***The Dancer –With Eli Wallach’s The Line-Up In Mind-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Dancer was a craftsman alright, a perfect artist just like you see at the ballet or in the art galleries, places like that. He had beautiful moves, knew how to do his work right, once I broke his flame temper and got him to see each action as something to be thought through, planned, and then executed. Incidentally, in case you might have heard otherwise, I was the one who gave him the name Dancer after bringing him around, bringing him around from a rough-hewn kid, a punk maybe if left to his own devises, a punk with no sense of that perfect artist that I knew he had in him.

See we were partners for about a decade, actually maybe more like twelve years, but that decade is what counts because it probably took me two years to cut off Dancer’s rough edges, those rough edges that were holding back his artistry, so let’s call it a decade. I was his coach, at least that is the way I looked at it and after a while that was the way he looked at it too. See Dancer, and me too, were professional “hit men,” guys who big- time guys, guys with no names, no public names, but plenty of dough for what they wanted done, would hire to do what had to be done. And we were good, known far and wide in the right circles as being good, and so there you have it. Here’s the funny thing, funny in a way, I never fired a gun on a job, not in anger anyway, hated the damn things, hated the sight of blood, hated when the job called for a rub-out and nothing else. After a while though I got less squeamish, maybe more indifferent, but I never really liked it. So like I say the Dancer did his part, and I did mine and for that decade we were the walking daddies of the hired killer night.

Let me tell you a little about how I met Dancer, how we moved up the food chain in our chosen profession, and then maybe you will see how an artist was created out of pure rough stuff, almost from scratch except for that potential I saw in him. The Dancer grew up, or at least he told me he grew up and I had no reason to not believe him, in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, a rough place all the way around. You either figured out some stuff early, figured out fast or you were just another guy to be pushed around by guys who had figured things out. Before we met he was maybe jack-rolling drunks in some dark alley for fives and tens and leaving a bloody mess from what I could gather about his style back then, maybe pimping a couple of whores when times were tough and he needed quick dough, maybe an off-hand armed robbery, some freaking gas station or Mom and Pop variety store, Jesus, or a low level hit from some third-rate hood with a grudge. On that last thing that “hit” work was where he started to get a little wise about where the serious dough was for a guy who knew, knew deep in his bones he was slated to be just another soldier in this world of ours.

It went something like this, this low-level hit stuff, something like some guy needed dough bad, real bad, maybe was into the wise guys way too deep, gambling, drugs, women, an overdue loan, and so he would hire the Dancer to off his wife, or his partner, someone worth something, insurance something and he would do the deed. See rough stuff, kid’s stuff really. Wasting his talent on low-rent outings like that. I could hardly believe he never got caught working off some ten- percent commission stuff. Even our first jobs working our way up the food chain had bigger payouts, and came with expenses paid too. Jesus.

And the Dancer might have stayed there, stayed doing nickel and dime stuff, working hard, too hard for cheap dough, except Big Chief, that is the only name you need to know, the wise guy of wise guys had hired me to take care of some business, some business having to do with an underling of his in the drug trade, in the heroin trade to be exact, who was skimming way too much off the top in their international operations. So he had to fall, fall hard in order to be made an example of for other punks who might get too greedy as the money from the drug trade exploded a couple of decades back .

Now I had regular guys who I worked with, who I coached and planned with, but just that moment they were all either in stir or working some other job. So I asked Soldier McGee, one of the low-rider chieftains of the New York City bike crowd and a middle-level distributor of goods, whether he knew somebody who needed dough, and was not afraid to get his hair all mushed up. Oh yeah, and who did not, I repeat, did not have a criminal record, nothing. Soldier thought about it, thought about my requirements and came up with Sid Lorraine, the Dancer.

I almost didn’t take Sid on when we met, when I quizzed him on his approach his idea of a plan was all wild, all shoot ‘em up, bang-bang and collect the dough. Yeah, and then walk right up to Sing-Sing. So on that caper I showed him how to really do the thing right, how to do the thing with style, no muss, no fuss and gone. My idea was to get the underling’s confidence, play to his weak side, the side that was all wreck-less skim. So the deal was that Dancer was going to be a Big Chief “mule,” a rogue mule looking to go independent, and contact the underling about moving the material letting him cut himself in for a large slice of the proceeds for his efforts.

That underling went for it, went like a lemming to the sea. So when the meet occurred over in the Jersey marshes the Dancer had no problem with the problem guy. The cops as usual never ever found the guy, if they were ever looking for him once he wasn’t around anymore. That job was our ticket up the food chain, and the Dancer started taking my instructions more seriously, although like I said it wasn’t all a bed of roses because there was always a little bang-bang and done in him.

Once we moved up as far as we could go in our profession we were given nothing but high-end assignments. All strictly high-end drug deals. This is how it worked (the cops even if they saw this wouldn’t believe it anyway, or would take their cut and look the other way like usual). The Big Chief had agents all over the world, but with the heroin trade mainly in the Far East, places like the Golden Triangle, or South Asia, like maybe Afghanistan. Those agents would procure the stuff (cheap too, cheap to our eyes anyway), and then use “marks,” mostly unknowing people, tourists, businessmen, people like that, who purchased something, a vase, a doll, a figurine, for whatever reason and they would “carry” the stuff through customs. Beautiful right. Then when the dope got state-side we went to work. We went to“collect” the dope. Anyway we could.

