Stewart’s cancer remains at Stage 4.

A radical lawyer with a history of defending leftists, black militants and others in the crosshairs of the imperialist rulers, Stewart was railroaded to prison on ludicrous “support to terrorism” charges for zealously defending her client, a blind Islamic cleric. Over 14,000 have signed a petition demanding Stewart’s release that was circulated by her family. Typical of the many messages of support, famed actor Ed Asner stated: “In tormenting Lynne Stewart the government seeks to terrorize all lawyers who would defend those targeted by State repression. The treatment of Lynne Stewart is a threat to due process, an assault on fundamental rights that date to Magna Carta.”

Last month, Stewart’s husband Ralph Poynter reported that the warden of FMC Carswell recommended Stewart’s release. Standing in the way of Stewart’s going home is the federal judge who resentenced her to ten years in prison. We continue to urge readers of WV to sign the petition posted on lynnestewart.org. Contributions to Stewart’s legal defense can be sent to: Lynne Stewart Organization, 1070 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216.

We print below an appreciation of Stewart by Tom Manning dated April 3 and sent to the Partisan Defense Committee. Like Stewart and his comrade Jaan Laaman, Manning is one of 20 activists behind bars receiving stipends under the PDC’s program of support to class-war prisoners. Manning and Laaman were members of the group of anti-imperialist fighters that came to be known as the Ohio 7, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s.

Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. Having already sentenced the Ohio 7 to decades in prison, the Feds subsequently tried three of them on charges of “seditious conspiracy.” Despite pouring $10 million into this effort, the government failed in its ominous attempt to revive the sweeping McCarthy-era criminalization of left-wing political activism. This was a victory for the working class and all oppressed. Yet today Ohio 7 attorney Stewart has been condemned to what could be a death sentence under the “war on terror,” presently a more effective means to isolate and witchhunt left-wing activists. Free Lynne Stewart! Free Tom Manning and Jaan Laaman! Free the class-war prisoners!

*   *   *

Dear Folks—

Your stipend gift arrived, again, welcome and useful as ever.

In appreciation I thought I’d copy something I’d written for Mumia—back at ADX, and send it to you all. To do with as you will—a gift to a supporter?

Thinking about Lynne, a dear friend, a part of our defense team in all ten United Freedom Front trials—always bringing joy and solidarity into the prisons for late night visits hours of travel time away from her home in N.Y.C.—her children and her partner Ralph becoming part of the family—Ralph our investigator, traveling back to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and wherever else need checking on. Coming back with a report on how my Great Dane, Chico, was doing five years after I had to abandon him as the FBI Hostage Rescue Team assaulted our farm house with Huey helicopters bearing large Red Cross insignia—a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Their positive spirits in the visiting room would get under the skin of the guard that, one night they keyed Ralph’s car—all down the driver’s side.

Twice, the judge ordered blood taken from me to use DNA in the trial—knowing I’d resist to the best of my ability—in keeping with my vow of total non-collaboration. Lynne came into the prison as moral support. On the first occasion I was beaten so bad—the guys in the block rioted for four days, and Lynne was badly shaken. The authorities lost the videotape of the event. On the second occasion Lynne got a court order to bring a camera—and videotaped the whole thing. On each blood taking, the shoulder of the arm they wanted—was badly damaged—and both had to have open rotator cuff surgery. As I write I’m awaiting a total reverse shoulder implant—stemming from the original damage. Lynne’s tape of that day will always be there—as a piece of this history.

She would make sure we’d get to read any book we expressed interest in, or that she thought we’d find interesting—especially anything on John Brown. A man close to her heart.

So as I read of her troubles now—her health and captivity situation—it galls me bitterly not to be able to bring her relief.

The struggle continues!
Tom Manning

FBI’s Racist “Anti-Terror” Vendetta Against Assata Shakur

Workers Vanguard No. 1024	17 May 2013

FBI’s Racist “Anti-Terror” Vendetta Against Assata Shakur

Although the government largely succeeded in destroying the Black Panther Party decades ago, the state vendetta against these courageous fighters for black freedom is not only alive and well, but thriving under the administration of the first black president and attorney general. To great fanfare, two weeks ago the FBI named Assata Shakur (formerly known as Joanne Chesimard) as the first woman to be placed on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.” Shakur was convicted in 1977 on frame-up murder charges in the shooting death of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster on 2 May 1973 and sentenced to life plus 33 years. Shakur escaped from prison in 1979, and five years later was granted political asylum in the Cuban deformed workers state, where she has resided for the past 29 years.

Declaring a 65-year-old grandmother one of the world’s deadliest “terrorists” may have many scratching their heads and wondering what the Feds are smoking. But this is deadly serious. At a May 2 press conference, the Feds and New Jersey State Police announced they were doubling the bounty on Shakur to $2 million. In an unprecedented move, the FBI placed billboards with her likeness, reading “Wanted: Terrorist Joanne Chesimard a/k/a Assata Shakur,” along New Jersey highways.

