Sunday, June 09, 2013

News

US War objector-in-exile Jules Tindungan

By Bob Meola, Courage to Resist. March 15, 2013
"We treated them like dog shit. We’d roll into a village and the guys would throw water bottles at the kids. We’d do home incursions. It was like police harassment in L.A. that I’d seen growing up. We were foreign cops in another people’s country."
Jules Tindungan (photo right) is a U.S. War Resister living in Toronto, Ontario. He joined the Army in 2005. Jules comes from a military family. His grandfather was from the Philippines and served in World War II and was present at the Bataan death march. An after effect of his service was U.S. citizenship for his family. Many other family members served in the military. Jules’ brother is currently deployed in Afghanistan. Numerous uncles and cousins are also current members of the U.S. military.
Jules told me, “My father is an engineer and my mother is a surgical tech. We were middle to low income living in a low income part of town in Los Angeles. My father hasn’t had steady work in over a decade due to a civil suit against his employer, Cal Trans, for harassment and racism he received at the hands of his co-workers and the non-action of the state in the matter. My mother, for the most part, was the breadwinner. Dad was not able to help in a significant way with the income. Even today, my mom is working sixty hours a week as a surgical tech at a hospital.
“They had four kids and were putting my older sister through college—university. I was a mediocre student. I felt financially I was in a bind. I felt I needed to get a paycheck to help my family. My brother was in the army reserve at the time and helping out the family. He was instrumental and the family encouraged me joining the military. It was like we—my family—had a duty to join the military.
“I joined the Delayed Entry Program during my senior year of high school. As soon as I graduated, I went to basic training. I had about one and a half months in between. In August, 2005, I started basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and then I went to Infantry School.
“Basic training was very tough for me. I wasn’t an athlete growing up. I was into counter culture and punk rock. I had an attitude toward authority. So, basic training was definitely an eye opener for me. That was a few months.
“Then I went to Infantry School where I trained as a mortar man—a sub-class in the infantry—a little version of artillery. I got selected to do follow up training at Airborne School. After that I was selected for the Ranger Indoctrination program. I didn’t agree with the hazing in the program. I quit that after three days.
“Anyone who has been there can tell you that it is really intense. In the middle of the night, they will come in and get you out of bed and make you start doing exercises. It’s called ‘smoking’—physical exercise as punishment. The trainer will pull you out of bed—the hallway floor was drenched with sweat from push-ups and other exercises.
Jules Tindungan, soon after arriving in Canada“I got kicked in the stomach while doing flutter kicks—lying on the ground with my feet six inches off the ground kicking them up and down in the air. When your feet start drooping down ‘cause it’s too hard to keep them up—I had a cadre/trainer kick me in the belly and say, ‘Get your feet back up.’ The floor was slippery with sweat.
“Then I got sent to the 82nd Airborne Division in North Carolina. I was kept in a hold-over battalion that was re-structuring its organization. They called it a RSTA Unit—Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition. I got placed in a new RSTA unit that had no leadership whatsoever. Many of us privates didn’t know what to do. For a number of months in 2008, we had nothing to do. We’d wake up, do physical training and be killing time for four to five hours a day moving furniture and cleaning things. We didn’t have training to prepare us for going overseas until they brought the program leadership in.
“In July or August of 2006, we finally got some training about five months before we deployed. Eighty percent of the unit had zero experience overseas. We were brand new—very green—either right out of basic training or like me—with no training.
“This affected me, personally. My job was to provide indirect fire. If I was in the general vicinity, I’d have to set up to fire tiny artillery shells to support troops in a fire fight. I had no training to do it. The last time I’d fired a round was in basic training. That’s like a rifleman who learns to shoot in basic and then doesn’t shoot for a year. I had to learn as I went.
“I got to Afghanistan in January, 2007 with very little training in my job of being a mortar man. My mortar team killed civilians who were considered collateral damage. There was no accuracy. It’s called bracketing. They say to go to the left or right but it ends up near people’s houses.
“Our unit got thrown right into the fire. We had very little experience. We were along the Pakistan border in the mountains. Because we were a reconnaissance unit, we didn’t stick around one base very long. We didn’t develop local relationships. We were moving around constantly. We had zero credibility with the people. It was bad for us soldiers and it was bad for the local people too. We could never build any rapport between our unit and the people. It created a bad situation wherever we went.
“During 2007, I was on a number of different bases. We lost two people. The unit was—each company was about eighty people. We had three companies. There were about three hundred in the unit. We were very dispersed. We had a number of people wounded and permanently maimed. My buddy, Jose—we got separated. There were thirty or fifty men on bases in the same province, guarding a pass. His platoon got ambushed. A rocket ripped through his truck and exploded between his legs, resulting in the loss of his reproductive organs. He begged a soldier to shoot and kill him.
“Another guy was walking through tall grass. He was shot in the leg. He’s an amputee. He lost a leg. He also got shot in his armor and it bounced around inside and tore up his organs. He was drenched in blood.
“From January to July, we were constantly on the move, securing a district and moving on to another district or province. I was in Pakia, Gardez, and Paktika, and Gaznia provinces. For a large chunk of the deployment, I moved around a lot. In August, 2007, there was a really big long mission in Paktia. Hamid Karzai came to visit too.
“We had to secure this pass. It hadn’t seen any NATO action since 2001, since the initial invasion. They had some Rangers or Special Forces pinned down there. It was big and quick and they left and had never come back. It was an isolated location. We secured the pass for Karzai to come in and talk to the people.
“The orders came from NATO to guard this pass for the duration of our deployment. I was put with Chainsaw Company in Wilderness Base. It was FOB [Forward Operating Base] Wilderness. It was so isolated and far away from any main cities. That’s where I stayed for the rest of my deployment from August, 2007 to April, 2008. The official designation of our enemy was ACM, ‘Anti-Coalition Militia.’ The enemy that we were facing, often times, came from different groups. Eithe they were Haqqani Network, legitimate resistance fighters, or remnants from the old Taliban. Most of the old-school Taliban, from the nineties, had gone and fled to Pakistan after the initial invasion. There was indigenous resistance of farmers and local people. There are about six or seven high ranking Al Queda people left in Afghanistan.
“Some time, late in our deployment, either November or December, 2007, many of us were notified that we were going to be stop-lossed. The leadership in our unit didn’t make it clear whether it would be to Iraq or Afghanistan.
“They let us know that anyone, with a contract ending in 2009, would be kept over for another deployment. That happened in 2009 through 2010. I was in Toronto and I heard about it. A buddy I’d lived in a hut with stayed in contact with me until he died in 2010. I knew in April, 2008 that the next deployment would happen.
“I was already trying to figure out how to change my job—my M.O.S.—and get out of the situation of having to deploy again. I was thinking: They got me suckered into another deployment. There’s no way out of that. But how can I get out of being in a situation again like I was in in Afghanistan, where they had me dropping bombs on people? I had reservations already because of my involvement in the deaths of a couple of civilians. I was wounded in a September, 2007. There was a fire fight around September 20th through 27th. One platoon was heavily pinned down taking heavy fire. We had done BDA—Battle Damage Assessment. Thirteen bodies had fired on seven or eight U.S. troops.