That, after a while, was how the Dancer became a perfect artist. See, he would know who he would have to “hit”and who he wouldn’t. Say some sailor brought the stuff in. Dancer knew, knew deep in his bones, that there was no other way than a hit to get the merchandise. So we planned accordingly, set the bait, did the deed, got the merchandise then vanished, no trace. Other times, with the tourists though, he could almost just con his way into letting him have the carrier object and be done with it. And it worked like clockwork for that decade I mentioned before but like all things it went off the tracks.

We had a job set-up in Frisco, a town neither of us knew, but which looked like an average job. The China Star out of Hong Kong was coming in with three marks, all tourists, all carrying heroin in respectively, a horse figurine, a rag doll, and an intricate jade necklace. We had to kill the first guy because he just wasn’t going to give up the damn figurine, he had brought it back for his wife, paid big dough for it and so that was that. The second guy, or really his daughter, gave it up with, well, a little struggle but she lived for another day. . The third, a woman, we had to waste since she would not take off the necklace, no way, but we kind of figured that the way dames are about jewelry. So that part was no big deal.

But this is where some guys get kind of squirrely no matter how much training they get. No matter how you teach them the fact of life, the facts of our professional lives. The Dancer decided, after realizing that the three packages were worth a huge amount on the street, decided all by himself, that he was keeping this stash, was going into business for himself (or for us, the way he figured it at first). That was a problem a big problem, a Big Chief big problem.

I tried to talk him out of it, tried to say it couldn’t work out right no matter how it was cut up, that we had a our place in the food chain, a pretty good place. That we were soldiers and nothing else. Naturally he would not listen and naturally I had to “hit” him when Big Chief sent the word once the packages were not delivered. I was to do the hit myself, no outsiders, no assistants. Here was the beauty of it though. Dancer never knew what hit him I set the thing up so well. See, I pretended to go along with him, him and his rogue operation. We were supposed to meet some guy, some guy from down in Los Angeles over at the Sutro Baths, over on the Frisco ocean side of town. Now this Sutro Baths was a big attraction for the tourists and a place that was not only baths and swimming, stuff like that, but had an amusement park. In other words plenty of noise, kid noise especially. So all I did was get Dancer off in a corner, a corner near a drain pipe that led into the ocean, him in the lead, me behind, and plug him. Then slipped his body down the pipe and done, no muss, no fuss.

Sure I was nervous, what did you expect. My first kill. I still didn’t like it, still didn’t, don’t, like guns, still don’t like the sight of blood, didn’t like sending him out with the Japan Current like some easy mark. But I did it. I went solo after that, went solo out of respect for Dancer’s magic. And now these many years later, now that I have “retired”all I have is the memory of the Dancer, the perfect artist.

***A Bit Of The “Odd Manner”- Irish Style- The Childhood Saga Of Frank McCourt-“Angela’s Ashes”

Book Review

Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir Of Childhood, Frank McCourt, Flamingo, London, 1997

Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes is probably the easiest review that I have had to write since I have been doing such reviews in this space. Why? Frank McCourt’s book of childhood memoirs is my story. No. Not in the details of his life’s story, or mine. But rather how the fact of being Irish, of being poor, and of being uprooted affected your childhood, and later times as well. And those traumas, for good or evil, crossed generational lines. McCourt, we are told as his story unfolds, was born in America of immigrants of the diaspora after Irish independence who, for one reason or another, returned to the old country in defeat in the 1930’s. As McCourt noted right at the beginning, that fact in itself provides a rather ironic twist if one is familiar with Irish history and the endless waves of migration (at least until very recently and now that has again been reversed with the latest “troubles”).

McCourt was, in any case, thus a child of the Great Depression and World War II, the generation of my parents, as it was refracted through Ireland during that period. I, on the other hand, am a child of the 1960’s, the “Generation of ‘68” here in America born of the dreaded Irish Catholic-English Protestant combination- and raised in an Irish Catholic enclave. Nevertheless the pages of this memoir are filled to the brim with the results of the emotional (and sometimes physical scars) of being “shanty” Irish (and decidedly not “lace curtain” or “chandelier,” the other “classes” of the dispensation) in this world that hit home, and hit home hard, to this reader.

That said, we do not share the terrible effect that “the drink” (nice way to put it, right) had on creating his dysfunctional family with his father’s, Malachi McCourt’s, crazed need for the alcohol “cure” in order to drown his sorrows and his bitternesses and the fact that his great moment in life, his "fifteen minutes of fame" was his bit for “the cause” (of Irish independence). A familiar story in the Irish community here, and in the old country, but my father, my poor old shambles of a father, seldom drank, although he too was constantly out of work and shared with Frank’s father that same bitterness about his fate.

A quiet despair bitterness that touched the whole family, and touched every even small event, good or bad, sometimes the good worst than the bad. My father was uneducated, lacking in skills, and prospects and as a “hillbilly” Protestant Southerner from coal country down in Kentucky was thus, an ‘outsider’ in the Boston milieu like Frank’s father had been in Limerick. That is the commonality that caught my eye (and sometimes my throat) as I read of Frank’s youthful trials, tribulations and adventures. McCourt’s ability to tap into that “mystical” something is what makes this a fine read, whether you are Irish or not.

Throughout the book McCourt’s woe-begotten but fatally prideful father is constantly referred to in the Irish-town working class poor ghetto of Limerick (and elsewhere, as well, but the heart of the story is told from there) as having an "odd manner." This reflects a certain clannishness against those from the North of Ireland (Dare I say it, the area then known as Ulster) and a sneaking suspicion amount that crowd of some alien (meaning English Protestant) heritage. As the book progresses that odd trait is transferred (by heredity?) to Frank in his various wanderings, enterprises, and desires. What joins us together then is that "odd manner" that gets repeatedly invoked throughout the book. Frank survived to tell the tale. As did I. But in both cases it appears to have been a near thing.

