The Making Of An American Communist Leader- The Early Days Of James P. Cannon

The Making Of An American Communist Leader- The Early Days Of James P. Cannon

Click on the headline to link to the journal, "Spartacist", for another review of the biography of early years of James P. Cannon from the International Communist League.

BOOK REVIEW

JAMES P. CANNON AND THE ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY LEFT, 1890-1928, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS, 2007

I have reviewed many of the writings of the American revolutionary James P. Cannon elsewhere in this space. This review should serve as an interim evaluation of this excellent biography of the premier Communist leader to come out of that movement in the 20th century. As such it is long overdue and, as pointed out below timely. I have read through this book once but want to read it again before making a full evaluation. I also want to dig more deeply into the incredible number of footnotes, perhaps more than the average reader may comprehend, the author has provided. More later. Kudos to Professor Palmer.


If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past mistakes of our history and want to know some of the problems that confronted the early American Communist Party and some of the key personalities, including James Cannon, who formed that party this book is for you.

At the beginning of the 21st century after the demise of the Soviet Union and the apparent `death of communism' it may seem fantastic and utopian to today’s militants that early in the 20th century many anarchist, socialist, syndicalist and other working class militants of this country coalesced to form an American Communist Party. For the most part, these militants honestly did so in order to organize an American Socialist Revolution patterned on and influenced by the Russian October Revolution of 1917. James P. Cannon represents one of the important individuals and faction leaders in that effort and was in the thick of the battle as a central leader of the Party in this period. Whatever his political mistakes at the time, or later, one could certainly use such a militant leader today. His mistakes were the mistakes of a man looking for a revolutionary path.

For those not familiar with this period a helpful introduction and copious footnotes by the author give an analysis of the important fights that occurred inside the party. That overview highlights some of the now more obscure personalities, where they stood on the issues and insights into the significance of the crucial early fights in the party. These include questions which are still relevant today; a legal vs. an underground party; the proper attitude toward parliamentary politics; support to third party bourgeois candidates; trade union policy; class war defense as well as how to rein in the intense internal struggle of the various factions for organizational control of the party. This makes it somewhat easier for those not well versed in the intricacies of the political disputes which wracked the early American party to understand how these questions tended to pull it in on itself. In many ways, given the undisputed rise of American imperialism in the immediate aftermath of World War I, this is a story of the `dog days' of the party. Unfortunately, that rise combined with the international ramifications of the internal dispute in the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International shipwrecked the party as a revolutionary party toward the end of this period.

As an addition to the historical record of this period this book is a very good companion to the two-volume set by Theodore Draper - The Roots of American Communism and Soviet Russia and American Communism- the definitive study on the early history of the American Communist Party. I have, as is the nature of the case, dwelt here on Cannon’s development as a Communist in the early days of that party. When I update this review I will discuss his formative years in Kansas, his father’s tutelage in his development as a socialist, his self-education in the rough and tumble of socialist and IWW (Wobblies) politics and some details of his personal life as they affected his political development. For now, if you want to know what it was like in the 'hothouse' (some would say loony bin) in the early days this is the book for you. Hopefully the author will continue this biography further to the later more decisive events that finished Cannon’s education as a communist leader.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Ring Lardner’s “Baseball Round-Up”

Short Book Clips

Baseball Round-Up -You Know Me Al and other stories, Ring Lardner

At one time early in the first part of the 20^th century there was no question that baseball was the American pastime. Sand lot, back of school, back of the barn, out in an abandoned elysian field after a wheat or corn harvest had left some space for gentler work, hell, even on mean immigrant city “stick ball” streets (where else would such a “sport” make sense with so much glass around to be broken by stray balls, and angry swing for the fences bats), any place boys, men, a few girls (righteously trying to keep up with the boys), could collect a few numbers, get out a bat and balls, and field two teams of indeterminate numbers (no, Billy can’t play today he is being punished, Joe had to work overtime tonight, skewing the sides) you could see on any brisk spring night, hazy summer evening, or leafy fall day a game in progress, out in Muncie, over in Lansing, up in Madison, down in Biloxi, up in Portland, down in Birmingham, and right in Chicago’s South Side, New York’s East Side and Boston’s Southie you could see a pick-up game being played. Even, or maybe especially on, those mean negro streets and gabacho latino streets hidden from main America view you could see a pick-up game being played. Played in all cases for social graces, played for town bragging rights, played for who buys the first couple of rounds at the Dublin Grille, Jimmy Jake’s Diner, Joe’s Bar and Grille, Sam’s juke joint and Angelo’s back yard still hidden from that main America view. And played, American boy dream (white/negro/brown/red/yellow dream) for keeps and big dough (those days big dough today just tip money, walking daddy money) in the majors, the American and National Leagues, in cities that had enough of a crowd to fill those not sand lot, not back of barn, not vacant lot, not mean streets stadia. And grown men could grow old (and fat) off their earnings. And other grown men could earn a living and a spot in the limelight (if they were good) describing the heroic (there is no other word for it) exploits of the local batsmen for the reading public who patronized (and they did in great numbers) the sports pages of the New York Post, the Muncie Daily Gazette, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun, and their kindred.

That was a time when the name Ring Lardner was well known in sports- writing and literary circles. The sports- writing part was easy because that was his beat. He knew the front, back, side, up and down of the sport describing the foibles of the sick, lame, lazy, hale and hearty who took up the glove and tried to swing for those elusive fences, and those who wanted to from bush to big leagues. With classic simple (well maybe not so simple but simple compared to today) character types easily recognized on the prima donna field of dreams (and easily recognized in life too).

