***On Being Kadin- With Orson Welles’ Mr. Arkadin In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Sometimes it was hard to know about a guy, about whether he was on the level, whether he was playing straight with you. That thought had crossed Frank Leroy’s mind a few weeks before as he heard the proposition put before him by a guy who had been standing right in front of him in his office, a guy named, let’s just call him Mr. Welles, a name that might just have been his real name and after all hell broke loose in the couple of weeks after that who really knew what his damn name was, or who he really was before the whole thing crashed in on him. That playing it straight part though was important to Frank even though in that Welles case he had made a serious error in judgment, an error that in his business, the private, very private, eye business where a life, his life, might depend on whether the guy was on the square, was on the level, or not.

Funny it all seemed so straight at the time, or maybe the money that Mr. Welles flashed at him was just too green and plentiful for him to not push the envelope of straight a little further than necessary. He needed dough just then, needed it to keep the dunning landlord from putting a For Rent on his crummy Acme Office Building two-bit office in London’s East End and more importantly keep his ex-wife’s attorney from slamming him before some irate domestic relations judge for being way behind on his alimony and child support payments. And so he bit, although he knew, no, sensed Welles’ story was just a little too pat.

Of course everybody, everybody in post-world, post-World War II Europe, if you are asking which war, knew who Simon Welles was, or knew the name, knew that he had his hand in every kind of activity, legal and illegal, and that he as a result was one of the richest men in Europe, and maybe the most ruthless in that eerie black market, Marshall aid, red scare cold war night that was descending on Europe. And Welles had the inside track on every kind of angle, had every connection, especially to the Americans, and had, if it came to that, many angels on his side because he spread dough around, enough dough around to make people, hungry, ravaged people, forget the source of his largesse. So when he stood in front Frank, with some kind of weird wig and false beard disguise that he said he needed to protect himself from some guys trying to find him, find him and put a couple of slugs in his skull, he knew he had hit the gravy train. (Welles’ took that wig and beard get-up and Frank immediately knew he was the legendary, ah, financier. At least that was what the sympathetic press called him. )

And here was Mr. Welles’ simple request. It seems that when he had started out his “career,” his early corner boy gangster career in Germany (Frank later found out, found out the hard way, that Welles had started out that very real career in Croatia under the name Arkady, or something like that) that he had been involved in some rough stuff and now that he was well-known certain parties from back then were searching for him with designs on his head, designs to take it off. The problem was that Mr. Welles claimed he had had an accident, a head injury accident, shortly before the war and could not remember what he had done then, whose wrath he might have drawn, and who had sent the guys who had already taken one pot shot at him in Barcelona. (That turned out to be actually have been Madrid where he was known by the name Arkins and that pot shot turned out to be just short of a full field- fire infantry assault on his home there in Welles- friendly Spain.)

So Mr. Welles wanted Frank, since he was English and unknown on the continent to reconstruct his past. And as he flashed those hundred dollar American bills (the only money worth taking in Europe just then. The money turned out to be real enough just in case you are wondering, although not nearly enough to catch him just short of death, and in the end just plain not enough.) Frank saw that the proposition certainly had it risks but not more so than some of the jobs he had handled before for much less kale. So he played his hunch, his spin-the-wheel guy on the level hunch, and took the job.

That was the last safe moment he had. Welles had given him a few leads, a few names of guys who might be able to steer him in the right direction. Yah, he should have known, should have known who was doing the steering, if not why. He went to the first guy, a guy down at the Thames docks, Wally, and asked if he knew a certain name, Aberdeen, and where he might have known it from. He said he knew a guy by that name, or a name like that, Arkwright, back in the early 1930s, a Russian, he thought who brought dough from the Communist International, maybe from Stalin himself , he wasn’t sure, to support a long strike on the docks. He said ask a guy Bruno who he heard was over in Paris working in a café, The Flower, something like that, the last he had heard. (Wally, real name Orlov, unknown to Frank, was found dead three day later face down fished out from along the Thames two well-placed shots through his eyes.)

So Frank moved on to Paris, did some simple leg work and, and found Bruno at the Red Rose Café that catered to Americans with some dough. Frank asked about Aberdeen/Arkwright (it turned out to be Arkwright). Bruno thought for a bit and remembered that he had known that name because he was the guy who provided the funds to get him and his buddies some weapons to form a private militia in Austria when the Germans were egging the Austrian fascists on in the early 1930s to overthrow the Socialist government there. (The money actually came from Italy although it might have originated in Germany; Frank was in no position to follow that up.) Bruno said Mann, a guy still in Vienna, who owned a smoke shoppe, The Cigar Factory, might know more since he was in charge of the militia before all hell broke loose in 1938. (Bruno was found a week later in mysterious circumstances hanging from the ceiling light of his small room, ruled an “accident” as suicides were then labeled by the Paris police).