There is more that unites us. The shame culture, not an exclusive Irish Catholic property but very strong nevertheless, drilled in by the clannishness, the closeness of neighbors, the Catholic religion and by the bloody outsiders- usually but not always Protestants of some sort (as least for blame purposes- you know, the eight hundred years of British tyranny in the misty past, although very real to be sure). All driven, and driven hard, by not having nearly enough of this world’s goods.

Every time I read a passage about the lack of food, the quality of the food, the conditions of the various tenements that the McCourt family lived in, the lack of adequate and clean clothing, I cringed at the thoughts from my own childhood. Or during the various times when his family was seriously down and out and his mother, the beloved Angela of the title, had to humble herself and beg for charity, of one form or another, from some institution that existed mainly to berate the poor. I can remember own my mother’s plaintive cry when my brothers and I misbehaved that the next step was the county poor farm.

And how about the false pride and skewed order of priorities? Frank’s father was a flat-out drunk and was totally irresponsible. From a child's perspective, however, he was still your dad and must be given the respect accordingly, especially against the viciousness of the outside world. But life’s disappointments for the father also get reflected in the expectations of the son. The dreams are smaller. Here, the horizons are pretty small when a governmental job with its security just above the “dole” is the touchstone of respectability. Sean O’Casey was able to make enduring plays from the slums of Dublin out of this material. And Frank McCourt enduring literature. Thanks, brother.

Note: The movie version of “Angela’s Ashes” pretty fairly reflects the intentions of Frank McCourt in his childhood memoirs and follows the book accordingly, without the usual dramatic embellishments of that medium. The story line is so strong it needs no such “touch-ups.” Particularly compelling is the very visual "piss pot" sense of utter poverty down at the base of Irish society in Frank McCourt’s childhood.

The two songs below are constantly being sung by Frank McCourt's father when he is "on the drink" to give a little musical flavor to this entry.

"Roddy McCorly"

O see the fleet-foot host of men, who march with faces drawn,
From farmstead and from fishers' cot, along the banks of Ban;
They come with vengeance in their eyes. Too late! Too late are they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today; ray
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

"Kevin Barry"

In MOUNT JOY jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the 'cause of liberty
Just a lad of eighteen summers
Yet no true man can deny
As he walked to death that morning
He proudly held his head up high

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
The British laws may crush the Irish
But cannot keep their spirits down

Just before he faced the hangman
In his dreary prison cell
The British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell
The name of all his brave companions
And other things they wished to know
Turn informer or we'll kill you
Kevin Barry answered no

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
Whose cruel laws may crush the Irish
But CANNOT KEEP their spirits down

3 May 2013

Free Tinley Park Anti-Fascists!

Last May (2012), some 18 anti-racist militants broke up a gathering of fascists in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park called to organize a “White Nationalist Economic Summit.” Among the vermin sent scurrying were some with links to the Stormfront Web site run by a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon. Such fascist meetings are not merely right-wing discussion clubs but organizing centers for race terror against black people, Jews, immigrants, gays and anyone else the white-supremacists consider subhuman. For their basic act of social sanitation, five of the anti-fascist fighters were sentenced by a Cook County court to prison terms of three-and-a-half to six years on charges of “armed violence.” (See “Freedom Now for Tinley Park 5!” WV No. 1018, 22 February.) The Spartacist League and the Partisan Defense Committee stand by these militants and call on workers, leftists and anti-racist fighters to demand freedom for the Tinley Park Five. The fascists are a deadly threat to the integrated labor movement, which should be in the forefront of efforts to crush them in the egg. Four of the five who were sentenced—Jason Sutherlin, Cody Lee Sutherlin, Dylan Sutherlin and Alex Stuck—have agreed to receive $25 monthly stipends the PDC sends to class-war prisoners. The PDC program, which includes additional gifts during the holiday season, serves not merely to alleviate some of the harshness of incarceration but also as a message of solidarity from those outside prison walls. The courage of the Tinley Park defendants was seen in their principled response to the government vendetta. Each of the five was initially charged with 37 felony counts, including armed violence, property damage and mob action. The cops and prosecutors applied continuous pressure to try to get them to give up names of those involved in sending the fascists scattering, which the five steadfastly refused to do. Unable to meet the exorbitant bonds, which ranged up to $250,000, they spent seven months in Cook County Jail. Facing the prospect of up to another year behind bars awaiting trial, they accepted a non-cooperating agreement in which each pleaded guilty to three counts of armed violence in return for guarantees of time off for good behavior. In their letters agreeing to receive PDC stipends, the four expressed appreciation for the contributions and also for the issues of Class-Struggle Defense Notes and Workers Vanguard that they have received. One noted that his fellow inmates lined up to read the WV article about their case. Initiated in 1986, the stipend program takes as its model that of the International Labor Defense (ILD), affiliated to the early Communist Party, which provided stipends to over 100 prisoners of the class war. As James P. Cannon, founder and first secretary of the ILD, wrote, “The class conscious worker accords to the class war prisoners a place of singular honor and esteem” (“The Cause That Passes Through a Prison,” Labor Defender [September 1926]). Past PDC recipients worldwide include an Irish Republican Socialist Party militant, members of the British National Union of Mineworkers and members of the U.S. miners, Teamsters and Steelworkers unions. Now, the Tinley Park anti-fascists are joined in the program with America’s foremost class-war prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, former Black Panther supporters Mondo we Langa and Ed Poindexter and imprisoned members of the Philadelphia MOVE commune. We urge WV readers to contribute to the stipend program by sending checks payable to the PDC and earmarked “prisoners stipends fund” to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal St. Station, New York, NY 10013-0099. Letters to the Tinley Park Five can be sent to: Alex Stuck M34020, 2600 N. Brinton Avenue, Dixon, IL 61021; Cody Sutherlin M34021, 13423 E. 1150th Avenue, Robinson, IL 62454; Dylan Sutherlin M34022, P.O. Box 7711, Centralia, IL 62801; Jason Sutherlin M34023, 100 Hillcrest Rd., East Moline, IL 61244; John Tucker M34024, P.O. Box 549, Lincoln, IL 62656.  * * * (reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1023, 3 May 2013) Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!