The literary part is much harder to recognize but clearly the character of Jack Keefe from his most famous series, You Know Me, Al has become an American classic. Does one need to be a baseball fan to appreciate this work? Hell, no. We all know, in sports or otherwise, this guy, right? You know the guy with some talent who has no problem blaming the other guy for mistakes ( he should have caught that easy snag, hey, the sun got in my eye, the first baseman was supposed to call for it, I tripped over the bag, that was the luckiest home run that guy ever made) while he (or she) is pure as the driven snow ( I had a cold, the baby kept me up, woman trouble, no further explanation needed, too much to drink last night and on and on). Take a look at any of today‘s sports headlines (hell, any headlines), although the excuses are more mannered and more inscrutable per snarly press agent magic.

That is the concept that drives these stories told in the form of letters to Al, his buddy back home, his hick home town out in mainstream Mid-America, the part of America that was to be most affected by the move to cities and the inner suburbs once farm life dried up. The language, the malapropisms and the schemes all evoke an earlier more innocent time in sport and society. I do not believe that you could create such a character based on today’s sports ethic. The athletes would have a spokesperson ‘spinning’ their take on the matters of the day, and the owners, managers, coaches, agents, bat boys, season ticket-holders, average bleachers beer drinkers, and other assorted hangers-on as well. The only one that might come close today is Nuke LaRouche in the movieBull Durham but as that movie progressed Nuke was getting ‘wise.’ Read these stories. Read them more than once.

There is also no question that aside from a deft ear as a sportswriter that Ring Lardner also had an ear for the foibles and frustrations of the newly rising middle class of the post- World War I Midwestern heartland. This was not the land of Fitzgerald’s or Hemingway’s “Lost Generation” sophisticates, making Paris stops on the grand tour or trying to crash the Mayfair swells crowd out in West Egg, but of those left behind trying to scratch out an existence anyway they could in small cities or certain sections of big cities selling shoes or insurance. However, rather than beat up on the‘yokels’ straight up as one would expect from such easy literary targets Lardner pokes and prods at their pretensions in a fairly harmless way, at least on the surface. However on re-reading these stories recently I found myself saying ‘ouch’ to the literary stabs in the backs that he thrust at his victims in stories like Gullible’s Travels (a title which aptly sums up my comment) and The Big Town. Read on.

Demand clemency for Leonard Peltier

 

Dear friends We invite you to sign this petition in support of Leonard Peltier, wrongly jailed for 40 years. Please circulate to your networks. Many thanks PAYDAY "It should be remembered that Standing Rock was the site of the 1974 conference of the International Indigenous Movement that spread throughout the Americas and beyond, the starting point for the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [UNDRIP]... I call on all my supporters and allies to join the struggle at Standing Rock in the spirit of peaceful spiritual resistance and to work together to protect Unci Maka, Grandmother Earth. I also call upon my supporters and all people who share this Earth to join together to insist that the US  complies with and honors the provisions of international law, as expressed in the UNDRIP, International Human Rights Treaties and the long-neglected Treaties and trust agreements with the Sioux Nation."  Leonard Peltier, from a solidarity statementwith the Standing Rock resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline. For more info, contact the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee:http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

Don�t let my father die in prison Take Action � � SHARE THIS ACTION My name is Kathy Peltier and I am the daughter of imprisoned Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier. In 1975, during a confrontation with members of the American Indian Movement, two FBI agents were shot dead. My father was convicted of their murders, but has always denied killing the agents. Judges and legal experts agree that his trial was unfair. He's been in prison over 40 years - my entire life. Now his health is failing. My worst fear is that my father will die in prison and I won't have any real time with him. Help bring my father home: Tell President Obama to grant Leonard Peltier clemency. Even behind bars, my father is an inspiration. His name is synonymous with the struggle for Native rights, and he recently issued a statement in solidarity with everyone standing together at the Camp of the Sacred Stones at Standing Rock: "It is an honor to have been alive to see this happen with you young people. You are nothing but awesome in my eyes."  Many people have called for him to be granted leniency and freedom, but he remains in prison. That's why Amnesty International USA has included his case in its Write for Rights letter-writing marathon. Join Write for Rights and add your name to this urgent petition: Free Leonard Peltier. The Federal Bureau of Prisons says it won't take care of my father until his condition - he has an abdominal aortic aneurysm - gets even worse. But I'm afraid it will be too late. It would mean everything to me if my father could spend a little of his life with me. Urge President Obama to grant clemency to my father, Leonard Peltier, so that he can live out the rest of his days with his family. On behalf of my father and my brother, and for all the people you help through your kindness and your activism, thank you. In solidarity, Kathy Peltier  2016 Amnesty International USA | 5 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10001 | 212.807.8400

*The Latest From The "National Jericho Movement" Website- Free All Class War Prisoners!

Click on the headline to link to the "National Jericho Movement" Website.

Markin comment:

Free All The Class War Prisoners. Free Mumia! Free Leonard Peltier!

In Honor Of The 145th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-All Honor To The Communards

In Honor Of The 145th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-All Honor To The Communards

 

Some events can be honorably commemorated every five, ten, twenty-five years or so like the French Revolution. Other events need to be honorably commemorated yearly, and here I include the uprising which went on to form the Paris Commune, established on March 18, 1871, the first time the working class as such took power if only for a short time and only in one city, although that the city was Paris was not accidental since the city of lights had an honorable history of such plebian uprisings from 1789, 1830, and 1848 and other lesser such insurrectionary happenings (there was an expression at the time in radical and revolutionary circles that as long as Blanqui was alive and people remembered the Babeuf uprisings that when the deal when down you could always depend on Paris to rise). We can, those of us in what now is a remnant who still believe in the old time verities and who still fight for such things as working-class led revolution, socialism leading to a world communist federation or some such seemingly utopian vision and a fairer shake in the appropriation of the world’s good, still draw lessons from that experience.

