***The “Shame” Culture Of Poverty- Down In The Base Of Society Life Ain’t Pretty

Peter Paul Markin comment:

A few years ago in reviewing Frank McCourt’s memoir of his childhood in Ireland, Angela’s Ashes, I noted that McCourt’s story was my story. I went on to explain that although time, geography, family composition and other factors were different, in some ways very different, the story that he told of the impoverished circumstances of his growing up “shanty” in Limerick, Ireland, taking all proportions into consideration, was amazingly similar to those I faced growing up “shanty” in a Boston, Massachusetts suburb, North Adamsville, a generation later. A recent re-reading of that work only confirms my previous appraisal. The common thread? Down at the base of modern industrial society, down at that place where the working poor meets what Karl Marx called the lumpenproletariat, the sheer fact of scarcity drives life very close to the bone. Poverty hurts, and hurts in more ways than are apparent to the eye. No Dorothea Lange Arkie/Okie Dust Bowl hollow-boned despair, hardship windowless, hell, door-less, hovel, no end in sight, no good end in sight photograph can find that place.

I also mentioned in that McCourt review that the dreams that came out of his Limerick childhood neighborhood, such as they were, were small dreams, very small steps up the mobility ladder from generation to generation. If that much, of step up that is. I immediately picked up on his references to what constituted “respectability” in that milieu- getting off the the soul-starving “dole” and getting a “soft” low-level governmental civil service job that after thirty some years would turn into a state pension in order to comfort oneself and one’s love ones in old age.

That, my friends, is a small dream by anybody’s standard but I am sure that any reader who grew up in a working poor home in America in the last couple of generations knows from where I speak. I can hear my mother’s voice urging me on to such a course as I have just described. The carping, “Why don’t you take the civil service exam?,” so on and so on. Escaping that white-walled nine-to-five, three-week vacation and a crooked back cubicle fate was a near thing though. The crushing out of big dreams for the working poor may not be the final indictment of what the capitalist system does to the denizens down at the base but it certainly will do for starters.

In the recent past one of the unintended consequences of trying to recount my roots through contacting members of my high school class, North Adamsville High School Class of 1964, has been the release of a flood of memories from those bleak days of childhood that I had placed (or thought I had placed) way, way on the back burner of my brain. A couple of year ago I did a series of stories, Tales From The ‘Hood', on some of those earlier recalled incidents. Frank McCourt’s recounting of some of the incidents of his bedraggled ragamuffin upbringing brought other incidents back to me. In Angela’s Ashes he mentioned how he had to wear the same shirt through thick and thin. As nightwear, school wear, every wear. I remember my own scanty wardrobe and recounted in one of those stories in the series, A Coming Of Age Story, about ripping up the bottoms of a pair of precious pants, denims of course, one of about three pair that I rotated until they turned to shreds in the course of time, for a square dance demonstration for our parents in order to ‘impress’ a girl that I was smitten with at Adamsville South Elementary School. I caught holy hell, serious holy hell for weeks afterwards, for that (and missed, due to my mother’s public rage in front of everybody, my big chance with the youthful stick girl “femme fatale” as well-oh memory).

I have related elsewhere in discussing my high school experiences as also noted in that series mentioned above that one of the hardships of high school was (and is) the need , recognized or not, to be “in.” One of the ways to be “in,” at least for a guy in my post-World War II generation, the “Generation of ’68,” and the first generation to have some disposable income in hand was to have cool clothes, a cool car, and a cool girlfriend. “Cool,” you get it, right? Therefore the way to be the dreaded “out” was to be ….well, you know that answer.

One way not to be cool was to wear hand-me-downs from an older brother, an older brother who was build larger than you and you had to kind of tuck in that and roll up that. Or to wear, mother–produced from some recessive poverty gene Bargain Center midnight fire discount sale, oddly colored (like purple or vermillion) or designed (pin-striped then not in style or curly-cues never in style) clothes. This is where not having enough of life’s goods hurts. Being doled out a couple of new sets of duds a year was not enough to break my social isolation from the “cool guys.” I remember the routine even now-new clothes for the start of the school year and then at Easter. Cheap stuff too from the Bargain Center mentioned above-a Wal-Mart-type store of the day.

All of this may be silly, in fact is silly in the great scale of things. But those drummed-in small dreams, that non-existent access to those always scarce “cool” items, those missed opportunities by not being ‘right,’ meaning respectable, added up. All of this created a “world” where crime, petty and large, seemed respectable as an alternative (a course that my own brothers followed, followed unsuccessfully for life, and that I did for a minute), where the closeness of neighbors was suffocating and where the vaunted “neighborhood community” was more like something out of “the night of the long knives.” If, as Thomas Hobbes postulated in his political works, especially "Levithan," in the 17th century, life is “nasty, short and brutish” then those factors are magnified many times over down at the base.

Contrary to Hobbes, however, the way forward is through more social solidarity, not more guards at the doors of the rich. All of this by way of saying that in the 21st century we need that social solidarity not less but more than ever. As I stated once in a commentary that I titled, Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?, one of the only virtues of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks among the working poor is that I am personally inured to the vicissitudes of the gyrations of the world capitalist economy. Hard times growing up were the only times. But many of my brothers and sisters are not so inured. For them I fight for the social solidarity of the future. In that future we may not be able to eliminate shame as an emotion but we can put a very big dent in the class-driven aspect of it.

