From The Boston Bradley Manning Support Committee Archives (April  2012)

 

 

 

Standing  In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning During The Week Of April 23-29 In The Boston Area-Why I Will Be Standing With Private Manning On Friday April 27^th In Davis Square, Somerville And Saturday April 28^th At Park Street Station In Boston

 http://www.bradleymanning.org/

 

We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning. 

 

According to the Private Bradley Manning  Support Network there are a series of actions planned in Washington, D.C at the Justice Department on April 24^th and at Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25^th and 26^th in connection with the next round of legal proceedings in his case. I had originally intended to travel down from Boston to take part in those events that week but some other obligations now prevent me from doing so. Nevertheless there two on-going activities in the Boston area where those of us who support freedom for Bradley Manning can show our solidarity during that week.   

Every Friday from 1:00 -2:00 PM there is an on-going solidarity vigil for Brother Manning at the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop in Davis Square, Somerville.

Every Saturday from 1:00-2:00 PM there is an on-going peace vigil/speak-out in our struggle against the war (or wars) of the moment being orchestrated by the American government and its allies at the Redline MBTA Park Street Station in Boston (Boston Common). Bradley Manning’s case is a natural extension of those struggles.  

Please plan to attend either or both of these events on Friday April 28^th (Davis Square) and/or Saturday April 29^th (Park Street) to stand in solidarity with Bradley Manning. I have included my original comment made when I had expected to go down to the Washington/Fort Meade events as motivation for you to stand with Bradley on those days here in Boston.    

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

Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Fort Meade Maryland On Wednesday April 25th At 8:00 AM - A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner

 

<b>Markin comment:

</b>

Last year (2011) I wrote a little entry in this space in order to motivate my reasons for standing in solidarity with a March 20th rally in support of Private Bradley Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia where he was then being held. I have subsequently repeatedly used that entry, <i>Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner</i>, as a I have tried to publicize his case in blogs and other Internet sources, at various rallies, and at marches, most recently at the Veterans For Peace Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade in South Boston on March 18th.

 After I received information from the Bradley Manning Support Network about the latest efforts on Private Manning’s behalf scheduled for April 24th and 25th in Washington and Fort Meade respectively I decided that I would travel south to stand once again in proximate solidarity with Brother Manning at Fort Meade on April 25th. In that spirit I have updated, a little, that earlier entry to reflect the changed circumstances over the past year. As one would expect when the cause is still the same, Bradley Manning's freedom, unfortunately most of the entry is still in the same key. And will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Brother Manning until that great day.

*****
Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Fort Meade , Maryland on April 25th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

Of course I will also be standing at the front gate of Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient for my standing at the front gate at Fort Meade on April 25th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an additional reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a citizen-soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this comment after all is about brother soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came”.

Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me get through the tough days inside. So on April 25th I will be just, once again, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, Brother Manning, are a true winter soldier. We were not able to do much about the course of the Iraq War (and little thus far on Afghanistan) but we can move might and main to save the one real hero of that whole mess.

Private Manning I hope that you will hear us and hear about our rally in your defense outside the gates. Better yet, everybody who reads this piece join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to high heaven against this gross injustice-<b><i>Free Private Bradley Manning Now!</i>

 

 

An appeal from Daniel Ellsberg

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Help us continue to cover 100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today. An appeal from Daniel Ellsberg During the Vietnam War I worked in the Pentagon under Robert McNamara. In Vietnam, my background as a Marine officer allowed me to walk with the troops in combat and see the war up close. What I found was a costly, immoral war that could not be allowed to continue. My decision to reveal the top secret Pentagon Papers to the American public was an act of conscience. These documents showed that we were in a destructive, wrongful war, and that we had entered that war under false pretenses. My hope was that, armed with this truth, the American people could act to end that war. Today, a young soldier named Bradley Manning faces trial for a similar act of conscience, and he needs our help. In releasing documents and videos to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, PFC Manning made an enormously positive impact on world events. He revealed the terrifying misdeeds by American and coalition forces, such as the 2007 Baghdad airstrike that targeted and killed at least 12 Iraqi civilians. He opened a new pathway for truth and justice to reach the world, perhaps preventing the next unjust war from ever beginning. He even helped inspire a new, global movement for openness and democracy, ringing out from Tahrir Square to Wall Street. To me, and many others, Bradley is a hero. Yet, for his courage, Bradley faces life in prison — much like I did 40 years ago. And just as I was arrested and called a “traitor” by President Nixon, Bradley’s charges include an accusation of “aiding the enemy,” even though there is no evidence that any individual was endangered by his disclosures. Bradley, now 25 years old, is far too young, and has too much to offer this country to spend the rest of his life in prison. He needs our support. That support has worked already. In March of 2011, I proudly got arrested along with 35 others at the Quantico Marine Base while Bradley was being held there in solitary confinement. Bradley had spent nine months in conditions considered torture by the UN. However, shortly after our protest, with your help, Bradley was transferred to much more humane conditions in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Americans who care about the future of our country need to be involved in Bradley’s defense. The defining issues of the 21st century, including the transparency and accountability of our government, are at stake. I believe history is on the side of those who seek to reveal the truth, not on the side of those who seek to conceal it. But, as my example shows, there are those in government who rely on crimes and secrets, who will seek to punish him and dissuade others from offering truth to the American people. Mercifully, the Vietnam War did end, and many consider the release of the Pentagon Papers to have helped. With your assistance, Bradley’s impact can be even greater. Help us continue to cover 100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today. The Bradley Manning Support Network has been key in coordinating nationwide support efforts for Bradley’s defense, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from thousands of people. We need money to support ongoing grassroots efforts—including rallies, petitions, and ads. Most importantly, however, we need to continue fully funding Bradley’s legal defense efforts—including possible appeals, all the way up to the US Supreme Court, if need be. The future of truth-telling is at stake, and a young man’s selfless, heroic act of patriotism deserves our support. P.S. If you are one of the 18,000 friends who have already given to Bradley’s Defense Fund, thank you. On the eve of this historic trial, I’m asking you now to please give once more, and to give whatever you can. Your commitment, your creativity, and your energy remain vital, but right now, we need money as well. This is a crucial time in shaping support and public discourse in favor of Bradley. The Bradley Manning Defense Fund, hosted by Courage to Resist in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network, is responsible for 100% of Bradley’s legal expenses. Courage to Resist is a program of the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ), a non-profi t organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code. Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, contact Courage to Resist at 510-488-3559. Help us continue to cover 100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today.