In Vienna Frank hit pay-dirt. Frank arrived at the smoke shoppe as Mann was about to close. Mann knew everything about the man Frank called Arkwright but that he called Arkov. See Arkov was an émigré Russian who hated the Bolsheviks and he had been there in 1923 when Hitler tried to seize power or whatever the hell he was doing to create havoc. This Arkov was something like Hitler’s bodyguard or something, rough stuff, a real gangster but a gangster with politics and he had helped Mann and his boys out with dough and weapons when things were looking good in Germany in the 1930s and they wanted the same in Austria. This Arkov bragged that he had killed a few Reds in the 1923 melee and then fled. The last he had heard was the Russians still wanted a word with him. That was in early 1941. As the pair finished their conversation and Mann headed to the door to go home for the day a deadly fuselage of gun fire cut Mann down. Frank, who was nicked by a passing bullet, ducked behind the counter and worked his way out the back door and got the hell away from that death trap.

And it was a close thing. See Oscar Kadin, a Croat, our Mister Welles, actually had been an agent of Hitler’s, had killed a number of Reds, and those Reds having long memories, long post-war Cold War memories, decided that they needed to have more than a word with Kadin. They had been following Kadin into Vienna. They had caught up with him later that night in the Imperial Hotel and took care of their business with Mr. Kadin. Frank, forgetting his close call for a minute, thought damn he never got paid the rest of his fee, damn that Mister Welles.

Manning & the media: Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack, Michael Ratner, Peter Van Buren. 6/2 DC

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Daniel Ellsberg speaks out for Bradley Manning (Creative Commons license, Bradley Manning Support Network))

When: June 2, 2013 – 5:00-7:00
Where: All Soul’s Church, 1500 Harvard Street NW, Washington DC, 20009 (Directions)
How has WikiLeaks changed and influenced journalism thus far? How will Bradley Manning’s trial affect the way the press functions in the U.S.?
Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, Government Accountability Project director and DOJ whistle-blower Jesselyn Radack, Center for Constitutional Rights president emeritus Michael Ratner , and former State Department employee Peter Van Buren will tackle these questions in a panel discussion at All Soul’s Church in Washington D.C. on Sunday, June 2, 2013, from 5-7 PM ET.

The panelists will examine how the information released by Bradley Manning helped shaped the public’s understanding of war, diplomacy, and government secrecy, and the way the press reports on each. They’ll explore how the government’s unprecedentedly broad interpretation of “aiding the enemy” in prosecuting Bradley Manning gravely threatens press freedoms in the United States.
Can’t make it to Washington D.C.? We’ll livestream the event at bradleymanning.org.
This event comes just one day after our major rally at Ft. Meade on June 1 and one day before Bradley Manning’s court martial begins, on June 3.

***A Song To While Away The Struggle By-Bruce Springsteen’s Brothers Under The Bridge- With A Story From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

Recently in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to “burn” and download into my iPod I came across a song that stopped in my tracks, the one highlighted in the title to this entry Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (California, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a great depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramps camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles and created their own “society.”

The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me this assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.

After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A couple of weeks ago, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from a story that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round it into shape. The format of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to heard, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for language). I have reconstructed that story here as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said. This is Jeff and Zeb’s story as told by Jeff, probably one of the only stories that have ever driven home to me the hellishness of war and what it does to men’s souls.

For the record Jeffrey James Adams served in Vietnam from mid-1969 to-early 1970 and Zebulon Samuel Johnston from mid-1969 to late 1971. Zebulon Johnston’s name appears etched in no rededicated black marble wall down in Washington but just maybe it should. Read below why.

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This conversation took place one afternoon (date, unknown) in late October, 1977 under a massive concrete overpass along U.S. Interstate 5 just south of Inglewood near Los Angeles, California.

“Yah, Zeb was quite a guy in his time, a guy you could depend on, a guy you could count on, if you know what I mean. Who did you say you worked for, mister? Oh, yah, the East Bay Eye. I still miss the bastard, miss him for leaving me here without a guy I could count on, and will until I leave this good green earth and that ain’t no lie, no sir. A real brother, unlike my own brother who sometimes was a brother to me and sometimes just a same last name.

Zeb and I went back, went back to basic training in the Army down at Fort Gordon in Georgia. Jesus just remembering that hellhole place and that hellhole time and that hellhole way the good citizens outside in Augusta treated us the couple of times we had weekend passes just like the blacks just because I was a Yankee and old Zeb was from broken down Appalachia, some dink town called Hazard, a coal dust town from what he said about it. A town he always said was full of history and written up in song and in the books. But I had never heard of it, and truth, never have heard of it since so I think that was old Zeb just being old Zeb. Just so you know when you write this story his real name was Zebulon Samuel Johnston, named after his father, his pa-pa he said, simple as that. And don’t call him a Johnson, either. He was a Johnston, born and bred, he said.