“The called for fire. My mortar team had dropped a number of rounds in that area and blown people to bits. They found a woman and her child who had been killed by one of the mortars I’d dropped. That took a toll on my sanity for a bit. It contributed to me having my first anti-war feelings—my first feelings against this war and death of my friends and it started to snowball in deciding I didn’t want to be a combat soldier anymore.
“We treated them like dog shit. We’d roll into a village and the guys would throw water bottles at the kids. We’d do home incursions. It was like police harassment in L.A. that I’d seen growing up. We were foreign cops in another people’s country.
“I still performed my job. I never went AWOL there. When I came back in April, 2008, I talked to a sergeant major about changing my job to Civil Affairs work. I know now that Civil Affairs is B.S. It’s trying to hand out blankets to make up for its conduct. That didn’t pan out.
“My options were small. After a couple of weeks, I’d planned to go AWOL. A buddy helped me go AWOL. I ran away in the middle of the night, in May. I’d flown to L.A. and lived with friends for a couple of weeks. I stayed away from my family in case they were being monitored. I knew I had a thirty day grace period before being turned in to the system.
“I didn’t even know about IVAW or Courage to Resist or the War Resisters Support Campaign at the time. I found out about all of that after being in L.A. for thirty days. My sister convinced me to come home. My dad was worried that I’d been killed and the Army wouldn’t tell him. So, I had to talk to my dad. I stayed with them. We talked about my options.
“My brother was graduating from ROTC in the last week of May. He was pissed at me. I had to tell him how we locked people in boxes with no ventilation and we strapped bodies on the hoods of our trucks and paraded them around the villages. I put on my uniform and went to his ROTC graduation. That’s the last time I put on my uniform. I gave my brother his first salute as an officer while I was an AWOL soldier.
“The first two weeks I was couch-surfing and the last week and a half I was with my parents, trying to convince them that what I did was right. My dad wasn’t sure. I told him one deployment was enough and I couldn’t be blowing people up again. He said we had some cousins in Vancouver. I had an aunt there.
“The next morning, after the graduation, I went to Vancouver and that is where I filed for asylum. I got taken in by some socialists—some hardcore communists. They taught me a lot about politics. I know nothing about politics when I went AWOL. I wasn’t even totally anti-war. I was anti the messed-up crap that I’d seen.
“I learned a lot and became politically aware, here in Canada. I got involved in some speaking stuff. I got very active. I got worn out speaking in 2009.
“I met my wife in 2008. She’s an activist. We got married in 2009. I decided to live more quietly and stop doing political stuff and started to work. My refugee board hearing didn’t happen for another year—until June, 2010.
“I got to Vancouver, B.C. in May, 2008. I got caught at the border as a deserter. I was on a Greyhound bus full of tourists. I told the Canadian customs people that I had family there. They started looking through my stuff. One officer said I was ‘clean’—nothing on me. I felt they had been looking to see if I was a drug smuggler and I felt it was racist. I was the only person searched. Then they found my military I.D. in my pocket. They had found three previous deserters and now said, ‘He’s one of them.’
“I told them I wanted to apply for asylum. They kept me there for twelve hours asking me questions. They had to let me stay when I asked for asylum. I had stayed a year in Vancouver. Two resisters, who came after me, got kicked out of Canada after four months. But I had moved to Montreal, Quebec in 2009. It was stupid. I didn’t speak any French.
“My buddy, Chris, from my same unit and company, went AWOL too. He was from Philly. He went to Toronto and got a hold of me. I was telling him how things weren’t working out for me. He said to come to Toronto. We lived with him. We both learned the iron working trade. His asylum decision got denied and then he went to Canadian federal court and was successful.
“In my case, the judge agreed, one hundred percent with all of my arguments and demanded that the refugee board hear my case. They had denied me once. The Refugee Board of Canada denied my claim in October, 2012. The federal refugee board denies everyone’s claims because of a clear mandate from the Canadian government. It would change everything if Canada allowed U.S. soldiers to come up here.
“I was trying to figure out what to do. My lawyer, Allyssa Manning, took my case to a higher court and the federal court found in my favor in the first week of January.
“My wife is a Canadian citizen. She is sponsoring me. They can’t remove me from the country without hearing from my sponsor. We filed the papers to be heard. There is so much back-log that they haven’t seen our sponsorship case yet. If that case is successful, I could become a permanent resident of Canada.
“From October through December, 2012, I was worrying. My lawyer said we’d argue for a re-trial at the Refugee Board. The Federal Court couldn’t give me refugee status. They demanded that the Refugee Board rehear my case. A date for a rehearing has not been set yet.
“The government of Canada is conservative. Stephen Harper has made it clear that he doesn’t want us—U.S. war resisters—here. They say we are ‘bogus refugees.’ His party backed the war in Iraq.
“Operational Bulletin 202, in July, 2010, was a notice that the immigration mission handed to immigration officers around Canada saying to kick us out before we can ask for political asylum.
“The New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party back us. We are trying to get refugee status. The government, technically, should not have any say in the immigration process. But they have been trying to influence the immigration process.
“The immigration board recently has tried to say that U.S. deserters are criminals. You cannot have committed another crime in the military that would get you ten years. If you desert from the Canadian Army, you get ten years in prison. They are calling it ‘criminal inadmissability’. They are also saying to deny deserters who have married Canadians. They have shot a couple of people down like that. The process is not supposed to be political. But it has become political. Theoretically, the sponsorship of me could be approved by an immigration officer. It would make me a permanent resident of Canada.”
Jules Tindungan could become a permanent resident of Canada through the sponsorship of his wife, if the government would decide that in his favor. He could also be granted political asylum by the Immigration and Refugee Board because, according to the War Resisters Support Campaign, the Federal Court of Canada “found that the U.S. court-martial system ‘fails to comply with basic fairness requirements found in Canadian and International Law’ therefore impacting whether Tindungan would receive a fair hearing if returned to the U.S.” The Immigration and Refugee Board could decide that Jules Tindungan could not receive an independent and impartial tribunal as required under Canadian and International law if he was deported back to the United States and could therefore grant him political asylum.
The Canadian Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has twice [in 2007 and in 2009] recommended that the government allow conscientious objectors and their families to stay in Canada. In 2008, Parliament voted in favor of the Committee’s recommendation to the government. In 2009, the House of Commons again voted in a non-binding motion in favor of the Committee’s recommendation. But the Harper government has not honored that recommendation.
What is needed is for the courts of the United States and of the U.S. military to acknowledge the rights of Jules Tindungen and other U.S. war resisters to be exonerated, of any charges of wrong-doing, because of their attempts to follow their consciences and to uphold the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law and because the United States military violates the Geneva Conventions. Thank you, Jules Tindungen, for recognizing war crimes when you saw them and refusing to be part of them. Thank you for having the courage to resist.
News