***WHEN DID THE 1960'S END?-The Anti-Vietnam War Events Of May Day 1971

 

Peter Paul Markin comment:

I have recently been reviewing books and documentaries about radical developments in the 1960’s. They included reviews of the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the memoirs of Bill Ayers, a central figure in that movement. Throughout this material one thing that I noticed was that the various interviewees had different takes on when that period ended. Although in the end the periodization of history is a convenient journalistic or academic convention in the case of the 1960’s it may produce a useful political guide line.

It is almost universally the case that there is agreement on when the 1960’s started. That is with the inauguration of Democratic President John F. Kennedy and his call to social activism. While there is no agreement on what that course of action might entail political figures as diverse as liberals Bill Clinton and John Kerry on to radicals like Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers and this writer agree that this event and its immediate aftermath figured in their politicization.

What is not clear is when it ended. For those committed to parliamentary action it seems to have been the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the events around the Democratic Convention in 1968 that led to the election of one Richard Milhous Nixon as President of the United States. For mainstream black activists it seems to have been the assassination of Martin Luther King that same year ending the dream that pacifist resistance could eradicate racial injustice. For mainstream SDSers apparently it was the split up of that student organization in 1969. For the Black Panthers, the deaths of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark proving for all to see who wanted to see that the American government was really out to get militant blacks off the streets. For those who thought that the counterculture might be the revolution the bloody Rolling Stone’s concert at Altamont in California in 1969 seems to have signaled the end. For the Weather Underground the 1970 New York townhouse explosion and death of their comrades was the signpost. Since everyone, everybody who tried to struggle through and make sense of the decade, can play this game here is my take.

I can name the day and event exactly when my 1960’s ended. The day- May Day 1971 in Washington D.C. The event- a massive attempt by thousands, including myself, to shut down the government over the Vietnam War. We proceeded under the slogan- IF THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT SHUT DOWN THE WAR-WE WILL SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. At that time I was a radical but hardly a communist. However, the endless mass marches of the period and small local individual acts of resistance seemed to me to be leading to a dead end. But the war nevertheless continued on its savagely endless way. We needed to up the ante. That day we formed up in collectives with appropriate gear to take over the streets of Washington and try to get to various government buildings. While none of us believed that this would be an easy task we definitely believed that it was doable. Needless to say the Nixon government and its agents were infinitely better prepared and determined to sweep us from the streets-by any means necessary. The long and short of it was that we were swept off the streets in fairly short order, taking many, many arrests. We had taken a terrible physical and psychological beating that day from which the movement never really recovered. To borrow for Hunter Thompson above we had seen the high water mark washed away right before our eyes.

I walked away from that event with my eyes finally opened about what it would take to made fundamental societal changes. On reflection, on that day we were somewhat like those naïve marchers in St. Petersburg, Russia that were bloodily suppressed by the Czarist forces at the start of the revolution there in January 1905. Nevertheless, in my case, from that point on I vowed that a lot more than a few thousand convinced radicals and revolutionaries working in an ad hoc manner were going to have to come together if we were to succeed against a determined and ruthless enemy. Not a pretty thought but hard reality nevertheless. Enough said.

 

***On Memorial Day- The Road Less Traveled- With A Tip Of The Hat To Poet Robert Frost

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin :

I am not a big fan of Robert Frost's poetry (although his public readings were very interesting) but this one every once in a while "speaks" to me when there are two (or more) choices to make in life.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 20

*********

Sergeant John Prescott, “Johnny P.”to his pals gathered around a small table, drinking sodas and coffee, in the next room was a quiet, unassuming guy, a guy with just that barebones patriotism that animated many working class kids to “do their duty” and join up when America was in danger, no questions asked. Not quite “my country, right or wrong” but pretty close when all was said and done. And as the early 1960s, the time of high school fun and frolic and for ace football star Johnny P, fun and frolic with one fetching Chrissie O’Shea and their flaming romance that was the talk of the Class of 1964 at old North Adamsville High, turned to mid-1960s and clarion calls that the country was in danger in some place called red-infested Vietnam.. Johnny, and not just Johnny, answered the call. And here, gathered around a small table, in early May 1968 his old corner boys from in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the downs” were chatting away like mad.

Suddenly, Frank Riley, fabled Frankie, the king of the be-bop Salducci’s night in those fresher days, yelled to no one in particular but they all knew what he meant, “Remember that night after graduation when Tonio threw us that party at the pizza parlor.” And all the other five gathered at the table became silence with their own memories of that night. See, Tonio was the king hell owner and zen master pizza maker at Salducci’s and a guy who treated Frankie (and therefore most of Frankie’s friends) like a son. So Tonio put out a big deal party right on the premises, closed to all but Frankie, his friends and hangers-on (and girls of course). Tonio, at least this is what he said at the time, appreciated that Frankie brought so much business his way what with his corner boys, their corner boys, and the, ah, girls that gathered round them and who endlessly fed the juke box that he had to show his appreciation in such a way. And everybody had a great time that night, with the closed door wine, Tonio-provided wine, flowing like crazy and nobody, no authorities or parents the wiser for it.

Part of that great time, the part the guys around the 1968 table were remembering just then, the part of that great gun-ho 1964 time occurred late that night when, plenty of wine under their belts, Frankie and the corner boys, talked “heroic” talk. Talked about their military service obligations that was coming up right on them. And this was no abstract talk, no this night, for not only was this a party put on by Tonio to show his gratitude but a kind of going away party for ace football player and part-time corner boy (the other part, the more and more part, with one fetching Chrissie O’Shea), Johnny Prescott, who signed up right after graduation and was getting ready to leave for “boot camp” at Fort Dix, New Jersey in a few days. So everybody was piling on the bravery talk to Johnny about “killing commies” somewhere, maybe Vietnam, maybe Germany, hell, maybe Russia or China. And Johnny, not any rum-brave kind Johnny, not any blah blah-ing about bravery, football or war, Johnny just kind of sat there and let the noise go by him. His thoughts then were of Chrissie and doing everything he could to get back to her in one piece.