But the big thing about how we hit it off right from the start was that first day when we got off that olive drab bus and hit the barracks and Jeb was bunked across from me and I had to show him how to tie his boots. See, he never had proper shoes from the way he told it and the way he tried to tie those boots before the boot camp sergeant snapped his neck back for him I can believe that and maybe that was the way things were down in broken down Hazard. All I know is that all through basic training, through rough woods stuff, Zeb paid me back, paid me back big time, for my minute kindness. See he knew more about the woods, and how to survive in them, and little tricks about how to use this and that to get stuff done than a city boy, a big time Boston city boy, Yankee to the core, and corner boy smart not woods smart could ever know.

So he kept me on, as he said, as his mascot. And anytime he needed some fancy way to get out of something he would yell for me, and then he would be my mascot. Tight we were right from basic. Same tight, and you'd better be tight, or get our asses kicked when we took Advanced Infantry Training down at Fort McClellan down in Alabama where the civilians put Yankees and hillbillies below blacks in the pecking order they had established, or so it seemed every time we had town leave.

And then shipped out to ‘Nam. Yah, ‘Nam hellhole of all hellholes and I know, know for certain I never would have made it out alive if not for Zeb. See one time after we had a few days off from the line we hit Saigon and jesus, the place looked just like home, or somebody’s home if that home was Vegas or one of those glitter town, action night or day. I couldn’t leave the place, or want to. Zeb could take it or leave it so he went back first. Well one day, yes, day time he pulled me out of some brothel, some sweet Eurasian girl specialty house just in time to keep me from being locked up for about six months in Long Binh for being, well, a few days over my leave time.

But I am getting a little sidetracked and confused because that is not really the time he saved my young white ass. No that was when we were out in the boonies, out in the Central Highlands, near Pleiku just doing a routine patrol, keeping as far away from the enemy as we could and as close to this little river, a crick Zeb called it, but really a creek, a little low during the dry season. From out of nowhere we start taking fire from“Charlie,” or maybe NVA regulars because the field of fire was pretty concentrated like these guys had done it together for a while. In any case the fire was getting heavy and so I wasn’t paying enough attention to where I was heading. Next thing I know I am in the creek, water all around and muddy, big muddy, and I can’t get out, no way. I take a round in the shoulder; see that scar there, yah, that’s Purple Heart territory. I guess the hit made me crazy, crazy not with pain as with fear, animal fear, and that ain’t no lie. I could smell it and it wasn’t pretty.

I started crying out, started crying out like crazy “Zeb, don’t leave me here to die alone so far from home, please Zeb.” And you know I don’t have to say anything more about it because as you can see Jeb did not leave me in any 'Nam. Yah, he got the Bronze Star for that, and a Purple Heart to boot for his own wounds carrying me to the medivac area although I must have passed out because I don’t remember much after the screaming and that fear smell. My war was over, and I lost a little contact with Jeb as guys will do when they get split up in wartime.

Back in the real world and out, maybe 1972, I was doing okay, a little of this and that, nothing big and nothing that couldn’t be shoved aside like air if I wanted to take off. Then about a year later I heard through a mutual friend that Jeb had made it back to “the real world” after another tour of duty in ‘Nam and was out in Los Angeles. What that friend didn’t tell me, or didn’t know, was that second tour took the stuffing out of Zeb and he had started doing some girl. You know what that is right? Cocaine. Yah, drugs to ease the pain and erase the horror. And once girl couldn’t shake the dreams and the pain then boy, plenty of boy took you out of this world. Boy, since you didn’t know what girl was, is nothing but horse, heroin, sweet dreams, for a while heroin.

Yah, Jeb was in a bad way out there in L.A. living on the streets, knocking off drug stores and I don’t what else is what he told me later when he was sober a couple of times. Somehow our mutual friend gave Zeb my number and one night, one hellish stormy night up in Maine where I was staying working at a small shipyard, I got a phone call from Zeb saying, “Jeff, don’t leave me out here alone to die, please Jeff.” And you know I don’t have to say anything more because I did not leave Jeb to die alone in any L.A. Jesus, no, not a good old country no shoes boy like Zeb in L.A. They would eat him alive.