Sadly the bulk of the world’s working classes most definitely in the wake of the rather quick demise of the Soviet Union and East Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s which for better or worse had represented some socialist vision however distorted (or to use Trotsky’s terminology deformed workers states) have either dismissed socialist solutions out of hand these days when the situation in places like Greece, Spain and lots of East Europe countries cry out for such solutions or the links to such previous socialist ideas has become so attenuated that the ideas are not even in play. To take Greece as a current example anybody with the least bit of sense knows that you cannot keep squeezing the living standards of the vast majority of people in that country yet the number of those who seek a communist way out, at least as exemplified by the recent parliamentary results, a quick measure of the strength of the harder left is disheartening.

So yes, in the absence of more current positive examples, we can use the Commune to draw lessons that might help us in the one-sided fight against the human logjam that the international capitalist system, complete with its imperial coterie at the top, led by the United States, the has bequeathed us almost a century and one half later and that is ripe, no overripe to be replaced by a more human scale way of producing the good of this wicked world. Hence the commemoration in this the 144^th anniversary year.

Some “talking head” commentator in the lead-up to the 2015 celebration of the French Revolution on July 14^th, a commentator specifically brought in for the occasion, I heard recently on a television talk show reflecting the same sentiment I have heard elsewhere from other academic and ideological sources, had declared the French Revolution dead. By that he meant that the lessons to be learned from that experience has been exhausted, that in the post-modern world that event over two hundred years ago had become passé, passé in the whirlwind of the American century now in full bloom (an American century that we thought had run its course in the wake of the Vietnam defeat but drew new life, if only by default, with the demise of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence). While not arguing here with the validity of that statement on the French revolution, a classic bourgeois revolution when the bourgeoisie was a progressive movement in human history and actually drew some connections between the Enlightenment philosophies that gave it inspiration and the tasks of the risen people, there are still lessons to be drawn from the Commune. If for no other reason than we still await that international working class society that such luminaries as the communist Karl Marx expanded upon in the 19^th century.          

Obviously like the subsequent Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Chinese revolutions of the 1920s and 1940s, the Vietnamese which took up a great deal of the middle third of the twentieth century, and others the Paris Commune was formed in the crucible of war, or threat of war. Karl Marx, among others, the great Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky for one, had noted that war is the mother of revolution and the defeat of the French armies and the virtual occupation by the victorious German armies around Paris certainly conformed to that idea that the then current government was in disarray and the social fabric after a near starvation situation required more. Every revolutionary commentary has noted that those factors formed a classic pre-revolutionary phenomena. Moreover the Commune had been thrust upon the working masses of Paris by the usual treachery of the bourgeois government thrown up after Louis Bonaparte lost control. That had not been the most promising start to any new society. But you work with what you have to work with and defend as Marx, the First International, and precious few others did the best you can despite the odds, and the disarray. So no hard and fast blueprint on revolutionary upheavals except by negative example, by what was not done, could come ready-made from that experience.  

To my mind, and this is influenced by the subsequent Russian revolutions of 1905 and February and October 1917, no question the decisive problem of the Commune was what later became to be known as the crisis of revolutionary leadership. Of course they should have expropriated the banks and centered their efforts around strengthening the authority of the Central Committee of the National Guard and not let lots of windbags and weirdos have their say based on barely deserved reputations but the result of those failures were that no serious party or parties were available to take charge and create a strong government to defend against the Thiers counter-attack from Versailles. (Also no appeals to other communes to come to the defense of Paris and no work among the Versailles soldiers.) It is problematic whether given the small weight of the industrial proletariat (masses factory workers like at Putilov in Petrograd rather than the small shop artisans and workman which dominated the Paris landscape), the lack of weaponry to fend off both the Germans and the Versailles armies, and food supply whether even if such a revolutionary leadership had existed that the Commune could have continued to exist in such isolated circumstances but the contours for the future of working class revolution would have been much different. The central and critical role of a revolutionary leadership which got fudged around in places like Germany where the working class party for all intents and purposes was barely a parliamentary party in the struggle against capitalism would have been clarified and at least a few revolutions, including those in Germany between 1918 and 1924 might have turned out differently and the world as well. The “what ifs” of history aside which are always problematic that is the bitter lesson we still before us today.   

President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning-Sign The Petition Now-She Must Not Die In Prison

President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning-Sign The Petition Now-She Must Not Die In Prison    

   

ake actions on Chelsea Manning's birthday - 17 December

 