Of course heaping up pile after pile on the bravery formula was one Frankie Riley, ever the politician and well as keenly acknowledgement corner boy king, who had so just happened to have landed, through a very curious connection with the Kennedy clan, a coveted slot in a National Guard unit. So, Frankie, ever Frankie, could be formally brave that night in the knowledge that he would be far away from any real fighting. His rejoinder was that his unit “might” be called up. The others kidded him about it, about his “week-end warrior” status, but just a little because after all he would be serving one way or another. Also kind of silent that night was Fritz Taylor just then ready to “do his duty” after having had a heavy-duty fight with his mother about his future, or lack of a future, and her “hadn’t he better go in the service and learn a trade” talk.

Most vociferous that night was Timmy Kiley. Yes, Timmy, the younger brother of the legendary North Adamsville and later State U. football player “Thunder Tommy” Kiley. He was ready to catch every red under every bed and do what, when and where to any he caught. Timmy later joined the Navy to “see the world” and saw much of some dreary scow in some dry-dock down in Charleston, South Carolina. Even Peter Paul Markin, Frankie’s right-hand man, self-described scribe, and publicly kind of the pacifist of the group, who usually got mercilessly “fag”-baited for his pale peace comments was up in arms about the need to keep the “free world” free. But that was just the way he talked, kind of a studied hysterical two-thousand facts diatribe. Markin, student deferred, at that 1968 table had just gotten notice from his friendly neighbors at the North Adamsville Draft Board that upon graduation he was to be drafted. And he was ready, kicking and screaming about some graduate school project that the world really needed to know about, to go. That was the way it was in the neighborhood. Go or be out. Frank Ricco, the so-called token Eye-talian, of the Irish-laden Salducci’s corner boy night (and a kid that Tonio actually hated, some kind of Mafioso, omerta thing with his father) also displayed super-human brave talk that night but he was credited , not so many months later of not only going in the Marines but of seeing some heavy-duty action in jungle-infested Kontum, and some other exotic and mainly unpronounceable place farther south in the water-logged rice paddles of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.

Quiet, quieter than Johnny Prescott thinking of Chrissie, or Fritz, sullenly furious at his mother or at his hard-scrabble fate, or both, was Johnny Callahan. Johnny no stranger to corner boy controversy, no stranger to patriotic sentiments, at least publicly to keep in step with his boys, secretly hated war, the idea of this war coming up and was seriously hung up on the Catholic “just war” theory that had been around since at least Saint Augustine, maybe earlier. See Johnny had a grandmother (and also a mother, but less so) who was an ardent Catholic Worker reader and adherent to their social philosophy. You know, Dorothy Day and that crowd of rebel Catholics wanting to go back to the old, old days, the Roman persecution days, of the social gospel and the like. And grandmother had the “just war” theory down pat. She was the greatest knitter of socks for “the boys” during World War II that the world may have ever known. But on Vietnam she was strictly “no-go, no-go, no way” and she was drilling that in Johnny’s head every chance she got (which was a lot since Johnny, having, well let’s call it “friction” with his mother sought refuge over at grandma’s). Now grandma was pressing Johnny to apply for conscientious objector status (CO) but Johnny knew that as a Catholic, a lapsing Catholic but still a Catholic, the formal “just war” theory of that church would not qualify him for CO status. He wanted to, expected to, just refuse induction. So that rounded out that party that night. Hell, maybe in retrospect it wasn’t such a great party, although blame the times not Tonio for that.

Just then, as each member at the table thought his thoughts, started by Frankie’s remembrance someone from the other room called out, “pall-bearers, get ready.”

Postscript: Sergeant, E-5, John Phillip Prescott made the national news that 1968 year, that 1968 year of Tet, made the Life magazine photo montage of those killed in service in Vietnam on any given week. Johnny P.’s week was heavy with casualties so there were many photos, many looks of mainly working-class enlisted youth that kind of blurred together despite the efforts to recognize each individually. And, of course, Johnny P.’s name is etched in black marble down in Washington, D.C. John Patrick Callahan served his two year “tour of duty” as federal prisoner 122204, at the Federal Correctional Institution, Allentown, Pennsylvania. The road less traveled, indeed.

***In The Time Of Your Parents'(Ouch, Maybe Grandparents') Folk Moment, Circa 1955

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Yes, Freddy had heard it, folk music or whatever his parents and the local DJ on Henry’s Folk Hour called it, you know the stuff that the pioneers way back in their covered wagon or somebody sang around the campfire to keep the Indians away, or to while away some mountain dew Saturday night nursing along the white lightning, or somebody’s idea of summer camp fun along with some make-do banjo or wooden guitar, wafting through the house, through the Jackson household as background music back in the early 1950s. He knew he had heard of folk music before when June Simmons ("June Bug" when they were younger back in Clintondale Elementary days and he had been, well, smitten with her, but that term no longer held sway now that they were high school juniors, and she had not been his June Bug for a while, now being Rick Roberts’ june bug) had asked him one day in class whether he had heard much folk music before Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind had hit town and had bowled all the hip kids, or those who wanted to be hip (or beat, depending on your crowd), over.

Yes, now that he thought of it, he remembered having more than one fight, well not really a fight, but an argument with either Frank Jackson, Dad, or Maria Jackson (nee Riley), Ma, whenever they turned over the local (and only local) radio station, WJDA, to listen to their latest, greatest hits of World War II, World War II, squares-ville cubed, even then when he was nothing but a music-hungry kid. You know that old time Frank Sinatra Stormy Weather, Harry James and the Orchestra’s I’ll Be Home, the Andrews Sisters doing some cutesy bugle boy thing, or the Inkspots harmonizing on I’ll Get By (which was at least passable). Yes, squaresville, cubed, no doubt. And all Freddie, and every other kid, even non-hip, non-beat kids, in Clintondale was crazy for was a rock and roll jail-break once in a while-Elvis, Chuck, Bo, Little Richard, Jerry Lee anybody under the age of a million who knew how to rock the house, how to be-bop, and if not that at least to bop-bop. He lost that fight, well, lost part of it. In the end, after hassling Frank and Maria endlessly for dough to go buy 45s, they finally, finally bought him a transistor radio with a year’s (they thought) supply of batteries down at the local (and only) Radio Shack.

