This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privatization Effort Now!
WASHINGON, DC – A new ad blitz launching today aims to stop efforts aimed at privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs, in their tracks. The ads, sponsored by VoteVets Action Fund, will be airing nationally and on the internet, with particular attention paid to areas with lawmakers who will be influential in deciding the future of veterans health care. The total buy for the ads is $390,000, with $320,000 on television and $70,000 on the internet. The ads will run, beginning today, for one week.
While the ad is airing nationally, particular attention will be paid to people living in Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
The first ad, airing on television, features Patrick Cleveland, a Vietnam Veteran.
In the ad, Cleveland explains, “In Vietnam, I counted on my fellow soldiers to help me make it out alive. Here at home, the VA has done the same. They caught my lung cancer early. At another hospital, they would have never known that was connected to Agent Orange. But some folks in DC want to privatize my VA. The VA is better prepared to serve veterans because they know what we veterans have been through. The VA saved my life. Now it’s up to us to save the VA.”
The second ad, which will appear online, to target a younger audience, features Victor Phillipi, an Iraq War Veteran.
In the ad, Victor says, “When I was a Platoon Leader in Iraq, we had to lean on one another to get through. My PTSD really got worse around some anniversary dates of combat operations I was involved in. That’s when I first went to the VA for treatment. They helped me tremendously through a little bit of some medication and being around other veterans and talking. But some folks in Washington DC are talking about privatizing my VA… And I’m not sure I’d get health care I trust. The way I see it: the VA saved my life. Now it’s up to us to save the VA.”
Both ads end with the same call to action: “Tell Congress, don’t let Trump privatize my VA. 202-225-3121.”
The Trump administration is making good on the Trump campaign’s word to consider moving veterans health care to “some form of privatization,” as campaign advisor Sam Clovis put it, in May, 2016.
In testimony to the Senate, VA Secretary David Shulkin outlined a plan that, if implemented, would begin the creation of a VA insurance plan which would be divorced from VA care, and take funds away from care. Under that plan, the VA could begin sending veterans directly to the private, for-profit sector, and close VA centers as they become underutilized. The result would be a fast track to privatization of the VA.
VoteVets Director of Government Relations, and Iraq War Veteran Will Fischer explained the purpose of the ads by saying, “The Koch Brothers are using everything they’ve got to try to push through privatization of veterans health care, which would toss veterans into the for-profit, private system. We’re here to say that veterans are going to fight it, all the way. Our ads make clear that the VA does incredible work, and deserves more support, so it can properly serve all veterans. For those public servants standing up against privatization, we want this to serve as encouragement to keep up the fight. To those who find themselves leaning towards supporting the Trump privatization scheme, we want them to know we’re going to let their constituents know what is happening, so they can hold those politicians accountable.”
Once Again-The Summer Of
Love,1967-Postcards From A Lost Planet
By Jeffrey Thorne
The Scribe said it best
one night, one cold San Francisco night, a summer night when the Japan currents
went awry and reminded one of old Mark Twain’s witty sayings about the coldest
winter he had ever spent-August in the city of sweet brethren Saint Francis, when
he declared (so like that mad man to use the seventh person imperative for such
small letter events), that the breeze coming through the land would shake society
to its foundations. Would make nine to five a bore, make that long suburban
tract complete with dishwasher and sanitary garbage disposal obsolete before the
last mortgage payment hit the dirt, would make those three point two kids and that
one dog a victim of old-fashioned thinking. Said, get this for a guy who became
a non-believer, a non-believer in risen Christ if you can believe that very
early in his teens (and went to church, side door church just to sit a few rows
behind some lovely he was pining over just to watch her ass so yes a non-believer)
that the new dispensation was at hand-if we could keep it, keep the bastards,
and you know who the bastards were then-the night-takers and guys who conned
you into nine to five dreams, suburban flats and, what was it three point two
kids (we will pass on the not mandatory dog) from barking at the door.
That was the rub, that
little counter attack from out of the blue when we thought the world had
stopped turning on itself
and had gone upside down
that eventually would do in even the Scribe, would turn his mouth to ashes,
would turn a sainted brethren (not many knew his given name was Francis in those
days when everybody was “reinventing” themselves including clustering up new
monikers to get washed clean (also a Scribe expression) down the gutter road,
float him out to the Japan seas long before he ever heard the Duke blast that
high white note. Yeah, blast the times, blast the whole fucking world for
taking down a brethren as pure as snow.