Protest Prison Harassment of Mumia Abu-Jamal!

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, renowned journalist and supporter of the Philadelphia MOVE organization, is America’s foremost class-war prisoner. Mumia was railroaded to death row in 1982 on false charges of killing a police officer. In December 2011, the death sentence was removed, but Mumia still remains sentenced to life in prison without parole. The following is a July 6 letter from the Partisan Defense Committee to John E. Wetzel of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. We write to protest recent administrative measures taken against political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Prison officials suspended Mr. Jamal’s access to telephone communication for two weeks as punishment for a phone interview with Philadelphia attorney Michael Coard, on his WURD program, “Radio Courtroom.” In 1998, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that Mr. Abu-Jamal had a First Amendment right to make radio commentaries as well as written ones. The court enjoined attempts by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to interfere with or otherwise punish Mr. Abu-Jamal for exercise of this right, one it held protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, see Abu-Jamal v. Price 154 F3d 122 (3rd Circ. 1998). The court also ruled that the punitive actions in violation of his free speech rights caused Mr. Abu-Jamal irreparable harm. We also protest the refusal of prison officials to permit contact visitation between Mr. Abu-Jamal and his son Jamal Hart. Mr. Abu-Jamal spent almost 30 years in the isolation of death row based on a sentence that in late 2011 was finally adjudged illegal. The Department’s current actions violate not only his First Amendment rights to speech, but in isolating him from his family recall the illegal deprivations he suffered on death row for three decades. We urge you to reinstate Mr. Abu-Jamal’s telephone access, desist from any further interference with his free speech rights, and permit contact visitation with his son. * * * (reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1027, 12 July 2013) Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.

Free Lynne Stewart Now!-Let Grandma Go Home!

Legal Documents Filed 7-29-13 in Support of Lynne’s Release

August 6th, 2013
Legal Documents – links below:

• Memorandum of Law (PDF)
• Motion and Public Exhibits (PDF)
• Order to Show Cause (PDF)

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Transcript of 7-31-13 Hearing

August 6th, 2013
Click here to read the 7-31-13 Hearing transcript.

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Rally for Lynne Thursday August 8

August 3rd, 2013

A RALLY IN OUR COMMUNITY,

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2013

Free Lynne Stewart Now!

12 – 2PM

Near the Federal Court Building

AT FOLEY SQUARE, IN THE PARK in Lower Manhattan

Trains: J/Z, 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall.

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Message from Lynne July 25

August 2nd, 2013
7/25/13
To All:
By Now we will have filed papers which take us back into Federal Court in New York City to request that Judge Koeltl overturn the barbaric decision by the Bureau of Prisons and allow me to leave this empty loveless Prison and go home to People and Places familiar and beloved. I certainly am sick enough–even my oncologist revised her prognosis down to 18 months now. However, my spirit remains undaunted and when I compare myself to other far worse off than I am–the Guantanamo and Pelican Bay prisoners, Marie Mason, Afra Siddiqui, Hugo Yogi Pinell, those under death Penalty like Kevin Cooper, the remaining Angola 2, Ruchel Magee and my fellow New Yorkers Jalil, Sekou, Herman, Seth, David, Abdul –let me stop before I choke up here… I know we MUST win my fight and the struggle for all other political prisoners to be freed. And then we must struggle for all to be free in this country.
How much can we, the People, take? Their austerity is barbaric cruelty with food stamps gone and public housing unavailable, permanently. How long can the 1% continue to rule and the corporations call the shots? There is so much wrong but we are not allowed to despair since we have been given sight in this land of the blind and hopeless and heartless, So, that said, let’s once again get out there as often as needs be–for all the causes, for all the humanity. for the future. Forward, ever Forward !!
Lynne

