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

*   *   *   *

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

*   *   *   *

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

*   *   *   *

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

*    *    *    *

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.

*************************************

SPAM?  If you know someone who is not receiving the 

******Will The Circle Be Unbroken-The Music Of The Carter Family (First Generation)

******Will The Circle Be Unbroken-The Music Of The Carter Family (First Generation)

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

You know it took a long time for Sam Eaton to figure out why he was drawn, seemingly out of nowhere, to the mountain music most famously brought to public, Northern public, attention by the likes of the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, Etta Baker, The Seegers and the Lomaxes back a couple of generations ago. The Carter Family famously arrived via a record contract in Bristol, Tennessee in the days when radio and record companies were looking for music, authentic American music to fill the air and their catalogs. (Jimmy Rodgers, the great Texas yodeler was discovered at that same time and place. In fact what the record companies were doing to their profit was to send out agents to grab whatever they could. That is how guys like Son House and Skip James got their record debuts, “race record” debut but that is a story for another time although it will be told so don’t worry). The Seegers and Lomaxes went out into the sweated dusty fields, out to the Saturday night red barn dance the winds coming down the Appalachian hollows, I refuse to say hollas okay, out to the Sunday morning praise Jehovah gathered church brethren (and many sinners Saturday wine, women and song singers as well as your ordinary blasphemous bad thought sinners, out to the juke joint(ditto on the sinning but in high fiddle on Uncle Jack’s freshly “bonded” sour mash come Saturday absolution for sins is the last thing on the brethren’s minds), down to the mountain general store to grab whatever was available some of it pretty remarkable filled with fiddles, banjos and mandolins.

As a kid, as a very conscious Northern city boy, Sam could not abide that kind of music (and I know because if I tried to even mention something Johnny Cash who was really then a rock and roll stud he would turn seven shades of his patented fury) but later on he figured that was because he was so embroiled in the uprising jail-break music of his, our generation, rock and roll, that anything else faded, faded badly by comparison. (And I was with him the first night we heard Bill Haley and the Comets blasting Rock Around The Clock in the front end  of a double feature of Blackboard Jungle at the Strand Theater when it was playing re-runs so you know I lived and died for the new sounds)   

Later in high school, Lasalle High, when Brian Pirot would drive us down to Cambridge and after high school in college when Sam used to hang around Harvard Square to be around the burgeoning folk scene that was emerging for what he later would call the "folk minute of the early 1960s" he would let something like Gold Watch And Chain register a bit, registering a bit then meaning that he would find himself occasionally idly humming such a tune. (The version done by Alice Stuart at the time gleaned when he had heard her perform at the Club Nana in the Square one time when he had enough dough for two coffees, a shared pastry and money for the “basket” for a date, a cheap date.) The only Carter Family song that Sam consciously could claim he knew of theirs was Under the Weeping Willow although he may have unconsciously known others from seventh grade music class when Mr. Dasher would bury us with all kind of songs and genre from the American songbook so we would not get tied down to that heathen “rock and roll” that drove him crazy when we asked him to play some for us. (“Don’t be a masher, Mister Dasher,” the implications of which today would get him in plenty of hot water if anybody in authority heard such talk in an excess of caution but which simple had been used as one more rhyming scheme when that fad hit the junior high schools in the 1960s and whose origins probably came from the song Monster Mash not the old-fashioned sense of a lady-killer) But again more urban, more protest-oriented folk music was what caught Sam’s attention when the folk minute was at high tide in the early 1960s.           

Then one day not all that many years ago as part of a final reconciliation with his family which Sam had been estranged from periodically since teenage-hood, going back to his own roots, making peace with his old growing up neighborhood, he started asking many questions about how things turned so sour back when he was young. More importantly asking questions that had stirred in his mind for a long time and formed part of the reason that he went for reconciliation. To find out what his roots were while somebody was around to explain the days before he could rightly remember the early days. And in that process he finally, finally figured out why the Carter Family and others began to “speak” to him.         