Justin Colby sentenced to 9 months jail


Please write a letter today in support of this objector's early release
Update April 19, 2013: War resister Justin Colby transferred to Fort Lewis, south of Seattle, to serve nine month prison sentence. Write him directly at: COLBY, Justin / 1450 Alder Rd. / Box 339536 / Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA 98433-9536
By SPC Justin Colby, US Army. March 22, 2013
Justin wrote this statement a few hours before being sent away for 9 months to a military prison. Justin had lived in Canada in order to refuse a second Iraq deployment, and to better care for his family. See below for how to help Justin now.
My name is Justin Colby and I am an Active Duty soldier serving in the United States Army. I am writing today to talk about some of my experiences serving in the US Army. I admit that there were many positive experiences about my serving the Army (and I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for many of those that I served with), but for the purposes of this writing I will focus on the negative experiences that shaped my ability to participate in this organization.
I enlisted in May of 2003. My first duty station was South Korea. While I was in South Korea, I learned about the Iraq war. Glaring discrepancies became obvious. One professor said that Iraq never attacked the United States. As I talked to other soldiers about this, none of the people I served with could seem to explain why we should attack a country that never attacked us. When I asked at the command level why we were attacking Iraq I was dismissed completely.
Eleven months into my Korean tour I was notified that I would be going to Iraq. I started researching more and asking more questions. While my unit was in Kuwait getting ready to cross over the Iraq border I explained to my first sergeant that I did not think I could participate in offensive operations against a country that never attacked us. I asked to apply for conscientious objector status. The First Sergeant made me do pushups until I was completely exhausted and humiliated. He told me that we could take “this” as high up the chain of command as I wanted, but the only result would be that I would be labeled a “domestic terrorist.” This intimidation worked and I crossed the border as commanded.
Our destination was Ar-Ramadi, Al Anbar Province, Iraq – in the heart of the Sunni triangle. Immediately, I was terrified. Our base was attacked with mortars daily. Coalition forces and Iraqi resistance fighters came to our medical facility daily, wounded and killed in action. It was very difficult for me to watch mothers cry to us as we tried to save the lives of the women wounded by US forces. On multiple occasions, soldiers opened fire on vehicles carrying unarmed women and children. This happened for a variety of reasons (but most often happened because)if the soldiers commanded them to stop and they failed to stop ,lethal force was authorized. Regardless of the reasons, watching the life slip from a three year old toddler was devastating to both its mother and myself.
I can also remember the Marines being particularly brutal in the handling of the dead bodies of the Iraqis killed in action. They would routinely toss the bodies off of their vehicles into the dirt beyond our medical facility. Watching bloodied, mutilated bodies rolling around in the dirt never felt normal to me. I can remember how we openly referred to the Iraqi casualties as “practice patients.” We routinely allowed medics to perform procedures outside of their scope of practice. As medics, we only had sixteen weeks of medical training.
To put it in perspective, imagine if you mother had a heart attack and passed away, and you had to come to the hospital to identify her – but when you saw her body, you discovered that it was essentially dissected by somebody with only sixteen weeks of training – and imagine find out it was for “practice.”
I made it through our year long deployment to Iraq only to return home to be abused by my new chain of command. I returned in August of 2005. In the late fall I found out that my girlfriend was pregnant. I married her after hearing this news (something I was very excited about), but it ended up being a nightmare. By December of 2005 I discovered that my pregnant wife was addicted to methamphetamine and was having an affair with a convicted felon (with a history of domestic violence). I immediately contacted the Colorado Springs police and Child protective service. I also filed for divorce (seeking custody of my soon-to-be-born son). I was told that this was the only way that I could prevent my soon-to-be-born son from being further harmed was to divorce my wife and demand custody.
My June of 2006 things were reaching a very bad place. I was only weeks away from finalizing the divorce (and gaining full custody of my son). But at the end of June I was told that I would be deploying to the National Training Center for training in preparation for a second Iraq deployment. Our deployment to NTC was scheduled for early July, preventing me from protecting my son. I as devastated and both my physical and mental health deteriorated. I begged and pleaded with my leadership to no avail. My life turned into a nightmare. I felt like I had to leave before things got worse. In a time of extreme emotional distress, I left my unit and went AWOL. A short time later I went to Canada where I sought legal status based on my family hardship and my moral objections to further participation in war. After I left, Child Protective Services ended up removing my son from his mother. I unfortunately was unable to gain custody myself due to my legal status with the Army. It is this aspect of my story that I regret most. I can only say that had lost all faith in the legal system to do the right thing.
While in Canada I tried to live my life as best I could. In the coming years, I formed a new family (with my Canadian common-law spouse, I had two new children). I always grieved the circumstances of why I had to leave, but I felt betrayed by the Army. I had felt that I had been required to put my own moral concerns aside to deploy the first time (doing this out of a sense of obligation to my oath and to my comrades), but when I later faced a terrible family crisis, the Army abandoned me.
By the summer of 2012 I made the decision to return to the US. I had completed the first stage of being sponsored for legal residency in Canada (based on my family ties in Canada) so I was not deported. But I made the decision to come back anyway because I wanted to take responsibility for my actions and not be separated from my extended family. I wanted my children to grow up getting to see their grandparents and their aunts and uncles in the United States. In July I returned to military custody and was eventually sent back to Fort Carson. I continued to serve (doing whatever jobs were asked of me) from July 2012-March 2013. I sought an administrative discharge in lieu of court-martial but my request was denied. Today I will be pleading guilty to the charge of desertion.
A few hours after Justin Colby wrote this, he was sentenced to 15 months in confinement, a bad conduct discharge, reduction to the lowest rank (E-1) and loss of all pay allowances (despite the fact this income is desperately needed to support his family), however, thanks to a sealed pre-trial plea agreement SPC Colby will only be serving a 9 month prison sentence.(Unlike the civilian system, military defendants who have a plea deal receive the lesser sentence of either the pre-agreed terms or what the judge thinks the sentence should be)
Justin Colby is currently being held in the county jail in Colorado Springs awaiting transport to military correctional facility. Justin will, however, have the opportunity (likely in 3-6 months) to request clemency from the commanding general of Fort Carson. We are asking for friends, family and supporters of Justin Colby to write letters to the general asking that Justin be given an early release form prison so he can be back with his family. We do ask that all letters be respectful.
Please send all letters to:
Maj. General Paul J. LaCamera
Public Affairs Office
1626 Ellis Street, Ste. 200, Bldg.118
Fort Carson, CO 80913, USA
Fax: 1-719-526-1021
Please send a copy of your letter to Justin’s civilian attorney (this is important because the letter will be submitted as part of the formal clemency process).
James M. Branum, Attorney at Law
PO Box 721016
Oklahoma City, OK 73172
Fax: 1-866-757-8785
Email: girightslawyer(at)gmail(dot)com
Courage to Resist continues to provide the majority of funding for Justin's legal defense. Please consider donating to Courage to Resist so that we can continue this important work!