FromThe Marxist Archives-The Bolshevik Press and the Fight for Workers Revolution

Workers Vanguard No. 920 12 September 2008 TROTSKY LENIN The Bolshevik Press and the Fight for Workers Revolution (Quote of the Week) As Workers Vanguard enters its annual subscription drive, we print below excerpts from an article by V.I. Lenin celebrating the tenth anniversary of Pravda, the Bolshevik daily newspaper founded in April 1912 amidst an upsurge of militant class struggle in tsarist Russia. The article was written in 1922, as the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution inspired, in the words of Lenin, new Chartists (referring to the revolutionary tradition of the mid 19th-century proletarian movement in Britain), new Varlins (Eugène Varlin, a socialist leader of the 1871 Paris Commune) and new Liebknechts (Wilhelm Liebknecht, 19th-century Marxist leader of the German socialist movement). The tenth anniversary of a Bolshevik daily published in Russia…. Only ten years have elapsed! But measured in terms of our struggle and movement they are equal to a hundred years. For the pace of social development in the past five years has been positively staggering if we apply the old yardstick of European philistines like the heroes of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals. These civilised philistines are accustomed to regard as “natural” a situation in which hundreds of millions of people (over a thousand million, to be exact) in the colonies and in semi-dependent and poor countries tolerate the treatment meted out to Indians or Chinese, tolerate incredible exploitation, and outright depredation, and hunger, and violence, and humiliation, all in order that “civilised” men might “freely,” “democratically,” according to “parliamentary procedure,” decide whether the booty should be divided up peacefully, or whether ten million or so must be done to death in this division of the imperialist booty, yesterday between Germany and Britain, tomorrow between Japan and the U.S.A. (with France and Britain participating in one form or another)…. At this most difficult moment it would be most harmful for revolutionaries to indulge in self-deception. Though Bolshevism has become an international force, though in all the civilised and advanced countries new Chartists, new Varlins, new Liebknechts have been born, and are growing up as legal (just as legal as our Pravda was under the tsars ten years ago) Communist Parties, nonetheless, for the time being, the international bourgeoisie still remains incomparably stronger than its class enemy. This bourgeoisie, which has done everything in its power to hamper the birth of proletarian power in Russia and to multiply tenfold the dangers and suffering attending its birth, is still in a position to condemn millions and tens of millions to torment and death through its whiteguard and imperialist wars, etc. That is something we must not forget. And we must skilfully adapt our tactics to this specific situation. The bourgeoisie is still able freely to torment, torture and kill. But it cannot halt the inevitable and—from the standpoint of world history—not far distant triumph of the revolutionary proletariat. —V.I. Lenin, “On the Tenth Anniversary of Pravda” (May 1922) ********* V. I. Lenin On the Tenth Anniversary of Pravda Written: 2 May 1922 First Published: Pravda No. 98. May 5, 1922; Signed: N. Lenin; Published according to the Pravda text Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 349-352 Translated: David Skvirsky and George Hanna Transcription\HTML Markup:David Walters & R. Cymbala Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License It is ten years since Pravda, the legal—legal even under tsarist law—Bolshevik daily paper, was founded. This decade was preceded by, approximately, another decade: nine years (1903-12) since the emergence of Bolshevism, or thirteen years (1900-12), if we count from the founding in 1900 of the “Bolshevik-oriented” old Iskra.[1] The tenth anniversary of a Bolshevik daily published in Russia .... Only ten years have elapsed! But measured in terms of our struggle and movement they are equal to a hundred years. For the pace of social development in the past five years has been positively staggering if we apply the old yardstick of European philistines like the heroes of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals. These civilised philistines are accustomed to regard as “natural” a situation in which hundreds of millions of people (over a thousand million, to be exact) in the colonies and in semi-dependent and poor countries tolerate the treatment meted out to Indians or Chinese, tolerate incredible exploitation, and outright depredation, and hunger, and violence, and humiliation, all in order that “civilised” men might “freely”, “democratically”, according to “parliamentary procedure”, decide whether the booty should be divided up peacefully, or whether ten million or so must be done to death in this division of the imperialist booty, yesterday between Germany and Britain, tomorrow between Japan and the U.S.A. (with France and Britain participating in one form or another). The basic reason for this tremendous acceleration of world development is that new hundreds of millions of people have been drawn into it. The old bourgeois and imperialist Europe, which was accustomed to look upon itself as the centre of the universe, rotted and burst like a putrid ulcer in the first imperialist holocaust. No matter bow the Spenglers and all the enlightened philistines, who are capable of admiring (or even studying) Spengler, may lament it, this decline of the old Europe is but an episode in the history of the downfall of the world bourgeoisie, oversatiated by imperialist rapine and the oppression of the majority of the world’s population. That majority has now awakened and has begun a movement which even the “mightiest” powers cannot stem. They stand no chance. For the present “victors” in the first imperialist slaughter have not the strength to defeat smalltiny, I might say—Ireland, nor can they emerge victoriotis from the confusion in currency and finance issues that reigns in their own midst. Meanwhile, India and China are