Given that Shakur is unlikely to pop up in Newark or Jersey City any time soon, this may seem a bit gratuitous—but that’s hardly the point. Cloaking the decades-long vendetta against Assata Shakur in the guise of the current “war on terrorism” has a dual purpose: to settle the score against those who fought for black freedom over 40 years ago and to warn that radical activity would be treated as “domestic terrorism.” It underscores what we have insisted since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon—that the ultimate target of the vast “anti-terror” arsenal will be labor, blacks and radical youth. Indeed, the Democratic administration of Barack Obama has accelerated the use of anti-terror laws against leftists. The renewed vendetta against Shakur is particularly ominous coming on the heels of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, which was seized on by the bloody capitalist rulers to further enhance their vast repressive powers.

The FBI/cop crusade is nothing but a racist political witchhunt with a drawn gun. New Jersey State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes railed, “From her safe haven in Cuba, Chesimard has been given the pulpit to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary.” Aaron T. Ford, special agent in charge of the FBI Newark Division, complained that in Cuba Shakur has continued to espouse her “anti-U.S. views” in speeches advocating “revolution and terrorism,” and ludicrously added that she may have connections to international terrorist organizations. He added: “She’s a danger to the American government.”

The State Department seized on the FBI announcement to make clear that Cuba will remain on its list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” one of the many pretexts for the continued embargo of the tiny island, where capitalist rule was overthrown 53 years ago. As always, whom the U.S. capitalist rulers consider a terrorist is entirely self-serving. Freely roaming the beaches of Miami is Cuban CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, the mastermind of the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner, which killed 73 people, as well as hotel bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and wounded 12 other people.

On 2 May 1973, Shakur and two other former Panthers, Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli—then members of the Black Liberation Army—were stopped by troopers Foerster and James Harper on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty taillight.” Approaching the car, one of the cops drew his gun and ordered the three to raise their hands. A moment later, Zayd Shakur was shot dead by Harper. Foerster died in the crossfire, shot with a bullet from a police revolver. Assata had just been shot twice, once in the back. Acoli was convicted of killing Foerster in 1974 and sentenced to life. After standing trial six times on other charges without a conviction, in 1977 Assata Shakur was finally tried and convicted by an all-white New Jersey jury on grotesque charges of killing her own comrade Zayd as well as Foerster.

At their May 2 press conference, Fuentes and Ford repeated the lie, dutifully echoed by the bourgeois press, that Shakur “murdered a law enforcement officer execution style.” This never happened, nor could it have. One of the bullets that struck Assata shattered her clavicle and median nerve, paralyzing her entire right arm. Assata’s fingerprints were absent from every gun and piece of ammunition found at the scene. Neutron activation analysis taken immediately after Assata arrived at the hospital showed there was no gunpowder residue on her hands. Shakur was never convicted of firing the shot that killed Foerster. Instead, she was railroaded to prison as an “accomplice” under a New Jersey statute that declares that if a person present at the scene of a crime can be construed as “aiding and abetting” it, she can be convicted of the crime itself.

Assata Shakur was on the receiving end of the greatest terrorist enterprise in the world—the bloodthirsty American capitalist rulers. She and her two comrades were among the targets for assassination by the FBI and cops under the deadly Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). In the eyes of the capitalist rulers, the great crime of the Panthers was not only proclaiming the need for a revolutionary solution to the oppression of black people but advocating the right of armed self-defense against the racist terrorists, whether in the white robes of the KKK or the navy blue of the police. The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover labeled the Panthers the “greatest threat to the internal security of the U.S.” and in 1968 vowed, “The Negro youth and moderate[s] must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries.” Despite our deep political differences with the Panthers, we as Marxists vigorously defended them against the capitalist state’s murderous drive to crush black radicalism.

Thirty-eight Panthers were cut down, including Chicago party leader Fred Hampton, shot to death in December 1969 as he lay in his bed. Countless more were locked away for decades on frame-up charges. Foremost among them was Los Angeles Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt), who himself survived an LAPD assassination attempt days after Hampton’s murder and was later imprisoned for 27 years on frame-up charges for a murder that FBI wiretap logs confirmed he could not have committed, as he was 400 miles away. Today, former Panther spokesman Mumia Abu-Jamal is condemned to a life of prison hell on false charges of killing police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Mumia spent 30 years on death row before his death sentence was overturned two years ago. Like Shakur, the seriously wounded Mumia could not have shot anyone: no physical evidence linked Mumia to Faulkner’s killing and the courts rejected outright the evidence of innocence. In Mumia’s case, the suppressed evidence included the confession of the actual killer.

After the New Jersey governor put a $100,000 bounty on her head 15 years ago, Shakur stated in an open letter:

“I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color....

“This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges....

“I guess the theory is that if they could kidnap millions of Africans from Africa 400 years ago, they should be able to kidnap one African woman today. It is nothing but an attempt to bring about the re-incarnation of the Fugitive Slave Act. All I represent is just another slave that they want to bring back to the plantation. Well, I might be a slave, but I will go to my grave a rebellious slave.”