Kimberly Rivera

Iraq War Resister Kimberly Rivera sentenced to 14 months


Please help us provide humanitarian assistance to these courageous objectors with your contribution to the Rivera Family Support Fund today!
By the War Resisters Support Campaign (Canada). April 29, 2013
On Monday afternoon, during a court-martial hearing at Fort Carson, Colorado, Kimberly Rivera was sentenced to 14 months in military prison and a dishonorable discharge after publicly expressing her conscientious objection to the Iraq War while in Canada. Under the terms of a pre-trial agreement, she will serve 10 months of that sentence. (Photo right: Mario and Kim Rivera moments before Kim was taken to away in chains. She is currently in the local county jail awaiting transfer to a military prison.)
Private First Class Kimberly Rivera deployed to Iraq in 2006 and sought asylum in Canada in 2007 because she decided she could no longer be complicit in the war. A mother of four young children—including two who were born in Canada—she was forced back to the United States of America by the Conservative government after receiving a negative decision on her pre-removal risk assessment. A Federal Court judge denied her request for a stay of removal, finding the possibility of her arrest and detention in the U.S. to be “speculative.” Rivera was arrested three days later, on September 20, 2012, as she presented herself at the U.S. border.
“Kim is being punished for her beliefs and for her comments to the press while she was in Canada,” said James M. Branum, the defense attorney who represented Rivera during the court-martial proceedings. “Because she spoke out against the Iraq War, Kim’s sentence is harsher than the punishment given to 94 percent of deserters who are not punished but administratively discharged. In the closing arguments, the prosecutor argued that the judge needed to give PFC Rivera a harsh sentence to send a message to the other war resisters in Canada and their supporters.”
The tremendous public outcry related to Rivera’s case shows the deep and broad support that Canadians continue to express for Iraq War resisters. In a period of 10 days leading up to the Rivera family deportation, 20,000 people signed a Change.org petition supporting the family. Faith, labour and human rights organizations spoke out, Amnesty International adopted Kim as a prisoner of conscience, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu published an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail newspaper calling the deportation order “unjust.”
In stark contrast to this outpouring of support, Conservative MPs cheered when the Rivera family’s removal was announced in the House of Commons.
“The Conservative government knew that Kim would be jailed and separated from her children when they forced her back to the U.S., yet they cheered her deportation,” said Michelle Robidoux, a spokesperson for the War Resisters Support Campaign. “They are out of step with the great majority of Canadians who opposed the Iraq War and who support allowing U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada.”
On February 1, 2013, the Federal Court of Canada issued a decision in the case of another U.S. war resister, Jules Tindungan, finding that the U.S. court-martial system “fails to comply with basic fairness requirements found in Canadian and International Law.” The Court also found that the Refugee Board failed to deal properly with evidence that soldiers who have spoken out publicly about their objections to U.S. military actions are subjected to particularly harsh punishments because of having voiced their political opinions.
“The sentence Kim received today underlines the concerns we have been raising all along, and what the Federal Court now acknowledges, that soldiers who speak out against unjust wars face harsher punishment and have no recourse within the U.S. military justice system,” said Robidoux.
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney were ardent supporters of the Iraq War, and they want U.S. Iraq War resisters punished. But Parliament has voted twice to stop these deportations, and the majority of Canadians believe Kim and the other resisters did the right thing. We will continue to fight to make sure this injustice does not happen to any other U.S. war resister who is seeking asylum in Canada.”
Please help us provide humanitarian assistance to these courageous objectors with your contribution to the Rivera Family Support Fund today!
BACKGROUND
Federal Court/Federal Court of Appeal decisions in favor of U.S. war resisters
Since 2008, there have been 11 Federal Court or Federal Court of Appeal decisions in favour of U.S. war resisters who are seeking permanent resident status in Canada:
1. Joshua Key - July 2008
2. James Corey Glass - July 2008
3. Jeremy Hinzman - September 2008
4. Matthew Lowell - September 2008
5. Dean Walcott - January 2009
6. Kimberly Rivera - March 2009
7. Kimberly Rivera - August 2009
8. Jeremy Hinzman - July 2010 (Federal Court of Appeal)
9. Dean Walcott - April 2011
10. Chris Vassey - July 2011
11. Jules Tindungan - February 2013
Key dates: U.S. war resisters in Canada
January 3, 2004: Jeremy Hinzman, the first U.S. Iraq War resister to come to Canada, arrived along with his wife Nga Nguyen and their first child Liam.
May 2004: War Resisters Support Campaign founded in Toronto to advocate for a provision to be made to allow U.S. war resisters to the Iraq War to stay in Canada.
June 3, 2008: The House of Commons passed a motion directing the Government of Canada to immediately stop deportation proceedings against all U.S. Iraq War resisters and facilitate the resisters’ requests for permanent resident status.
June 27, 2008: An Angus Reid Strategies poll reveals that the majority (two-thirds) of Canadians agrees with the decision to let U.S. Iraq War resisters stay in Canada as permanent residents.
July 15, 2008: Robin Long becomes the first U.S. Iraq War resister to be deported by the Harper government.
October 2, 2008: Prime Minister Stephen Harper reversed his previous support for the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq stating during the English-language leaders’ election debate: “It was absolutely an error. It’s obviously clear the evaluation of weapons of mass destruction proved not to be correct. That’s absolutely true and that’s why we’re not sending anybody to Iraq.”
January 9, 2009: Jason Kenney was criticized by Amnesty International Canada and the Canadian Council for Refugees for biasing all U.S. resisters’ cases with his public “bogus refugee claimants” comment.
February 4, 2009: U.S. Iraq War resister Cliff Cornell was arrested when he crossed the border into the United States after exhausting all appeals to remain in Canada.
March 15, 2009: Members of Parliament Olivia Chow and Borys Wrzesnewskyj met with U.S. Iraq War resister Robin Long in the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar near San Diego. Long was court-martialed and sentenced to 15 months in prison after being deported from British Columbia by the Harper government.
March 30, 2009: The June 3, 2008 motion was passed by Parliament a second time.
April 28, 2009: Cliff Cornell was sentenced to 12 months in prison and a bad conduct discharge after publicly expressing his conscientious objection to the Iraq War while in Canada. Prosecutors used footage of a television news interview with Cornell as evidence against him.
September 18, 2009: U.S. war resister and veteran Rodney Watson took sanctuary in the First United Church in Vancouver, BC, to avoid deportation by the Harper government. He remains there today.
July 6, 2010: Federal Court of Appeal issued its unanimous ruling in favour of Hinzman.
July 22, 2010: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, at the direction of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, issued Operational Bulletin 202 which formalizes the bias against all U.S. war resisters in policy that immigration decision-makers must follow.
September 2010: Peter Showler, former Chair of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, and Amnesty International Canada call on Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to rescind CIC Operational Bulletin 202 because it, “misstates the law and seeks to intrude on the independence of both IRB members and Immigration Officers,” and “implies that military deserters from the U.S. should be treated differently than deserters from other countries,” despite there being, “no basis in law for that proposition.”
April 5, 2011: Federal Court of Canada rules in favour of U.S. war resister and veteran Dean Walcott.
July 18, 2011: Federal Court of Canada rules in favour of U.S. war resister and veteran Chris Vassey.
August 30, 2012: Canadian government orders U.S. war resister Kim Rivera and her family to leave Canada by September 20th or face deportation. Kim is the first woman Iraq War resister to seek asylum in Canada. She and her husband Mario have four children, two of them born in Canada.
September 17th, 2012: Federal Court Justice Near denies Kim Rivera a stay of removal, stating that it is only "speculative" that Kim would be arrested and court martialed if she is forced to return to the U.S..
September 17th, 2012: In an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes, "Isn’t it time we begin to redress the atrocity of this war by honouring those such as Ms. Rivera who had the courage to stand against it at such cost to themselves?"
September 20th, 2012: Kim Rivera is arrested by U.S. authorities after voluntarily turning herself in at the border. She was charged with desertion.
September 20th, 2012: Conservative Members of Parliament break into applause upon the announcement of Kim Rivera's forced return to the United States.
January 26th, 2013: Prominent Canadians publish open letter to the Prime Minister in support of U.S. war resisters in the Globe and Mail.
February 1st, 2013: Federal Court of Canada rules in favour of U.S. war resister and veteran Jules Tindungan.
March 22nd, 2013: Justin Colby sentenced to 15 months in confinement and a bad conduct discharge after voluntarily returning to the U.S. from Canada. A sealed pre-trial plea agreement means he is serving 9 months confinement at Fort Lewis, Washington.
April 29th, 2013: Kim Rivera sentenced to 14 months in prison by military court after publicly expressing her conscientious objection to the Iraq War while in Canada.