seething. They represent over 700 million people, and together with the neighbouring Asian countries, that are in all ways similar to them, over half of the world’s inhabitants. Inexorably and with mounting momentum they are approaching their 1905, with the essential and important difference that in 1905 the revolution in Russia could still proceed (at any rate at the beginning) in isolation, that is, without other countries being immediately drawn in. But the revolutions that are maturing in India and China are being drawn into—have already been drawn into—the revolutionary struggle, the revolutionary movement, the world revolution. The tenth anniversary of Pravda, the legal Bolshevik daily, is a clearly defined marker of this great acceleration of the greatest world revolution. In 1906-07, it seemed that the tsarist government had completely crushed the revolution. A few years later the Bolshevik Party was able—in a different form, by a different method—to penetrate into the very citadel of the enemy and daily, “legally”, proceed with its work of undermining the accursed tsarist and landowner autocracy from within. A few more years passed, and the proletarian revolution, organised by Bolshevism, triumphed. Some ten or so revolutionaries shared in the founding of the old Iskra in 1900, and only about forty attended the birth of Bolshevism at the illegal congresses in Brussels and London in 1903.[2] In 1912-13, when the legal Bolshevik Pravda came into being it had the support of hundreds of thousands of workers, who by their modest contributions[3] were able to overcome both the oppression of tsarism and the competition of the Mensheviks, those petty-bourgeois traitors to socialism. In November 1917, nine million electors out of a total of thirty-six million voted for the Bolsheviks in the elections 10 the Constituent Assembly. But if we take the actual struggle, and not merely the elections, at the close of October and in November 1917, the Bolsheviks had the support of the majority of the proletariat and class-conscious peasantry, as represented by the majority of the delegates at the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and by the majority of the most active and politically conscious section of the working people, namely, the twelve-million-strong army of that day. These few figures illustrating the “acceleration” of the world revolutionary movement in the past twenty years give a very small and very incomplete picture. They afford only a very approximate idea of the history of no more than 150 million people, whereas in these twenty years the revolution has developed into an invincible force in countries with a total population of over a thousand million (the whole of Asia, not to forget South Africa, which recently reminded the world of its claim to human and not slavish existence, and by methods which were not altogether “parliamentary”). Some infant Spenglers—I apologise for the expressionmay conclude (every variety of nonsense can he expected from the “clever” leaders of the Second and Two-and-aHalf Internationals) that this estimate of the revolutionary forces fails to take into account the European and American proletariat. These “clever” leaders always argue as if the fact that birth comes nine months after conception necessarily means that the exact hour and minute of birth can be defined beforehand, also the position of the infant during delivery, the condition of the mother and the exact degree of pain and danger both will suffer. Very “clever”! These gentry cannot for the life of them understand that from the point of view of the development of the international revolution the transition from Chartism to Henderson’s servility to the bourgeoisie, or the transition from Varlin to Renaudel, from Wilhelm Liebknecht and Bebel to Sudekum, Scheidemanu and Noske, can only be likened to an automobile passing from a smooth highway stretching for hundreds of miles to a dirty stinking puddle of a few yards in length on that highway. Men are the makers of history. But the Chartists, the Varlins and the Liebknechts applied their minds and hearts to it. The leaders of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals apply other parts of the anatomy: they fertilise the ground for the appearance of new Chartists, new Varlins and new Liebknechts. At this most difficult moment it would be most harmful for revolutionaries to indulge in self-deception. Though Bolshevism hasbecome an international force, though in all the civilised and advanced countries new Chartists, new Varlins, new Liebknechts have been born, and are growing up as legal (just as legal as our Pravda was under the tsars ten years ago) Communist Parties, nonetheless, for the time being, the international bourgeoisie still remains incomparably stronger than its class enemy. This bourgeoisie, which has done everything in its power to hamper the birth of proletarian power in Russia and to multiply tenfold the dangers and suffering attending its birth, is still in a position to condemn millions and tens of millions to torment and death through its whiteguard and imperialist wars, etc. That is something we must not forget. And we must skilfully adapt our tactics to this specific situation. The bourgeoisie is still able freely to torment, torture and kill. But it cannot halt the inevitable and—from the standpoint of world history—not far distant triumph of the revolutionary proletariat. May 2, 1922 Endnotes [1]Iskra (old) was the first Russian illegal Marxist newspaper. Founded by Lenin in 1900, it played the decisive role in the formation of a revolutionary Marxist party of the working class of Russia. Soon after the Second Party Congress (1903), control of the newspaper was seized by Mensheviks. With the publication of its 52nd issue Iskra ceased to be an organ of revolutionary Marxism. [2] Lenin refers to the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., which was held on July 17-August 10 (July 30-August 23), 1903. The first thirteen sessions took place in Brussels. Owing to police persecution, the Congress was moved to London. [3] Here Lenin means the cash collections that were undertaken by workers for their newspaper Pravda.