In the absence of a class-struggle leadership of labor committed to the fight for black freedom, the Panthers, their personal courage notwithstanding, rejected the only strategy for sweeping away the racist bourgeois order—socialist revolution by the multiracial proletariat. Instead, they embraced a reformist program that included the utopian call for “community control” of the police. Racist repression and cop terror will only be ended when the working class seizes state power under the leadership of a Leninist vanguard party. Hands off Assata Shakur! Free Sundiata Acoli! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! 

***On The 77th  Anniversary Of The Start Of The Spanish Civil War- All Honor to Those Who Fought On The Republican Side- In Honor Of The Working Class Militants In The Spanish Civil War- An Anniversary, Of Sorts

 

***On The 77th Anniversary Of The Start Of The Spanish Civil War- All Honor to Those Who Fought On The Republican Side- In Honor Of The Working Class Militants In The Spanish Civil War- An Anniversary, Of Sorts

 

In Honor Of The Working Class Militants In The Spanish Civil War- An Anniversary, Of Sorts

I have noted in other posts that some of our working class anniversaries like the Paris Commune, the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917, and the establishment of the Communist International are worthy of yearly commemoration. So, let us say, the 94th anniversary of the Russian revolution while awkward as a milestone is nevertheless, because of its world-historic importance (both in its establishment and its demise), an appropriate yearly commemoration. Others, like the Russian Revolution of 1905 are worthy of the more traditional five, ten and multiples observations. I have also noted previously my dismay (although that may be too strong a word) at the rise of odd-ball year anniversaries (30th, for example) and rise in the number of mundane occasions for such celebrations although I am not immune to that fever myself. Here, as the headline notes, I am observing a traditional milestone. However, the event itself, that I am observing has far less historic importance (actually far, far less importance) than as an occasion to make some point about the Spanish Civil War. The 50th anniversary designation is to commemorate the first time that I seriously studied the “lessons” of the Spanish Civil War. And the form that that study took was as the subject my very first high school term paper in 9th grade Civics class. I can hear the air being let out of the tires now. But hear me out on this one.

I make no pretense that I can zero in on when I first became interested in the subject of the Spanish Civil War but I was driven by two things in that direction- the general hatred of fascism as transmitted by family and others, the other, and this one is less precise as to origin, was a devotion to the fighters in the American-led Abraham Lincoln battalion of the 15th Brigade of the International Brigades. I believe it may have been hearing Pete Seeger doing a version of Viva La Quince Brigada but I am just not sure. In any case by the spring of 1961 I was knee-deep in studying the subject, including time after school up at the North Adamsville branch of the town’s Thomas Crane Public Library. My first stop, I remember, was looking through the Encyclopedia Americana for the entry on the Spanish Civil War for sources and then turning to the card catalogue. For those not familiar with those ancient forms of research the Encyclopedia was like the online Wikipedia today (except no collective editing, for good or evil, at a touch) and the card catalogue was just a paper version on, well, 3X5 cards, of the computerized systems in most libraries today. But enough of this history of research back in the Dark Ages because what this entry is about is the lessons of that event.

I have noted before, although here too I cannot remember all the details of the genesis of the notion, that on the subject of the Spanish Civil War I have been “haunted” (and still am) by the fact of the lost by the Republican side when in July and August of 1936 (and for about a year later as well) victory against Franco’s brutal counter-revolutionary forces seemed assured. In a sense Spain, and the various stages of my interpretation of events there, represents kind of a foundation stone for my political perspectives as I gained more understanding of the possibilities. I have, more recently, characterized 1930s Spain as the last serious chance to create a companion to the original Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia and so we had best look at its lesson closely, very closely.

Of course as a 9th grade political neophyte I was not even close to making that kind of observation just mentioned. I distinctly recall, and it was reflected in my liberal politics at that time, that the center of my argument on that term paper was the perfidy of the Western democracies in not coming to the aid of the Spanish republicans and further in not allowing the republicans to get arms from them or other sources, other than the Soviet Union. Mainly I was incensed that the British and French did not do more except cave in to Hitler when he called a tune. Now that was pretty raw stuff, pretty raw analysis, although probably not bad coming from that perspective. But depending on outside forces to save your bacon (or revolution) is always tricky and so as I moved leftward in my own political perspective I spent more time looking at the internal political dynamics driving the revolution. For an extremely long time I was under the spell (the proto-Stalinist derived spell) as articulated by the majority of the pro-republican organizations.- it was first necessary to win the war against Franco and then the revolution, presumably socialist, would be pursued under which all manner of good things like workers control of production, land to the tiller, some justice on the various national questions (Catalonia, Basque country) could take place, co-operative and collective government established, etc.