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International Conscientious Objector Day May 15
In Berkeley, California, join us on International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, Wednesday, May 15th, to celebrate the 7th Annual Berkeley C.O. and War Resisters’ Day. Peace Flag raising ceremony at 11:30am at the Civic Center flagpole at 2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley.
This Berkeley event features Conscientious Objectors and War Resisters from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Speakers include: Kriss Worthington, Berkeley City Councilmember; Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist; Emma Cape, Bradley Manning Support Network; Bob Meola, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, War Resisters League.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Celebration of 7th Annual Berkeley CO and War Resisters’ Day on Wednesday, May 15th, International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, at Civic Center Building Flag Pole, 2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley
Contact: Bob Meola; bob@couragetoresist.org This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Berkeley, CA, May 14th, 2013—On Wednesday, May 15th, Berkeley CO and War Resisters’ Day, at 11:30 A.M., peace flags will once again be raised on two City of Berkeley flag poles as Berkeley celebrates the day proclaimed and designated in a 2007 Berkeley City Council resolution “…as the day on which Berkeley acknowledges, honors, and celebrates conscientious objectors and war resisters, civilian and military, past, present, and future.” May 15th is also International Conscientious Objectors’ Day. The City publicly recognized “that conscientious objectors and war resisters, past and present, civilian and military, have, due to conscience and principle, often sacrificed their time and freedom in prison or in exile or underground; and…conscientious objectors and war resisters often worked to end war and have refused for moral, ethical, political or religious reasons to participate in war; and…their resistance to militarism sets a noble example and an outstanding model for our youth and our whole community; and… their strength and their courage in following their consciences is often unsung.”
There will be brief remarks by representatives of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, War Resisters League, Courage to Resist, the Bradley Manning Support Network, and Councilmember Kriss Worthington. There will be singing and an opportunity for COs and War Resisters of any era to speak. The event has drawn COs from World War ll to the present in past years.
Currently, COs around the world are imprisoned, some on a repeated basis, when they are released and repeatedly refuse to participate in military service. In the United States, U.S. Army PFC. Kimberly Rivera, a pregnant mother of four, was sentenced on April 29th, during a court-martial hearing at Fort Carson, Colorado, to 14 months in military prison and a dishonorable discharge after publicly expressing her conscientious objection to the Iraq War while in Canada. Under the terms of a pre-trial agreement, she will serve 10 months of that sentence. The Army has issued the harshest sentences to COs and war resisters who have publicly expressed their feelings about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This year is poignant, also, due to the long anticipated June 3rd starting date of PFC. Bradley Manning’s Court Martial trial at Fort Meade, Maryland after over three years of confinement, much of it under torturous conditions, for executing heroic acts of conscience when confronted with U.S. war crimes and the knowledge that his command was complicit with them and that only he could shed light on them.
In recent years, there has been a need, felt globally, to have the right of selective conscientious objection recognized by nations. The U.S. wars of aggression, of the last decade, have caused many U.S. soldiers to wake to the fact that even if they would defend their country militarily, they refuse to fight what they see as illegal and immoral U.S. wars.
***An Appeal From Pentagon Papers Whistle-Blower Daniel Ellsberg In Solidarity With Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Private Bradley Manning.

Fight over truth underway in courtroom

By the Bradley Manning Support Network. June 7, 2013.
Report on the first week of the trial, protests, solidarity actions, and press coverage.
Rally in Sydney, Australia
International week of action. June 1-8. Rally in Sydney, Australia.
After a grueling 3 years in prison awaiting trial, 3 time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning’s court martial has begun. Supporters held actions in solidarity with the heroic whistleblower. On June 1st the largest rally of supporters yet was held at Fort Meade, and throughout the week more than three dozen events were organized around the world.
On the first day of the trial the defense and prosecution faced off with opening statements that both asked “what would you do” if you were given access to evidence of the true nature of the war, civilian murders, illegal torture, unnecessary secrecy and thousands of documents revealing government corruption? What would you do if your reports to superiors were ignored, and if you learned that the American people had been lied to?
Rally in Seoul
Rally in South Korea

Rally in Toledo, OH

Rally in Portland, ME
In his opening arguments defense lawyer David Coombs highlighted that Bradley Manning is not your typical soldier – rather he is a conscientious soldier who cared more than most about people, fellow soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike. Bradley Manning, he explained, is a “Humanist,” who prior to deploying to Iraq had that printed on his dog tags as his religious preference. For Bradley Manning the horrors of civilian and his fellow soldier’s deaths were troubling and transforming: it inspired him to learn the truth about the war, a war that we now know, thanks in part to Bradley and the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has been based on lies. Read Bradley Manning Support Network correspondent Nathan Fuller’s report on the opening statements from the first day of the hearing.
On the second day, hacker and informant Adrian Lamo who in 2010 reported Bradley to authorities and then published private chat logs via Wired and the Washington Post, confirmed for the court Bradley’s conscientious motivations for releasing the information. The remainder of the second and third days of the hearing focused largely on Bradley’s training. Witnesses testified that he performed his duties well and he was praised for being well organized and computer savvy. Many of the charges against Bradley are specified three different ways. First that Bradley was not authorized to access the information, at least in the way he did. Second that he violated regulations in transferring that information from secure to non-secure computers or media. Finally, that he gave the information to WikiLeaks. The latter is the only part Bradley has admitted to. Witnesses agreed that Bradley indeed had authorized access to all of the information, and that it was normal for additional, unauthorized programs and files, to be installed on these secure computers. Read the Support Network’s reports from day 2, and from day 3.

Supporters were blocked from wearing Truth t-shirts in the courtroom on the first day, but the decision was later overturned.
Bradley Manning and supporters received a lot of positive press over the week. The New York Times highlights supporter efforts in its article “Manning’s supporters are loud and online!”, while Rolling Stone magazine rips into media outlets that failed to understand Bradley’s motives, or to grasp the big picture: “The debate we should be having is over whether as a people we approve of the acts he uncovered that were being done in our names.” And former US Representative Dennis Kucinich takes Bill O’Reilly to task, defending Bradley Manning’s actions on the Bill O’Reilly factor. Watch the video here.
Transcripts of the trial are now available thanks to the Freedom of the Press Foundation who have hired a stenographer. Throughout three years leading up to this court martial no transcripts have been issued from the numerous pre-trial hearings. It has been up to bloggers, journalists, and Bradley’s supporters to take notes by hand in court. The hiring of a stenographer by the public brings a touch of transparency back into the court. Read transcripts from the first week.
***From The Partisan Defense Committee Newsletter-Free All Class-War Prisoners

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)


In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck [now deceased], whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania [former] death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long -time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class- war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases here. Likewise any cases, internationally that may come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!
********

***From Courage To Resist- Free Bradley Manning
Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)

In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck [now deceased], whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania [former] death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long -time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class- war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases here. Likewise any cases, internationally that may come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