*Studs Terkel's America-The Great Racial Divide

The Other Great Divide-Race in Studs Terkel’s America

BOOK REVIEW

Race: How Blacks And White Feel About The Great American Obsession, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of Race: How Blacks And Whites Feel About Each is a forthright look at the state of American racial tensions a couple of decades ago although the issues raised and the fears expressed are not far from the surface of today’s racial landscape.

Moreover, the times of Obama notwithstanding, although the “code” words for the race question have changed many of the attitudes that are articulated here are hardly “shocking” to one who has had his ear to the ground down at the base of society. The most common attitude expressed by whites here- that of course they are not racially prejudiced, have nothing against blacks, even has black friends, in short, have no racial problems is belied by the refusal to live, go to school with or work with blacks. Perhaps a little surprising, at least to me, was the feeling expressed by many blacks that they did not want to live with whites, did not trust them and also feared them. That is the paradox of race in America and has been since slavery times. Anyone who paid close attention to this year’s presidential race and avoided the easy democratic and social generalizations of the mainstream pundits got hit over the head with this reality on the job, in the public schools in the neighborhood and on the streets every day. Certainly the Obama victory was a significant fact in this racially divided society. However one would be living in a fool’s paradise to think that overnight the race question had been eliminated. But enough of that except to say that we could certainly have used Studs talents to do a postscript on this book today.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. This is important in trying to get to the bottom of such a socially charged question as racial attitudes. Here, for better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.

Bradley Manning, family, and doctors take stand: report and analysis: trial day 34

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By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. August 14, 2013.

Bradley Manning (Photo credit: Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)

Pfc. Bradley Manning took the stand to deliver an apology for the method with which he exposed the wrongs he witnessed in Iraq, as his defense concluded its sentencing case. He faces a maximum prison term of 90 years, after he was convicted last month of 20 counts of Espionage, Computer Fraud, federal theft, and Army violations. In February, he explained releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks as an act of conscience, to spark a debate on war and U.S. foreign policy.
“I’m sorry,” Manning said in an unsworn statement. “I’m sorry that my actions hurt people and hurt the United States.” While the open sessions of the sentencing hearing have revealed no casualties connected to any of WikiLeaks’ releases, diplomats testified that some democracy activists had to be relocated, and those tasked with reviewing the war logs said they had to notify some sources in Iraq and Afghanistan of potential retribution for cooperating with the United States.
“At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues,” but they are “not an excuse.”
Rather than apologize for blowing the whistle on the abuses he witnessed, he explained that he regretted the method with which he did so. “In retrospect I should have worked more aggressively inside the system,” he said. “[I] had options and I should have used these options.”
Manning continued,

I did not truly appreciate the broader effects of my actions. Those effects are clearer to me now through both self-reflection during my confinement in its various forms and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I have seen here. I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.

Discussing his future aspirations, he said, “I want to be a better person, go to college, get a degree. I want to be a positive influence in other people’s lives.”
“Bradley’s brief statement today to Judge Lind apologizing for what happened in no way alters the fact that he took heroic action in the midst of an illegal war,” said Jeff Paterson, director of the Bradley Manning Support Network. “He certainly didn’t blow the whistle on the wrongs he saw in the correct military manner, but he did something while most did nothing. That is why millions have been moved to support him, and why we will not relent until he is free.”
The statement followed a day of testimony in which Manning’s doctors and family discussed his mental health, stressors, and childhood.
Military doctor: Manning “true to his principles”
Dr. David Moulton, the defense’s expert on forensic psychiatry, reviewed Manning’s medical records and history, and also diagnosed him with GID, along with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and some traits of Asperger’s.
Dr. Moulton said that the thing that stood out most about Manning was his consistency, as his beliefs held up throughout interviews and statements. Asked if he believed that in the future Manning would try to correct something that violated his sense of morality, Dr. Moulton said, “I think historically Manning has been pretty true to his principles.”
He said he displayed some “narcissistic traits,” such as “grandiose ideations,” and “arrogant and haughty behavior” when stressed. He said that Manning had “post-adolescent idealism,” a relatively normal focus on making a difference in the world and enacting social changes, for those aged 18-24.
Prosecutors honed on the claim that Manning was narcissistic, attempting to show him as someone who didn’t respect his fellow soldiers. They asked Dr. Moulton about chat logs with Adrian Lamo, in which Manning called his fellow soldiers “a bunch of trigger happy ignorant rednecks,” and if that indicated further narcissism. But Dr. Moulton said, “I can’t say I haven’t” called fellow Marines “rednecks.”
Dr. Michael Worsley, the clinical psychologist Manning saw in Iraq, testified about their therapy sessions and Manning’s issues while he was deployed. In May 2010, he diagnosed Bradley with Gender-Identity Dysphoria (GID), formerly known as Gender-Identity Disorder, along with an anxiety-related but unspecified personality disorder.
The doctor discussed how GID isolated Manning and gave him great stress, as gender is a core part of our identity, adding to the pressures and difficulty he already endured as a homosexual soldier under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT). Even without GID, Dr. Worsley said, Manning was working in an “almost openly hostile environment” that made life “extremely difficult.”
Revealing oneself as homosexual in the military could result in a court-martial at the time, and even today after DADT’s repeal, revealing one’s desire to be the opposite gender would result in administrative separation from the Army.
Manning had no real support system to reach out to about his issues. Dr. Worsley said that soldiers are already separated from their support base, but Manning didn’t really have one back at home anyway. Now he was put in a “hyper-masculine environment,” so the pressure would’ve been “incredible.”
Dr. Worsley said in May (Manning was arrested later that month), he and behavioral health officials discussed what was best for him, believing he should be chaptered out of the Army, because GID was a “long-term issue” that would be “better served outside of the military.”
Manning’s sister and aunt describe childhood
Casey Major-Manning, Bradley’s older sister, testified about their childhood, marred by alcoholism and neglect. Both of their parents drank daily; their father was a functioning alcoholic while their mother slept until noon, at which point she began to drink until she dropped. At just 11-years old when he was born, Casey changed Bradley’s diapers and brought him a bottle, as his mother was frequently too drunk. Bradley’s mother drank and smoked cigarettes at least six months into her pregnancy.
Bradley’s aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, testified about how Manning has changed in the last three years, since his arrest.
“He understands there are people who love him, care about him,” she said. “I’m not sure he understood that before.”
Asked what she would say to Judge Lind, regarding Manning’s potential sentence, she said, “I just hope she takes into account he had a very hard start” in life. “He just thought he was doing the right thing when I think he was really not thinking clearly at all.”
The defense then rested its sentencing case. Court will resume Friday, at 1:00pm ET, for a potential government rebuttal case.