As I moved further leftward, leftward not just politically but also organizationally away from left-liberal and social democratic operations, and began to study more closely radical and revolutionary movements for social change I began to chaff under that war-revolution dichotomy and look more closely as the policies of the various organization within the republican camp. That was rather more eye-opening than not. The gist of it was that all the major organizations were working at cross purposes but most importantly they were putting brakes on the continuation of a revolutionary thrust in Spain. An so in the final analysis, although this was hardest to finally see in the cases of the CGT-FAI and POUM organizations and some individual militants, it was the failure to seek revolutionary solutions that would have galvanized the masses (or could have, rather than after 1937 left them indifferent, mainly, to the republican cause).

What was lacking? Obviously since even opponents agree there was a revolutionary situation in that period a party willing to go right to the end to achieve its goals, a Bolshevik-style party. Such things, as we are now painfully aware of, make all the different. And it is that little pearl of wisdom that makes this anniversary entry worth thinking about for the future.

 

From The American Left History Archives-From The Labor History Archives- The Oakland General Strike, 1946 -Today November 2, 2011 Oakland General Strike- It's The Same Damn Struggle-Let's Win For Good This Time

 

http://libcom.org/library/oakland-general-strike-stan-weir

 

A general strike only, as witness the latest actions in Greece, poses the question of power. We have to go on from there to take it and create that new society we have all been fighting for so long. Today in Oakland we go on the offensive, praise be, and like I stated in the headline-let's win this one for good this time.

*******

As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):

 

“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.” 

******

Markin comment from the Fall of 2011 :

 

After last week’s Oakland General Strike and the closing down of the Port of Oakland I thought we were on the offensive, finally. And I was not wrong. This Ohio vote was a sweet victory to put the breaks on this “in your face” right-wing slide that we having been dealing with for a long time. While, in the final analysis, hard struggles, hard street struggles,  still lie ahead we will take our victories, small or large, wherever we can. I don’t think that the bourgeoisie is ready to make reservations to some island  and let us take over yet but I would think that some of the more far-sighted elements might be checking their frequent-flyer miles status. Nor am I so intoxicated by Ohio that I would raise the propaganda slogan to build workers councils now. But I will raise right here, well in advance of the 2012 bourgeois electoral fist-fight, the need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. And I am not wrong on that.        

From The American Left History Archives- From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-An Embryo Of An Alternate Government Gone Wrong-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History

 

<b>An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All  Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

</b>

********

<b>Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!</b>

********

<b>A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

</b>

*<b>Jobs For All Now!</b>-“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.  

 

* <b>Defend the working classes!</b> 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).  

 

*<b>End the endless wars!</b>- 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! 

 

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

 

*<b>We created the wealth, let’s take it back.</b> 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.     

 

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

</b>

******

Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the <i>Occupy</i> movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of <i>Occupy Boston</i>, is the lead for all further postings.

*******

<b>Markin comment October 1, 2011:</b>

 

There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.

**********

<b>Markin comment October 22, 2011</b>

 

As part of my comment, dated October 20, 2011, I noted the following:

 

“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the “new world” we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”

 

A couple of the people that I have talked to were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in <i>Occupy Boston</i> at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the <i>Occupy</i> movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)

 

I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one. In that sense previous historical models come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, <em>de facto</em>, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.

**********

Markin comment October 26, 2011:

 

Recently (see October 22, 2011 comment above) I noted the following while arguing for the General Assembly concept as a form of alternate government using historic examples like the Paris Commune (1871), the early Soviets in Russia (1905 and 1917), and early antifascist militias in the Spanish Civil War (1936-37:

 

“However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.”

 

In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started the series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, <i>The Civil War In France</i> and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.

*********

As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):

 

“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.” 

Memorial Day for Peace Please join us on Monday, May 27 for our Memorial Day for Peace on Boston Harbor. We have a wonderful program planned: We will remember our friend and partner in peace Charley Richardson, with remarks by Bonnie Gorman and Nancy Lessin. We will have a remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagaski with David Rothauser, Producer of the film Hibakusha: Our Life to Live, and Kazue Cambell, a Hiroshima survivor. Sev Bruyn will speak about the Dangers of another nuclear catastrophe and Cole Harrison (Mass Peace Action) will speak about America after Hegemony. Webb Nichols will share his writing, "Common Thoughts on Our Common Humanity. A member from the Iraqi community will speak (TBD) and then we will have our Flower Ceremony. Rev. Lara Hoke and Rev. Ralph Galen will say the beginning and ending words. Brian Quirk will play the bag-pipes and Jesse Perrier will end the program by playing taps. Please join us and please pass the word to others to also join us. Thank you, Pat Scanlon, Coordinator, Veterans for Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade Memorial Day for Peace May 27, 2013, 1:00 – 3:00 pm Christopher Columbus Park 105 Atlantic Ave. Boston, Massachusetts Please join us Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action and United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 27, 2013 There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs. There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. There will be veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join us as we remember and show respect for their loss. There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends. Program Brian Quirk Scottish Bag Pipes Merrimack Valley People for Peace Rev. Lara Hoke Opening Sec. VFP, Smedley D. Butler Brigade Pat Scanlon Welcome Coordinator, VFP, Smedley D. Butler Brigade Bonnie Gorman / Nancy Lessin In Memory of our friend Charley Richardson Military Families Speak Out Gold Star Families Vietnam VFP, Smedley D. Butler Brigade Dan Perkins What Memorial Day Means to Me VFP, Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Vietnam veteran David Rothauser Hiroshima and Nagasaki VFP, Smedley D. Butler Brigade Kazue Campbell Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor Yoshi Campbell Sev Bruyn, Professor Emeritus, Boston College Dangers of another nuclear catastrophe VFP, Smedley D. Butler Brigade , WWII veteran Pat Scanlon Song – Pop There Goes Boston Coordinator, VFP Smedley D. Butler Brigade (VN 69’) Cole Harrison America after Hegemony Executive Director, Mass Peace Action Webb Nichols Common Thoughts on Our Common Humanity Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Vietnam Veteran TBD Iraqi Refugee Brian Quirk Scottish Bag Pipes Flower Ceremony Rev. Ralph Galen Closing Community Church of Lawrence Jesse Perrier Taps Ex. Comm. Smedley D. Butler Brigade