********


***Entering North, 1960

For The Adamsville Junior High School (Middle School) Class Of 1960

An Encore For The Adamsville Central Junior High School Class of 1961.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin


Every once in a while I am reminded that it has been more than 45 years since we, the Class of 1964, went though the hallowed halls of the old school. Now [2010] those of us that went to North Adamsville Junior High School (now Middle School) are facing our 50th anniversary since graduation. Those who went to Central get a year's reprieve, but your day is coming. We will meet up to form the hearty Class of 1964. To mark the occasion I have written a little something. The following tale, although maybe not as light-hearted as some of my earlier sketches, I believe, makes a point we all can appreciate.
*******

Funny, here I am, finally, finally after what seemed like an endless heat-waved, eternal August dog day’d, book-devoured, summer, standing, nervously standing, waiting with one foot on the sturdy granite-chiseled steps, ready at a moment’s notice from any teacher’s beck and call, to climb up to the second floor main entrance of old North, an entrance flanked by huge concrete spheres on each side, that are made to order for me to think that I too have the weight of the world on my shoulders this sunny day. And those doors, by the way, as if the spheres are not portentous enough, are also flanked by two scroll-worked concrete columns, or maybe they are gargoyle-faced, my eyes are a little bleary right now, who give the place a more fearsome look than is really necessary but today, today of all days, every little omen has its evil meaning, evil for me that is.

Here I am anyway, pensive (giving myself the best of it, okay, nice wrap-around-your soul word too, okay), head hanging down, deep in thought, deep in scared, get the nurse fast, if necessary, nausea-provoking thought, standing around, a little impatiently surly as is my “style” (that “style” I picked up a few years back in elementary school down in the Adamsville “projects”, after seeing James Dean or someone like that strike the pose, and it stuck). Anyway its now about 7:00 AM, maybe a little after, and like I say my eyes have been playing tricks on me all morning and I can’t seem to focus, as I wait for the first school bell to sound on this first Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960.

No big deal right, we have all done it many times by now, it should be easy. Year after year, old August dog days turn into shorter, cooler September come hither young wanna-be learner days. Nothing to get nervous about, nothing to it.(Did I say that already?)Especially the first day, a half day, a “gimme” day, really, one of the few out of one hundred and eighty, count ‘em, and mainly used for filling out the one thousand and one pieces of paper about who you are, where you live, who you live with, and who to call in case you take some nasty fall in gym trying to do a double twist-something on the gym mat or a wrestled double-hammer lock grip on some poor, equally benighted fellow student that goes awry like actually happened to me last year in eighth grade. Hey, they were still talking about that one in the North Adamsville Junior High locker rooms at the end of the year, I hear. Or, more ominously, they want that information so that if you cross-up one, or more, of your mean-spirited, ill-disposed, never-could have-been-young-and-troubled, ancient, Plato or Socrates ancient from the look of some of them, teachers and your parents (embarrassed, steaming, vengeful Ma really, in our neighborhoods) need to be called in to confer about “your problem,” your problem that you will grow out of with a few days of after school “help.” Please.

Or this “gimme” day (let’s just call it that okay, it will help settle me down) will be spent reading off, battered, monotone home room teacher-reading off, the also one thousand and one rules; no lateness to school under penalty of being placed in the stocks, Pilgrim-style, no illness absences short of the plague, if you have it, not a family member, and then only if you have a (presumably sanitized) doctor’s note, no cutting classes to explore the great American day streets at some nearby corner variety store, or mercy, Norfolk Downs, one-horse Norfolk Downs also under severe penalty, no (unauthorized) talking in class (but they will mark it down if you don't do authorize talk, jesus), no giving guff (yah, no guff, right) to your teachers, fellow students, staff, the resident mouse or your kid brother, if you have a kid brother, no writing on walls, in books, and only on occasion on an (authorized) writing pad, no(get this one, I couldn’t believe this one over at the junio high) cutting in line for the school lunch (the school lunch, Christ, as poor as we are in our family we at least have the dignity not to pine, much less cut in line for, those beauties: the American chop suey done several different ways to cover the week, including a stint as baloney and cheese sandwiches, I swear), no off-hand rough-necking (or just plain, ordinary necking, either), no excessive use of the “lav” (you know what that is, enough said), and certainly no smoking, drinking or using any other illegal (for kids) substances. Oh, yah, and don’t forget to follow, unquestioningly, those mean-spirited, ill-disposed teachers that I spoke of before, if there is a fire emergency. And here’s a better one, in case of an off-hand atomic bomb attack go, quickly and quietly, to the nearest fall-out shelter down in the bowels of the old school. That’s what we practiced over at the junior high. At least, I hope they don’t try that old gag and have us practice getting under our desks in such an emergency like in elementary school. Christ, I would rather take my chances above desk thank you. And… need I go on, you can listen to the rest when you get to homeroom I am just giving you the highlights, the year after year, memory highlights.

And if that isn’t enough, the reading of the rules and the gathering of more intelligence about you than the FBI or the CIA would need we then proceed to the ritualistic passing out of your books, large and small. (placing book covers on each, naturally, name, year, subject and book number safety placed in insert). All of them covered against the elements, your own sloth, and the battlefield school lunch room, that humongous science book that has every known idea from the ancient four furies of the air to nuclear fission, that math book that has some Pythagorean properties of its own, the social studies books to chart out human progress (and back-sliding) from stone-cave times on up, and, precious, precious English book (I hope we do Shakespeare this year, I heard we do, that guy knew how to write a good story, same with that Salinger book I read during the summer). Still easy stuff though, for the first day.

Yah, but this will put a different spin on it for you, well, a little different spin anyway. Today I start in the “bigs”, at least the bigs of the handful-countable big events of my short, sweet life. Today I am starting my freshman year at hallowed old North and I am as nervous as a kitten. Don’t tell me you weren’t just a little, little, tiny bit scared when you went from the cocoon-like warmth (or so it seemed compared to the “bigs”) of junior high over to the high school, whatever high school it was. Come on now, I’m going to call you out on it. Particularly those North Adamsvilles who, after all, have been here before, unlike me who came out of the "projects" and moved back to North Adamsville after the "long march" move to the junior high in 1958 so I don't know the ropes here at all. They, especially those sweet girls, including a certain she that I am severely "crushed up" on, in their cashmere sweaters and jumpers or whatever you call them, are nevertheless standing on these same steps, as we exchange nods of recognition, and are here just as early as I am, fretting their own frets, fighting their own inner demons, and just hoping and praying or whatever kids do when they are “on the ropes” to survive the day, or just to not get rolled over on day one.

And see, here is what you also don’t know, know yet anyway. I’ve caught Frank’s disease. You never heard of it, probably, and don’t bother to go look it up in some medical dictionary at the Thomas Crane Public Library, or some other library, it’s not there. What it amount to is the old time high school, any high school, version of the anxiety-driven cold sweats. Now I know some of you know Frank, and some of you don’t, but I told his story to you before, the story about his big, hot, “dog day” August mission to get picnic fixings, including special stuff, like Kennedy’s potato salad, for his grandmother. That’s the Frank I’m talking about, my best junior high friend, Frank.