The Stately Drag Queens Of The Portland Museum Of Art

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

Sometimes a man is hard-pressed to tell a story, to tell a story about things that he only learned about later in life, learned about haphazardly and in some senses in an abstract way, in an abstract right way but abstract nevertheless. Learned some things which his experience, his life experience, is ill-suited for him to try to make sense out of, to try to fit in human language emotions of which he is only distantly capable of conveying, yet is compelled to convey. The story to be conveyed here is such a story and concerns my old growing up friend, Jason Barnes, from Olde Saco, that is up in Maine, coastal Maine for those heathens who want to know, about twenty miles or so from scene of the action here, the Portland Museum of Art located over on Congress Street in that benighted city. Yah, Jason Barnes’ saga is such a story about a man’s abstract knowledge limitations and while it would be better for him to tell it, and maybe he will some day when he reflects on what I say here, it is left to this old scribbler to give his take on the matter as it was explained to him by Jason one night not long ago.

I had not seen Jason for a while, maybe three or four years, until he rang me up one afternoon once he found out from a mutual friend of ours from the Olde Saco days that I had retired from the publishing industry and had moved from the bustle and traffic of Cambridge back up to Ocean City not far from where we grew up (although it might as well be a million planets away from the old Acre projects where we came of age. Since Jason now resides in Kennebunk , also a short distance from Olde Saco, it was an easy fit to meet up at one of our old drinking holes, the Dew Drop Inn in ocean-side Olde Saco, one late afternoon where we in our youth had many a time unloaded many a hard-pressed dollar trying to drink ourselves into some form of salvation, mine from constant women troubles, and he not from those particular woes but others, others unknown to me at the time but certainly did not concern women. After a few drinks, the old whiskey and water of our youth still the drink of choice except now we drank from the high-shelf rather than house whiskey or what passed for whiskey then, he laid out his story, not to seek pity or redress or anything like that but just to tell it, and to ask for some commiseration if not understanding. Commiseration he got that day, the bonds that we could draw on of that emotion going back to boyhood 1950s times in the old Acre projects where we breathed our first.

Now I have to tell you some things about Jason, some things related to the story even though it is going to raise hell with the flow of what he had to say and how I would really want to present what he had to say. It will go a long way to explaining why he got commiseration that late Dew Drop Inn afternoon although not understanding. Like I said Jason and I were thick as thieves from first grade at Olde Saco South Elementary School located in that housing project that I mentioned before and that everybody in town called the Acre (whether to signify Hell’s Acre or God’s Little Acre was, is, a subject for dispute) all the way through high school. We had our share of run-ins with authority, first teachers and parents, later cops and judges. We also had our share, or so it seemed at the time, of successes and failures with girls, the young women who were forever a mystery then (and now).

On that last matter it was frankly all a sham on Jason’s part though. A crying out loud sham, although he didn’t know it at the time, at the time when he was grabbing every stray girl on the beach, the ballroom or Jimmy Jakes’ Diner (the one on Main Street no the one on Atlantic Avenue that catered to the tourists, the French-Canadian tourist who swamped the place in summer making it an outpost of old Quebec), nor how to express it, or how to proceed on his feelings in that benighted 1950s old time French- Canadian Roman Catholic-drenched working class town. See, and this I did not know until many years later when he shocked me with the news after he told me he had been arrested in New York City on Christopher Street in 1969 during what later became known as the Stonewall Rebellion, Jason was gay (or to use the terms of the times and which he used to describe himself then, a fag, queer, a homosexual, although he did not use the term homo).

And Jason said that had always had those feelings from when he was a young boy, a young boy sifting through his mother’s bureau drawers touching her womanly things, getting an unnamable excitement from the rustle of silk and cotton. (Although truth to tell I also did the same things, the same no idea what made women different from men thing except the feeling was not to endure for long). We were both adults at the time of his “coming out” and I certainly knew of homosexual activities (and knew how to say fag, queer and homo, as well as dyke and lessie with the best of them), or had heard about them from others I knew in the newspaper world who were so inclined. But not Jason, not Jason who had a wife and two young children whom he adored and who adored him. Impossible.