The thing was simplicity itself. If he had thought about and not let the years of animosity, of estrangement, hell of denial that he even came from the town that he came from things had been that bad toward the end although all those animosities, estrangements, denials should not have been laid at the door of that simple, hard-working father who never got a break, a break that he saw. Didn’t see that the break for his father was his wife, didn’t see that whatever hardship that man faced it was better than where he had from, all that wisdom came too late and a belated public eulogy in front a whole crowd in town, that stingy back-biting Olde Saco of a town, some who knew the Sheik (he was so alienated some stranger, stranger to him, had to tell him that had been what his father’s moniker had been when he was in the Marines and later when a few ladies in town thinking with his dark good looks he was French-Canadian, one of them, had furtively set their sights on him) and some who didn’t but it was the kind of town that set store by memory glances of those who had lived and toiled in the hard-bitten bogs for so long. Hell, in the end, also too late but only by a whisper he realized that all those animosities, estrangements and denials should not have been laid at the door of his mother either but no private sorrows eulogy at a class reunion could put that wall back together.

Here is how the whole thing played out. See his father hailed (nice word, a weather word, not a good weather word and maybe that was a portent, another nice word for the troubles ahead) from Kentucky, Hazard, Kentucky long noted in song and legend as hard coal country. A place where the L&N stopped no more, where “which side are you on” was more than a question but hard fighting words, maybe a little gunplay too, a place where the hills and hollows had that “black gold,” that seamy dust settling over every tar-papered roof and windowless cabin with a brood, another nice word for the occasion for widower Father John and come Saturday night, rain dust, gun play, railroad-less tracks down at Fred Dyer’s old dilapidated red barn Joe Valance and the boys would play fiddle, guitar, mando, and Sweet Emma on mountain harp all the swingy and sad tunes that drove their forbears to this desolate land (so you can image what their prospects were in the old country to drive them out. Nelson Algren wrote profusely about such driven-out people and what it did to them over several generations so to wander aimlessly others to sit still aimlessly)

When World War II came along, not as infamy, not as catastrophe, but like rain he left to join the Marines to get the hell out of there. During his tour of duty he was stationed for a short while at the Portsmouth Naval Base and during that stay attended a USO dance held in Portland where he met Sam’s mother who had grown up in deep French-Canadian Olde Saco. Needless to say he stayed in the North, for better or worse, working the mills in Olde Saco until they closed or headed south, headed south back close to his homeland in North Carolina and South Carolina too, to  for cheaper labor and then worked at whatever jobs he could find. All during Sam’s childhood though along with that popular music that got many mothers and fathers through the war mountain music, although he would not have called it that then filtered in the background on the family living room record player.

But here is the real “discovery,” a discovery that could only be disclosed by Sam’s parents, if he had asked and if they had been willing to tell them like they did his older brother Prescott who got along with them better when he was young and they were first born proud of him and his looks. Early on in their marriage they had tried to go back to Hazard to see if they could make a go of it there, so you know things were dicey or getting dicey in Olde Saco if they were going to half-dying eastern coal country mainly played out or being replaced by oils and gases. This was after Prescott was born and while his mother was carrying him. Apparently they stayed for several months in Hazard before they left to go back to Olde Saco a short time before Sam was born since he had been born in Portland General Hospital, which is what it said on his birth certificate when he had to go get a copy for his first passport application. So see that damn mountain, that damn mountain music, those many generations of back-breaking work in the old country before the work ran out or they were run as vagabonds and thieves and that wandering and sitting still in the murky hills and hollows coal enough to choke you but also remember all those generations of Fred Dyer’s red barn Saturday fiddle, guitar, mando and some vagrant Sweet Emma on mountain harp playing the swingy and sad tunes that go back beyond Child ballad time, was in his DNA, was just harkening to him when he got the bug. Funny, isn’t it.            

 

ACLU, LGBT groups ask Obama to approve Chelsea Manning’s clemency request

ACLU, LGBT groups ask Obama to approve Chelsea Manning’s clemency request

Jessie Hellmann, The Hill. December 5, 2016

The American Civil Liberties Union and more than a dozen gay and transgender rights groups are urging President Obama to commute the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning so she can have a chance at a “real, meaningful life.”