Out in the Be-Bop 1950s Night –With The Stones’ The Girl With The Faraway Eyes In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Jack Harper wished he had met her, the young woman that he called before he met her “the girl with the faraway eyes,” about ten years before where he was twenty or so. Although from the look of her ten years before would have put her at about age ten or eleven, no more, and probably at that time she had not possessed the sorrows that came with those eyes and without those sorrowful eyes he might very well have passed her by. It had all started when he went to his local jazz club hang-out that he had frequented often since he hit Frisco town a couple of years before over in the Fillmore District, the Red Cap Club, on a Monday night a slow night for anything musical and there she was sitting at the bar by herself, drinking slowly from some scotch glass, the neon Miller Hi-Life sign blinking on the wall behind her, and listening to the boys in the jazz combo as they warmed up for their first set. That was when she first looked his way, not at him, not directly anyway, but in his direction.

It wasn’t that she was beautiful, physically beautiful, although her slender frame, boffed brunette hair, brown eyes, and tight –fitting cashmere sweater would have attracted guys who were not irredeemably hooked on faraway looks by one of the neon wilderness waifs of the world. But that look, that ten- thousand year old embedded in the genes look, that look that spoke of unnamed sorrows, of unnamed bumps in life’s road, but spoke as well of gallant knights tilting at windmills trying to erase that look, of trying to bring some sense of order into her world had him transfixed. He was hooked, and so he walked over, he took the ticket and walked over to the wild side. He asked her if he could sit down and she said “suit yourself” but she also said, giving him her best quizzical smile, that she “hoped he knew what he was in for.” And so it started.

They talked for a bit, the usual chitchat bar stuff, he offered and she accepted the offer of another scotch, which she drank slowly as they talked, mainly of jazz, of the boys, the house combo who were going through their paces on the first set. Going a little shy with a big sound early but also sensing, knowing, that if not early, if not Monday night early, then there would be no big sound audience for them to feed off of later. She, Wendy, Wendy Johnson, when they got around to names, was extremely knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the jazz world that was framing the be-bop nights around San Francisco just then. And framing as well the be-bop poetry that guys, guys like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and mad monk Gregory Corso were spewing forth based on the long gone rhythm, the beat beat, beat down beat, beat around cool ass rhythm, all big note stuff, breaking away a little from Father Duke, Father Count, Father Louis and Mother Fatah Hines, getting purely tonal she called it. She noted that the house band had just a year or so before been all juiced up with big Johnny Hodges-like sex sax blows by Eddie Lee but more recently had begun to feature Miles-like trumpets Gabriel-blowing with new band member Sid Lament.

Jack asked her how she knew some much about the jazz scene, was she a music student, or something. She said no that she had had an affair with Luke Lemming the up and coming trumpet player around town and he had hepped her to the scene. (She seemed too young at twenty-one to be able to call any youthful liaison an affair. Jack thought, hell, he was a decade older than she and he had had only one such liaison that he would designate as such.) Luke took her to all the after- hours places, the back rooms, the places where after guys had had their fill of the paying customers and just blew until dawn, looking for that elusive big breeze curling in from the bay high white note before the sun destroyed the night and their dreams. He had also turned her onto kicks (although Jack was not exactly sure what she meant by that term just then). A few months before Luke had blown her off, had told her that even in wide-open Barbary Coast Frisco a freaky black guy and a white girl was nothing but trouble, trouble for him, trouble for him about six ways including moving up in his profession, and hell not getting called on it by the guys on his block. As she spoke about her loss he noticed that faraway look come over her again.