Central Square Cambridge, Ma Stand-Out-Free Heroic Russian Investigation Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner
5 PM - - 6 PM Wednesday October 4, 2017
We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind-Don’t Prosecute The Canary
Winner, a recent Air Force veteran, has been charged under the Espionage Act, a 100-year-old statute originally designed for spies and saboteurs, for allegedly giving a document vital to the public’s understanding of potential Russian interference in U.S. election systems to a news organization. She faces up ten years and a $250, 000 fine. She is now scheduled for trial in Augusta, Georgia in March, 2018.
The charge against Winner is grossly disproportionate to her alleged offense, and is designed to create a chilling effect on investigative journalism by dissuading sources from sharing information that is critical to the public interest. We are dedicated to raising public awareness of Winner’s case, as well as the U.S. government’s persistent abuse of the Espionage Act to silence its critics and stifle journalism.
For more information-Goggle Stand With Reality or Courage To Resist (the same organization that led the fight to free Wiki-leaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning)
Protest of Harvard University’s treatment of Wiki-leaks whistle-blower Chelsea Manning!
Hand off NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden!
In Central Square Cambridge, Ma (the same site as we had many of our Chelsea Manning Support stand-outs) on October 4, 2017 from 5 PM to 6 PM we will have our first stand-out in defense of whistle-blower Reality Leigh Winner-The Committee For International Labor Defense (labor donated)
Fifteen Million (!) Health Professionals to Governments: "Eliminate Nuclear Weapons"
On September 18, two days before the Signing Ceremony for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the UN, four international health federations—together representing over 15 million health professionals—released a statement to "urge all states to sign the treaty" and calling upon nuclear-armed countries to "completely and irreversibly dismantle the warheads, nuclear weapons programs and facilities."
The joint statement was from the World Medical Association, International Council of Nurses, World Federation of Public Health Associations and PSR's international affiliate, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
As The Residue Of The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love Ends-An Encore
Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet, and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.
After completing that project, or maybe while completing it I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.
The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it seems relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included hopefully for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.
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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion, photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful expression.
That project subsequently got me started thinking about the late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of 1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.
Here is what is important today though, about how the dots get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today. Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are you when we need, desperately need, you.
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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.
Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now
Professor GN Saibaba of Delhi University, who is 90% disabled and a tireless advocate of indigenous and other oppressed peoples and castes has been sentenced to life in prison. Learn why and what it may represent for democratic voices in India and internationally.
Panelist David Pugh, a member of the Free Saibaba Coalition-US, travelled to India on a fact-finding mission to learn more about the People's movements in India today. He and other members of the Coalition will present on Saibaba's condition, case, and activism, as well as the relationship between Saibaba's case and the larger situation in India, including the rural anti-displacement struggles and progressive political movements more broadly.
Saturday, September 23rd, 3:30 PM, at the Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA
“We all talk about the roaches. They were constant… As soon as we were comfortable they came out of the shower, the windows, [and from] under the sink.” - Delia Simpson, one of Stephen Frenz's former tenants
This is the reality for hundreds of renters in Minneapolis slumlord Stephen Frenz’s properties. This is the unaffordable housing crisis in Minneapolis.
This week, protests have been organized by InquilinXs UnidXs por Justicia against arch-slumlord Stephen Frenz and the out-of-control gentrification by big developers that’s driving primarily people of color, single families, and working people out of Minneapolis. The week of action will culminate in a Rally for Rent Control at Minneapolis City Hall, this Friday at 2PM.
Slumlord Frenz epitomizes everything wrong with the for-profit housing market, where developers like Frenz maximize profits off the poorest and most vulnerable communities. While Frenz and his partner in crimes, Slumlord Spiros Zorbalas, represent the extreme, their pursuit of profit at all costs is the vicious norm for big developers seeking to transform Minneapolis into a playground for the wealthiest 1%.
Unfortunately, the political establishment, freely accepting campaign donations from big developers and big landlords, cannot be relied on to represent the interests of renters and working people. With a record $1.5 million flowing into the mayor’s race, this is already the most expensive election in Minneapolis history.
We need a new kind of politics - one that openly and unabashedly represents renters, working- and middle-class homeowners, and working people. That’s why we need representatives like Ginger Jentzen who are not for sale to the highest corporate bidder.
City Council’s proposal for a 5 year ban on Slumlord Frenz owning rental property is completely inadequate. Frenz should be banned for life for owning rental property. Further, we need a Slumlord Frenz law that protects renters from rapacious landlords. We need a Renters’ Bill of Rights, and we need rent control to prevent big landlords from jacking up rents to suit their profits.
But to win these reforms, we need to build a movement, like with the fight for $15. And we need a new left political force, fully independent of corporate cash and the political establishment.