11/19/2016 11:13 AM

Happy Birthday CHELSEA MANNING! Free her now! International Actions, 17 December 2016
Organise a protest, a vigil, a party, send Chelsea a message/birthday card! Tell us and we will publicise it!  Take a photo and send to her (as well as us).  Sign the new petition to free her.  Circulate this invitation to your contacts. Actions planned so far London 12.30-2pm Vigil on the steps of St Martin in-the-Fields, London WC2N 4JJ Philadelphia  Plans in progress Oakland  Plans in progress Chelsea Manning will be 29 years old on this day.  She is the trans woman, ex-military analyst, who leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to Wikileaksexposing the truth about US, UK and other governments’war crimes and corruption in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq,Israel & the Palestinian Authority, Peru, Venezuela . . .  CHELSEA NEEDS OUR SUPPORT URGENTLY!  She has twice tried to commit suicide in prison, the second time after being thrown into solitary confinement for her first suicide attempt.  One of her lawyers, Chase Strangio said: “She has repeatedly been punished for trying to survive and now is being repeatedly punished for trying to die.”  We must send a strong message to the US military and Obama that their torture of Chelsea must stop.  We must get her out! Chelsea was first imprisoned in 2010, and in 2013 she came out as a trans woman. For six years an international movement has been supporting her struggle in prison, winning significant victories: ·        April 2011: released from Quantico, Virginia, US, where she had been held for months under torturous conditions; ·        August 2013: whilst sentenced to 35 years, the court had to drop the charge of “aiding to the enemy” which carried a possible death penalty  ·       June 2014: Chelsea elected Grand Marshal at San Francisco Pride 2014 ·       February 2015: she won “hormone therapy” after 30 organizations from US, UK, Germany and Italy signed a letter in support of her demand ·       May 2016: she lodged an appeal against her conviction ·       September 2016: after a 5-day hunger strike, the Army agreed to provide the gender reassignmentsurgery she is entitled to, a decision that may benefit a great number of trans prisoners.  However, the army has continued to harass her.  ·       In August 2015, she was threatened with indefinite solitary confinement for possession of expired toothpaste and deprived of her privileges.  ·       In July 2016, when she attempted to end her life the army threatened her with indefinite punishment which, after a public outcry, was limited to 14 days (7 suspended).  ·       In October, she made a second attempt to end her life.  Chelsea is part of a great movement of thousands of whistleblowers who have revealed abuses and demanded their rights. From prison Chelsea has written against police killing young people of colour in the US, and insupport of immigrants and refugees – including queer and trans people.  For the last six years, every time she was under threat, people in many countries have organized vigils and protests: petitions reached over 100,000 signatures in a matter of days. We call on the anti-war, anti-racist, anti-sexist, LGBTQ movements, whistleblowers, war veterans, and everyone who stands for justice and against poverty and the arms trade to campaign to Free Chelsea Manning now! Chelsea is now appealing to Obama “to commute her sentence to time served”.  Sign the petition, read Chelsea’s moving statement and the letters of support from Daniel Ellsberg, Glen Greenwald and David Morris. Donations to her legal fund are needed also. Write to Chelsea – Keep her spirits up!For more info: Chelsea Manning Support Network		Last year’s birthday pics Berlin Boston Brisbane Bucharest Crescent Detroit Dublin Frankfurt/Mainz London Oakland Philadelphia Rome Vancouver Wales

POST-ELECTION HANGOVER (continued)

POST-ELECTION HANGOVER (continued)

BILL FLETCHER, BOB WING : Fighting Back Against the White Revolt of 2016

Trump’s real triumph was his ability to shift Republican politics to straight racism, misogyny and xenophobia with a potent authoritarian tone, yet still create a winning voting coalition—time will tell how stable—that brought together the core Republican electorate, including right-wing evangelicals, as well as some disaffected former Democratic voters… The election results must also be understood as Clinton’s failure to fully mobilize the so-called Obama coalition to her side. As we have noted elsewhere, Clinton was not the candidate to lead an anti-corporate and progressive populist insurgency, which is precisely what is needed at this moment. According to the national exit poll sponsored by all the main news organizations, blacks, Latinos, Asians, unmarried women, young voters, union households—the core of the Obama Coalition—all voted for Clinton, but in somewhat smaller percentages than they had voted for Obama in 2012… November 8th was a revolt by 58 percent of white voters. It was a revolt spearheaded by a significant, but not very large, segment of the electorate that had been energized by the appeal of white nationalism and right-wing populism. The nature of the appeal is the call for a return to the past; actually the return to a mythical past, in the face of a complex and changing world.  November 8th also represented a slight but electorally crucial demobilization of an important segment of the so-called Obama Coalition, partly by multiple efforts at voter suppression, e.g., the elimination of polling locations in the South, and the removal of voters from registration rolls.   More

LESSON FOR DEMOCRATS: BACK TO CLASS

After Barack Obama won the 2008 election as an “agent of change,” he renewed the Wall Street-Democrat alliance, persisting in the trade policies that had decimated the Democratic base in the industrial Midwest.  America’s globalized capitalism can live with the politics of race, gender, and sexual identity. But it is implacably hostile to organized labor. The neoliberal Democrats got the message. As the unionized factories closed and labor’s membership dwindled, the Democratic Party—while it happily took union members’ dues and votes by arguing that Republicans would be worse—did virtually nothing to help. History, the Democrats discovered, was about demography, not class. Democrats would assemble a coalition of the growth sectors—minorities, women, and professional white men. Like their Wall Street funders, the coalition’s implicit antagonist, if not enemy, was the white male worker—the “loser” in the New Economy. Ignored in this politics of social and cultural identity was that organized labor, for all its flaws, kept the white working class in the Democratic Party, and was a firewall against white racism. This was especially true for industrial unions. Moreover, factory jobs, along with government jobs, were the most important ladders of upward mobility for minorities and immigrants. In election after election, the best indicator that a white worker would vote Democratic was union membership.  More

Trump era confronts organized labor with gravest crisis in decades

On Thursday, Trump announced that he would nominate as his labor secretary Andrew Puzder, a fast-food executive who has opposed additional overtime pay for workers and expressed skepticism about increasing the minimum wage. That followed a pair of Twitter messages Wednesday evening in which Trump attacked an Indiana union leader who had criticized him, saying the official had done a “terrible job representing workers.”  The actions, coming just four weeks after Trump won the presidency in part by wooing union voters with promises of better trade deals and a manufacturing revival, fed fears among national labor leaders that Trump was now planning a broad assault on unions… The crisis for unions is a combination of direct threats from Trump’s agenda and the knowledge that many rank-and-file workers are sympathetic to his populist message. Exit poll data from the Nov. 8 election shows that Hillary Clinton’s smaller margin of victory among union members, along with Trump’s unusually strong performance, helped him win the White House.  More