Part of that story, for those who don’t know it, mentioned what Frank was thinking when he got near battle-worn North on his journey to Norfolk Downs back in August. I’m repeating; repeating at least the important parts here, for those who are clueless:

“Frank (and I) had, just a couple of months before, graduated from North Adamsville Junior High School and so along with the sweat on his brow from the heat a little bit of anxiety was starting to form in Frank’s head about being a “little fish in a big pond” freshman come September as he passed by. Especially, a proto-beatnik “little fish”. See, he had cultivated a certain, well, let’s call it “style” over there at Atlantic. That "style" involved a total disdain for everything, everything except trying to impress girls with his long chino-panted, plaid flannel-shirted, thick book-carrying knowledge of every arcane fact known to mankind. Like that really was the way to impress teenage girls. In any case he was worried, worried sick at times, that in such a big school his “style” needed upgrading…”

And that is why, when the deal went down and I knew I was going to the “bigs” I spent the summer this year, reading, big time booked-devoured reading. Hey, I'll say I did, The Communist Manifesto, that one just because old Willie Westhaven called me a Bolshevik when I answered one of his foolish math questions in a surly manner. I told you that was my pose, what do you want, I just wanted to see what he was talking about. In any case, I ain’t no commie, although I don’t know what the big deal is, I ain't turning anybody in, and the stuff is hard reading anyway. How about Democracy in America (by a French guy), The Age of Jackson (by a Harvard professor who knows Jack Kennedy, and is crazy for old-time guys like Jackson),and Catcher In The Rye (Holden is me, me to a tee). Okay, okay I won’t keep going on but that was just the reading on the hot days when I didn’t want to go out, test me on it, I am ready. Here's why. I intend, and I swear I intend to even on this first nothing (what did I call it before?-"gimme", yah) day of this new school year in this new school in this new decade to beat old Frankie, old book-toting, girl-chasing Frankie, who knows every arcane fact that mankind has produced and has told it to every girl who will listen for two minutes (maybe less) in that eternal struggle, the boy meets girl struggle, at his own game. Frankie, my buddy of buddies, mad monk, prince among men (well, boys, anyhow) who navigated me through the tough, murderous parts of junior high, mercifully concluded, finished and done with, praise be, and didn’t think twice about it. He, you see, despite, everything I said a minute ago was “in.”; that arcane knowledge stuff worked with the “ins” who counted, worked, at least a little, and I got dragged in his wake. Now I want to try out my new “style”

See, that’s why on this Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960, this 7:00 AM, or a little after, Wednesday after Labor Day, I have Frank’s disease. He harped on it so much before opening of school that I woke up about 5:00 AM this morning, maybe earlier, but I know it was still dark, with the cold sweats. I tossed and turned for a while about what my “style”, what my place in the sun was going to be, and I just had to get up. I’ll tell you about the opening day getting up ritual stuff later, some other time, but right now I am worried, worried as hell, about my “style”, or should I say lack of style over at the junior high. That will tell you a lot about why I woke up this morning before the birds.

...Suddenly, a bell rings, a real bell, students, like lemmings to the sea, are on the move, especially those fellow classmates that I had nodded to before as I take those steps, two at a time. Too late to worry about style, or anything else, now. We are off to the wars; I will make my place in the sun as I go along, on the fly.
********

....and a trip down memory lane.

MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)


Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please
***The Ghost Classmate

For P., North Adamsville High School Class Of 1964

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin


Every once in a while I am reminded that it has been more than 45 years since we, the Class of 1964, went though the hallowed halls of the old school, old North Adamsville High School. In 2010, when this is written, those of us that went to North Adamsville Junior High School (now Middle School) are facing our 50th anniversary since graduation. Those who went to Adamsville Central get a year's reprieve since your junior high school days extended into ninth grade for some reason, but your day is coming.

Next year will mark 50 years since we all merged together, or those of us on the river side of the Waterview Street border line that separated us from the unspeakable, unfathomable, unlamented, savages of Adamsville High School unlike the genteel intellectuals and their hangers-on who were privileged to go to North, to form the Class of 1964. To mark the occasion I have written a little something.

Or rather Frankie Riley (Francis Xavier Riley, officially), you remember Frankie, the king hell king of the North Adamsville school boy be-bop night and resident king corner boy at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” (no further explanation necessary on the phrase, I hope.) has told me a story that I have written down here. I wrote it but it is strictly Frankie’s take on the thing, just like in the old days when I was his unpaid, unappreciated “scribe” and “go-for.” Christ that mad man owes me big time, big time indeed, for “creating” his legend almost out of whole cloth and he has been soaking up the glory ever since. Some day if there is any justice in this sorry old world the real Frankie story will be told, no fiction, and no holds barred.

If you don’t, don’t remember Frankie that is, I have written a few stories that you can peruse at your leisure. Frankie, just to give a quick "thumbnail" sketch of his doing after high school did not wind up in Walpole State Correctional Institution (now Cedar Junction if you have been out of town for a while) as everybody in North Adamsville, except his corner boys, well except me anyway, expected, graduated from college, went to law school and became a successful lawyer and leading behind-the-scene bigwig in state Democratic Party politics. Go figure, right. There were a few “bumps” along the way but overall he came out of things, as per Frankie usual, without a scratch. That last part, that part about his politics, is important because as a good “politico,” a good bourgeois politico as I would call him (holding my nose while saying it but he knows my position so it’s okay to say that) Frankie always kept his ear to the ground about the doings in North Adamsville, and about his fellow 1964 classmates. The following tale, although not as light-heartedly written as some of my earlier screeds, my earlier Frankie-influenced tales, I believe, makes a point that is worth thinking about.

****
Not everyone who went through our old high school, our beloved, misbegotten North Adamsville High School, survived to tell the tale, or at least the way the tale was suppose to be told, or how they wanted it told. Moreover, we, as a class, after over 45 years, are long enough in the tooth to have accumulated a growing list of causalities, of the wounded and broken, of the beaten down and disheveled. This story, short note really, is going to be about one of our classmates who got lost in the shuffle somehow and it is only here, and only by me [meaning Frankie-PPM] that he will get his epochal struggles voiced. I will not mention his name for you may have sat across from him in class, or given him what passed for "the nod" in the hallway back in the day, or had something of a 'crush' on him because from pictures of him taken back then he certainly had that 'something' physically all the girls were swooning over. Let's just call him, as the title suggests- the ghost classmate (and in the interest of saving precious space in order to tell his story, shorten it to “GC”).

Now I will surprise you, I think. I did not know GC in our school days; at least I have no recollection of him from that time. And you know I knew, as a class officer and as resident king hell king of the Salducci’s Pizza parlor corner boy be-bop night as goofy Markin likes to describe me (and not half-badly at that, come to think of it) everybody worth knowing. I met him, or rather he met me, when we were in our early twenties in front one of the skid row run-down "hotels" (okay flophouse) that dotted the low-rent (then) streets of the waterfront of San Francisco. My reason for being there is a tale for another day, after all this is GC's story, but rest assured I was not in that locale on vacation, nor was he. [Frankie, as he will freely admit now had a drinking/drug problem, a 12-step-sized problem-PPM] Ironically, at our first meeting we were both in the process of pan-handling the same area when the light of recognition hit him. After the usual exchange of personal information, and assorted other lies we spent some weeks together doing, as they say, “the best we could.” Then, one night, he split taking all his, and my, worldly possessions.