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IMMEDIATE UPDATE ON THE COURT HEARING CONCERNING LYNNE STEWART

August 2nd, 2013
Update on Lynne Stewart’s court hearing 7/31/13
Ten minutes ago the hearing today before Judge John Koetl concluded. The following is a synopsis of what transpired as reported in a telephone call with Ralph Poynter:
Lynne Stewart’s attorneys filed an emergency Motion (2255) with Judge Koetl seeking Lynne’s “immediate conditional release” pending consideration of the legal issues presented in their brief.
The judge asked why they chose to exhaust their one time right to an emergency motion. The Defense response was that Lynne Stewart is terminally ill. The luxury of time is not available to her or her counsel. An expeditious response from the Court is imperative in the face of her medical condition and in the light of the Bureau of Prisons’ unwarranted denial of her application for compassionate release and protracted delays that could be expected if she submitted another application.
The Prosecution, acting for the Justice Department of Barack Obama, asserted that the Judge has no standing because there is no motion for Compassionate Release before him from Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr. as specified in the 1984 Sentencing Act.
The Defense presented a Brief which documents that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had violated separation of powers as the 1984 Congressional Statute assigns to the Court the right to modify a prison sentence in light of facts not available at the time of trial, notably those pertaining to terminal illness. “The BOP has implemented its own interpretation and refused to notify the sentencing judge of objectively ‘extraordinary and compelling circumstances,’ including but not limited to imminent death, unless, in its own judgment, a motion should be granted. Between 2000 and 2008, on average, 21.3 motions were filed each year. In about 24% of those motions, the prisoner died before the district court ever had a chance to rule on the motion.”
“Lynne Stewart is dying,” wrote her attorneys. She does not want to die in prison or become another statistic of someone who dies while the Bureau of Prisons delays its reconsideration of another application for compassionate release that she plans to file soon.
Judge Koetl gave a directive to the Federal Attorney to set out its case by next Tuesday and also to explain why the Bureau of Prisons has refused to disclose or release the records that provide the basis for its denial of Lynne Stewart’s recent application for compassionate release.
Lynne Stewart’s defense attorneys will have one day to answer before the next hearing scheduled for Thursday, August 8 at 2 p.m.
Judge Koetl has the authority to mandate immediate conditional release to Lynne Stewart.

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Photo from NLG-San Francisco Rally for Lynne

August 2nd, 2013

A great turnout in San Francisco! NLG attorney and national Executive Vice President Nadia Kayyali (right) speaks to the crowd.

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San Francisco Rally for Lynne Stewart August 1st

July 23rd, 2013

Rally to Free Lynne Stewart

Free Lynne Stewart Now!
Rally in Support of Activist lawyer and Guild Member Lynne Stewart
Thursday, August 1, Noon
Federal Building
7th & Mission in San Francisco
Send a message to Bureau of Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels Jr. that he must reverse his decision.
Link for this event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/150549631807513/
Long-time National Lawyers Guild member and activist lawyer Lynne Stewart needs our help and she needs it now! The Federal Bureau of Prisons has denied Lynne Stewart’s application for compassionate release, despite recommendations in favor from the warden at her facility, the Regional Office Director, and vetting of Stewart’s release plans by the Federal Probation Office in New York.
Lynne Stewart’s condition is deteriorating rapidly. Medical treatment to arrest the cancer that is metastasizing in her body has been halted because she is too weak to receive it. She remains in isolation, as her white blood cell count is so low that she is at risk for generalized infection.
For over 30 years, Lynne Stewart devoted her life to the oppressed – a constant advocate for the countless many deprived in the United States of their freedom and their rights. She, herself, was targeted and prosecuted because she defended vigorously her unpopular clients – people the U.S. government sought to execute, disappear, and demonize. Read the rest of this entry »

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Demonstration in Support of Lynne in Seattle (Photo)

July 21st, 2013

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Dick Gregory at BOP (Photo)

July 21st, 2013

Dick Gregory protests in support of Lynne at the Bureau of Prisons, June 18th 2013.

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Rallies for Lynne

July 8th, 2013

RALLIES FOR LYNNE:

Tues., July 9, New York City

Gather at Foley Sq, Lower Manhattan Courts, 4 – 7 pm
And march to 500 Pearl St.

Tues., July 9, Los Angeles

Protest at Westwood Federal Building
11000 Wilshire Blvd., 5 p.m.

Fri., July 12, Washington, D.C.

Columbia Heights Civic Plaza 5:30 – 8 pm
14th St & Park Rd. NW

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From The Partisan Defense Committee

***Out In The Be-Bop 1930s Night-When Primitive Man “Wins”- “Petrified Forest”-A Film Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Petrified Forest, starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, Warner Brothers, 1936
Okay here is the genesis of this review. Recently, being on a something of a film noir tear, especially a crime noir tear, I reviewed a little light puff of a noir film, Moontide, where well-known 1940s French film star Jean Gabon (who did a fantastic job in the French classic Children Of Paradise) tried to break into the Hollywood film racket with a role as a tough hombre, seen-it-all dockworker who is really just ready to settle down after all the wine, women and song escapades have worn thin. And settle down in 1940s movie parlance (and maybe life too) was with a good woman and a white picket- fenced house (or in this film a barge, it’s near the sea, see). The good woman, a kind of eternal working-class version of everywoman also happened to be down on her luck, and in that film was played by Ida Lupino.

Well, seeing Ms. Lupino in that role got me to think about a similar role that she played trying to be a good “wifie,” (and “mother” to the dog Pard) to Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra. In that film the grizzled Bogart played a serious desperado, a three-time loser desperado, Roy Earle, looking to “retire” with one last big score armed robbery to that picket-fenced house except the cops would not let him. Let him, especially after a certain messed-up resort hold-up caper went awry. And when Mr. Earle bought it, as it had to be since crime does not pay, grizzled wised-up gangster or not, Ms. Lupino was left to keep his memory fresh and keep moving on.

Of course all of that high Bogartism got me to thinking about other grizzled gangster roles (and grizzled detectives too) that the bad boy actor Humphrey Bogart played, and that led naturally to the film under review, Petrified Forest, where as Duke Mantee Bogart put in his bid for king of the gangster hill. In fact this film (he had also played the role on Broadway, I believe) first established him for that challenge.

