AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Friday, November 30, 2018

When Woody Allen Ruled The Social Satire (And Adult Angst) Night- “Annie Hall”

When Woody Allen Ruled The Social Satire (And Adult Angst) Night- “Annie Hall”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Woody Allen’s film classic Annie Hall

Annie Hall, starring Diane Keaton, Woody Allen, 1977

Hey, haven’t I already reviewed this movie. No, sorry that was Manhattan another in the line of very witty Woody Allen movies. But the point is this it is the same subject that Woody addressed there even though chronologically Annie Hall came first by a couple of years and received the lion’s share of kudos and awards. As virtually always Allen is intent upon commenting on New York life and its intellectual trends and the ups and downs of relationships, mainly with women. Here he adds a flourish by contrasting old New York (in the 1970’s) to up and coming California as the cultural mecca of the American empire. And, as should be the case, New York wins.

Add to that the perennial issue of Woody’s struggle with ‘interpersonal’ relationships and his angst-driven desire to understand the modern world and you have a very fine social commentary of the times. Needless to say Woody’s love interest Annie Hall (as played by his then paramour Diane Keaton) keeps him hopping. As does an ensemble cast that works well together as foils for his ironic and savage humor. The only surprise in revisiting this film recently is how well Keaton plays her role as an up and coming torch singer. Of course, I have always been a sucker for torch singers but that is another matter. Some of the humor may seem dated and very 1970’s New Yorkish. Some of Woody’s mannerism and use of sight gags may seem like old news. But this is a film to watch or re-watch if you have seen it before.

Rare Hank Williams, Carter Family, Acuff Video - 1952 - Glory Bound Train-When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On That Old Hill-Billy Down In The Hills And Hollows Come Saturday Red Barn Dance Father Moment

When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On That Old Hill-Billy Down In The Hills And Hollows Come Saturday Red Barn Dance Father Moment

By Zack James

[Zack James has been on an assignment covering the various 50^th anniversary commemorations of the year 1968 (and a few in 1967 and for the future 1969 which is to his mind something of a watershed year rather than his brother Alex and friends “generation of ‘68” designation they have wrapped themselves around) and therefore has not graced these pages for a while. Going through his paces on those assignments Zack realized that he was out of joint with his own generation, having been born in 1958 and therefore too young to have been present at the creation of what is now called, at least in the demographical-etched commercials, the classic age of rock and roll. Too young too for any sense of what a jailbreak that time was and a shortly later period which Seth Garth who was deep into the genre has called the ‘folk minute breeze” that ran rampart through the land say in the early 1960s. Too young as well to have been “washed clean,” not my term but Si Lannon’s since I am also too young to have been aware of the import by the second wave of rock, the acid rock period. Hell, this is enough of an introduction to re-introducing the legendary writer here. Lets’ leave it as Zack is back and let him go through his paces. Greg Green, site manager]

Alex James was the king of rock and roll. Of course he was not really the king, the king being Elvis and no last name needed at least for the bulk of those who will read what I call a “think piece,” a piece about what all the commemorations of events a million years ago, or it like a million years ago even mentioning 50 or 60 year anniversaries, mean. What Alex was though was the conduit for my own musical experiences which have left me as a stepchild to five important musical moments, the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s, the quick prairie fire called the “folk minute of the early 1960s and the resurgence with a vengeance of rock in the mid-1960s which for brevity’s sake call “acid” rock, along the way and intersecting that big three came a closeted “country outlaw moment” initiated by father time Hank Williams and carried through with vengeance by singers like Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, and Waylon Jennings, and Muddy Waters and friends blues as the glue that bound what others who write here, Sam Lowell, in particular calls the Generation of ’68- a seminal year in many ways which I have been exploring for this and other publications. I am well placed to do since I was over a decade too young to have been washed over by the movements. But that step-child still sticks and one Alex James is the reason why.

This needs a short explanation. As should be apparent Alex James is my brother, my oldest brother, born in 1946 which means a lot in the chronology of what follows. My oldest brother as well in a family with seven children, five boys and two twin girls, me being the youngest of all born in 1958. As importantly this clan grew up in the dirt- poor working- class Acre, as in local lore Hell’s Acre, section of North Adamsville where my mother, under better circumstances, grew up and remained after marrying her World War II Marine my father from dirt poor Appalachia which will also become somewhat important later. To say we lacked for many of the things that others in that now seen “golden age” of American prosperity would be an understatement and forms the backdrop of how Alex kept himself somewhat sane with music although we didn’t even have a record player (the now ancient although retro revival way to hear music then) and he was forced when at home to “fight” for the family radio to get in touch with what was going on, what the late Pete Markin his best friend back then called “the great jailbreak.”

A little about Alex’s trajectory is important too. He was a charter member along with the late Markin, Si Lannon, Sam Lowell, Seth Garth and Allan Jackson, the later four connected with this publication in various ways since its hard copy start in the 1970s, of the Tonio Pizza Parlor corner boys. These guys, and maybe it reflected their time and milieu, hung out at Tonio’s for the simple reason they never had money, or not enough, and while they were not above various acts of larceny and burglary mostly they hung around there to listen to the music coming out of Tonio’s to die for jukebox. That jukebox came alive in maybe 1955, 1956 when they first heard Elvis (and maybe others as well but Alex always insisted that he was the first to “discover” Elvis in his crowd.) Quickly that formed the backdrop of what Alex listened to for a few years until the genre spent a few years sagging with vanilla songs and beats. That same Markin, who the guys here have written about and I won’t, was the guy who turned Alex on to folk music via his desperate trips to Harvard Square up in Cambridge when he needed to get out of the hellish family household he dwelled in. The third prong of the musical triad was also initiated by Markin who made what everybody claims was a fatal mistake dropping out of Boston University in his sophomore year in 1967 to follow his dream, to “find” himself, to go west to San Francisco for what would be called the Summer of Love where he learned about the emerging acid rock scene (drugs, sex and rock and roll being one mantra). He dragged everybody, including Alex if you can believe this since he would subsequently come back and go to law school and become the staid successful lawyer he is today, out there with him for varying periods of time. (The fateful mistake on the part of Markin stemming from him dropping out at the wrong time, the escalation of the war in Vietnam subjecting him later to the draft and hell-hole Vietnam service while more than the others unhinged him and his dream.) The blues part came as mentioned as a component of the folk minute, part of the new wave rock revival and on its own. The country outlaw connections bears separate mention these days.