TRUMP'S BAIT AND SWITCH:

How to Swamp Washington and Double-cross Your Supporters Big Time

Only a month has passed since November 8th, but it’s already clear (not that it wasn’t before) that Trump’s anti-establishment campaign rhetoric was the biggest scam of his career, one he pulled off perfectly…   The rarified world of his cabinet choices is certainly a universe away from the struggling working class folks he bamboozled with promises of bringing back American “greatness.” And yet the soaring value of his cabinet should be seen as merely a departure point for our four-year (or more) leap into what is guaranteed to be an abyss of inequality and instability. Forget their wealth. What their business conflicts, relationships, and ideological stances indicate about what they’ll do to America is far more worrisome.   More

'Welcome to the General Billionaires Administration'

Another day, another cabinet appointment for the incoming Donald Trump administration. On Thursday, he nominated fast-food CEO Andy Puzder to secretary of Labor while Wednesday it was former Marine General John Kelly to head Homeland Security. And, as observers are pointing out, a pattern is emerging as the future commander-in-chief appears to be building a "government of generals and billionaires." … An analysis by NBC's Ben Popkin published Wednesday found that the wealth of the combined Trump appointments "tops $14 billion—more than 30 times greater than that of even President George W. Bush's White House. And Trump isn't halfway done with his picks."  … Meanwhile, during a press briefing on Thursday, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) denounced the incoming cabinet as a "collection of stooges and cronies and misfits" whose "only qualifications for the jobs they are being appointed for is that they have attempted to dismantle and undermine and destroy the very agencies they are now hoping to run," as Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) put it, according to The Hill. "Rather than draining the swamp, he is now filling it up with hungry crocodiles," added Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).     More

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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

North Dakota’s Oil Spill Record:

85 Pipeline Accidents in 20 Years

Environmentalists who oppose the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline have a message for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the incoming Trump administration: When it comes to pumping oil across North Dakota, past is prologue, and that’s bad news for human health and the environment.  An analysis released Wednesday by the Center for Biological Diversity found that pipelines in North Dakota have spilled crude oil and other hazardous liquids at least 85 times since 1996. Those spills—an average of four a year—caused more than $40 million in property damage, the center said, citing data from the United States Department of Transportation…  “We want the Corps to do a full oil-spill risk analysis for every river crossing along the entire route of the project," Spivak said. “Spills happen, as this analysis shows. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. The reason we did this analysis when we did it is because pipelines commonly spill…and that is why it’s problematic at a river crossing.”   More

The victory at Standing Rock could mark a turning point

From the start, this has been an against-the-odds battle. Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, is as wired as they come: its line of credit links it to virtually every bank you’ve ever heard of. And operating under a “fast-track” permit process, it had managed to win most of its approvals and lay most of its pipe before opponents managed to mount an effective resistance. But that opposition finally did arise, and it centered on the last place the pipeline would have to cross: the confluence of the Missouri and the Cannonball rivers. It wasn’t standard-issue environmental lobbying, nor standard-issue protest, though there was certainly some of both (lawyers took the company to court, activists shut down bank branches)… When native American protesters sat down in front of bulldozers to try and protect ancestral graves, they were met with attack dogs – the pictures looked like Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1963. But it went back further than that: the encampment, with its teepees and woodsmoke hovering in the valley, looked like something out of an 1840s painting. With the exception that this was not just one tribe: this was pretty much all of native North America.  More

AMERICAN DREAM COLLAPSING FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Rising income inequality has eroded the ability for American children to grow up to earn more than their parents, according to groundbreaking new research from a superstar team of economists that carries deep implications for President-elect Donald Trump's policy agenda.

The research from a team of economists led by Stanford's Raj Chetty, and also including researchers from Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley, estimates that only half the children born in the 1980s grew up to earn more than their parents did, after adjusting for inflation. That's a drop from 92 percent of children born in 1940.  The fall-off is particularly steep among children born in the middle class…  The economists say rising concentration of income among the richest Americans explains 70 percent of what has been a steady decline in absolute mobility from the baby boom generation to millennials, while a slowdown in economic growth explains just 30 percent.   More

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste

The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos… The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel of corporate executives, and consultants from McKinsey and Company. Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management… But some Pentagon leaders said they fretted that by spotlighting so much waste, the study would undermine their repeated public assertions that years of budget austerity had left the armed forces starved of funds. Instead of providing more money, they said, they worried Congress and the White House might decide to cut deeper.   More

Pentagon's suppressed waste report only tip of the inefficient machine

The Pentagon now has the dubious distinction of being the only federal agency that cannot pass an audit. As a result, the department often doesn’t know how much equipment it has, or how many contractors it employs. This makes the department extremely vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse… But even if the Pentagon were able to account for every penny it spends, there would still be a question of whether those funds are being spent on the right things. There is a broader definition of waste that goes beyond the administrative costs cited by the business board.

This includes the refusal of Congress to support the closure of unnecessary military bases under a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process; the decision to move full speed ahead on the F-35 fighter program despite its myriad cost and technical problems; and the plan to spend $1 trillion over the next decade on a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, submarines, and missiles at a time when current systems already exceed what is needed to deter any country from attacking the United States with nuclear weapons.  More

U.S. Congress passes $618.7 billion annual defense bill

Ninety-two senators backed the $618.7 billion National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and seven opposed it. Because it passed the House of Representatives by a similarly large margin last week, the bill now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama to veto or sign into law… The 2016 bill, the last of Obama's presidency, includes some Republican-backed initiatives with which he has disagreed in the past. It includes a $3.2 billion increase in military spending, when there has been no similar increase in non-defense funding.  The bill also bars closures of military bases, although top Pentagon officials say they have too much capacity, and it blocks planned reductions in active-duty troop numbers.   More  (Seven voted NO, including Bernie Sanders and Mass Sen. Ed Markey)