But he had lost in the big event because if they weren’t listening to that old time pirate crooning World War II music they were swinging and swaying to such upbeat folk stuff provided by Henry the folk DJ on that same sole local station. Stuff, hold your nose stuff, like Lonnie Donegan goof trebling on Rock Island Line making a fool of what Lead Belly was trying to do with that song, trying bring some blood and sweat to that song, Vince Martin and friends, harmonizing on Cindy, Oh Cindy in the martini cocktail hour breezes, The Tarriers, and not Harry Belafonte who at least had some style , trying to be-bop the Banana Boat Song at the ball, Terry Gilkyson and friends making a pitch, a no-hit pitch, to Marianne, and Russ Hamilton blasting the girlfriend world to the first floor rafters withRainbow. Squaresville, cubed.

And you wonder why when rusty-throated Bob Dylan came like a hurricane onto the scene in the early 1960s with Blowin’ In The Wind andThe Times They Are A Changin’, angel-voiced Joan Baez high white note covered his With God On Our Side, or even gravelly-throated Dave Van Ronk covering House Of The Rising Sunor Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies Freddie and his crowd finally go that pardon they were fighting for all along. And, praise be, the end of folk musak. Oh yah, and now that Freddie had gone native and embraced the new wave folk message blowing in the teen alienated night Miss June Simmons seemed to be calling him up every once in a while asking whether he would like to go over to Harvard Square some night and listen to some folk stuff at one of the coffee-houses there.

From The Boston Bradley Manning Support Committee Archives (June 2012)

Remarks made by a member of Veterans For Peace at the May 9^th 31 Saint James Street Boston rally in solidarity with our embattled SEIU sister and brother janitors.

Sisters and brothers, hermanas y hermanos, we of  Veterans for Peace stand in solidarity  with our hard-working fellow workers trying to get some justice in this wicked old world and not let them lose their jobs to some faceless corporation seeking to play “the race to the bottom” for their own profits.

I, personally, stand in solidarity as well, because back in the day I too worked for a time as a janitor right over here at Emerson College in the dark of night. That was just to earn some dough. Later, when I got more politically savvy, I was a janitor in a unionized automobile plant. So I KNOW that the brother and sister janitors working at 31 Saint James Street are hard-working. Buffing the floors, vacuuming the rugs, dusting this and that, emptying wastepaper baskets, and, well, cleaning the restrooms, and no offense to the mujeres, in the audience, theirs were the worst to clean. You janitors know what I mean, right?  The office buildings, the factories, the industrial and high tech parks don’t just clean themselves. It takes honest work by the forgotten and unseen obreros to do it. And they should be paid well and have job security for their efforts.

Now Veterans for Peace is best known for its militant anti-war work, especially in these days of permanent war just now centered in Afghanistan but next year who knows where once the imperial government rears its hind legs. But VFP has also participated in the anti-capitalist struggles around Bank of America and home foreclosures and the like. Think about it though, the struggle against war, the struggle against the profit-gouged banks and their predatory practices and the struggle against the race to the bottom capitalists for labor dignity and some social and economic justice. Mi amigos they are all the same struggle, the same fight. So as the old time militant labor slogan goes- an injury to one is an injury to all. Venceramos.

 

From The American Left History Archives-Let Us Solemnly Commemorate OWS On September 17^th Each Year- And Move On- Radical Writer Joshua Lawrence Breslin Pulls The Hammer Down On The Occupy Movement

Markin comment:

“…The Occupy movement has now declared unequivocally that it is a movement of generals without an army. And likes it that way ”- from an article, Whither Occupy?”- by Joshua Lawrence Breslin in the East Bay Other, December 22, 2011.

Note that Brother Breslin ( I will explain that bond in a minute) did not say that the Occupy movement was an army without generals.  Josh’s finely-tuned sense of which way a movement is heading and why picked that nugget out long before this writer in early spring had to concede the point, a sense he has developed, by the way, over forty years of writing for half the unread ( just kidding , Josh), and in some cases unlamented , radical and progressive journals and  newspapers in this country.  Brother Breslin always had shape antennae for the ebb and flow of social movements going back to the 1960s when he saw the ebb of those high heaven movements fall apart around the 1969 “Days Of Rage” at a time when I did not see the ebb until the 1971 May Day Tribe attempts in Washington, D.C. to shut the government down over the ever-continuing Vietnam War. So Josh Breslin is somebody I listen to.

Back in December I, as usual, dismissed his remarks as so much bad air as a result of having been burned by some of his experiences on the West Coast (his base for many years, although he resides now mostly near his old home town of Olde Saco up in Maine) and at the Occupy Boston site at Dewey Square. I, in what now seems like a fit of hubris, defended the movement as just about the best thing since sliced bread. Oh sure I had my fair share of criticisms, criticisms from a socialist perspective about the “no demands” demands and the like. However I saw most of the stuff  that I disliked as “growing pains”  and particularly held out hope for the General Assembly idea as the embryo of an alternative form of government in our new world a-borning .  

Josh, if he is honest,  will admit  that he too shared some of my “generation of ‘68” hopes that this new movement would be the place where we passed on the torch the next generation (really the next next generation, there is a “missing generation (roughly the Occupy kids’ parents). Now those hopes have dissolved in the spring air and that son of a bitch proved right again.

Why have I spilled so much cyberspace “ink”  on the august opinions of an old-time radical writer?  Simply put because I recently was approached by a “true believer,” a self-described socialist ‘true believer” in the Occupy mission to answer some questions about my take on what socialists contributed (or didn’t ) to the movement and other questions along those lines. Naturally when such questions are raised I turn to my old comrade Josh for his opinions, suggestions, etc. Josh and I have shared many a picket line duty, many a lonely vigil, many a forlorn march for some underpublicized cause, and many a rally for some aspect of the world’s ills so our bonds of brotherhood run deep, even if we seldom agree on political perspectives. I have placed his answers to that true believer’s questions below. To finish up though let me quote his closing remark which has been telegraphed in the headline to this piece. “Let’s solemnly commemorate September 17^th each year-and move on.” Pure Josh Breslin. But, damn him, he’s right-again.   