That’s Alex’s story-line. My intersection with Alex’s musical trip was that one day after he had come back from a hard night at law school (he lived at home, worked during the day at some law firm as some kind of lacky, and went to law school nights studying the rest of the time) he went to his room and began playing a whole bunch of music starting I think with Bill Haley and the Comet’s Rock Around The Clock and kept playing stuff for a long time. Loudly. Too loudly for me to get to sleep and I went and knocked on his door to get him quiet down. When he opened the door he had on his record player Jerry Lee Lewis’s High School Confidential. I flipped out. I know I must have heard Alex playing this stuff earlier, but it was kind of a blank before. Background music just like Mother’s listening to 1940s stuff on her precious ancient RCA radio in the kitchen. What happened then, what got me mesmerized as a twelve- year old was that this music “spoke” to me, spoke to my own unformed and unarticulated alienation. I had not been particularly interested in music, music mostly heard and sung in the obligatory junior high school music class, but this was different, this got my hormonal horrors in gear. I stayed in Alex’s room listening half the night as he told me above when he had first heard such and such a song.

Although the age gap between Alex and I was formidable, he was out the door originally even before I knew him since at that point we were the only two in the house all the others in college or on their own he became something of a mentor to me on the ins and out of rock and roll once I showed an interest. From that night on it was not just a question of say, why Jailhouse Rock should be in the big American Songbook but would tell me about who or what had influenced rock and roll. He was the first to tell me about what had happened in Memphis with a guy named Sam Phillips and his Sun Record label which minted an extraordinary number of hits by guys like Elvis, Warren Smith, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee. When I became curious about how the sound got going, why my hands got clammy when I heard the music and I would start tapping my toes he went chapter and verse on me. Like some god-awful preacher quoting how Ike Turner, under a different name, may really have been the granddaddy of rock with his Rocket 88 and how obscure guys like Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner and Willie Lomax and their big bop rhythm and blues was one key element. Another stuff from guys like Hack Devine, Warren Smith and Lenny Larson who took the country flavor and melted it down to its essence. Got rid of the shlock. Alex though did surprise me with the thing he thought got our toes tapping-these guys, Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly and a whole slew of what I would later call good old boys took their country roots not the Grand Ole Opry stuff but the stuff they played at the red barn dances down in the hills and hollows come Saturday night and mixed it with some good old fashion religion stuff learned through bare-foot Baptists or from the black churches and created their “jailbreak” music.

One night Alex startled me while we were listening to an old Louvain Brothers song, I forget which one maybe Every Times You Leave, when he said “daddy’s music” meaning that our father who had come from down in deep down in the mud Appalachia had put the stuff in our genes. He didn’t call it DNA I don’t’ think he knew the term and I certainly didn’t but that was the idea. I resisted the idea then, and for a long time after but sisters and brothers look at the selections that accompany this so-called think piece the whole thing is clear now. I, we are our father’s sons after all. Sons welded by twelve millions unacknowledged ties to those lonesome hills and hollows where the coal ruled and the land got crummy before its time and Saturday brought out red barn fiddles and mandolins an stringed basses with some mad monk calling the tune and the guys drinking home-made hooch and the girls wondering whether the guy would be sober enough to dance, hell, to ask for the last dance something out of a Child ballad turned Appalachian mud by the time it got to the sixth generation fighting the land. Knew that they were doomed even if they could not appreciate in words their fate unless something like World War II exploded them out of their life routine like it had Dad when Pearl Harbor sent him Pacific War bound and then up north to guard some naval depot near North Adamsville toward war’s end. Alex knew that early on I only grabbed the idea lately-too late since our father he has been gone a long time now.

Alex had the advantage of being the oldest son of a man who also had grown up as the oldest son in his family brood of I think eleven. (Since I, we never met any of them when my father came North to stay for good after being discharged from the Marine after hard Pacific War military service, I can’t say much about that aspect of why my father doted on his oldest son.) That meant a lot, meant that Dad confided as much as a quiet, sullen hard-pressed man could or would confide in a youngster. All I know is that sitting down at the bottom of the food chain (I will make you laugh if you too were from the poor the “clothes chain” too as the recipient of every older brother, sister too when I was too young to complain or comprehend set of ragamuffin clothing) he was so distant that we might well have been just passing strangers. Alex, for example, knew that Dad had been in a country music trio which worked the Ohio River circuit, that river dividing Ohio and Kentucky up north far from hometown Hazard, yes, that Hazard of legend and song whenever anybody speaks of the hardscrabble days of the coal mine civil wars that went on down there before the war, before World War II. I don’t know what instrument he played although I do know that he had a guitar tucked under his bed that he would play when he had a freaking minute in the days when he was able to get work (which was less frequently than I would have guessed early one until Alex clued me in that non-job time meaning that he spent every waking hour looking for work and had no time for even that freaking minute to play some fretted guitar).

That night Alex also mentioned something that hit home once he mentioned it. He said that Dad who tinkered a little fixing radios, a skill learned from who knows where although apparently his skill level was not enough to get him a job in that industry, figured out a way to get WAXE out of I think Wheeling, West Virginia which would play old country stuff 24/7 and that he would always have that station on in the background when he was doing something. Had stopped doing that at some point before I recognized the country-etched sound but Alex said he was spoon-fed on some of the stuff, citing Warren Smith and Smiley Jamison particularly, as his personal entre into the country roots of one aspect of the rock and roll craze. Said further that he was not all that shocked when say Elvis’s It’s All Right Mama went off the charts since he could sense that country beat up-tempo a little from what Smith had been fooling around with, Carl Perkins too he said. They were what he called “good old boys” who were happy as hell that they had enough musical skills at the right time so they didn’t have to stick around the farm or work in some hardware store in some small town down South.