The story line here has him on the run from, what else, a busted bank robbery, and every cop in the Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dellinger, Bonnie and Clyde American untamed West was looking for him and his confederates. He wound up in a flea-bitten café located, where else, next to the Petrified Forest, a great symbol of humankind’s age old struggle to deal with nature, and to break with the primitive past.

And that isolated, flea-bitten café setting is important because there is a young serving- them-off-the-arm waitress, Gaby, played by a very young Bette Davis, as the owner’s daughter, trapped there, full of dreams, literary dreams, and a very, very strong to desire to put those silly tree rocks behind her. And, as the film opens, a very well-turned out gentleman/intellectual/ hobo/alcoholic, Alan, played by Leslie Howard, on his uppers trying to get off that dusty road. And that little tension, a tension that was palpable to audiences in the 1930s, between Bogart’s gangster take-everything-you-can-grab-and-grab-it-quick and Howard’s ordered intellectual world gone awry with the times, the 1930s despair times what they were, is what drives the theme of this one.

Alan, knowing his time has passed, in any case, makes a pact with the devil to insure Gaby’s future hold on her dreams. And while Bogart, perhaps, played more memorable roles later he certainly was believable as the primitive man gangster trying to claim his rightful place in the modern world. Naturally, in movie life he must pay, pay big-time, with his life because we all know, or should know, that crime does not pay.

Bradley Manning in the Theater

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Bradley Manning in the Theater by Claire Lebowitz

Courage is contagious, and the stories that we tell show what we value. Acting from conscience at any cost is a story as old as humanity and often adapted for the stage. The ancient Greek myth of Prometheus’ heroic act of rebellion against Zeus; bringing fire to humanity at the cost of his own freedom, was performed in 415 BC. Now that our own Prometheus, young, slight, gay soldier PFC Bradley Manning has the full force of the American Empire coming down on him in a tiny courtroom in Ft Meade, Maryland for “want[ing] people to know the truth,” we are learning all over again that knowledge comes at a very high price for which he may pay with life in prison. Bradley’s story has inspired two modern day playwrights to examine if the costs of rebellion and truth telling are so very different in our modern age.
“The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning” written by Tim Price and produced by the National Theatre of Wales is the first play to win the James Tait Black prize for drama. It is currently being performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. The play charts the story of Bradley’s life from his teenage years in Wales until he was incarcerated in the US, and was originally performed at Tasker Milward School in Haverfordwest Wales, where Bradley attended high school when he lived with his mother for 3 years. Tim Price felt a connection to Bradley through their shared Welsh heritage, he says: “it wasn’t until I learned of Bradley’s teenage years in Wales that my curiosity turned into obsession. This young soldier- who has attempted to call the president of the US as a defense witness- knows bus timetables around Haverfordwest. He knows the trials of schoolboy rugby, and speaks rudimentary Welsh. Once I realized this, Bradley became more than a news story.” In this production five different actors play Bradley, utilizing the “I am Bradley Manning” campaign meme.
“The Radicalization of Bradley Manning” will be live streamed for audiences worldwide to view From August 6th till August 25th.
To watch the live stream of the play, please visit: http://new.livestream.com/nationaltheatrewales

In the play, Bradley Manning’s life is charted from his teenage years in Wales to the present day. Photograph: National Theatre Wales/PA

“Bradass87” is a play I wrote about Bradley Manning that has been performed as staged readings, excerpts and short street theater scenes all over New York City. The title was Bradley’s screen name in his Instant Messenger chats and the play is composed entirely from primary source material, chat logs, interviews and trial transcripts (I am especially indebted to Alexa O’Brien for her amazing transcripts). Bradley has inspired me as he has countless others, but my personal connection to his story came from my trips to Afghanistan to teach high school students. Bradley’s feelings of responsibility towards civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan who are “struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare” resonated with me and his earnestness and principled nature continues to touch my heart. To me he injects humanity into a system that actively attempts to strip it away. As he has said often in chats, he is a Humanist and “values human life above all.”

Bradass87 examines the motivations of PFC Bradley Manning for exposing the truth about the American government’s conduct overseas. Bradass87 has been performed in New York City in theaters and on the streets.

“Bradass87” will be performed as a staged reading with Chris Dinolfo playing Bradley Manning, August 16th and 17th at 7:30pm in Washington DC at the Universalist National Memorial Church (1810 16th St NW Washington DC). The performance comes at the end of the defense witnesses’ testimony in the sentencing portion of Bradley’s trial and I hope the play and the panel afterwards will be an opportunity to create a public forum while the trial is ongoing to consider many of the larger issues this case brings up that threaten our democracy.

The US government has gone to great lengths to control what is written about Bradley in the media by conducting the trial in de facto secrecy, to keep Bradley away from public view so that he is not relatable and not characterized as a prisoner of conscience. These two plays attempt to counter that narrative. Once Bradley Manning becomes a symbol (as he is to Edward Snowden), they’ve lost. When the dust settles from the trial and we are no longer obsessed with the “hero or traitor” narrative, we will thank Bradley Manning for lifting the fog of war and confirm what another famous humanist, playwright William Shakespeare said: “truth is truth, until the end of reckoning.”

www.Bradass87.wordpress.com
http://nationaltheatrewales.org/bradleymanning

Free Bradley Manning Now!

Ruling on Patrick Kennedy’s speculation; James McCarl testifying in secret: trial report, day 29

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By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. August 7, 2013.