Fast forward. A few years later, when I was in significantly better circumstances, if not exactly in the clover, I was walking down Beacon Street in Boston when someone across the street on the Common started to yell my name. Yelled it out, to be honest, in a way that I would usually look down at my shoes, or elsewhere, to avoid having to make any sign of recognition. Well, the long and short of it, was that it was old GC, looking even more disheveled than when I had last seen him. After an exchange of personal data and other details, including a fair representation of lies on both sides, I bought him some dinner. At my starting to be “old haunt”, the Parker House, just to show the swells and ward-heelers I was still a “man of the people.” [PPM, don’t say a word- FXR] The important thing to know, however, is that from that day until very recently I have always been in touch with the man as he has descended further and further into the depths of the skid row ethos. But enough of the rough out-line, let me get to the heart of the matter.

I have left GC's circumstances deliberated vague until now. The reader might assume, given the circumstances of our first meeting, GC to be a man driven to the edge by alcohol, or drugs or any of the other common maladies that break a man's body, or his spirit. Those we can relate to, if not fully understand. No, GC was broken by his own almost psychotically-driven need to succeed, and in the process constantly failing. He had been, a number of times, diagnosed as clinically depressed. I am not sure I can convey, this side of a psychiatrist's couch, that condition in language the reader could comprehend. All that I can say is this man was so inside himself with the need to do the right thing, the honorable thing, and the 'not bad' thing, that he never could do any of those. What a terrible rock to have to keep rolling up the mountain.

Here, however, to my mind is the real tragic part of this story, and the one point that I hope you will take away from this narration. GC and I talked many times about our youthful dreams, about how we were going to conquer this or that "mountain" and go on to the next one, how we would right this or that grievous wrong in the world, and about the need, to borrow the English revolutionary and poet John Milton's words, to discover the "paradise within, happier far". [This last part is strictly PPM, I would not be caught dead reading poetry, not damn English poetry-FXR.] Over the years though GC's dreams got measurably smaller and smaller, and then smaller still until there were no more dreams, only existence. That, my friends, is the stuff of tragedy, not conjured up Shakespearean (blasted Englishman) tragedy, but real tragedy.

Hobo's Lullaby
by Goebel Reeves

Go to sleep you weary hobo
Let the towns drift slowly by
Can't you hear the steel rail humming
That's a hobo's lullaby

Do not think about tomorrow
Let tomorrow come and go
Tonight you're in a nice warm boxcar
Safe from all the wind and snow

I know the police cause you trouble
They cause trouble everywhere
But when you die and go to heaven
You won't find no policemen there

I know your clothes are torn and ragged
And your hair is turning grey
Lift your head and smile at trouble
You'll find happiness some day

So go to sleep you weary hobo
Let the towns drift slowly by
Don't you feel the steel rail humming
That's a hobo's lullaby

©1961,1962 (Renewed) Fall River Music, Inc. (BMI)
All Rights Reserved.
***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-Watch Out, Watch Way Out For Two-Timing Dames-“Human Desire”


DVD Review

Human Desire, starring Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, based on a novel by Emil Zola, directed by Fritz Lang, Columbia Pictures, 1954

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, as here femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1954, Human Desire, offer both those and, additionally, the pedigree of a story-line based closely on the work of 19th century French writer, Emil Zola (he of Dreyfus case fame), and directed by German expressionist film director, Fritz Lang, with his flare for great and dramatic use of black and white cinematography. This film while not right up there with the top of the line Out Of The Past, Gilda and The Big Sleep, partially for chemistry factors between the lead characters and heaviness of plot line in places, is just a notch below. In other words you had better take an hour and a half and watch this thing.

A little summary of the plot line is in order to set the stage. Obviously Zola’s work was set in 19th century emerging bourgeois society France rather than 1950s post- World War II red scare America. But the tale he had to tell of thwarted love. love gone wrong, love never on the right track, and in the end, a cautionary tale of how far certain people will go, dare I say even to murder, sums up the range of human conditions, when the human body heat is up. And the body heat rising here is nothing less than sexual desire. Of course. Simply said a certain femme fatale, a certain speedy femme fatale as it turns out, played by 1950s B-movie fixture, Gloria Grahame, tired of trying to make do behind a cigarette counter does what any girl would do in the situation, marries a "big lug," a railroad middle-level management big lug guy who loves his booze, played by Broderick Crawford (he of All The King’s Men fame), in order to get out from under. But speedy femme fatales are not built for the slow, big lug life, especially when they have a little past, a little past as they always do, here as a former, maybe former, mistress of a Mayfair swell. Needless to say he, as the plot unrolls and big lug Crawford proves to be less a catch than anticipated, gets jealous when he finds out that said wifey has two-timed him. And big lugs know only one way, or seem to know only one way to deal with their two-timing wives, kill the lover, naturally, kill him here right in front of wifey and make her complicit in the murder, holding a certain piece of evidence to put the frame on her, put the frame on her big time, if she crosses him.

All of that is so much lead-up to the real story though. Two-timing femme fatales, whether they got their start behind a candy counter, a hat-check counter or cigarette counter, do not survive in this wicked old world without being primo man-traps. Man-traps that can wrap a guy, wrap a guy tight, very tight, and get him to do anything, anything at all, including, dare I say it, murder. Enter one returning Korean War GI, played by Glenn Ford, who on returning home to small-town Anytown, U.S.A. just wants to wash the grit of that experience off and continue his prior work as a railroad engineer moving goods and passengers along the quickly declining rails of 1950s America. And dream the dream of finding a good woman and grabbing a slice of the little white house with a picket fence, 2.2 kids and a dog, named Rover, probably. And, of course, she is there in the background.

But enter one two-timing femme fatale trying to get out from under a possible murder rap, out from under a loser husband, and who, well, looks like she might be a very nice little adventure, a very nice little adventure, indeed, especially once Glenn gets a whiff of that perfume, lights that cigarette, and takes dead aim at those ruby red lips (I assume they are ruby red, this is after all a black and white noir). Yah, she has him hook, line and sinker. Has him that is until “crunch time.”Then we shall see.

Naturally, in these crime noir melodramatic plots the need to put a big gap between good and evil is usually served up by there being a “good girl” counter-posed to the femme fatale. That is the case here and is, in the end what stops old Glenn from going over the edge. But still I blame Glenn for most of the problems here. Yes, sure I wouldn’t have minded taking dead aim at those Grahame lips, who could blame a guy, a small town America guy, especially once she put on the full-court press with that cooing voice. Whee! But see Glenn has already been down this road before. He played Johnny to Rita Hayworth’s Gilda in the 1946 movie of the same name so he knows, or should be presumed to know, what happens when you take dead aim at those femme fatale lips. Here’s the “skinny” though- average joes, very average train engineer joes included, should keep fifty yards, no, fifty miles, away from blonde (although they are not always blondes) femme fatales when they get that “come hither” look in their eyes. You have been warned.


Saturday, June 08, 2013

In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- Jeremy Hammond

Click on the headline to link to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.
Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)

 
In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck [now deceased], whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania [former] death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long -time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class- war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases here. Likewise any cases, internationally that may come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- Sundiata Acoli

Click on the headline to link to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)


In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck [now deceased], whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania [former] death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long -time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class- war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases here. Likewise any cases, internationally that may come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!