Here is the real shocker, well maybe not shocker, but the thing that made Alex’s initial so-called DNA thought make sense. When Alex was maybe six or seven Dad would be playing something on the guitar, just fooling around when he started playing Hank Williams’ mournful lost love Cold, Cold Heart. Alex couldn’t believe his ears and asked Dad to play it again. He would for years after all the way to high school when Dad had the guitar out and he was around request that Dad play that tune. I probably heard the song too. I know I heard Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies from the original Carter family or one branch of it. So, yeah, maybe that DNA business is not so far off. And maybe, just maybe, over fifty years later we are still our father’s sons. Thanks, Dad.

The selection posted here culled from the merciful YouTube network thus represents one of the key pieces of music that drove the denizens of the Generation of ’68 and their stepchildren. And maybe now their grandchildren.

[Alex and I had our ups and downs over the years and as befits a lawyer and journalist our paths seldom passed except for occasional political things where we were on the same wavelength like with the defense of Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley). Indicative though of our closeness despite distance in 2017 when Alex had a full head of steam up about putting together a collective corner boy memoir in honor of the late Markin after a business trip to San Francisco where he went to a museum exhibition featuring the seminal Summer of Love, 1967 he contacted me for the writing, editing and making sure of the production values.]

Add your name: Don't allow troops to use deadly force against asylum seekers-Bring The Troops Home From The Border

Stephen Miles<moveon-help@list.moveon.org>

11/26/2018 9:24 PM

Dear MoveOn member,

Tell Sec. Mattis to make clear that U.S. troops cannot use any force against people seeking asylum. Period. Bring the troops home immediately.

This weekend, border officials attacked people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border—including children and toddlers—with tear gas.¹ This comes just after the Trump administration issued an order authorizing troops at the border to use deadly force against families.²

This is not only alarmingly dangerous, it violates the critical law that keeps the military completely separate from domestic law enforcement. Will you sign the petition demanding that U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis reject this illegal authorization of violence?

Sign the petition to reject the White House's illegal order authorizing troops to hurt or kill those simply seeking safety and asylum at the border.

This is one of the most horrific things the Trump administration has ever done. Active-duty troops authorized to shoot people seeking refuge at the southern border not only terrorizes migrant families, it erodes our rule of law and makes service members political pawns. This is not just terrifying; it's illegal, and we cannot allow it to happen.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thank you.

–Stephen Miles, Win Without War

Sources:

1. "‘They Started Running’: Photograph of Children in Diapers Fleeing Tear Gas at the Border Sparks Anger," The New York Times, November 26, 2018

https://act.moveon.org/go/61335?t=11&akid=221013%2E38417624%2EedauEX

2. "White House approves use of force, some law enforcement roles for border troops," Military Times, November 21, 2018

https://act.moveon.org/go/61336?t=13&akid=221013%2E38417624%2EedauEX

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Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.

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From The Partisan Defense Committee- Native Americans Targeted Free Dakota Access Pipeline Activists!

From The Partisan Defense Committee- Native Americans Targeted Free Dakota Access Pipeline Activists! Workers Vanguard No. 1143	2 November 2018

Native Americans Targeted

Free Dakota Access Pipeline Activists!

Six Native Americans who two years ago protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota today are facing years-long federal sentences. The Standing Rock encampment, which attracted thousands of American Indians and environmental activists in late 2016 until its dismantling in February 2017, was brutally assaulted many times by police, National Guardsmen and private security thugs, with over 800 arrested. The Water Protector Legal Collective reports that 132 state criminal cases are still active. We demand: Drop all the charges against the protesters now!

On 27 October 2016, cops used pepper spray, rubber bullets, Humvees, armored trucks and bulldozers in an attempt to clear the encampment, arresting more than 140 and leaving over 50 injured. One of those arrested that day was Oglala Lakota Sioux activist Red Fawn Fallis, a respected leader and medic at the camp whose family includes a number of American Indian Movement (AIM) members. As she was pinned to the ground by several burly cops, a .38-calibre revolver at her waist went off. Lucky to survive this assault, she was slammed with three federal felony charges, including discharge of a weapon, which carries a sentence of ten years to life. She took a plea deal and was sentenced in July to 57 months on the lesser charge of possession and is incarcerated in Texas.

Michael “Rattler” Markus, Michael “Little Feather” Giron, Dion Ortiz and James “Angry Bird” White were charged with starting fires during the cop offensive of October 27—a federal offense that carries a minimum of 15 years. Three have now been sentenced on civil disorder charges to 16 or 36 months. In a subsequent attack by state forces on 19 January 2017, Navajo student Marcus Mitchell was shot in the face with a bean bag pellet. He lost sight, feeling and taste on his left side and his spine was severely damaged. For surviving, he was charged with criminal trespassing and is due in federal court on November 5.

The capitalist state vendetta against these American Indians is the latest racist atrocity committed by federal authorities against the indigenous population. Indeed, the frame-up of Fallis is straight out of the FBI’s standard playbook. The gun that discharged during her arrest belonged to her then boyfriend, Heath Harmon, who has since been exposed as an FBI informant tasked with spying on AIM. Red Fawn’s mother, Yellow Wood, founded the Colorado chapter of AIM and protested forced sterilizations of American Indian women, among other issues. Her uncle is an AIM spokesman in Colorado today. Documents acquired by journalist Will Parrish and published on The Intercept website show that Red Fawn was targeted by state forces—they literally had her photo on the wall chart.