***********
[Markin: I have deleted questions that Josh, for his own reasons, did not answer. My answers will form part of that true believer’s essay so I have not included them here. ]   

Socialists in the Occupy Movement (Massachusetts)

I'm trying to keep this Massachusetts specific, but feel free to refer to national events when applicable.

Feel free to send this to other socialists who may be interested in answering questions.

Feel free to skip any questions that are not applicable by writing N/A.

Share links to relevant articles where appropriate.

1. Your name? Or if you prefer to use a pen-name for this interview, please write it down.

Joshua Lawrence Breslin (my by-line name but just Josh  in mixed company, mixed being political and non-political) 

2. What socialist organization are you a part of? Or if you are an independent socialist, do you have some other affiliation (journal, union, etc.)?

Independent Socialist-East Bay Other , Real Paper, The Barb, Boston Phoenix, Rolling Stone, Green Weekly, and too many other papers and journals to mention

3. How would you describe yourself ideologically?

Traced from youth- Catholic Worker etched-liberalism (same as Markin except that his was Irish mine Gallic-derived) , Cold War social democracy, communist fellow traveler radical –League Of  California Radicals, now for many years, an independent radical 

4. When did either you or your organization get involved in the Occupy Movement (specifically in Massachusetts)?

I attended the pre-encampment meetings before September 30th, had a writing assignment at Occupy Oakland for most of  October and early November, came back and worked at Dewey Square from then on. 

5. Did you or anyone from organization camp out in an Occupy encampment? 

Are you serious? No. Old men do not “camp out” on the highway. And young people shouldn’t either.

8. How would you characterize Occupy's relation/reception to socialists ideas? Good? Bad? Indifferent? –

Indifferent but a studied indifference to any ideas beyond the mush of “ideas” that held the camp together. I once commented that for a political movement that then held the public center of attention there was less political discussion at Occupy than I had run into off-handedly in various pre-Occupy rallies and marches in which I had participated. That observation has only gotten stronger as the movement has fallen apart.    

11. Were you a part of any Occupy working groups? Which ones and your assessment?

Socialist Caucus-short-lived, not well-attended and mainly a “mail-drop” and endorsement vehicle for other actions, including those which I supported and sought endorsements for. The caucus I believe pretty accurately reflected the weaknesses of the non-academic socialist movement in Boston (and probably more generally the radical milieu) as far as numbers go, desire for an all-inclusive socialist organization where groups and individuals could fight out their politics while doing the necessary united front work that has to drive the movement in this period, and general post-Soviet demise indifferent and/or hostility to socialism beyond the endlessly prattled passive poll figure that the younger generations now have a more positive attitude toward socialist ideas and  do not want to shoot every socialist on sight.     

Action for Peace-mainly the same observations as for the Socialist Caucus except that it really was kind of redundant to Veterans for Peace and UNAC organizational efforts reflecting the composition of the members of the group. Most successful action was as part of the February Hands Off Iran rally but that event, a real united front rather than Occupy event, demonstrates the redundant nature of the group. As a general observation about the working groups I would note that pre-Occupy organizations, for a time, found it worthwhile, and rightly so, I think, to work under the Occupy umbrella. Of late I note that most groups now work under their previous individual organizational forms and not under the Occupy umbrella.

General Strike OB- planning for May Day 2012. The best group I worked with, again too small for the task, the general strike task that originally animated its formation. Made up of a core of anarchists who were very hard-working but who also (as I did) kept some distance from OB GA (except for dough). To the extent that it might help you I have placed my May 2012 reflections here.  

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I have noted on several previous occasions  that due to the recent absence of serious left-wing political struggle (prior to the events at Occupy Boston in Dewey Square from October to December 2011anyway) that our tasks for May Day 2012 in Boston centered on reviving the international working class tradition beyond the limited observance by revolutionaries, radicals and, in recent years, immigrants. This effort would thus not be a one event, one year but require a number of years and that this year’s efforts was just a start. We have made that start.

The important thing this year was to bring Boston in line with the international movement, to have leftist militants and others see our struggles here as part of an international struggle even if our actions were, for now, more symbolic and educational than powerful blows at the imperial system. I believe, despite the bad weather and consequently smaller than anticipated numbers on May Day 2012, we achieved that aim. Through months of hard outreach, especially over the past several weeks as the day approached, we put out much propaganda and information about the events through the various media with which we have access. The message of this May Day, a day without the 99%, got a full hearing by people from the unions, immigrant communities, student milieu and other sectors like the women’s movement and GLBQT community.  The connections and contacts made are valuable for our further efforts. 

 Some participants that spoke to me on May Day (and others who had expressed the same concerns on earlier occasions) believed that we had “bitten off more than we could chew,” by having an all-day series of events.  While I am certainly open to hear criticism on the start time of the day’s events (7:00AM does stretch the imagination for night-owlish militants) the idea of several events starting with that early Financial District Block Party and continuing on with the 11:00 AM Anti-Capitalist March which fed into the noontime rally at Boston City Hall Plaza  and then switching over to the immigrant community marches and rally capped off that evening by the sober, solemn and visually impression “Death Of Capitalism” funeral procession still seems right to me. Given our task –introducing (really re-introducing) May Day to a wider Boston audience we needed to provide a number of times and events where people could, consciously, contribute to the day’s celebration. Maybe some year our side will be able to call for a one event May Day mass rally (or better a general strike) but that is music for the future. 

Needless to say, as occurs almost any time you have many events and a certain need to have them coordinated, there were some problems from technical stuff like mic set-ups to someone forgetting something important, or not showing at the right time, etc. Growing pains. Nevertheless all the scheduled events happened, we had minimum hassles from the police, and a couple of events really stick out as exemplars for future May Days. The Anti-Capitalist March from Copley Square, mainly in a downpour, led by many young militants and which fed into the noontime City Hall rally was spirited and gave me hope that someday (someday soon, I hope) we are going to bring this imperial monster down. The already mentioned funeral procession was an extremely creative (and oft-forgotten by us) alternative way to get our message across outside the “normal” ham-handed, jack-booted political screed.