James McCarl, drawn by Debra Van Poolen

The seven reporters covering Bradley Manning’s sentencing trial today broke for a four-hour lunch at Ft. Meade, as government witness James McCarl testified in a closed session, largely referring to documents which are in the public domain but still referred to as “purported” cables and files.
McCarl is a division chief within the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), which analyzes IED technology, use, and patterns to improve U.S. military leaders’ situational awareness, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan and now around the world.
Following WikiLeaks’ 2010 releases, JIEDDO was tasked to review 3,790 leaked Afghanistan Significant Activity reports (SigActs) and 111,000 Iraq SigActs to assess the impact from an IED perspective.
McCarl was in charge of three teams:

• Operations Research Systems Analysis (ORSA), which McCarl broadly described as a group that analyzed statistics, capabilities, and helped “rack and stack tools,” and was helpful in “pull[ing] from these gigantic mounds of data”
• Red Team, which looked at what the enemy could do with the information released, and enacted scenarios to show command leaders how they might react
• Open Source, which scanned open-source coverage of the released cables, “particularly in jihadist websites,” and how Pakistani, Iraqi, and other governments were reacting

He said that ORSA only reviewed 2,000 of the 111,000 Iraq reports, to get an understanding of the main keywords to search for throughout the rest.
McCarl calculated that JIEDDO had spent 855 man-hours at roughly $200,000 in reviewing these files, but that he couldn’t quantify the impact it had on JIEDDO to pull those employees away from other work.
The court moved to a closed session, and will return at 3:00pm ET.
Judge allows limited speculation testimony
Earlier this morning, military judge Col. Denise Lind ruled on the defense motion to limit the scope of Patrick Kennedy’s testimony. Per her ruling yesterday, the defense will lodge its objections to each government witness to ensure that the prosecution doesn’t present evidence of indirect harm. The judge will hear each witness testify, hear the defense’s objections and the government’s response, and then rule on which portions are admissible.
The defense objected to six specific portions of Kennedy’s testimony
1. Testimony related to the diminuation of reporting from diplomats abroad

a. Judge Lind ruled that Kennedy’s testimony on this “chilling effect” was admissible as long as it related to the time period directly following WikiLeaks’ releases or subsequent news coverage of them

b. She ruled that Kennedy’s opinion on “long-term diminuation” is speculative and therefore inadmissible

2. His belief that if the United States doesn’t have other governments’ trust, it can’t get accurate information and therefore an accurate “product”

a. Judge Lind ruled that this testimony is admissible

3. His belief that nongovernment officials were less willing to speak fully and frankly

a. Same as part one: admissible only in the limited time frame

4. His belief that some embasses included less information in their reporting out of fear, because Kennedy testified that this reduced reporting was “self-generated” and therefore not a result of State Department direction

a. As before, Judge Lind ruled this is admissible in the limited time frame

5. His belief that a “chilling effect” on diplomatic reporting has and will continue to effect that reporting

a. Again, Judge Lind ruled that only short-term testimony here is admissible

b. She ruled that the foundation for his opinion regarding a long-term chilling effect is not based in quantifiable data and is inadmissibly speculative

6. His opinion that the chilling effect has decreased information coming in and had an effect on U.S. policy, and that policy decisions were made on “incomplete information”

a. Judge Lind ruled that Kennedy’s opinion on policy-making in general is admissible for the limited time periodShe ruled that his opinion on the negative effect on policy makers in D.C. based on incomplete information was speculative and inadmissible

The government will call another witness this afternoon, not marked for a classified session. It’s expected to call at least four more witnesses over two more days, all marked for classified sessions. Three are redacted, but thanks to Alexa O’Brien’s research, we expect those to include Adam Pearson from JIEDDO, along with Rear Admiral Kevin Donegan and Major General Kenneth McKenzie from the Pentagon. The fourth will be Youssef Aboul-Enein, a scholar on militant Islam in Iraq.
Update, 3:30pm ET
After the long lunch break, Adam Pearson from JIEDDO testified for about twenty minutes in open court, before moving to a closed session. A certified “ethical hacker” and Arabic linguist, Pearson researched IED “networks” for JIEDDO, which included investigating all logistic and financial preparation for IED attacks.
Update:
It’s worth noting that just one day before McCarl and Pearson testified about JIEDDO, Antiwar.com’s Kelley Vlahos wrote about the organization’s exorbitantly expensive failures,

Thus, the story of JIEDDO (Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization), which, despite getting a total of $21 billion in taxpayer funds over the last seven years, has been accused of chronic mismanagement, redundancy, secrecy, and worst of all, largely failing at its core mission, which is to “focus (lead, advocate, coordinate) all Department of Defense actions in support of the Combatant Commanders’ and their respective Joint task forces’ efforts to defeat IEDs as weapons of strategic influence.”

We don’t know if the defense was able to discuss these issues in court, as the JIEDDO testimony took place almost entirely in secret.