“The sole relief that Ms. Manning is seeking is to be released from military prison after serving over six years of confinement — longer than any whistleblower in the history of our country,” representatives from the ACLU and more than a dozen other groups wrote in a letter to Obama on Monday.

“If approved, Ms. Manning will have a first chance to live a real, meaningful life as the person she was born to be.”

The ACLU claims the government has “continually fought” Manning’s efforts to be treated with “basic dignity” by denying her access to medical treatment related to gender dysphoria and opposing her request to be referred to with female pronouns.

The former Army analyst was sentenced to 35 years in prison after leaking thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Manning, who is transgender, asked Obama for clemency in November, citing harsh treatment in jail, which she said led to suicide attempts.

In a personal statement Manning included with her lawyers’ clemency request, she wrote that she needs help and is “still not getting it.”

“I am living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss, and depression. I cannot focus. I cannot sleep. I attempted to take my own life,” she wrote.

“When the [United States Disciplinary Barracks] placed me in solitary confinement as punishment for the attempted suicide, I tried it again because the feeling of hopelessness was so immense. This has served as a reminder to me that any lack of treatment can kill me, so I must keep fighting a battle that I wish every day would just end.”

Manning’s lawyers argued she has already served the longest sentence of “any other whistleblower in American history” and that Obama should be influenced by the harsh conditions she has been subjected to while in prison.

From The Pen Of Chelsea Manning-Looking forward: We must stay strong and stay together

Looking forward: We must stay strong and stay together

By Chelsea Manning, Medium. December 1, 2016

Every day, I can feel the slow terror of us going backwards. Repression. People losing their heath care. People being stopped from voting.

People being blocked from speaking, and exercising their rights. I fear the horrible consequences that are facing a lot of us in the coming days, months, and years.

Prison photo, circa March 2016

All of the people I care about. Everybody is hurting. Everybody is looking for something.

And I am no different. I am scared and I don’t know what to do, but I feel a lot of responsibility.

When I reflect on my own journey and political consciousness, I realize that I didn’t really think about politics until the passage of Proposition 8 — the ballot measure in California that repealed marriage equality. I suppose I “cared” about politics, but it was more of an abstract chess game. You know, like college basketball: A fun game that you watch for sport. Politics was intellectual and disconnected for me. It was something that happened in the world but not necessarily to me.

I really didn’t start giving a damn about politics until Proposition 8 passed. That pretty much changed everything for me. Even though political decisions affected my life in infinite ways before that point, I didn’t have a consciousness or analysis about it. When Proposition 8 happened, it was a wake up call to me, and I never looked back.

Although I had never imagined getting married before, as I watched our rights being suddenly snatched away, I felt like I got kicked in the stomach. My perspective of the world changed.

For the next few months, my insatiable curiosity dragged me to conduct intense research. I learned many things: our history, our stories, our theories, our movements, and our ideas. It was inspiring.

The process taught me that I cannot just learn from digesting the narratives that our fed to us. I learned that I had to push back and dig a little deeper. I felt the deep and unrelenting sense that I couldn’t just look the other way all the time.

Now, people are asking me what to do. I don’t know what to say. I feel just as scared and helpless as everyone else. I wish I could keep my cool and give an answer about what to do next. The answer is that I just don’t know.

For the queer and trans community, this year could mark a major turning point. I worry that our future is uncertain. Now, we face something that could be more vicious and terrifying than almost anything we’ve had to fight together as a community. There will be attempts to divide us — to turn us against each other. There may be efforts to roll back legal protections that have helped us survive. There may be forces in government aimed at subjecting us to discrimination or worse. It is scary to think about.

How will we protect ourselves and unite together?

Chelsea Manning Support Network coming to an end

Chelsea Manning Support Network coming to an end

A message from the Chelsea Manning Support Network Steering Committee

December 1, 2016

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing the Chelsea Manning Support Network to an end. We will be transferring the chelseamanning.org domain to representatives of Chelsea Manning on February 1, 2017, for a new website that will launch early in 2017.