It took me a long while, a very long while, to comprehend that hard fact, that he had suppressed his real feelings, had done what was “normal”for the sake of appearance and for the sake of his parents and siblings, had done what was the right thing to cover for the wrong things that he began to investigate, secretly, very secretly began to investigate not long after we left high school. It wasn’t until sometime later when I asked him why he had never “hit” on me, or gave me any overt expression of what he was feeling he said, I, kind of bookish, kind of full of a guy full himself, and kind of scrawny, was not his type, his type being muscle beach boys then. He made me laugh when he said he would watch the muscle guys that did their work-outs on Olde Saco Beach every summer and figure that they were the essence of manliness not realizing that many of those brethren were as gay as he was. In any case later, later when he began to act on his desires he actually favored bookish guys, although he had no taste for scrawny ones. With that remark, after the laughter settled down, we were undying friends again.

So with that information out of the way we can proceed with what Jason told me that barroom afternoon, told me about himself more that I had heard about before in order to understand why he was upset by what happened at the art museum. Sometime after Jason “discovered” who he really was, and acted on it by divorcing his wife and moving to the Soho district down in New York City just before it became the big arty place to be he had a further identity crisis. Or rather exploring his sexuality further than he had done previously, previously when he was keeping himself deep in the closet and having to spend all his emotional and physical energy on keeping that hard lid on, he found that he really did like that old time feeling he got when he put on his mother’s garments (and later, in deep secret, his wife’s things on occasion). He didn’t believe he was a woman necessarily but he knew that he felt more than just being a gay man. So he started to hang out at the High Hat Club, a joint off of Soho where there were nightly drag queen performances. You know some big burly guy dressing up and performing Mae West or some blonde, and making the boys tittle. Harmless stuff really, and nobody’s business.

One night though, a slow Monday night Jason thought, they had what we now call an “open mic” at the club and for three dollars you could dress up and go up and strut your stuff, and see if the boys were tittled. Now I know this “open mic” stuff from other milieus, the ever ready folkies filling up local coffeehouses with their plainsong plea, comedy clubs looking for fresh talent, poetry slams and so on but I was never hip to the drag queen scene and how they discovered new talent. All I knew was that at the end of Olde Saco Beach, down the far end, the very end there used to be a club my mother (and if I recall Jason’s too) warned us against, the Rock Haven, an old converted boat where female impersonators did their thing.

So this one night Jason decided to strut his stuff. He gave more details that I needed to know about the arts of breast enhancement, leg and face shaving, and the terrible problems with make-up worthy of some of the women I have known but this not about the trials and tribulations of drag queens as such so I will not proceed further along that course. I don’t know if he had a boyfriend at the time, a steady guy anyway, but he went on stage that night and did a smoky version of jazz-singer Peggy Lee’s Cry Me A River. The boys went wild, went crazy and he had more dates than he could handle for a while. Moreover he turned that night’s performance into an act at the club for the next several years, a paying act, which provided him, along with generous boyfriends, mainly older, with enough to live on for a while.

The problem though like with all women is that once the aging process starts, starts its inevitable toll the boys were looking for fresh meat, fresh songs and fresh daisies. Jason also said he was tired of the scene, more so after many, too many friends contracted AIDS and so he went back to his profession, his trained profession as an architect for a firm outside of Boston. And so he did that and still does that kind of work, lives a quiet life with his lover and husband, Gus (husband of late once the good citizens of Maine finally got it right on the same-sex marriage question). A good solid citizen of the Pine Tree state and still is.

But what got Jason so upset, so knotted up that he had to tell Joshua Breslin of his incident at the art museum. Well, here is the way he told it to me. He had wanted to see the travelling exhibit from the Museum of Modern Art, the Payson Collection of mainly modern art so he went there one weekday to do so. While viewing Pablo Picasso’s Boy With A Horse he noticed that an older woman, a woman dressed rather shabbily, no, rather haphazardly with a hat popular in about 1956 that did not go with her outfit, a jacket that did not match with her skirt, and wearing sneakers, New Balance, topped off by huge ill-fitting glasses and some almost ghoulish make-up that did nothing for her was watching him intensely. A mess thought Jason at first and second glance. Now this is important because even as a kid Jason had a feline, well let’s call it a feline, sense of style, even if he, we, couldn’t do anything about it, not having two dimes to rub together most days. So this woman’s look offended his sense of order but he let it pass.

While Jason was viewing a Matisse though he noticed this old shipwreck was staring at him again, staring closely, and did so for a couple of minutes. Then this wreck yelled out “Peggy, Peggy Lee, it’s me Judy Garland,” Jason shrank for he knew very well the reference could only be directed at him, and only by someone who knew him from New York City in the old days, his old drag queen days. And he knew further that “Judy Garland” was none other than Dick Jones (aka Rita Jones, and several other names as well, girl’s names of course) whom he worked with (and competed, furiously competed with, as they all did for those boy titters) at various location in that city. So Jason knew, despite all caution that he needed to talk to her, talk quickly and quietly.

The upshot of the whole thing was that the shipwreck, let’s call her Judy to keep things straight, was in town for one day, one night really, doing her Judy act down at the Sandbar Club. Jesus, Jason thought don’t old queens know enough to give it up. He also could not imagine the clientele that would pay, pay good money or bad, to see a sixty-something drag queen under any circumstances. Jason had the good sense to stop performing before he wound up in some such circumstances. And that is really why Jason wanted to discuss this whole thing with me, me rather than Gus, who would have been nonplussed by the whole thing. Besides Jason really wanted to talk about getting old, about our getting old, and not about the stately if faded drag queens of the art museum. He said seeing Judy made him for the first time feel old. Welcome aboard, brother. But get this- every time I think about the image of that faded drag queen waiting for the other shoe to drop I finally realized why I could only commiserate with Jason and not show understanding. Jesus.