So, a few days, maybe a week later, we met in a Mission Of God house or some such place over on Wiltshire, not the good part, and I got him fixed up there for a while. He was shaky, very shaky. Then, after a few months, he decided that he had to get out of that mission house and live on the streets. Well not exactly the streets but in a place like this, near the railroad tracks, in case he wanted to head home he said, just a hobo jungle really. So I stayed with him naturally. Somehow he got some boy from god knows where and he went off to the races again. He wouldn’t even consider getting help or leaving the jungle. He said he felt at home under bridges, and along railroad tracks.

Well, somehow one day, I wasn’t around that day I was down at the pier looking for a couple of days work to tide us over, he got a hold of some badass smack , some poison left-over stuff and started dancing on the tracks from what some ‘bo who was there said later. You know as well as I do you can’t dance on any railroad track and not draw a wrong number. They say he tried to get off the track but he wasn’t fast enough.

Yah, Zeb was quite a guy in his time, a guy you could depend on if you know what I mean. I still miss the bastard and will until I leave this good green earth and that ain’t no lie, no sir. Poor Jeb lived on sweet dreams and train smoke and I guess I will for a while. Maybe do a little of this and that again. But not right now, okay.

***Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesdays, 5:00 PM -Update –May 31, 2013

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley-Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
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Obviously the most important update today, May 31, 2013, is that Bradley Manning is finally, after over three years of pretrial detention, getting his day in court. In the lead up to that trial date on June1st there will be an international day of solidarity at Fort Meade and around the world to tell Bradley that he does not stand alone, that we have his back. That solidarity is particularly important in political prisoner cases. So plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st.. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower. In Boston the solidarity event is at Park Street Station downtown, the historic site of many progressive cause actions at 1:00 PM-Be there to tell Bradley you have his back.

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Stop The Media Blackout of The Bradley Manning Trial

Despite the unprecedented and historic nature of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning’s trial, journalists have thus far been banned from recording the proceedings. Because Americans more commonly get their news through television than from any other media source, this presents a major barrier to the American public staying informed on a trial that will profoundly affect the future of our country.

It’s outrageous that the American public is being denied the right to view the trial of U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was appointed by President Obama to ensure civilian oversight of the U.S. military.

Go To the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and sign the petition to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel demanding that he ensure journalists can record Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings! When you sign the petition the network e-mail system will send a message on your behalf to the office of Secretary of Defense.

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Beginning in September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us there in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!

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Those who have followed the heroic Wikileakswhistle-blower Private Bradley Manning’s case over the past year or so, since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearings began in earnest, know that last November the defendant offered to plead guilty to a few lesser included charges in his indictment, basically taking legal and political responsibility for the leaks to WikiLeaks that had been the subject of some of the government’s allegations against him. Without getting into the arcane legal maneuvering on this issue the idea was to cut across the government’s pretty solid case against him being the leaker of information and to have the now scheduled for June trial be focused on the substantive question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” and “aiding the enemy” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. We noted then that we needed to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crimes and misdemeanors and only that. We also noted that he was, and is, frankly, in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever. Especially in light of the following:

After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28, 2013 Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeakswith a trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Private Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. A day after Bradley confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June, now scheduled for June 3^rd.

In exposing the secrecy and lies with which the American government cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.

In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea (written summary available at theBradley Manning Support Network and an audio transcript as well), Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaksincluded military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”

The Pentagon and the Obama Administration declared war against WikiLeaks following the release of a video, now entitled Collateral Murder and widely available, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the“bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”

By January 2010, Manning said, he“began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the press establishment, the latter apparently not considering war crimes of its government, as opposed to all manner of foreign state activities, news fit to print in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that“this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”

The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.”He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment every day.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the “terrorist”enemy, whoever that might be.

The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaks material provided by Manning.

Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison.

In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917.

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The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial. The news on his case over the past several months has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now well over 1000 days. That dismissal motion was ruled on by Military Judge Lind. On February 26, 2013 she denied the defense’s motion for dismissal, the last serious chance for Bradley Manning to go free before the scheduled June trial. She ruled furthermore that the various delays by the government were inherent in the nature of this case and that the military authorities, except in one short instance, had been diligent in their efforts to move the proceedings along. For those of us with military experience this is a classic, if perverse, case of that old army slogan-“Hurry up, and wait.” This is definitely tough news for Private Manning although perhaps a good appeal point in some future civilian court review.

The defense had contended that the charges should be dismissed because the military by its own statutes (to speak nothing of that funny old constitutional right to a speedy trial guarantee that our plebeian forbears fought tooth and nail for against the bloody British and later made damn sure was included in the Amendments when the founding fathers“forgot” to include it in the main document) should have arraigned Private Manning within 120 days after his arrest. They hemmed and hawed for almost 600 days before deciding on the charges and a court martial. Nobody in the convening authority, as required by those same statutes, pushed the prosecution forward in a timely manner. In fact the court-martial convening authority, in the person of one Colonel Coffman, seemed to have seen his role as mere “yes man” to each of the government’s eight requests for delays without explanation. Apparently the Colonel saw his role as a mere clearing agent for whatever excuse the government gave, mainly endless addition time for clearing various classified documents a process that need not have held up the proceedings. The defense made timely objection to each governmental request to no avail.