In the 1970s, AIM and the Black Panther Party were marked for murderous repression under the FBI’s COINTELPRO, which used infiltration, surveillance and disinformation to “neutralize” these organizations. Notable among the leaders of AIM who languish in prison to this day is Leonard Peltier. Framed for killing two FBI agents during a government assault on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975, Peltier has been consistently denied parole because he steadfastly refuses to admit guilt for a crime he did not commit.

With the Feds throwing the book at the American Indian DAPL protesters, most were compelled to accept non-cooperating plea deals on lesser charges. Another factor was the prevalent racism against Native Americans in the area; a survey of jury-eligible locals showed that the vast majority assume they are guilty or are biased against them. As Michael Markus explained: “Having a fair trial in Bismarck was going to be impossible,” adding, “If you go to court in North Dakota, you are going to get convicted.” Indeed, it was an all-white jury in North Dakota that convicted Leonard Peltier even though prosecutors later admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents.” Free him now!

American capitalism was built on the brutal dispossession and near genocide of the indigenous peoples. Having pushed the Sioux onto a reservation established under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the federal government stole large chunks of the reservation land later in the 19th century, including a stretch of 35 miles that the DAPL goes through. The Sioux are owed substantial compensation for this historic land grab.

As for the DAPL itself, Marxists had no reason to either support or oppose it. Oil pipelines serve a socially useful function of transporting fuel and are overall safer than other forms of oil transport. Protesters expressed concern that the reservation water supply will be polluted by a leaking pipeline. Cutting corners to boost profits is the name of the game for the energy barons, as it is for the capitalists in every industry. What is needed are fighting unions that enforce safety standards and practices in construction, operation and maintenance. Then, both those living near pipelines and workers on the job would be better off.

To this day, the reservations are blighted by poverty and desperation. At the same time, much of the indigenous population now lives in America’s cities and is a component part of the multiracial proletariat. We seek to build a Leninist workers party that will unleash the social power of the working class in defense of all the oppressed, on the road to sweeping away the capitalist system and establishing a workers government. Such a government would immediately spend the money to provide a decent life for those who have suffered most under capitalism, not least Native Americans and black people. It would ensure the social emancipation of American Indians, promoting their voluntary integration on the basis of full equality while providing the fullest possible regional autonomy for those who desire it.

The Partisan Defense Committee, the legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League, has contributed to Red Fawn’s legal defense. Details on how to write to the prisoners, contribute to their commissaries and donate to the legal defense of the protesters can be found at waterprotectorlegal.org.

From The Archives- As The First Anniversary Of Charlottesville Approaches-We Are In A Cold Civil War In America-No Platform For Fascists-No Platform For Nazis Or KKK Either-Join And Built The People’s Resistance

From The Archives- As The First Anniversary Of Charlottesville Approaches-We Are In A Cold Civil War In America-No Platform For Fascists-No Platform For Nazis Or KKK Either-Join And Built The People’s Resistance

By Frank Jackman

[I really hate to start a piece with a bracketed introduction, really a double bracketed introduction since I had to do the same when I introduced the original piece last year around this time in the wake of the events in Charlottesville down in Virginia, down in the college town of the University of Virginia. However given the nature of the subject, no, given the impeding urgency of the subject the heating up of the cold civil war in America, a phenomenon not seen in this country since the decade before Civil War which ended slavery only after a series of compromises proved illusionary to end the damn institution and the only way to resolve the situation was with arms in hand and its concurrent phenomenon the rise of the organized fascist movement, aided not a little by the rabid occupants of the White House and the rest of the governing apparatus we need to talk.

This heating up of the cold civil war is a phenomenon which I have been noting for maybe a decade, maybe a little less but certainly since the big Great Recession as the economists call it now in historical hindsight when many people’s live were hung out to dry, hung out big time which started toward avalanche toward the big break of the have-nots, or maybe have not enough toward the right after flirting with Barack Obama to no avail. During that time, say since 2011 when I reported heavily on the wisp of the will phantom Occupy movement in these pages (and in Progressive Nation now on-line but which I was one of the hard copy founders of back in the 1970s but which was subsequently bought to a writers collective), I have interviewed many of those who have not move forward, no, who have been left behind for no fault of their own and no reason that they can figure out why they lost out except that now they have a handle on the damn thing as victims of globalization, liberal cabal globalization.

Still in 2016 despite knowing, feeling this unsatisfied undercurrent I was as taken aback, as shocked, and plainly speaking as clueless as any other of the talking class, of the political pundits who are supposed to have a ide about what was what in the political arena. Worse on the second point, on that rise of the fascistic elements from their cubbyholes and warrens in backwoods America, was not that I was unaware of it, hell, I had done a whole series on militias, survivalists and others who had a morbid fear ignited by their race hatreds, by their hatred of Barack Obama despite their generally have no contact ever with black people and despite not living within fifty miles of any black communities, barrios, Asian enclaves or urban Jews. Jesus. What had, has me stumped in that after fifty years or more of political struggle, fifty years since I wrote my first term paper on fascist groups in America (think of the name George Lincoln Rockwell as the poster child of that movement back then) I have to go out on the streets and hold the bastards off. Below is a quick review and summary of the past year complete with that bracketed introduction, now second introduction, that I have threatened you with. Frank Jackman]

Original Introduction

[Under the now not so new direction of site manager Greg Green who has made some mistakes and made some very right decisions as is usual for chief editors and assignment impresarios we writers, young and old, free-lance or staff, stringers or by-line worthy have been given the green light as part of our works to discuss how we got the assignment or any other material the reader may find interesting as back story. I will do so here in a review of what I have called the impeding cold civil war in American over the past period. Frank Jackman]

Sometimes out in the political hustings you come across a piece of written propaganda which hits you exactly where you live. Expresses your sentiments better than you could on your own. That is the case with the small, inexpensive paper leaflet that I picked up, or was handed to me, at an anti-fascist demonstration last summer on the Boston Common which I was covering for this publication. I subsequently received the same copies at a few other anti-fascist rallies and stand-outs again not sure which I picked up and which were handed to me although that is of no import to the political message stated. This “pick-up” “handed” conundrum the result of the fact that I grab one way or another every piece of literature that I come across at any rallies or such events that I cover or take part in.