*A Look At The Racial Fault Line In America- Studs Terkel Style

Division Street Revisited- Stud Terkel’s America

BOOK REVIEW

Division Street: America, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II.

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review, his first serious effort at plebeian oral history, Division Street: America, despite the metaphorically nature of that title, focuses on a serves a narrower milieu, his “Sweet Home, Chicago” and more local concerns than his later works.

Mainly, this oral history is Studs’ effort to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1970 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008) from Studs’ own generation who survived that event, fought World War II and did or did not benefit from the fact of American military victory and world economic preeminence, including those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South to the North. Moreover, this book presents the first telltale signs that those defining events for that generation were not unalloyed gold. As channeled through the most important interviewee in this book, Frances Scala, who led an unsuccessful but important 1960’s fight against indiscriminate “urban renewal” of her neighborhood (the old Hull House of Jane Addams fame area) Studs make his argument that the sense of social solidarity, in many cases virtually necessary for survival, was eroding.

Studs includes other stories, including the lumpen proletarian extraordinaire Kid Pharaoh who will be met later in Hard Times and the atypical Chicago character who gladly joins the John Birch Society in order to assert his manhood, who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.

*Studs Terkel's- Busted Dreams of Working America

BOOK REVIEWS

American Dreams: Lost and Found, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of American Dreams: Lost And Found serves a dual purpose.

First, to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1980 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008): the recent arrivals to these shores hungry to seek the “streets of gold”; those Native Americans, as exemplified in Vince DeLoria’s story, whose ancestors precede our own and who continue to bring up the rear; those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South and, in some cases, found more in common than in difference; and, others who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill. Secondly, always hovering in the background is one of Studs’ preoccupations- the fate of his generation- ‘so-called “greatest generation”. Those stories, as told here, are certainly a mixed bag. Thus, there is no little irony in the title of this oral history.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.

Studs Terkel's "Working People"- The Classic Modern Look

BOOK REVIEW

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do serves to reflect on a time a couple of decades ago when people may have been resigned about their working career but had a feeling that it did not express all of what they were. Given today’s uncertain economic climate and the wider fears about the effects of the long term trend “globalization” which particularly threatens many lower- skilled or easily transferable jobs I am not sure that such interesting reflections on their work experiences would be forthcoming from today’s working population.

Although Terkel has cast a wide net on the range of occupations and types of work that he presents here it is weighted toward blue collar working people: the waitresses, bartenders, service personnel and the like with whom he had such affinity. The most interesting aspect of this effort is that almost universally the work that people do does not reflect on their capacities. In short, the job is not the measure of the person. That said, I believe, intentionally or not, this little treasure trove of interviews is one of the great arguments for socialism: the creation of a society where an energetic waitress or a well-read steelworker, for example, could break out and become a leader of society. A place where every cook can take a turn at governing. That is the real message that these interviewees are trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to articulate. How to successfully do that, however, is a separate and frustratingly hard political and organizational question that I have argues about elsewhere.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.

Update 8/12/13: Delivering 100,000 Nobel Peace Prize petitions, and what about the Nuremberg charter?

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Supporters at an early morning vigil at Fort Meade prior to the defense beginning its sentencing arguments.

Paul Jay and Vijay Prashad discuss the Nuremberg charter, an international agreement signed 68 years ago, which holds soldiers accountable for war crimes, regardless of whether or not they have been ordered to commit the said crimes by their government. The charter creates an international law that demands soldiers act on and report atrocities they witness:

The war in Iraq was illegal, according to most legal scholars I’ve heard, including Kofi Annan, who, unfortunately, didn’t really come out and say it until after he left United Nations, but he said it. An illegal war, invading a country is a war crime. If Bradley Manning sees atrocities committed in the course of a war crime, it’s not just some choice he made. It’s not just a moral obligation. Under international law, he actually had a legal obligation, and certainly a defense, for doing what he did. (Read more…)

More than 100,000 people signed the petition to award Bradley Manning the Nobel Peace Prize, and today Norman Soloman will meet with the Director of the Nobel Research committee to urge them to consider the heroic selfless actions of 3 time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning:

This afternoon I’ll carry several thousand pages of a petition — filled with the names of more than 100,000 signers, along with individual comments from tens of thousands of them – to an appointment with the Research Director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The petition urges that Bradley Manning be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Like so many other people, the signers share the belief of Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire who wrote this summer: “I can think of no one more deserving.” (Read more…)

Supervisor’s failure to help Bradley Manning; more unit witnesses: trial report, day 33

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By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. August 13, 2013.

Paul David Adkins, drawn by Clark Stoeckley.