***Poet's Corner-Letta Neely-Tales From The Other Side

This archival piece from 2011 started out life as From The Occupy Boston Woman’s Caucus March And Celebration-December 4, 2011 and is being given an encore here because, frankly, the original stuff said it all, and still needs our attention.-Peter Paul Markin

Josh Breslin comment:

“Hey, what time is the Women’s Caucus March starting?, asked, asked softly and politely, a young, maybe mixed spanishblackwhiteindian, woman dressed in what I would describe as modern young women casual elegant, student division, but what do I know of such North Face fashion trends, as I approached the tent full gravel walkway entrance that leads into the Occupy Boston encampment on the kitchen tent side. I answered softly and politely not out of instinct, or mannered effect, but from hoarsed-out chanting-“Whatever we wear, Wherever we go, Yes means Yes, No means No!” – “Consent in the sheets, Dissent in the streets!” – “We are unstoppable, another world is possible!,” words that rang in the streets that Sunday afternoon as the Women’s Caucus and their allies, including me, marched through Boston. A little change of pace from the generic national anthem-like “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” slogans of late, but necessary to show, show manly show, solidarity with the women of this encampment who have led the struggle against male chauvinism and sexual harassment in general-and, disturbingly, in the camp.

“Sorry, you just missed it, we are just finishing up,” I told her. She responded that she thought the thing started at two (another of those snafus that are intrinsic to makeshift social movements, even movements hard-drive driven by modern computer technology), it said so in the Occupy Daily Calendar and she had rushed over here to make it in time. “That is when the music and poetry was listed to start. In fact they are underway down at the main stage now. I’ll walk you down” “Oh, I hope I didn’t miss Letta Neely reading her poetry, that is really why I came. She speaks to me, speaks to me a lot.” I replied that I was not familiar with this woman’s work. “Oh she is a sistah, a black beautiful lesbian sistah, who writes about stuff I feel, feel deeply, being a mixed-race, mixed-up, bi-sexual woman.” I gulped, and smiled, smiled inside, not at what she said but at what infinite number of words would have to go into righteously describing this young woman with that new information added, and of her search for space. I gave up as we approached the main stage and listened to a woman who described herself as PuertoDom ( I hope I am spelling this right, Puerto Rican and Dominican, okay) reading her poetry. Very sharp, witty, and politically to the point poetry. Then Letta Neely came on. Check this out:

From Juba:poetry/by Letta Neely, Wildheart Press, copyright 1998
juba

for renita
u be a gospel song
some a dat
ole time religion
where the tambourine git goin
and the holy ghost sneak up
inside people's bones and
everybody dancin and shoutin
screamin and cryin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and the people start to clappin
and reachin back to african rhythms
pulled through the wombs of
the middle passage
and women's hats start flying
while the dance,
the dance they do gets hotter and holier
and just the music has brought cause for celebration
yeah, u be a gospel song, girl
like some a dat ole back in the woods, mississippi river kinda
gospel
and i feel the holy ghost when you is
inside me
and the tambourines keep goin
and folks is stampin they feet
and oh no,
it's the neighbor knocking on the door
askin is we alright
say we was screamin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and i heard us but i
didn't hear cuz
i was being washed in the gorgeous wetness of
your pussy
being baptized w/ole time religion
the oldest religion there
is
2 women inside the groove
of each other
we come here
we come
we come here
to be
saved

Or feast on this beauty:

Connections
There are connections between us
between the lines we've needed or been forced to draw with our
blood
across
time space words wounds
On these new york streets i've seen cracks in the sidewalk and
grass spurting through like revolution holding fast
to one creed only: "keep going, keep going baby, keep going."
The crabgrass makes me think about where we, you and i
are going
it's a hard day when i realize i don't know any of my enemies
personally
It's my friends i'm speaking to
somehow we keep fighting the same battles over and over again
and arguing over
who's got it worse who's on the bottom of the totem pole
and i don't mean to
proselytize
but we're killing each other
and
the totem pole is still standing
and
we're still using it
not knowing it's an ethnic slur
Me, i feel trapped in the middle of all this whirlpool
i feel like i'm on top of three mountains
shooting
at myself
I went to the march on Washington and saw a lot of white men
together
talking about we will no longer sit on the back of the bus and
somebody had the nerve to say:
"there are a million rosa parks' here"
and i thought
it's not about white guilt or even gay pride
but make sure the
truth
is being told
Cuz the rosas couldn't make it to the march and
as for the back of the bus
whoever thought it up probably
flew
first class
So, i'm not talking bout not aligning with the struggles of my Blk peoples cuz i understand the connections all too well just remember to take Emmit Till, Atlanta child murders, Smallpox blankets, Stonewall, the treatment of Chinese railroaders, and Apple pie all together
Every day in harlem i face a different kind a fear other Blk peoples screaming at me with their eyes cuz i'm in love with way a womon is
One time a man said to my friend, he stood next to her and said,
"I love you
cuz you Blk and you my sistah, but I think all faggots and dykes
should die."
One time a "friend" said to my sister in the presence of enemies,
"You're not natural"
and then wanted to know
why she felt
unsafe
I want to know does anyone fully comprehend this tapestry
does anyone know how to sew all this together without mixing
histories or
trading truth for slogans.
We are not all hanging from trees
standing in welfare lines neck deep in sand getting our heads kicked off into the sunset
(these things are being done as we speak) We are not all getting beat down at Stonewall We are not all being dragged from our homes by our hair being raped by husbands or friends or lovers
We are not all dying the same way. But we are all fighting to breathe
fighting to breathe
****
I, an old white man who spend his 1960s drug-drenched be-bop nights summers of love chasing women (young girls really, as I was a young boy) and running away from my old working-class Olde Saco, Maine oceanside white bread roots, am probably separated by entire gulfs of time, of age, of politics, of mean streets, hell, of opposite sexual preference, and who knows, loves, hates, desires, and foods liked, but know this, my new-found young mixed and matched -up woman friend was right. Letta Neely is a sistah.