I headlined the beginning of this piece with the statement that we are in a cold civil war in this country, in America, and have been for a while, maybe the last twenty years at least but that fact has only been pushed in our faces bigtime since the age of Trump began where all the contradictions, all the divisions and all the cultural clashes have become part of the daily political battleground. There have been over the past year or so some important nodal points making that cold civil get at least momentarily hotter-one was horrendous Charlottesville which put all on notice that the divisions were deep and maybe had reached some boiling point. Make no mistake that Charlottesville was a “victory” for what passes as the Alt-Right, Nazi-Fascist-KKK-Militia combine which has been emboldened by the rise of the Trump reaction. Another was the recent nationwide student lead-high school student-led March for Our Lives demonstration, so you know this is something very different on the political horizon which was a “victory” for our side, for the people’s resistance which is important if we can keep up the momentum.

One of the problems if you will of our side is that some people, a lot of people, many of whom have only recently come to political life have many mixed and confused feelings about what to do to stop the Alt-Right-Nazis-Fascist-KKK in their tracks. Have bought into at least partially the notion that these bastards have some “right” to free speech that we must respect. That we must expend political capital defending. “Forget that noise” as the late Pete Markin, a guy I grew up with and who gave me plenty of political insights said and would say today as well. We are private citizens and not governmental agents so have no obligation to defend such rights to free speech under any constitutional theory.

But the Constitution is only the bedrock of running a civil society. We the people of the resistance have to be clear that we do not support any right for the Alt-Right-Fascist-Nazi-KKK-Militia cabal to free speech to spew their genocidal, ethnic-cleansing, race war programs. And that, as history shows us, and everybody should read the history of the rise of fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany, is their calling card, their intention and we had better be clear that we have to nip that movement in the bud. Not only by confronting them across the police lines, police lines there to protect them and their so-called right to free speech since the police are governmental agents but to make sure they find not havens, no platforms, to spew their hateful messages. So yes so-called free speech issues take a very far back seat to the fight against the intentions of these monsters if we don’t stop them. Believe me they don’t give three-fifth of a damn about our free speech rights, will see us in hell first another sign we are in a cold civil war situation. More later.

In Boston –The Latest Bash Back Boston-Stop The Fascists In Their Tracks November 18^th on Boston Common

Frank Jackman comment:

I have mentioned on more than one occasion that we have been for a while in a state of cold civil war in America that has only had fuel to the fire added to it, make it tend toward a hot civil war, by the massive frauds, midnight rip-off actions, and general ignorance promoted by the Trump Administration. This rightly, and I think most thankfully, has gotten the previously moribund left, the bewildered and the oppressed up in arms enough to slowly begin a counter-attack against the night-takers from corrupt and venal right-wing bourgeois politicians like Trump and his ilk to the more dangerous extra-parliamentary forces-call them alt-right, fascist, KKK, etc. that have been unleashed-have been given fresh wind in their sails.

Not everything the left and its allies argue for in counter-attack either makes senses or provides a road forward in the anti-fascist struggle for example RefuseFascism has identified the Trump-Pence regime as fascist and to call for a parliamentary impeachment process to get rid of the bums. This Bash Back Boston grouping seems to be more militant but not quite sure that confrontation in itself without more gets us anyplace. I leave it an open question today. But for now as we sort things out, or as they get sorted for us which is as likely and has actually been the case over the past several months, let’s keep to the united front idea going until further notice. In short Saturday November 18^th in Boston be on the Boston Common to stop the Nazis, fascists and their ilk in their tracks whatever anti-fascist ideas you march under.

In Boston Nov 4 -ResistFascism Rally Report From Allan Franklin

By Political Reporter Frank Jackman

[I have recently at Allan Jackson’s, the site administrator, request done a review of a lesser Humphrey Bogart movie Sirocco from the early 1950s because it had a political theme-or at least touched about what World War I wrought on the world beyond murder and mayhem in the trenches on all sides. Because I spent some time on that and a few other projects I missed a local event in Boston on the Boston Common on November 4^th sponsored by an organization called ResistFascism.org who were attempting to build some momentum to publicize an upcoming counter-demonstration against a thing called “Rally For The Republic,” a seemingly innocuous front name for a cohort of Nazis, Alt-Rights, KKK, White Supremacists, wacky Trump supporters and street thugs to be held at the Parkman Bandstand on November 18^th . The grouping had applied for but had been rejected for a permit to use that facility by the City of Boston but nevertheless intended to demonstrate that day for “free speech” rights or whatever other cover story they were pushing. The “call” for the rally itself told the real story that what they wanted was a street fight, especially targeting their nemeses the Anti-fa black-clad anarchists and Black Lives Matter.

Not to belabor the point the idea of a gathering momentum rally on the 4^th sounded like a good idea and so I detached my associate at the on-line Progressive America, Allan Franklin, to go check out and report back on the event. My premise for even bothering him with the assignment was that the literature associated with the event, including a full- page ad in the New York Times by ResistFascism made it appear like it was going to be a prelude similar to the massive 40, 000 plus counter-rally in Boston also held on August 19^th also at the Parkman Bandstand. As Allan will report that was not the case, not by a long shot although this resurgent fascist (and their sundry allies) menace needs to be combatted and combatted with massive counter-demonstrations to make them go back into their rat holes or wherever they hang out. To “crush them in the egg” as an old-time militant antifascist once told me who had been close to the Socialist Workers Party in the 1930s when James Cannon had told an audience in New York City that he had heard their chief, Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, use that expression for the tasks ahead against the Nazi-night-takers. (That militant had at that time been instrumental through his union in bringing out a mass of working people to surround Madison Square Garden in that city when the fascist thugs tried to get a toehold there so I am sure he had the Trotsky remark on good authority.)