Finally, a word or two on organization. The Occupy-May Day Coalition personnel base was too small, way too small even for our limited goals. We need outreach early (early next year) to get enough organizer-type people on board to push forward. More broadly on outreach I believe, and partially this was a function of being too small an organizing center, we spent too much time “preaching to the choir”-going to events, talking to people already politically convinced , talking among ourselves rather than get out into the broader political milieu. For next year (which will not be an election year) we really need union and community people (especially people of color) to “smooth” the way for us. We never got that one (although we want more than one ultimately) respected middle-level still militant union official or community organizer that people, working people, listen to and who would listen to us with his or her nod. Radical or bourgeois politics, down at the base, you still need the people that the people listen to. Forward to May Day 2013.           

12. Did you or your organization bring any proposals to a General Assembly? How were those proposals received?

As noted the General Strike proposals, in line with the national and international thrust for May Day were well-received, including for money. I would note that during the post-encampment period GA served as more of a “mail drop” and endorsement vehicle similar to the working groups I was involved with. If couched in the right language and sufficiently genetic (read; noncontroversial) most proposals that I was associated with passed with a minimum of friction. The main point though is to trace the political demise of GA from an October “people’s voice” operation to a “rump” in the post encampment period. Its writ did not run very far (and maybe never did except in the political winds). That was highlighted by May Day where the central Occupy struggle event (the Financial District Block Party) fizzled, fizzled badly. As I said back in December “we are generals without an army.” People, including political genius Markin, thought I was crazy when I first said that, but as usual, my political antennae were very sharp.      

 13. What do you or your organization perceive as the weaknesses of Occupy? Please elaborate.

See most of above. I will just outline here as a summary. Too attached to the camp idea beyond its usefulness. Too caught up in camp details once it became a “homeless shelter” toward the end of October.  A studied lack of serious political discussion beyond platitudes. No demands which ordinary people could organize around and fight for. And desperately need to fight for too.  Too wedded to the almost politically infantile ideas that formed the movement (mic check, endless GA prattle, absolute consensus, non-representative assemblies, moral blocks). Too many marches and rallies without purpose other than to proclaim 99%-dom. Too wedded to a purely social media concept of revolution in the U.S. and not taking into consideration the differences between here and let’s say, in Egypt. No links, other than formal and those tenuous, to organized labor, blacks, Latinos, working women, non-radicalized students, ordinary working people, hard-pressed suburban home-owners, etc. Unwillingness, incapacity, or even awareness of political timing of the need to shift perspective as the movement fell apart in winter and spring. Too wedded to the “leaderless” leader concept. In short all the problems that one should have expected of a movement that “had” it for a political minute last fall and essentially squandered it. That is a hard thing to swallow for me. Harder still it is not something that can really be addressed (at least for Boston) at this late date.   

14. Any campaigns that you/organization have been involved in? (ex. Occupy the T). In what way? 

See above.

15. Where do you see the Occupy movement going from here?

As I said above -… “we are generals without an army.” From all appearances of late that looks like the situation for the future as well. I would note that from the declining number of active working groups, smaller size of those groups, and the rather cult-like actions of the remnant of OB GA it is not good. We should have a solemn commemoration for the OWS movement every September 17^th- and move on.   

 

***The Hills And Hollas Of Home-In Honor Of The Late Hazel Dickens

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin

Kenny Jackman heard the late Hazel Dickens (d. 2011) for the very first time on her CD album It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song some years back, about 2005, when he was in thrall to mountain music after being hit hard by Reese Witherspoon’s role as June Carter in the film Walk The Line. At that time he was into all things Carter Family unto the nth generation. A friend, a Vermont mountain boy, hipped him to Hazel during his frenzy and he picked up the CD second-hand in Harvard Square. Hazel’s You’ll Get No More Of Me, A Few Old Memories and the classic Hills of Home knocked him out. The latter, moreover, seemed kind of familiar and later, a couple of months later, he finally figured out why. He had really first heard Hazel back in 1970 when he was down in the those very hills and hollows, those Appalachia badlands and back roads, that are a constant theme in her work, and that of the mountain mist winds music coming down the crevices. What was going on though? Was it 2005 when he first heard Hazel or that 1970 time? Let me go back and tell that 1970 story.

Kenny Jackman like many of his generation of ’68 was feeling foot loose and fancy free, especially after he had been mercifully declared 4-F by his friendly neighbors local draft board in old hometown of North Adamsville, south of Boston, on the ocean south of Boston. So Kenny, every now and again, took to the hitchhike road, not like his mad man friend Peter Paul Markin with some heavy message purpose a la Jack Kerouac and his beat brothers (and a few sisters) but just to see the country while he, and it, were still in one piece. On one of these trips he found himself kind of stranded just outside Norfolk, Virginia at a road-side campsite. Feeling kind of hungry one afternoon, and tired, tired unto death of camp-side gruel and stews he stopped at a diner, Billy Bob McGee’s, an old-time truck stop diner a few hundred yards up the road from his camp for some real food, maybe meatloaf or some pot roast like grandma used to make or that was how it was advertised.

When he entered the mid-afternoon half-empty diner he sat down at one of the single stool counter seats that always accompany the vinyl-covered side booths in such places. But all of this was so much descriptive noise that could describe a million, maybe more, such eateries. What really caught his attention though was a waitress serving them“off the arm” that he knew immediately he had to “hit” on (although that is not the word used in those days but “hit on” conveys what he was up to in the universal boy meets girl world). As it turned out she, sweetly named Fiona Fay, and, well let’s just call her fetching, Kenny weary-eyed fetching, was young, footloose and fancy free herself and had drawn a bead on him as he entered the place, and, …well this story is about Hazel, so let us just leave it as one thing led to another and let it go at that.

Well, not quite let’s let it go at that because when Kenny left Norfolk a few days later one Billy Bob McGee’s ex -waitress Fiona Fay no longer serving the famous meatloaf like grandma used to make off the arm (although Fiona hipped Kenny to the fact that the steamer-frayed specialty was just so-so and thus not grandmother worthy) was standing by his side on the road south. And the road south was leading nowhere, nowhere at all except to Podunk, really Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and really, really an even smaller dink town named Pottsville, just down the road from big town Prestonsburg, down in the hills and hollows of Appalachia, wind- swept green, green, mountain mist, time forgotten . And the reason two footloose and fancy free young people were heading to Podunk was that a close cousin of Fiona’s lived there with her husband and child and wanted Fiona to come visit (visit “for a spell” is how she, the cousin, put it but I will spare the reader the localisms). So they were on that hell-bend road but Kenny, Kenny was dreading this part of the trip and only doing it because, well because Fiona was the kind of young woman, footloose and fancy free or not, that you followed, at least you followed if you were Kenny Jackman and hoped things would work out okay.