We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the many tens of thousands of supporters worldwide who joined together to support this campaign, going all the way back to the days following Chelsea’s arrest in Iraq, June 2010. With your help, we were able to successfully cover 100% of Chelsea Manning’s legal fees throughout her court martial (nearly $400,000) and mount a huge publicity campaign to raise awareness about her situation. We are also deeply proud to have contributed toward the ongoing legal fees associated with Chelsea’s appeal (over $400,000).

It has been our honor to dedicate the last six years to advocating for the freedom of Chelsea Manning. Over 25,000 individuals donated $1.5 million leading up to and during Chelsea’s initial trial. During this time, we paid her legal bills in full, organized over 600,000 people to sign petitions in support of Chelsea, staged hundreds of events, rented billboards, purchased a New York Times ad, and rallied thousands to take to the street—at Fort Meade, Fort Leavenworth, Quantico Marine Base, and around the world. We are extremely proud of these efforts.

None of us believe that the work is done; however, it’s clear to those that know Chelsea best, that it’s time for a new, and different type of group, to best meet her needs going forward.

We are deeply grateful to donors, volunteers, individuals who attended Chelsea Manning Support Network events, all those who publicly spoke out in defense of Chelsea, former staff members, the advisory board, and so many other people who helped make this campaign possible. We also thank our fiscal manager, Courage to Resist, and the umbrella fiscal sponsor, Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ).

Many will still wonder why we are closing the doors of this organization now, when Chelsea is still in prison and thus still needs support. There are a few reasons for this.

Things have changed a lot in the last six years. When we first founded the Chelsea Manning Support Network, and for many years after, we operated with no direct communication from Chelsea. The website we created thus reflects the (often diverse) views of her supporters and fans, not of Chelsea herself. Now that Chelsea is able to speak out publicly, it’s appropriate that her message take center stage. We are stepping aside in order to amplify her voice and message, letting that take center stage in the advocacy efforts going forward.

Additionally, since the end of the court martial, we have seen a drop off in donations, and we no longer have any paid staff at the Chelsea Manning Support Network. We transfer nearly all of the few funds we do receive to Chelsea’s attorneys to help cover the costs of her appeal. Even responding to inquiries from supporters, maintaining the website, and depositing checks are burdensome tasks without even a part time helper in the office. At the same time, we’ve seen amazing organizations stepping up to spread the word about Chelsea’s situation, and we recognize that these organizations are better poised to provide long-term support for Chelsea’s needs.

We expect that supporters will soon be able to donate to Chelsea Manning’s defense fund via a new fiscal manager. For now, you can continue to donate to Chelsea’s defense at chelseamanning.org/donate. After February 1, 2017, we expect that there will be instructions on the new website with details of how to donate to Chelsea’s defense and advocacy. You may also contribute directly to Chelsea Manning’s legal fees by making a check payable to “FBH IOLTA”, noting “Manning” on memo line (and on an enclosed note), and mailing it directly to Chelsea’s legal team at: FBH, 20 First Plaza, Suite 700, Albuquerque, NM 87102.

The Chelsea Manning Support Network’s online materials will be available on chelseamanning.org until February 1, 2017, after which time the materials currently hosted will only be available through the Internet Archive. Please note that if there are any materials you want from chelseamanning.org—photos, trial coverage, press releases, etc.—you should download a copy now.  Individuals who want a copy of the entire site are welcome to mirror it elsewhere.

Our Facebook community, “Free whistleblower Chelsea Manning (@savemanning)”, with 97,000 likes, will be transferred to the new organizers. The Chelsea Manning Support Network will also distribute email announcements of this development, so that current supporters can follow these new efforts. Finally, any remaining funds held by the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund hosted by Courage to Resist, on behalf of the Chelsea Manning Support Network, will be transferred to Chelsea’s attorney and/or to a group Chelsea indicates.

Thanks to everyone who courageously spoke out for Chelsea Manning over the last six years.  We are proud of the work we accomplished together and look forward to seeing what Chelsea Manning will accomplish in the future.

Steering Committee
Jeff Paterson, Rainey Reitman, Kevin Zeese, Gerry Condon, Bob Meola
Chelsea Manning Support Network