Allan, and I had agreed, had expected to take his notes and make a “think piece” story to be published here and at Progressive America. Subsequently we have decided to merely publish his somewhat edited notes which gives as much flavor to the event as it deserved.

Frank Jackman]

[In the event the November 18^th “rally” drew about fifty to one hundred demonstrators and a counter-rally of about one thousand to fifteen hundred mainly Anti-fa, Black Lives Matter and Veterans for Peace militants. Curiously except for a couple of people that Allan had recognized from the November 4^th rally selling newspapers and passing out leaflets there was no identifiable presence by this ResistFascism operation on the Common at least. From their literature they had planned a rally at Copley Square about one half mile away from the Common although it might as well have been ten thousand miles away as far as visibly confronting the fascist menace that day. Frank Jackman]

*****

Frank- Here are my observations about the ResistFascism rally that took place at the Parkman Bandstand on November 4, 2017 which we, you and I, have had many e-mail and phone conversations about with the organizers who wanted us to publicize the thing and cover it extensively. Also between us about our approach to a group we knew very little about except their literature and their persistent at the time and that unlike the paltry sums most leftist operations can gather these days they must have had an “angel” to be able to put a full page ad in the New York Times.

I showed up at the advertised spot, the Parkman Bandstand, about 3:30 for the 4:00 event at which time there were maybe twenty people gathered while the organizers were putting up signs and stocking a table with literature. (At first I thought I had the wrong spot not having been on the Common in years and figuring that maybe it was to be at the Park Street MBTA station entrance one of the historic protest spots on the Common that I knew from previous events but after asking if this was the right place of a person milling around I found I was indeed at the right spot.) After finding I was in the right place I knew almost immediately that this event was going to be far smaller than it was hyped up to be and which the organizers hounded us to publicize extensively beforehand and provide plenty of coverage for on the day of the event.

I did meet Steve, whom you told me you had plenty of contact via e-mail and cellphone with when he noticed my press tag and we talked for a bit. He continued to badger me about covering the November 18^th event they were planning at Copley Square. I told him frankly I did not see how a rally in Copley when the fascists were going to be on the Common a half mile away made sense, made a statement to the scumbags, made a statement about effectively resisting fascism as advertised. He demurred at that point and told me he had to help set up. This Steve seemed like a nice guy of the old school 1960s organizer sort that I have run into a lot in New York and out in San Francisco lately who under current adverse conditions are keeping up the good fight as best they can in an age when the social media technology and the subsequent generations’ organizing style have down-graded the old time ways of putting together protest rallies out in the real mean streets.

I sensed and somebody I talked to later knowledgeable about the leftist remnant still around the Cambridge/Boston milieu that this operation was an off-shoot of the old “Not In My Name” grouping from Iraq War 2003 days which was organized by an old-time cultist Maoist who didn’t hear he, Mao, died or something. It definitely had that liberal democratic feel especially around the main villains of the piece in their literature Trump/Pence and the urgent need to impeach them as if that would create the “newer world” you and the older guys I know are always harping back to when stuff like this comes up and you get all misty-eyed about the huge X number of people who came to some event against war, racism, capitalism, whatever about fifty years ago.

The rally itself when I left about 5:30 never had more than one hundred people and that is perhaps generous considering the number of student journalists and other such curious student types who apparently were assigned by their professors to do coverage as a class assignment. The usual run of general curiosity seekers who peek around the edges of such events getting confirmation for their distant hometown fears that Boston is some Red Moscow of the East Coast and making note never to send their kids to school in the town listening to the usual speakers preaching to the choir about that war, racism, sexism you and your crowd are always talking about how you almost had turned the corner on that stuff but you underestimated the forces of counter-attack arraigned against you and have been on the run ever since. Of course this included the usual Kumbaya folk music that is supposed to stir the crowd to a revolutionary pitch by evoking Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and who knows who else singing about the magic wand of getting rid of oppression. All in a regular left event day’s schedule.

I did notice that on a hand-out leaflet ResistFascism was advertising marching in a veteran’s peace parade on the 11^th, on Veterans Day and giving our starting time and place. I urged all the people I met to join that march that day since we are very familiar with and support the efforts of the main sponsor Veterans for Peace although I think you told me they were trying to reclaim the original purpose of the day by calling it Armistice Day since Sam Lowell, Fritz Taylor and I think Allan Jackson are Vietnam-era veterans, right.

There were a few minor heavy verbal confrontations between protesters and a few Alt-right people who showed up obviously to do “recon” and size up what was what knowing they could get a row going by spitting out their garbage in a small environment. One from Salisbury, a young Iraq War veteran who portrayed himself as only interested in a dialogue with the left, told me he was an organizer for the so-called Alt-right rally on the 18^th. When I asked him about the rally “call” which we had culled from Facebook being inflammatory, calling for a street fight like you said after you read the Facebook announcement, he said just like the far left they had their crazy far right who wanted to stir things up. Take that for what it is worth, although one thing I have noticed about this newer breed of whatever you want to call these modern fascists is that that they are a bit slicker than the old guys who used to breath fire and damnation against the generic left, n----rs, gays, women and “commies” without blinking at eye. They are more media savvy and couch things in terms like “free speech,” “oppression,” “railing against the elites” and the like. Off the top of my head I think we have to treat them at least in the post-Charlottesville era where they showed some unsavory savvy and skills as being as smart as us in this war of words and images.

Not much heated argument although a woman started yelling about those NFL players who went down on their knees during the national anthem before their football games and got into an argument with an Anti-fa who seemed very much the angry young man masked and dressed in Johnny Cash black of course. A Veteran for Peace guy whom I think you know, at least he said he knew you, was able to calm her down a bit and she left. (I told him that I had been urging people I talked to during this time to join the Veterans Day peace march which would be starting near this section of the Common and he corrected me by calling it Armistice Day so I guess they are serious about reclaiming the day, or at least the name.