New Navy Ship Leaking Tax Dollars

The world’s mightiest navy is at risk of being sunk — not by a superior enemy, but by its own inability to acquire ships that work at a price that even the richest military on the planet can afford… Rather than rethink those missions, the Navy is clamoring for more appropriations to pay for budget-busting weapons systems. For example, the Navy wants a dozen new ballistic-missile-carrying nuclear submarines at an estimated costof about $140 billion. A single new Ford Class nuclear aircraft carrier will cost taxpayers nearly $14 billion — and that doesn’t include the inordinately expensive aircraft it will carry or the support ships needed to help protect it.  Now soaring costs and operating snafus are crippling a class of vessels the Navy was counting on to bulk up the fleet at relatively low cost: the littoral combat ship (LCS). A senior Pentagon official just admitted to Congress that ill-managed attempts to fast-track the design and construction of the LCS have all but “broke the Navy.”  More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Rep. Gabbard Introduces Legislation to Stop ArmingSyrian Terrorists

The legislation would prohibit the U.S. government from using American taxpayer dollars to provide funding, weapons, training, and intelligence support to groups like the Levant Front, Fursan al Ha and other allies of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, al-Qaeda and ISIS, or to countries who are providing direct or indirect support to those same groups.  The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT-AL), Barbara Lee (D-CA-13), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA-48), and Thomas Massie (R-KT-04), and supported by the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and the U.S. Peace Council. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said, “Under U.S. law it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda, ISIS or other terrorist groups. If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the U.S. government has been violating this law for years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.  More  (Video of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s speech on the House floor is available here)

Congress authorizes Trump to arm Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles

The House voted for the first time today to explicitly authorize the incoming Donald Trump administration to arm vetted Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.   While the language in the annual defense bill also creates restrictions on the provision of the controversial weapons, it represents a win for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., a fervent advocate of helping the rebels resist President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. The Senate is expected to pass the bill next week.  Until now, the transfer of man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADs, had been implicitly authorized in the absence of an outright ban. Critics, however, view the new provision as tantamount to a policy recommendation for the president-elect.   More

PATRICK COCKBURN: Why everything you've read about Syria and Iraq could be wrong

Experience shows that foreign reporters are quite right not to trust their lives even to the most moderate of the armed opposition inside Syria. But, strangely enough, the same media organisations continue to put their trust in the veracity of information coming out of areas under the control of these same potential kidnappers and hostage takers. They would probably defend themselves by saying they rely on non-partisan activists, but all the evidence is that these can only operate in east Aleppo under license from the al-Qaeda-type groups.  It is inevitable that an opposition movement fighting for its life in wartime will only produce, or allow to be produced by others, information that is essentially propaganda for its own side. The fault lies not with them but a media that allows itself to be spoon-fed with dubious or one-sided stories…  None of this is new. The present wars in the Middle East started with the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which was justified by the supposed threat from Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Western journalists largely went along with this thesis, happily citing evidence from the Iraqi opposition who predictably confirmed the existence of WMD.   More

British Govt-Funded Outlet Pays to Produce Propaganda for Syrian Rebels

The Revolutionary Forces of Syria (RFS) media office, a major Syrian opposition media outfit and frequent source of information for Western media, is funded by the British government and is managed by Westerners operating out of Turkey… RFS Media is just one of several different propaganda outlets financed by the U.K. Foreign Office. A recent investigation by the Guardian revealed that the British Foreign Office Conflict and Stability Fund has secretly pumped at least £2.4 million (over $3 million U.S.) into pro-rebel propaganda outfits based out of Istanbul…  Sanitizing the armed opposition as “moderate” has been a difficult task to be sure. While Western officials were well aware of the extremist and violently sectarian ideology that dominated the opposition early in the conflict, they deliberately chose to whitewash their atrocities in favor of weakening the Syrian government. RSF Media has stayed true to that goal, portraying armed groups as liberators and protectors adored by the people living under them, a narrative Western media outlets have enthusiastically echoed even as their own reporters were kidnapped, ransomed and even shot by Western-backed rebels.   More

Girl Posting to Twitter From Aleppo Gains Sympathy, but Doubts Follow

Some experts on news media ethics said that, despite the appeal of such a heartbreaking narrative — and with a young girl at its center, no less — news outlets had to approach the account with skepticism, and that some had fallen short.  “It’s always a question of whether a 7-year-old is being used as a propaganda tool, and if so, by whom,” said Jane E. Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. “Sometimes we fall in love with a concept and basically ignore things that would undermine that concept, and ignore things that should be red flags.” … Kathleen Bartzen Culver, the director for the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said some news outlets, including morning network news shows in the United States, seemed to have “suspended skepticism.”  More

Saudis Bankroll Taliban, Even as King Officially Supports Afghan Government

Fifteen years, half a trillion dollars and 150,000 lives since going to war, the United States is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Afghans are being left to fight their own fight. A surging Taliban insurgency, meanwhile, is flush with a new inflow of money.  With their nation’s future at stake, Afghan leaders have renewed a plea to one power that may hold the key to whether their country can cling to democracy or succumbs to the Taliban. But that power is not the United States.  It is Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia is critical because of its unique position in the Afghan conflict: It is on both sides.  A longtime ally of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia has backed Islamabad’s promotion of the Taliban. Over the years, wealthy Saudi sheikhs and rich philanthropists have also stoked the war by privately financing the insurgents.  All the while, Saudi Arabia has officially, if coolly, supported the American mission and the Afghan government and even secretly sued for peace in clandestine negotiations on their behalf.     More

10,000 people are dead in the US-supported war the world forgot

The world is ignoring the worsening humanitarian crisis in war-torn Yemen, the senior UN humanitarian official in the country has warned.