What Kenny dreaded that day was that he was afraid to confront his past. And that past just then entailed having to go to his father’s home territory just up the road in Hazard. See Kenny saw himself as strictly a yankee, a hard “we fought to free the slaves and incidentally save the union” yankee for one and all to see back in old North Adamsville. And denied, denied to the high heavens, that he had any connection with the south, especially the hillbilly south that everybody was making a fuse about trying to bring into the 20th century around that time. And here he was with a father with Hazard, Kentucky, the poorest of the poor hillbillies, right on his birth certificate although Kenny had never been there before. Yah, Fiona had better be worth it, worth the sorrow.

Kenny had to admit, as they picked up one lonely truck driver ride after another (it did not hurt in those days to have a comely lass standing on the road with you in the back road South, or anywhere else, especially a young man with longish hair and a wisp of a beard), that the country was beautiful. As they entered coal country though and the shacks got crummier and crummier he got caught up in that 1960s Michael Harrington Other America no running water, outhouse, open door, one window and a million kids and dogs running around half-naked, the kids that is, vision. But they got to Pottsville okay and Fiona’s cousin and husband (Laura and Stu) turned out to be good hosts. So good that they made sure that Kenny and Fiona stayed in town long enough to attend the weekly dance at the old town barn (red of course, run down of course) that had seen such dances going back to the 1920s when the Carter Family had actually come through Pottsville on their way back to Clinch Mountain.

Kenny buckled at the thought, the mere thought, of going to some Podunk Saturday night “hoe-down” and tried to convince Fiona that they should leave before Saturday. Fiona would have none of it and so Kenny was stuck. Actually the dance started out pretty well, helped tremendously by some local “white lightning” that Stu provided and which he failed to mention should be sipped, sipped sparingly. Not only that but the several fiddles, mandolins, guitars, washboards and whatnot made pretty good music. Music like Anchored in Love and Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies, stuff that he had heard in the folk clubs in Harvard Square when he used to hang out there in the early 1960s. And music that even Kenny, old two left-feet Kenny, could dance to with Fiona.

So Kenny was sipping, well more than sipping, and dancing and all until maybe about midnight when this woman, this local woman came out of nowhere and begins to sing, sing like some quick, rushing wind sound coming down from the hills and hollas (hollows for yankees, okay). Kenny begins to toss and turn a little, not from the liquor but from some strange feeling, some strange womb-like feeling that this woman’s voice was a call from up on top of these deep green hills, now mist-filled awaiting day. And then she started into a long, mournful version of Hills of Home, and he sensed, sensed strongly if not anything he could articulate that he was home. Yes, Kenny Jackson, yankee, city boy, corner boy-bred was “home,” hillbilly home. So Kenny did really hear Hazel Dickens for first time in 1970, see.

FromThe American Left History Archives-From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston) Archives-This Is Class War-We Say No More-Defend Our Unions! - Defend The Working Class! Take The Offensive! – From The Pen Of Radical Journalist Joshua Lawrence Breslin-On Generals Without An Army?
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Working Class Everywhere!

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

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Peter Paul Markin comment:

 

A while back my longtime friend, Josh Breslin (Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those old enough to recognize that name from half the alternative presses in this country, large and small, over the past forty years or so) sent me an e-mail the contents of which I have commented on in this space under the entry “General Assembly Blues- A Cautionary Tale.” (See post below.)The substance of the piece was that Josh felt that the Occupy idea was ripe for the picking by those bourgeois political forces that were hovering around the movement lately looking like wolves ready to feast on an easy meal. Without going into detail here he also argued that there were some very Potemkin Village-like aspects of the Occupy Boston movement since the police raid on December 10^th (2011) scattered the tribe. The most remarkable statement though, or at least the one which stuck in my mind after reading his e-mail, was his characterization of Occupy as “generals without an army.’’ That little twist has haunted me not a little since after some thought and some further investigation I find that statement to have some truth in it.       

Now some readers of this post will dismiss the whole notion of generals, or at least the free-wheeling use of any military terms when speaking of the movement, out of hand. That would be unfortunate because that expression was merely a short-hand way for Josh to say what many people I have spoke to already sense. This “leaderless” movement has leaders, there is nothing wrong with leaders emerging if based on doing hard political work and winning authority, and that in a very important sense those fairly small numbers whose lives are now entwined with the Occupy movement are de facto leaders and that is just hard political realty. Period    

And an equally hard fact is that through the thick and thin of committee meetings, working groups, “rump” General Assemblies (Josh’s word but there is also truth in that characterization as well) and other forms of actions (mainly small, very small) over the past period (and thus a mood that pre-dates the demise of Dewey Square) is that the Occupy movement has lost much steam. Some of this was, and should have been, expected. And perhaps with a better political focus here in Boston that may be turned around. But the hard-headed reality is that a lot of possibly very good cadres are spinning their wheels with no forces (or not many) behind them. Others are just doing what comes naturally, content to attend endless meetings, discuss endlessly, and let other hostile forces come in and pick those very good cadres clean. Ya, sometimes Josh Breslin is clueless on stuff but on this on he is preaching to the converted.         

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General Assembly Blues- A Cautionary Tale

Peter Paul Markin comment:

I had never seen my old friend Josh Breslin so irate (Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those who know him under that moniker through his various commentary columns in all kind alternative press operations over the past forty years or so). Or rather more correctly I had never read anything of his that practically steamed off the page, the computer screen page that early Monday morning (December 19, 2011, let’s see the time stamp, oh yes, 5:14 AM, Ya early, definitely early for Josh) when I was casually perusing my daily e-mail delete slaughter-house. It seems that he had attended an  Occupy Boston  General Assembly (GA) meeting the night before over at the hallowed Community Church on Boylston Street (hallowed in leftist circles, I had first gone there long ago to attend a commemoration program for Sacco and Vanzetti). Since the police raid on the Occupy camp at Dewey Square in the early morning hours of December 11^th the GAs have been assembling helter-skelter at various locations from the Parkman Bandstand on the Common to various sympathetic indoor as winter sets in locations, mainly churches, in order to keep some continuity during these unsettled times.