Testimony from military authorities at pre-trial hearings in November 2012 about the reasons for the lack of action ranged from the lame to the absurd (mainly negative responses to knowledge about why some additional delays were necessary. One “reason” sticks out as a reason for excusable delay -some officer needed to get his son to a swimming meet and was thus “unavailable” for a couple of days. I didn’t make this up. I don’t have that sense of the absurd. Jesus, a man was rotting in Obama’s jails and they let him rot because of some damn swim meet). The prosecution, obviously, argued that the government has moved might and main to move the case along and had merely waited until all leaked materials had been determined before proceeding. The judge saw it the government’s way and ruled according as noted above.

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The defense had also pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer (2012) witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta, also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.

The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary). Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanges that reflected poorly on that profession. The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered. That motion has also not been fully ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter- motions and has been a cause for further trial delay.

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A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In late November and early December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods

Judge Lind, the military judge who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.

*******

An important statement in November 2012 was issued by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails. (Available on the Support Bradley Manning Network website.)

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On February 23, 2013, the 1000th day of Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, an international day of solidarity was observed with over seventy stand-outs and other demonstration held in America and internationally. Bradley Manning and his courageous stand have not been forgotten. Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network for more details about the events of that day. Another international day of solidarity is scheduled for June 1, 2013 at Fort Meade, Maryland and elsewhere just before the scheduled start of his trial on June 3rd. Check the support network for updates on that event as well.

********

6 Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning

*Urgent: The government has announced, in the wake of Bradley Manning’s admission of his part in the Wikileaks expose in open court on February 28th, its intention to continue to prosecute him for the major charges of “aiding the enemy” (Espionage Act) and “material aid to terrorism.” Everyone should contact the presiding officer of the court –martial process, General Linnington, at 1-202-685-2807 and tell him to drop those charges. Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full – you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343– press “5″ to leave a comment.*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message. Do it today.

*Urgent: The military authorities at Fort Meade, the site of Bradley Manning’s impending June 3^rd court-martial are attempting to limit media coverage of the trial.Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/and sign the petition to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hageldemanding that he ensure journalists can record Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings! When you sign the petition the network e-mail system will send a message on your behalf to the office of Secretary of Defense.

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma (corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM. For other locations in Greater Boston, nationally, and internationally check the Bradley Manning Support Network -http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and for details of the current status of the case and future event updates as well. Also plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial.If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.

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

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

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning- The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”

In federal cases, and military cases are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial- former President Nixon and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for example among others, received such pardons for their heinous crimes- Now that Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to some lesser charges and is subject to further prison time (up to 20 years) this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. Free Bradley Manning! Free the whistleblower!

***Out In The 1950s Be-Bop Night-Rick’s Flying Saucer Rock Moment

He was glad, glad as hell that angel thing, that guardian angel hovering over you and at your beck and call making sure that you don’t fall off some wagon, don’t do any of the one thousand one hundred and one that Mother had warned you off, and don’t do anything he (or she as the case maybe), the angel wouldn’t do, was over and done with. You know that Sunday school thing they beat you over head with about how your guardian angel was there to keep you on the straight and narrow, or else. Yes, Rick Roberts certainly was glad that was over although now that he thought about further it just kind of passed out of sight as he got older and other things filled his mind. Things like girls, the mystery of girls at first, but no strictly the mystery of his June ("June Bug" was his pet name for her but he had better not hear you call her that, especially one Freddie Jackson, or else). Yes, Rick was now large enough, strong enough, and smart enough strong, not to have to worry about some needlepoint guardian angel looking out for him. He could look out for himself and his June Bug. Although truth to tell he was worried, a little anyway, kind of vaguely like a long of the talk around the subject, about this Cold War red scare Russian bear thing (his father, Rick, Senior, an old World War II warrior and just as patriotic as the next man called them Russkies) over here to take his brain away, or maybe put the big heat on him, the A-bomb heat and creating alien things from outer space to haunt his dreams. But only a little.