Nearly two years of war between a Saudi-led Arab coalition and the Iran-allied Houthi movement has worsened the plight of millions of Yemenis.

Even before the start of the conflict in March 2015, Yemen was suffering a humanitarian crisis including widespread hunger, brought on by decades of poverty and internal strife.  Around half of Yemen's 28 million people are "food insecure," according to the United Nations, and seven million of them do not know where they will get their next meal.   More

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ISRAEL, PALESTINE . . . and the U.S.

Tell Your Member of Congress:

Say NO to Censorship Pretending to Fight Anti-Semitism

Last week the US Senate rushed passage of the  misnamed “Anti-Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2016” by a voice vote with no debate.  Rather than targeting just real anti-Semitism, the resolution takes aim at activism – especially on campuses -- against Israeli government policies that are tightening control over the Occupied Palestinian territories and extinguishing the hopes for peace.  The Senate action was applauded by AIPAC, the leading voice of the US Israel Lobby, and other organizations which apparently see defending Israel’s actions as more urgent than opposing the anti-Semitic voices among supporters of the incoming Trump administration. 

TAKE ACTION: Say NO to Censorship Pretending to Fight Anti-Semitism

IT’S JUNKET SEASON AGAIN IN MASSACHUSETTS

The time of year when Massachusetts legislators enjoy an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel is again upon us.  Once again a lobbying group, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), is planning the itinerary. According to JCRC executive director Jeremy Burton, over the past five years he has personally accompanied almost a third of the entire Massachusetts legislature on trips to Israel and has been able to “watch firsthand as our participants fall in love with the leaders and activists who’ve inspired and energized me for years.”  Soon after they return, the 12 state legislators participating in the current JCRC junket may vote on anti-BDS legislation the JCRC has said it intends to introduce in the new legislative section, beginning in January.  The stakes this time are particularly high, given the fact that two previous efforts to enlist the Massachusetts legislature in the anti-BDS brigade were de-railed by spirited activism spearheaded by the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, JVP- Boston and Massachusetts Peace Action: first in March of this year and then again in July.  More

Front-Page GLOBE coverage here with quotes from Mass Peace Action

Top Cop From Boston Gets Counter-Terror Training in Israel

Three years after the Boston Marathon bombing, the city’s police commissioner and a delegation of senior Massachusetts law enforcement officials traveled to Israel to train and learn from the country’s most elite counter-terrorism experts.  Sponsored by the ADL, the 14 officers, who arrived on Monday for one week, represent state, federal and local law enforcement, including campus police chiefs from MIT, Northeastern University and Suffolk University.  “We’ve been running local [delegation] trips to Israel for many years to provide American law enforcement with access to top Israeli police officials, so they can learn and share techniques in fighting terrorism,” said Robert Trestan, director of the ADL’s Boston office on Thursday…  Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, who advised the group, said the Boston ADL delegation is one of over 200 international senior law enforcement delegations that train in Israel annually as part of the Israeli Police Foreign Affairs Deportment, headed by Commander Diane Eldad-Sheetrit.   More

GREENWALD: The Smear Campaign Against Keith Ellison Reveals Much About Washington

Ever since he announced his candidacy to lead the Democratic National Committee, Keith Ellison, the first American Muslim elected to the U.S.Congress, has been the target of a defamation campaign that is deceitful, repugnant, and yet quite predictable. At first expressed in whispers, but now being yelled from the rooftops by some of the party’s most influential figures, Ellison is being smeared as both an anti-Semite and enemy of Israel – the same smears virtually any critic of the Israeli government reflexively encounters, rendered far worse if the critic is a prominent American Muslim…  But that insanity is par for the course in Washington, where anyone who even questions U.S. policy toward Israel is smeared in this way – from James Baker to Howard Dean to Bernie Sanders and even Donald Trump. So pernicious is this framework that the U.S. Senate just passed legislation expressly equating what it regards as unfair criticism of the Israeli government with “anti-Semitism.” And when one is an American Muslim, ugly stereotypes and pervasive Islamophobia are added to this toxic brew to make the smears worse by many magnitudes…  As CNN itself acknowledged when digging up these old Ellison quotes: “None of the records reviewed found examples of Ellison making any anti-Semitic comments himself.” How is that, by itself, not the end of the controversy? The reason why it isn’t is a glaring irony. With the advent of Donald Trump and policies such as banning all Muslims from the country, Democrats this year incorporated anti-Islamophobia rhetoric into their repertoire. Yet what is being done to Ellison by the ADL, Saban and others is Islamophobia in its purest and most classic form.   More

ISRAEL PUSHES PLANS FOR HUNDREDS OF NEW HOUSES IN EAST JERUSALEM

The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee has moved forward with a plan to build 770 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which lays beyond the Green Line, a project critics say may be large enough to cut chances of achieving a two-state solution. The municipality says the plan has been going through the approval process since 2013 and several more planning stages must be approved before construction can begin.  The nonprofit group Ir Amim says the plan leaves a very small area between Jerusalem and the Palestinian town Beit Jala. Gilo is on the other side of the Green Line, Israel’s border before the 1967 Six-Day War. “The municipality is promoting construction for Israelis while continuing to freeze planning and engage in widespread home demolitions in the adjacent Palestinian neighborhoods,” Ir Amim said in a statement.  More