After he bought her another scotch she asked him whether he would like to step out back and do a little tea to get his head in the right place, to get well, to get some kicks. Jack laughed to himself that now he was beginning to understand why she had that faraway look, that heaven- bound angel look that had hooked him earlier in the evening. Jack was no square, or as least he did not think of himself as square, not square in the red scare cold war 1950s night when tea was a sidebar oddity spoken of in whispers in such places as Frisco, Division Street in Chicago, and Village/Harlem New York City but he had never done it. Still he wanted to understand those faraway eyes, to find out what was behind those eyes and so he told her “what the hell.”

They went out back, she passed him a pre-wrapped joint after lighting up and taking two big draughts herself. He following her lead inhaled, inhaled and started coughing like crazy. Although he smoked tobacco, Luckies, the tea smoke just made him cough and cough. She laughed and told him the next gulp would go down easier. She also said she could not understand why men could just not say they had not experienced something when they hadn’t and he turned red at that. Then she patted his hand as if to say it was okay and he suddenly realized that he was also beginning to get an idea of what she meant when she said she hoped that he knew what he was in for.

After a couple more hits they went back inside the club, Jack reeling a little from the effects of the tea. Sid Lament was in the middle of a cool note breeze trumpet solo and she went to the dance floor alone and began doing her dance interpretation of Sid’s blast. Not sexual, not in the obvious way like some Kama Sutra trance. No, more like she was trying to reach something just beyond her grasp and whatever it was controlled the contortions she was going through. A couple of guys at the end of the bar gave leering stares and started to lightly clap like they thought she was mimicking a strip-tease. Drunks probably. Jack, somewhat less inhibited from the tea smoke, joined her following her lead. (The drunks turned their heads back toward the bartender once that knew they had no play.) He noticed yet again during Sid’s play that she would get that faraway look, maybe more so, maybe go to a private place where that trumpet swoon would carry her to some dreamland, maybe take away some unspoken fear, some awful hurts. All he knew was that there was something almost religious, no, spiritual in that look.

Once that number was finished Wendy told Jack that she had to get home because she had to get to work early the next morning. As she was gathering her things to leave she neither invited him home nor made mention of meeting again. He asked her if they would meet again (after having made a big fumbling deal out of whether he could take her home and then getting a negative response asking her for a future date). She said she would be at the club on Thursday night when Benny Bix and his Quartet were playing. That was as far as she would commit to.

Needless to say, he was at the Red Cap that next Thursday night. She was at the bar alone, sipping, slowly sipping that eternal scotch. They talked for a while during Benny Bix’s first set both commenting that the combo seemed a little unsure where they wanted to go. After that set finished up she again offered him to do some tea out back. They then reenacted that same tea blast scene as Monday night, minus the dancing. Bix’s music was for listening, especially when he was on and so they listened through the second set as the combo found a groove. They or rather she, when it was time to leave also reenacted that same ambiguous parting. He tried to make that same take her home/future date play. Again all she would commit to was that she would be at the club Monday night.

Jack though decided after she left the hell with it, the thing, hooked or not, tea-leafed or not, was going nowhere. She probably had some walking daddy at home who let her roam once in a while and she was just toying with him for kicks. Or she was still in mourning over Luke and other sorrows. (He had heard, asking around, that Luke had taken up with Lilly Loft, the torch-singer, and as black as black could be. Luke would take no grief on the block over that choice.) He was no quitter but it was time to get off that ride. No soap, and too bad. Time to move on.

A few weeks later he was sitting at the Hi Hat Club over on Bay Street, a place he was starting to frequent to avoid the Red Cap, when she walked in alone. Walked in, sat at the bar, ordered a scotch, and gave a look in his direction, not directly at him, no, just in his direction. That faraway look. Yah, she was the girl with the faraway eyes that hid sorrows that he could not reach, could not fathom, and could not ease. He finished his drink, put on his coat, and left.

 

*** For Eddie Klementowski And Those Kindred Who Fought For The Republic In The Spanish Civil War-1936-39

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Eddie Clements right up until the day he died in 1997 always said that he left the best part of himself, the part that was generous and not self-serving, in Spain back in his youth, the1930s, specifically 1936 and 1937 when he had served in a POUM (Party Of Marxist Unification in Spanish) battalion on the Lerida front and had fought like seven dervishes to beat back Franco’s forces, and beat them good. For a while. By the way that POUM military organization (all the political parties had their own military arms, at least at first before the command was centralized under the aegis of the Spanish Communist Party, acting as agents for the Soviet Union who were footing the bill, and the only ones providing military aid to the Republican forces at the time) was the same one that George Orwell got dragooned into and wrote about in his famous book Homage to Catalonia. And a further by the way, just so you know, Eddie Clements was not his real name, not back then anyway but he had shortened it and Anglicized it when the deal went south on the Republican forces and it was a lot better, a hell of a lot better, for him to seem to be English when he tried to immigrate to the United States in1939.