What was exercising Rick these days was his June (you know her pet name but don’t say it, please) and causing him no end of sleepless nights was that thing about Freddie Jackson, June’s old flame. At least according to his sister, Celia, a reliable source of North Adamsville High gossip, and not afraid to spread it when it pleased her, was that Freddie was taking his peeks at June, and she was peeking back. So, lately, in order to pass those sleepless fretful nights Rick had begun to sit up in his bedroom at night with his transistor radio on, the one that he had forced his parents to buy him, batteries included, last Christmas, rather than the practical ties in some god awful colors and styles that he would not be caught wearing they had intended to foist on him. And what Rick listened as the hour turned to midnight was The Crazy Lazy Midnight Madness Show on WMEX, the local be-bop, no stop, all rock radio station the that got the sleepless, the half-awake, the lame and the lazy through the 1950s Cold War night, and into the dawn.

Now this Crazy Lazy Show fare was strictly for night owls, stuff that would not appeal to daytime rockers, you know, those listening to guys like Elvis, Carl, Bo, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee, or just stuff that appealed to Lazy’s off-center, off-beat funny bone. One night, one really restless night, as Rick was revving up the transistor around midnight he heard Buchanan and Goodman’s silly The Flying Saucer, parts one and two back to back no less, so you see Crazy was serious about presenting goofy stuff. That was followed by Sheb Wooley’s devouring the Purple People Eater, and then, for a change of pace The Royal Teens be-bop Short, Shorts and that got his to thinking about how good June looked in them, and then back to zaniness when Bobby Pickett’s flattened Monster Mash hit the air, and as he got a little drowsy, The Detergents waved over Leader of the Laundromat.

That last one got to him, got to him good, because, believe it or not the song had sentimental value to him. See he met June at the North Adamsville All-Wash Laundromat one day. His mother’s washing machine had broken down and she needed to bring the Roberts laundry to the All-Wash and Rick drove her over. During that time June had passed by, he had said hi, they had talked and then more seriously talked, and that was that. Freddie Jackson was after that dust, a memory, nothing to June.

All this thinking really got Rick tired this night and as the last chords of Laundromat echoed in his head he fell into a deep sleep. Around four o’clock in the morning though he was awoken with a start, with the high pitched whining sound coming from somewhere outside his window. Next thing he knew a huge disc-like object was hovering over most of Adamsville, and stayed there for maybe a minute before departing just as quickly as it appeared. Rick took this for a sign, a sign that he and June would hang together. And a sign, maybe a sign from some unknown benefactor, that Freddie Jackson probably should have taken a trip on that flying saucer while he could, or else.

Photos/Video:Anti-War Memorial Day Boston
by Michael Borkson Email: nosanctions (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)	28 May 2013
Boston, Mass.-May, 27, 2013: Peace activists gathered on Boston's waterfront to observe a Memorial Day For Peace-an alternative to the usual militaristic displays of the day.
Boston, Mass.-May 27, 2013: About 100 peace activists, including Veterans For Peace, Military Families Speak Out, United For Justice With Peace, and Mass Peace Action, gathered on Boston's Waterfront near Quincy Market to observe a solemn Memorial Day against war. Speakers included veterans, a Japanese Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor, and refugees from Iraq.Also, Military Families Speak Out co-founder Charley Richardson, who recently passed away, was memorialized as a true and dedicated man of peace. After the speakers, participants one by one tossed flowers into the bay as the names of Mass. US troops and Iraqi and Afghani civilians who were killed in the US wars were read aloud. Photos link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/protestphotos1/sets/72157633746882051/detai/ Video link with extensive video: http://youtu.be/Ab_3N9n15dU Veterans For Peace Boston: www.smedleyvfp.org

***Out On The Mean Streets- “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

“Hey, brother (or sister), can you spare a dime?,” followed by “Got an extra cigarette, pal (or gal)?” Yah, Billy Bailey, used-to-be brash corner boy William James Bailey, certainly had the panhandler lingo down, down pat, after only a few days on the bum. Had his new “profession”down as one might have expected from a Southie corner boy, the corner brick wall in front of Ma’s Variety over on Broadway, circa 1965 who had learned a few things in his time about the youthful clip (grabbing stuff from jewelry and department stores without paying, okay), the jack-roll (taking down a drunk or some poor wandering sap with a sap and leaving him penniless for being at the wrong place at the wrong time) and the midnight grift (a step up from the clip, taking stuff from houses not one’s own and selling it cheap through some shyster fence). This stuff was easy compared to that, and the couple of three month sentences he received courtesy of the county and state when he couldn’t explain why he had somebody’s stuff, somebody who had reported that stuff as stolen. The overhead of the profession he called in those days, those days when the world looked a lot rosier that it did just that moment. Yah , he had never been on the bum then whatever else happened .