At that meeting the main order of business was a simple proposal submitted by the OB Socialist Caucus, a loose group of organizationally-affiliated and unaffiliated people who identify themselves with the socialist cause. The gist of the proposal was to make a forthright statement that Occupy Boston was to be clearly identified, more clearly identified than in any previous document, as independent of the main bourgeois parties, the Democrats in particular, and by implication was not to be a front or voting cattle bloc for any particular organized political operation ready to move in like hungry wolves looking for an easy meal. This proposal never reached a vote, a yea or nay vote, that night because it was “blocked” well before such a vote could be taken by, as Josh called it in his e-mail, the “Rump” assembly (see said e-mail posted below, well the gist of it anyway). The Rump being a minority of those eighty or so brethren in attendance that evening whose maneuver in the consensus-addled GA world stopped the proposal in its tracks. This series of events triggered in Josh some kind of previously well-hidden verbal explosion about the trends that he had witnessed developing in the movement, and that had disturbed him previously. Naturally he had to send his old compadre Peter Paul his bilious e-mail as the first step in his “campaign” to get things off his chest. 

A little explanation is in order to gauge the seriousness of Josh’s maddened impulse and, as well, for why I have taken the time to write this little commentary up and pushed it forward. Josh and I go back a long way, back to the summer of love in San Francisco in 1967 when I was on Captain Crunch’s merry prankster magical mystery tour freedom bus and I met Josh, then going under the moniker “Prince Of Love,” on Russian Hill in that town. Ya, I know, we were just a little too self-important on changing the name changed the person thing but that was the way it was. I was, for a while, known as Be-Bop Benny, among other names.

Josh had, after just graduating from high school up in Olde Saco, Maine hitch-hiked across the country to see “what was happening.” We hit it off right away, probably because my being from North Adamsville here in Massachusetts we were the only New Englanders “on the bus,” even though I was a few years older. In any case our friendship survived through thick and thin, even despite his “stealing” my girl, Butterfly Swirl (okay, okay I will stop with the a. k. a’s), from right under my nose during the first few days we knew each other. Part of that thick and thin has been involvement in a long series of left-wing political struggles where we have not always seen eye to eye but have generally been “on the right of the angels.”

And that, roughly, brings us to the present. Along the way, for a number of reason that shall not detain us here, I increasingly came to socialist conclusions abut the nature of American society and the ways to change it. Josh, while always on the cutting edge of those same conclusions, never crossed over and has maintained a studied non-socialist radical position very similar to many that I have run into as the Occupy movement has gathered steam. As a paid political commentator for various publications Josh  has always kept a certain skeptical distance from going overboard every time there is the slightest left breeze coming in over Boston Harbor. Until now.        

As I have written elsewhere Josh, now retired, still likes to keep his hand in the mix and so has been working on a project that may turn into a book about the Occupy Boston experience. When he first he crossed the river from the wilds of Cambridge he held himself pretty aloof from the doings but soon became totally enmeshed in what was going on. I was, and still am, a lot more skeptical about where the winds are heading. Josh though spent some nights at Dewey Square and got involved in the camp life. He marched up and down the streets of Boston in every possible cause. He brought food and other goods to the site when he came over. He donated money and other resources to the efforts. He even told me that he washed dishes (once) to help out in the kitchen one day. And believe me in the old prankster days the Prince of Love was, well, too “important” to bow down and get his hands wet doing anything as lowly as dishes. So this new experiment (or rather a chance to make up for those youthful mistakes) really energized him.         

So when Joshua Lawrence Breslin, on a darkened Monday morning, signals that something is wrong, something is politically wrong with the direction of the movement I listen up. And, perhaps, you should too.

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Below I have placed the substance of the e-mail that Josh Breslin sent to me that fateful Monday December 19th morning. This is my summarization of the document which was written by him in our usual “code” and with his usual excessive use of expletives to normal ears so that it would be not understandable to “outsiders.” In short I have edited it as best I could while retaining the political direction. If Josh doesn’t like it then he can, well, sue me. Ha ha. Or better, write his own damn translation. Peter Paul Markin.  

December 19, 2011, 5:14 AM  to PeterPaulMarkin@yahoo.com:

Pee Pee, [The reader is hereby warned no to make anything out of this old-time nickname, old time going back to childhood North Adamsville working-class neighborhood days, or else.] You won’t believe what those arrogant airheads did last night at the so-called GA. I call it, and you can quote me on this, the “Rump” like back in Oliver Cromwell’s time when a bunch of cronies controlled everything, or else. They “blocked” the proposal to have a clear statement of independence from the damn Democrats (and Republicans too) but we know who really wants in on this movement.      

What they did was get together enough people to block the thing even though with a simple majority it could have gotten through. So much for democracy.  For once you are right on this blocking and consensus b.s. Now when Miss Betty [Elizabeth Warren] comes a-courting she will have a field day. You and I have disagreed on many things but keeping the bourgeois parties the hell away from our movement (except maybe to do “Jimmy Higgins” work putting up chairs or licking envelopes, stuff like that) has always been something that has united us ever since Chicago in 1968.    

You should have heard the reasons given. Naturally the old chestnut- “we don’t want to alienate anyone” (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, I guess). “It’s too negative.” Like the bourgeoisie gives a damn about negativity as long as they keep their moola and their power. “The statement we have already posted about transparency and independence is good enough” Like that flimsy one-size-fits-all statement has any political meaning at all. And it degenerated from there.  I was so mad I had to walk out and get some fresh air.       

I am far from giving up on this Occupy movement but in a lot of ways it really is like that guy, that homeless camper guy, I interviewed over at Dewey Square in early November when the weather got a little cold said. He said the place was a Potemkin Village. I thought he meant about people not staying there overnight. But now I think he meant the whole experiment.  They, we, are generals without any army right now and nothing that is being done lately is calculated to break out from that situation. Were we this ruthlessly obtuse back in the days?  I hope not- Josh      

Postscript from Markin:

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.”