Kerry, Israeli Leader Clash On Building of Settlements

Secretary of State John Kerry sharply criticized Israel’s continued construction on contested Palestinian territory and didn’t rule out administration support for action at the United Nations on the Arab-Israeli conflict before President-elect Donald Trump takes power… “There’s been no decision made about any kind of step that may or may not be taken in that regard,” Mr. Kerry said, when asked if the U.S. would lay down new parameters for the conflict, possibly at the United Nations Security Council. “There are, however, other people out there, who because of this building frustration... [are] talking about bringing resolutions to the United Nations. If it’s a biased and unfair resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel, we’ll oppose it.”  Mr. Kerry said Israel was “heading to a place of danger” as settlement building has narrowed the prospects for peace and a two-state solution. At the same forum earlier Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told attendees via satellite link that settlements weren’t an obstacle to peace. Mr. Kerry pushed back, saying, “Let’s not kid ourselves here.”  “I’m not here to say that settlements are the reason for the conflict.” he said. “But I also cannot accept the notion that they’re not a barrier to peace.” More

Trump Victory Spurs Israeli Talk of West Bank Annexation

Emboldened by the election of Donald Trump in the U.S., some Israeli lawmakers and Jewish settlers are pushing the contentious notion of annexing parts of the West Bank, which could threaten the long-stated goal of establishing a separate Palestinian state.  Since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the U.S., Israel and Palestinians have sought the establishment of a Palestinian state in the rough boundaries of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A move to even partially annex the West Bank and impose Israeli law would depart from longstanding U.S. policy toward Israel, and would likely spark condemnation in Europe and parts of the Middle East.  But some of Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers have argued that the U.S. shouldn’t force a so-called two-state solution on the parties. The potential for a major shift in U.S. policy by the incoming Trump administration has stirred hopes of annexation among Jewish settlers.  “It’s easily doable,” said Eliana Passentin, 42 years old, who lives in the settlement of Eli in the central West Bank. “I see it happening soon.”  More

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OTHER EVENTS

Friday, December 9: The Age of Consequences, 7-9pm, First Parish Church (Unitarian Universalist), 1446 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge + Google Map. Massachusetts Peace Action, along with Greater Boston Physician for Social Responsibility and the First Parish Cambridge Environmental Justice Task Force, will show The Age of Consequences on Friday, December 9, at 7:00 PM at First Parish, 3 Church St. in Harvard Square.    This new film, directed by Jared P. Scott, investigates the impacts of climate change, resources scarcity, migration and conflict through the lens of US national security and global stability.  How will the US military respond to the violence and threat of violence…  Find out more »

Friday, December 9: Protect Our White House (from racism, sexism and bigotry) @ 4-6pm, Mass State House. With one month until Trump is sworn into office, we are faced with frightening appointees that will protect the rights of the few rather than the many: Steven Bannon, a white supremacist xenophobe; Jeff Sessions, a senator with a racist track record; Former Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who openly calls for a war against Islam. Massachusetts Peace Action’s student leaders have joined together to organize a rally protesting these appointments and the future injustices they signify.   Join us!

Saturday, December 10: Reviving Federal Investment in Public Transit – Build Subways not Submarines! 10:00 am - 1:00 pm, MIT Stata Center Rm 32-141, 32 Vassar St.  Cambridge + Google Map. Michael Dukakis (Former Governor of Mass) Critical Public Transit Needs for Massachusetts and the Nation Fred Salvucci (Former Secretary of Transport) The Role of the Federal Budget in Improving Public Transit MC: Mike Connolly (State Rep-elect, East Cambridge and East Somerville) Public Transit for Climate Protection Kristie Pecci (MASSPIRG) Upgrading the Red Line John Attanucci (MIT Transit) Extending the Green Line Denise Provost (State Rep, Somerville) Young People's Needs Elechi Kadete (Cambridge Residents Alliance) The Fare Share Tax as a… Find out more »

Saturday, December 10: “Command and Control” Screening & Discussion, @ 3-5 pm, Edith M. Fox Branch Library, 175 Massachusetts Ave  Arlington  + Google Map  Did you know that we almost blew up Arkansas? Based on the bestseller by Eric Schlosser, a new documentary called Command and Control tells the true story of how, yes, we nearly blew up Arkansas, down to the minute, and while the incident itself took place in 1980, its implications about our nuclear security and policy are all too relevant today. The film is scheduled to air on PBS's The American Experience in January. However, Global Zero has teamed up with…  Find out more »

Sunday, December 11: EVA BARTLETT: What's Ahead for the War on Syria?, 4pm, St Matthew's Syrian Orthodox Church
149 Park Street. West Roxbury.  Latest eyewitness report from Aleppo presented  by the Syrian-American Forum, Eva Bartlett, independent Canadian journalist

SAVE THE DATE!

Saturday, January 14: Solidarity Fundraiser for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe – #NoDAPL, 7-9:30pm,  Calvary United Methodist Church, 300 Mass. Ave.  Arlington + Google Map  Arlington United for Justice with Peace is organizing a fundraiser event for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Saturday January 14, 2017 (Doors will open at 7 PM) to aid in their struggle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.   Join us for a Sing Along to Songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, and more! Performers: The Harmonators, Arc&Land, Chris and Quinn Eastburn, Anne Sandstrum and John Loretz, Liz Buchanan and Gordon… Find out more »

Tuesday, January 31: A reporter’s perspective: Islamic State, Assad, Russia, and the failure of US Policy,  7pm (location TBA),  Based on numerous reporting trips to the region, freelance foreign correspondent Reese Erlich discusses the growth of Syrian extremist rebel groups, the status of the Assad regime, foreign intervention and the failure of US policy. He provides up to date analysis and what the new US president will likely face after the November elections.  Erlich is a Peabody winning journalist and author of Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect (Foreword by Noam Chomsky), just out in paperback. He has written a total of five books on US foreign policy. He reports for NPR, Foreign Policy, VICE News, and The Progressive, among others.

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