All and all a waste of time and I told Jeff whom you had also assigned to this story to do interviews and take some photos and who was heading down to meet me to go home. Stuff might have happened after I left but I don’t think so. I am glad we had a hands-off with this R-F group although if they show up with any forces on the 11^th for that Veterans for Peace march let’s see what they have to offer.

I felt sorry for you and Allan since you were inundated by phone calls and e-mails for stuff that seemed like a big deal and was all smoke and dreams. We have to help save your time and energy for the big stuff not this Mickey Mouse stuff so we better screen this stuff better.

Honor Native American Heritage Month-Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice - by Stephen Lendman-Free Leonard Peltier Now!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice

Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice - by Stephen Lendman

A Leonard Peltier Defense Committee site can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.leonardpeltier.net/theman.htm

It calls him:

-- an artist;

-- writer;

-- great-grandfather;

-- 2007 Nobel Peace Prize nominee;

-- 2004 Peace and Freedom Party primary ballot presidential candidate nominee;

-- advocate of resolving all issues peacefully;

-- human and indigenous rights activist; and

-- wrongfully imprisoned political prisoner since 1976.

Peltier was framed, convicted and imprisoned for the deaths of two FBI agents, killed during a 1975 Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota shoot-out. Though innocent, he's currently serving two consecutive life terms - not for murder, for activism.

A Free Leonard.org site covers facts about his case, accessed through the link below:

http://www.freeleonard.org/case/index.html

It says attorneys representing him filed FOIA requests to obtain previously unavailable government information. Federal obstruction so far prevents it to conceal disturbing revelations, proving his innocence.

Incarcerated since 1976, he's been denied parole, clemency, a pardon, due process justice on appeal, (including by the US Supreme Court), or retrial for serious prosecutorial and FBI irregularities, including fabricated evidence to frame him. More on it below.

The FBI also targeted him for assassination in prison. Moreover, he's been brutalized in solitary confinement numerous times, and at age 66, suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and prostate problems, as well as other health issues.

Peltier, in fact, was targeted for being a Native American activist, a topic Ward Churchill addressed in numerous books and an article titled, "The Covert War Against Native Americans," saying:

Liberation organizations like the American Indian Movement (AIM), International Indian Treaty Council, and Women of All Red Nations struggle for Native American rights.

"In essence, their positions imply nothing less than the literal dismantlement of the modern (US) empire from the inside out. The stakes involved are tremendous," including treaty obligations denied, involving land, resources, human and civil rights.

By imprisoning "Native American freedom fighters," federal authorities "have been free to pursue programs of physical repression within America's internal colonies" like abroad.

"At one level, this has meant the wholesale jailing of the movement's leadership. Virtually every know AIM leader has been incarcerated in either state or federal prisons" since 1968 or earlier, "some repeatedly."

"This, in combination with accompanying time spent in local jails awaiting trial, the high costs of bail and legal defense," and time spent at trial is calculated malfeasance to wear down resistance, drain resources to pursue it, and "cripple (movement) strength."

Peltier is perhaps its best know victim, denied justice to isolate, silence, and let him rot behind prison bars unjustly.

1973 Wounded Knee Siege and Tragedy

Beginning February 27, 1973, it lasted 71 days, a confrontation between AIM activists v. FBI thugs and complicit Native American vigilantes - so-called "GOONS, (Guardians of Our Oglala Nation)," battling on the wrong side against their own.

In fact, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Tribal Council corruption, as well as out-of-control tension, got Lakota Nation elders to ask AIM for help. On February 27, armed Oglala Sioux reclaimed Wounded Knee, wanting their 1868 treaty rights honored.

It stated that "(t)he government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it." It also re-affirmed all Indian rights granted under the 1851 Treaty, abrogated and denied, nonetheless, like others.

Before the 1770s, the Great Sioux Nation held territories from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains and from the Yellowstone to Platte Rivers. Its famed leaders included Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Black Elk, among others.

Until the Treaty of 1868, they were the richest northwestern plains Native American nation. However, treaties made and broken changed their lives. Settlers, railroads, and mining interests stole their lands and resources. Now they wanted them back.

When AIM took over Wounded Knee, over 75 Indian Nations were represented, and more supporters arrived daily from around the country. Against them were GOONS, FBI thugs, federal marshals, and National Guard troops, surrounding and cutting them off, yet supporters still got through.

When it ended, an FBI/BIA "reign of terror" began. Lasting three years, roving death squads killed at least 342 AIM members and supporters. Hundreds more were harassed and beaten, and over 560 others arrested. Only 15 were convicted of a crime. Perhaps none, in fact, were guilty.

Brief Timeline of Peltier's Case

-- June 26, 1975: FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams killed at Wounded Knee;

-- February 6, 1976: Peltier arrested in Hinton, Alberta, Canada, then held for an extradition hearing;

-- June 18, 1976: he's ordered extradited to America;

-- March/April 1977: he's tried for killing Coler and Williams;

-- April 18, 1977: he's convicted on two counts of first-degree murder;

-- June 1, 1977: he's sentenced to two consecutive life terms in federal prison;

-- he's subsequently denied parole, retrial, clemency, a pardon, or justice on appeal.

Evidence of FBI and Prosecutorial Obstruction of Justice

-- witnesses were intimidated and coerced, including children;

-- key defense witnesses were prohibited from testifying;

-- evidence refuting conflicting ballistics reports was ruled inadmissible;

-- no one could identify Peltier as Coler and Williams' killer;

-- a climate of fear was created at trial;

-- evidence was fabricated;

-- exculpating evidence was withheld;

-- perjured testimonies and affidavits were used;

-- jury tampering was discovered;

-- FBI provocateurs gave GOONS illegal arms and ammunition to commit murder;

-- FBI and federal judges ex parte contact compromised Peltier's right to due process and judicial fairness; and

-- false inflammatory testimony was permitted at trial.

Overall, Department of Justice malfeasance framed Peltier, manipulating jurors to wrongfully convict him. In fact, authorities later admitted they weren't sure who killed Coler and Williams or if Peltier was involved. Moreover, hundreds of FBI-instigated "reign of terror" killings were never investigated. Government-sponsored killers remain free.