Eddie, born Edward Klementowski, a Polish national, was on the run in those days from the Pilsudski regime in Poland and found himself in Spain like many others when they saw that the shades were being pulled down over Europe by one madman or another. Of course in Poland Eddie had been a Polish Communist Party member in good standing until about 1936 when he was expelled from the party for some vague Trotskyite heresy and hence when he tumbled into Spain he joined the POUM militia since the Polish unit of the International Brigades was off limits to him, way off limits to hear him tell over beer or seven at Mike Diceks’s Tavern over in “Little Poland,” Andrew Square in Boston.

That is where Pete Markin who gave me the story had meet him back in the 1970s when somebody that he worked with, also Polish although born in the United States, who knew the newly left-wing politicized Markin was interested in the Spanish Civil War and guys who actually fought there. And so they met, met occasionally, when Markin was in the area and discussed, or maybe that was too polite a word over a few beers (usually on Markin’s tab) the various maneuvers, military and political of that war. And when they finished up any session Eddie would always, always close by saying that he had left the best part of him in Spain back then. It took Markin a long time to understand that, to mull over the politics of it, since he had been way to young, hadn’t even been born yet, when some hearty men not afraid to fight, and to die,became the “premature anti-fascists” in that struggle. He, himself, a military veteran, Vietnam, although kicking and screaming about it, and thus no stranger to war, and rumors of war, could not understand what it was like when men went way out of their various ways to fight in Spain. He was glad that they did, glad that Eddie did so, but still he was perplexed by that commitment.

Moreover he and Eddie would have some friendly battle royales (usually after a few too many of Mike’s Polish imported beers) about the “correct” strategy that should have been applied in the Spanish situation. Eddie adamantly stood on the grounds that after the suppression of Franco’s forces by the Republican forces in the summer of 1936 the Commune should have been declared like in Russia in 1917. The Republican forces had the capacity, at least in the areas they controlled, especially in Catalonia, to do so but were, according to Eddie, hamstrung by the policy of the Communist Party (and behind that organization, the Soviet Union) that it was necessary to win the war against Franco first and then the Commune could be proclaimed and some socialist organization of society attempted.

Pete felt just the opposite, felt under the influence of the communists that he associated with at the time that, given the isolation of the Spanish Republican forces, the attitude of the British and French governments to try and maintain the status quo in Europe in the face of the menace of Hitler and his associates that military victory was the first consideration. Eddie would bring up the May Day events in Barcelona to buttress his case but Pete would counter that, given the precarious military situation those Barcelona actions were counter-productive (actually he said he used the stronger words counter-revolutionary in those days).

And so they would go back and forth, fighting the old political battles like it was just that minute that such questions had to be decided for good. And then Eddie would pull out one his stories, his stories of the personal acts of bravery and bravado in the battles that he had witnessed, had a part in, and the fury of the polemics would wilt before those acts of bravery and devotion. That was the reality of Eddie’s Spain, and such material Peter enhanced long time love affair with the kindred of that fight.

Eddie would tell one story in particular about when his unit was pinned down in some desolate out rock and it looked like curtains for them because the Franco forces had them surrounded on three sides and the other exit was over some tough and exposed rocky terrain. Now his unit was strictly an international unit because at that time the POUM was putting together such units as morale boosters and as signs of internationalism. One guy, an Irishman, Duffy, who had fought the bloody British in the early 1920s when the heat for an independent t nation in Ireland was on, had been a sapper and so he, out of seemingly nowhere had put together a charge to try to block the Francoists from over-running their position. He and Duffy stayed behind in order to set the charge behind as the others cleared out. Then Duffy told Eddie to get the hell out of there. Duffy stayed and blew the charge blocking the Francoists. At the cost of his own blessed life. Yes, it was stuff like that drove Eddie’s memory bank.

Eddie was reticent to discuss his life after Spain, how he got to America, and the like but later on a few years before he died he told Markin that he had spent too much time drinking and alley-catting while in America and that he just kind of had a tough time adjusting after the various brushes with death that he undertook gladly back then. And that is when Pete finally realized what Spain had meant to Eddie, and maybe that story about Duffy just kind of put paid to the whole experience. Funny though after Eddie died Pete started thinking about all the times that they had argued and Pete started to see that maybe Eddie had a point about the right strategy in Spain. All he knew was that he had lost his last living connection with Spain and he cursed each time he thought about the fact that he had not even been born then to leave the best part of himself there like Eddie.

CITIZEN ACTIVISTS CONFER WITH US ATTORNEY URGING AN INDICTMENT AGAINST U.S. PRESIDENT, CIA DIRECTOR, AND OTHERS FOR WAR CRIMES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Max Obuszewski 410-366-1637 mobuszewski@verizon.net

Malachy Kilbride 571-501-3729 malachykilbride@yahoo.com

Joy First 608-239-4327 joyfirst5@gmail.com

WHO: Members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) and others have taken action to call attention to, and bring an end to the crimes of the United States government since the Iraq war began in 2003.

WHAT: On Tuesday, May 21 members of NCNR went to the U.S. Attorney’s office at the Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, VA to deliver a criminal complaint and call for an investigation into the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) by the CIA. NCNR maintains that the Obama Administration and the CIA drone program is in violation of U.S. and international law.