Former Master Sergeant Paul David Adkins testified for the longest stretch of this morning’s sentencing hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning, attempting to justify his deficient response to several incidents that should’ve warranted further attention.
Manning sent Adkins an email titled “My Problem,” with an attached photo of Manning dressed in a wig and makeup. It began,

This is my problem. I’ve had signs of it for a very long time. It’s caused problems within my family. I thought a career in the military would get rid of it. It’s not something I seek out for attention, and I’ve been trying very, very hard to get rid of it by placing myself in situations where it would be impossible. But, it’s not going away; it’s haunting me more and more as I get older. Now, the consequences of it are dire, at a time when it’s causing me great pain it itself.

Adkins referenced the email to mental health professionals but didn’t explain its contents, and he didn’t take the matter to his commander.
In a December 2009 counseling session with Sgt. Daniel Padgett, Manning flipped over a desk, sending government computers crashing to the floor. Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehersman testified this morning that Manning then gestured toward the weapon rack, so Ehersman restrained him in a Full Nelson hold. Adkins was informed of the matter but again didn’t tell his company commander.
In perhaps the most troubling incident, Adkins came upon Manning curled up in a ball on the floor of a supply room, with a knife beside him on the floor. He had carved the words “I want” onto the chair next to him. Adkins said he calmed Manning down but didn’t take him to see anyone.
“Why wouldn’t you take him to mental health immediately?” asked defense lawyer David Coombs. Adkins couldn’t explain.
Instead of taking him to a doctor, Adkins simply sent him back to work, as “there was stuff to do.” Clearly not “calm,” Manning punched Specialist Jihrleah Showman later in that work shift.
Adkins was reprimanded and ultimately reduced in rank for his failures to respond to these incidents. CW2 Kyle Balonek, who expected to be supervising intelligence analysts, testified this morning that Adkins “circumvented” him when handling soldiers’ issues.
Coombs had Adkins, who still appears to be suffering from ‘memory loss’ that none of his former colleagues could confirm, reread his own statements in which he said that he was “unsure” of Manning was a “threat to himself” and that he was a “constant source of concern.” He asked Adkins why he didn’t remove Manning from the Secret Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) if that was the case, and Adkins said that doing so would have removed his second Shi’a analyst. He would’ve had to move CW2 Balonek over to the night shift, reducing the unit’s “abilities to analyze and assess the biggest threat by a third.”
15 “Red flags” ignored
Lillian Smith, the government-appointed subject matter expert on information assurance for the defense team, testified about her review of the Army CID’s initial investigation into Bradley Manning’s disclosures, the 15-6 investigation into the unit failures that led up to the disclosures, and the Article 32 pretrial hearing in December 2011.
Smith identified 15 “red flags” that should have alerted Manning’s superiors that he might not be “suitable” to receive or maintain his security clearance, dating as far back as his Advanced Individual Training in 2008, all the way up to the incidents that Adkins failed to address.
Manning picked on in Iraq
Sheri Walsh, a brigade legal soldier, befriended Manning over the course of their deployment in Iraq. She often invited him to eat with her and over time, they began to talk at some length. She testified about fellow soldiers picking on him, including an incident in which one soldier punched a door to hit Manning in the face.
Lorena DeFrank (formerly Lorena Cooley) testified that she had referred to Manning as the “runt” of their unit, as he was physically the smallest.
DeFrank testified that Manning liked to talk about politics with her, and that after their mid-tour leave in early 2010, Manning had asked her to look at an Apache video (Collateral Murder). In April 2010, she said she overheard him in a Skype conversation, in which he expressed concern about public opinion in the United States.
Bradley to take the stand tomorrow
David Coombs confirmed after court that Manning will take the stand tomorrow – it will be up to Manning whether he testifies as a witness or whether he gives an unsworn statement that cannot be cross-examined

Petition: President Barack Obama Pardon Private Bradley Manning

 

 
The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:


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


In federal cases, and military court-martials such as Private Bradley Manning’s are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial. Now that Bradley Manning has been found guilty of 19 charges and is subject to up to 90 years in prison, probably at Fort Leavenworth, this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. The man who spoke truth to power about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and revealed the perfidious depths of American foreign policy should spend not one more day in the hands of the American government. Free Our Brother! Free Bradley Manning! Free the heroic Wikileaks whistleblower!

 

You can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning.

Name                                                  E-Mail Address  _______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Begin a petition campaign to Pardon Bradley Manning with a form like this

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Also as the Bradley Manning trial is winding down and sentencing is impending everyone should help by doing the following:

Call (202) 685-2900-The military is pulling out all the stops to chill efforts to increase transparency in our government. Now, we’re asking you to join us to ensure we’re doing all we can to secure Bradley’s freedom as well as protection for future whistleblowers.

Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Bradley’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease Bradley’s sentence, no matter what the judge decides. As hundreds of activists join us in DC today to demonstrate at Maj. Gen. Buchanan’s base, Ft. McNair, we’re asking you to join our action demanding he do the right thing by calling, faxing, and e-mailing his Public Affairs Office.

 

The convening authority can reduce the sentence after the Judge makes her ruling.

 

Let’s Remind Maj. General Buchanan:

• that Bradley was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement, which the UN torture chief called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”
• that President Obama has unlawfully influenced the trial with his declaration of Bradley Manning’s guilt.
• that the media has been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Bradley Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.
• that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.
• that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.
• that Bradley Manning is a hero who did the right thing when he revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

Remind General Buchanan that Bradley Manning’s rights have been trampled – Enough is enough!

 

Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil

 Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!

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