Amnesty International considers Peltier a political prisoner who "should be immediately and unconditionally released." Of course, he never should have been arrested, extradited, tried, convicted or imprisoned.

Governments, past and present congressional members, and hundreds of world dignitaries agree, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mikail Gorbachov, and former MP/anti-war activist Tony Benn.

Repressive Democrat and Republican leaders keep him imprisoned, waging war against truth, justice and democratic values ruthlessly, filling America's gulag with many thousands of innocent men, women and children.

A Final Comment

On June 26, part of a Peltier statement to friends and relations said:

"I always try to come to you full of good spirit and vigor. But I cannot lie. There are days when the ugliness of my situation weighs me down....I never thought this could happen. I never believed law enforcement and the government (would) keep their dirty laundry hidden away" this long.

Yet through dedicated efforts, "we have learned of hidden evidence, coerced testimony, and outright lies by the FBI and prosecutors....I am living proof that my case is about squashing Indian rights and Indian sovereignty."

Those responsible for framing him will live "their last moments (in) shame....If you believe in truth, justice, honor, freedom, all of what is supposed to make America great, then help me open the door to my release....join my cause....and do all you can to eradicate injustice."

Aho! Mitakuye Oyasin (All my relations, as part of a prayer for oneness and harmony with all forms of life)

Doksha (See you before long). Lakota has no word for goodbye.

Leonard Peltier

On June 27, he was placed in solitary confinement for six months. According to his attorney, Robert R. Bryan, it was for minor infractions, saying imprisonment weakened him, adding:

"Officials are using (excuses) to torture my 66-year-old client. His health is poor because of decades of imprisonment. It is an attempt to break and intimidate him."

In fact, they're trying to kill him. Currently incarcerated at US Penitentiary, Lewisburg, PA, he called his cell a "cement steel hotbox" with little ventilation. As a result, he's "drenched in hot sweat," Bryan saying he was put in a "hellhole."

He's there 23 hours a day weekdays, 24 hours on weekends, given no personal visits, and allowed to shower Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

That's how distinguished activists are treated in America, notably Muslims and people of color, including Native Americans, continuing a centuries long genocidal process.

Lewisburg is the oldest US federal prison. It's also one of the most notorious. Bureau of Prisons says it's now:

"run entirely as a Special Management Unit (SMU) as a more controlled and restrictive environment for managing the most aggressive and disruptive inmates from USP general population."

Though a model prisoner, Peltier was sent there before. According to Bryan:

"They're hoping he'll die there, that he'll be forgotten there" and perish, denied justice his friends and supporters worldwide won't ever quit fighting for. Nor will they let up condemning ruthless officials who destroy human beings for political advantage.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 12:57 AM

Thursday, November 29, 2018

LOVE BUG CRAWL - Jimmy Edwards

When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On That Old Hill-Billy Father Moment

By Zack James

One night Alex startled me while we were listening to an old Louvain Brothers song, I forget which one, when he said “daddy’s music” meaning that our father who had come from down in deep down in the mud Appalachia had put the stuff in our genes. He didn’t call it DNA I don’t’ think he knew the term and I certainly didn’t but that was the idea. I resisted the idea then, and for a long time after but sisters and brothers look at the selections that accompany this so-called think piece the whole thing is clear now. I, we are our father’s sons after all. Alex knew that early on I only grabbed the idea lately-too late since our father he has been gone a long time now.

Alex had the advantage of being the oldest son of a man who also had grown up as the oldest son in his family brood of I think eleven. (Since I, we never met any of them when my father came North to stay for good after being discharged from the Marine as hard Pacific War military service, I can’t say much about that aspect of why my father doted on his oldest son.) That meant a lot, meant that Dad confided as much as a quiet, sullen hard-pressed man could or would confide in a youngster. All I know is that sitting down at the bottom of the food chain (I will laugh “clothes chain” too as the recipient of every older brother, sister too when I was too young to complain or comprehend set of ragamuffin clothing) he was so distant that we might well have been just passing strangers. Alex, for example, knew that Dad had been in a country music trio which worked the Ohio River circuit, that river dividing Ohio and Kentucky up north far from hometown Hazard, yes, that Hazard of legend and song whenever anybody speaks of the hardscrabble days of the coal mine civil wars that went on down there before the war, before World War II. I don’t know what instrument he played although I do know that he had a guitar tucked under his bed that he would play when he had a freaking minute in the days when he was able to get work.

Here is the real shocker, well maybe not shocker, but the thing that made Alex’s initial so-called DNA thought make sense. When Alex was maybe six or seven Dad would be playing something on the guitar, just fooling around when he started playing Hank Williams’ mournful lost love Cold, Cold Heart. Alex couldn’t believe his ears and asked Dad to play it again. He would for years after all the way to high school when Dad had the guitar out and he was around request that Dad play that tune. I probably heard the song too. So, yeah, maybe that DNA business is not so far off. And maybe, just maybe, over fifty years later we are still our father’s sons. Thanks, Dad.

AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

Friday, November 30, 2018

When Woody Allen Ruled The Social Satire (And Adult Angst) Night- “Annie Hall”

Add your name: Don't allow troops to use deadly force against asylum seekers-Bring The Troops Home From The Border

Add your name: Don't allow troops to use deadly force against asylum seekers-Bring The Troops Home From The Border

From The Partisan Defense Committee- Native Americans Targeted Free Dakota Access Pipeline Activists!

From The Archives- As The First Anniversary Of Charlottesville Approaches-We Are In A Cold Civil War In America-No Platform For Fascists-No Platform For Nazis Or KKK Either-Join And Built The People’s Resistance

Honor Native American Heritage Month-Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice - by Stephen Lendman-Free Leonard Peltier Now!

Thursday, November 29, 2018

LOVE BUG CRAWL - Jimmy Edwards

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