Worse though on the bum in his own home town, his ever-loving’ roots, Boston. On the bum this time, this time a as a result of a real fall from grace fall, and not just some a vagrant short money, pick up some spare change, free campsite, Volkswagen bus pick-up sharing stews, brews and dope hitchhike road looking for the great blue-pink American West night with some honey, some Angelica honey, bum like a few years back after he had caught that breeze blowing through his generation’s window. Had given up as nothing but hubris and bad odor those old corner boy habits and had taken up a new age aura, had gotten “religion” about that peace and love stuff. For a while.

In those “for a while” days he practically made a religion, yah a religion out of living “free,” living out of the knapsack, living under a bridge in some makeshift reinforced cardboard hut, or living out in the open, before roaring campfires and hell broth kitchen sink stews, with some interesting railroad jungle camp brothers, no sweat, if need be. But those “golden days” had dried up a few years back and now in 1976 he was facing a real skid row choice. How it happened that he came face to face with such a decision after that new age aura had turned to ashes, had turned in on itself, had turned nasty and greed-headed, if there was such a word, and started looking very much like that hard-edged corner boy night that he had grown up in we will get to along the way. First though let’s set the parameters of what 1976 panhandling, to put an eloquent name on it for “bumming”,shiftless bumming , looked like and how to survive in the new new age of everybody me-ing themselves, even with people who were not on the bum. Christ, lord the times were hard, hard times in old Babylon, no question.

See, a guy, a guy who called himself“Shorty” McGee for obviously physical reasons but who knows what his real name was, maybe he didn’t remember either after all the rum-dum sterno heat years and the endless backsides of skid row haunts, that he had hitched up with for a minute, an overnight minute at the Salvation Harbor Lights Center over in the South End kind of hipped him to the obvious tricks of the new down-at the-heels road. Like putting the two requests together deal when you were panhandling, the request for dough and then for a cigarette or coffee or something, anything to keep you moving, hustling, grabbing. Shorty said it was all a matter of psychology, of working the crowd, the downtown crowd, the bustling Park Street Station crowd, and the Copley Square sunning themselves crowd just right. The idea was that to get you out of their sights and back to whatever sweet thing they were doing that would piece you off with something and if not money then cigarettes or something like that which could be parlayed into something else in trade. So you endlessly put the two requests together, time after time after time, and always. And what happened was that when they turned you down for the dough, or maybe took you literally and pieced you off with just a dime or a quarter, Christ a dime that wouldn’t even buy a cup of joe, they could feel good about themselves, if they smoked, smoked cigarettes anyway, by passing you a butt.

Billy thought, nice, this Shorty really does have it worked out just about right. Of course dimes and drags were not going to get him out from under, not this time.

Well, rather than leaving the reader out in the dark, Billy Bailey that fair 1976 spring was not just on the bum, but on the lam as well, keeping his head very far down, very far down indeed, just in case there were some guys who were looking for him, including a few corner boys who wanted a desperate word with him. Or worse, the cops, in case some irate victim of one of his scams took a notion to “fry his ass.” and yelled for the law. Of course he was counting on them, those victims, being mainly friends and acquaintances, of the new age variety although in the end he tapped down to those corner boy roots, of not putting “the heat” on him since he had already promised through the grapevine that he would make restitution. But we are getting a little ahead of the story, let’s step back.

The early 1970s were not kind to“free spirits” the previous name for what in 1976 were “free-loaders,” strictly drifters, grifters and midnight shifters, and Billy, well, got behind in his expenses, and his bills, his ever expanding bills. You know keeping company with some honeys over on Beacon Street who were getting their kicks from slumming with jailbird corner boys before going off to marry some high-priced corporate lawyer of stockbroker who known the family for years and keeping the lid one a growing jones as result of sharing kicks with those Beacon Street swells. See the transition, the fast transition, from free “s” to free “l” caught him off-guard, moreover he was just then in the throes of a fit of “the world owes me a living,” a serious fit. Why? Well see, he as a pauper son of the desperate working poor, “felt” that since he missed out on the golden age benefits of his youth that he was to make up the difference by putting the “touch” on the richer (not really rich but richer than he knew of, no question) friends that he had acquired through his doing this and that, mainly high-end drug connections. And sampling the merchandise to, well, this is the way he put it, “get him well.”

The long and short it was that he would “borrow” money off Friend A under some scam pretext of putting it to good use (yes, his good use, including several long airplane fight trips to California and other points west-no more hitchhike roads for this moving up the food chain lad once he hipped to the changed scene) and then borrow dough off Friend B to cover some of his debt to Friend A. Something like an unconscious classic Ponzi scheme, as it turned out. And then when he got to Friend X or somewhere around there things got way too complicated and he started “kiting” checks, and on and on as far deep into his white- collar crime mind as he could think. Frankly though Billy was strictly muscle, strictly the hired gun, strictly the gofer and so he got in way over his head. That Ponzi scheme could only go on a for a short while and he calculated that "short while" almost to the day when he would have to go “underground” and that day had sprung up a couple of weeks before.