They met with Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Rossi who officially received the complaint and will be delivering it directly to his superior US Attorney Neil MacBride. MacBride is responsible for the jurisdiction where the CIA is located in Virginia, and the activists were told by Rossi that MacBride will make a decision on whether to move forward with an investigation.

WHY: Members of NCNR are joining activists around the world calling for an end to U.S. attacks by killer drones, with thousands of documented deaths already in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and other places around the globe, including over 200 children in Pakistan alone. The CIA is directly responsible for many of these extrajudicial killings.

The activists told Rossi that they have contacted members of Congress, The White House, and the Department of Justice in attempts to address their concerns about the violations of the law and the victims of US drone strikes. The activists also told Rossi that the unjustifiable killings are making Americans less safe and will lead to vendettas against them. This is why they went to the US Attorney’s Office they said.

"…I have always taken the responsibilities of "citizenship" seriously...I have always voted; I have always advocated and lobbied for important issues with our elected officials. Today, I, along with other activists, have taken the unprecedented step of filing a criminal complaint at the US Attorney's office in Alexandria, VA against President Obama and CIA Director John Brennan for 'crimes against humanity' in their illegal and immoral targeting through US armed drones of citizens in [other]countries… Our objective is the immediate stop (cessation) of all US armed drone activity." said Jack McHale a Virginia resident and member of the national Catholic peace organization, Pax Christi (Pentagon area chapter).

Code Pink activist David Barrows of Washington, DC said, “People outside of this country are of no less value than we are, and justice must be served.”

McHale and Barrows were joined by NCNR activists Joy First of Wisconsin, Malachy Kilbride of Virginia, Max Obuszewski of Maryland, and Manijeh Saba of New Jersey. NCNR members will be following up with today’s filed complaint and encourages activists in other places to take similar actions.

###

Report from Bradley Manning’s last hearing before June 3 trial

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Today was Pfc. Bradley Manning’s final pretrial hearing, and the judge ruled that some of the government’s witnesses will be allowed to testify in closed sessions. The government dropped a major federal statute from one of its specifications but is still pursuing the remaining 21. The court martial begins June 3, 2013 - see how to attend the proceedings here.
By Nathan Fuller. May 21, 2013.

Bradley Manning supporter protesting at Ft. Meade.

Bradley Manning returned to Ft. Meade, MD, for a one-day pretrial hearing, the last such session before his court martial will begin on June 3, 2013. Today’s hearing covered various issues surrounding classified information: namely, how it will be handled at trial, and how much of the court martial will be closed off to the press and public.
Rulings on classified information: some trial sessions will be closed
Judge Denise Lind made two rulings based on the previous closed session, on May 8, when Ambassador Don Yamamoto testified in a ‘dry run.’
In that session, she found that the defense’s proposed alternatives to closing trial during testimony that will elicit classified information – such as using code words, redactions, or substitutions – were inadequate, and therefore the court will be closed for the classified portions of 24 more government witnesses. The government is ordered to speedily provide a (likely heavily redacted) transcript of those closed sessions.
Judge Lind also ruled to narrow what the government will be allowed to present when it attempts to prove that Bradley had reason to believe certain classified information could be used to harm the United States if made public.
The government can show more than that the documents in question were merely classified, and it can provide some context for the documents’ content and hypothetical damage it could cause. But it can’t delve too deeply into that context, because the defense will be allowed to challenge that context in court, and Judge Lind doesn’t want the court martial to “devolve into many trials regarding international politics in many regions of world.”
Government drops one CFAA specification
Before those arguments began, almost in passing, the government revealed that it is no longer pursuing the greater charges for Specification 14 of Charge 2. Specification 14 refers to the Reykjavik-13 cable, and the greater offense is violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In February, Bradley pled guilty to a lesser-included offense of that specification, one that carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail. The greater offense carried a 10-year maximum sentence, but the government is dropping that for the Reykjavik cable alone.
In the charge sheet, that cable was separated from the remainder of the Department of State cables, which are contained in Specification 13. It was separated because the government alleged that the bulk of the State Dept. cables were released between March 28, 2010, and May 27, 2010, but that the Reykjavik-13 cable was released between February 15, 2010, and February 18, 2010. The defense challenged the latter dates, and now the government has dropped it.
Stipulation of facts regarding OBL raid
It was also revealed that the defense and government have agreed to enter a stipulation of facts regarding the evidence found from Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound as an appellate exhibit. That document stipulates that during that raid, the U.S. collected digital media which included three items: (1) a letter from Osama bin Laden to a member of Al Qaeda requesting that the member gather defense material posted to WikiLeaks, (2), a letter from the same member of Al Qaeda to Osama bin Laden, attached to which was the Afghan. War Log as posted by WikiLeaks, and (3) Dept. of State information released by WikiLeaks.
The parties stipulating to these facts could remove the need for the government’s classified ‘John Doe’ witness to testify.