So it took no accountant or smart-ass attorney to know that dimes and drags, whatever the virtues of Shorty’s insights into the human psyche were not going to get him back on his feet. Nor many of the schemes that Shorty had outlined over at Harbor Lights as ways to grab quick cash. These were chicken feed for his needs, even his immediate needs, although some of the scams would fill the bill for a rum-dum or life-long skid row bum. But here was the secret, the deep secret that Billy Bailey held in his heart, after a few nights on bus station benches, cold spring night park benches, a night bout under the Andersen Bridge over by old haunt Harvard Square, and a few nights that he would rather not discuss just in case, he finally figured out, figured out kicking and screaming, that the world did not owe him a living and that if he wanted to survive past thirty he had better get the stardust and grit out of his eyes. But just this minute, just that underground spring 1976 minute, he needed to work the Commons. “Hey, brother, hey sister, can you spare a dime?” “Pal, have you got an extra cigarette?”

Postscript: Not all wisdom found ends happily, no matter how preciously fought for, and not all good intentions grow to fruition. Yes, Billy paid off his debts to his friends, mostly. (Not by that damn Shorty diems and drags strategy but by picking up a working relationship with a street hustler who turned him on to the growing cocaine industry as the way to get well, well with those who wanted to “fry his ass” first and foremost. Of course Billy could not leave well enough alone, couldn’t see that the thing was fixed from the beginning and rather than work his way up the food chain he got the bright idea that he would go independent. Billy Bailey was killed, murdered under suspicious circumstances never really investigated, left face down in some dusty back road while “muling” some product in a drug war shoot-out in Juarez, Mexico in late 1979. That was the official Federales report anyway, not much to hang a life on. Other sources, not narcs, said that Billy tried to skim a little something off the top, maybe a couple of kilos of cocaine, while he was doing that muling and took a couple of facedown slugs for his efforts. Billy Baily’s life was apparently so inconsequential that it was two years before his widowed mother found out what had happened to him through a hired private eyes she sent to Mexico- Jesus, maybe Billy’s should have stuck with dimes and drags-RIP Billy Bailey.

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

 The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now!

 

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. 

From the American Left History Blog, March 28, 2012

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 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-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!

 

***Out In The 2000s Crime Noir Night-“Sin City”-A Film Review

Sin City, starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, co-directed by Frank Miller, 2005

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Of course when I think of noir it is 1940s-50s noir, black and white in film and in the good guys-bad guys constellation with a little murder and mayhem mixed in to keep one’s eyes open just in case there is no femme fatale to muddy the waters. Neo-noir, such as the film under review, Sin City, is another matter, perhaps. Here’s the why of the perhaps.

Central to the old time crime noir was the notion that crime did not pay and as stated above the bad guy(s) learned that lesson the hard way after a little mussing up or a date with a bullet. Kids’ stuff really when compared to the over-the-top action of this three vignettes series on modern day good guys versus bad guys. Three separate male characters, all tough guys and guys you would want to have at your back if real trouble headed your way, are trying, trying within the parameters of common sense or believability, to clean up slices of Sin City. Sin City as the rather obvious name implies, is in the grips of corruption from the top down, including in virtually every civic institution. Our avengers are trying to cut a wedge into that bad karma by individually, one, tracking down a bizarre, politically connected heir whose thing was slice and dice of very young girls, two, avenge the death of a high class call girl who was kind to one tough guy, and, three, keep the pimps and cops at bay in the red light district where the working girls have set up their own Hookers’ Commune.

All of this doing good is, of necessity in today’s movie world, linked up with, frankly, over the top use of violence of all sorts from cannibalism to barbaric death sentences, well beyond what tame old time noir warranted. Apparently the succeeding crime waves since the 1940s have upped the ante and something like total war is required to exterminate the villains. That and some very up-to-date use of cinematography to give a gritty black and white feel to the adventures. And also a not small dose of magical realism, suspension of disbelief, and sparseness of language to go along with the plot and visual action.

But here is the funny thing, funny for an old-time crime noir aficionado, I really liked this film. Why? Well go back to the old time crime noir premise. Good guys (and then it was mostly guys- here some very wicked “dames” join in and I know I would not want to cross them, no way) pushed their weight around or tilted at windmills for cheap dough or maybe a little kiss. They got mussed, up, trussed up, busted up in the cause of some individual justice drive that drove the “better angels of their natures.” Guess what, sixty years later, a thousand years advanced cinematically, a million years advanced socially (maybe) and these guys are still chasing windmills. Nice, right.