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Journal of the Black Left Unity Network
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New CCDS Book Reporting on Vietnam
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 The new annual edition of our journal of discussion and analysis is now out. More than 130 pages, it includes 20 articles on organizing, racism and the right. Cost is $10 plus shipping. Or get one by becoming a sustainer. Click the title to buy it directly.
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Blog of the Week... 
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Radical Jesus:
A Graphic History of Faith  By Paul BuhleHerald Press
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 Keep On Keepin' OnWhy Socialists Run in Elections, Strategy and Tactics Slide Slow, Class and Privilege, the Green New Deal ...and other Short Posts on Tumblr by Carl Davidson
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Edited by Carl Davidson Revolutionary Youth the the New Working Class: The Praxis Papers, the Port Authority Statement, the RYM Documents and other Lost Writings of SDS
Changemaker, 273pp, $22.50
For the full contents, click the link and view 'Preview' under the cover graphic.
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By Randy Shannon, CCDS
"Everyone has the right to work, to free of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."
- United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948
I. Introduction
The "Great Recession" that began in 2007 has caused the greatest percent of job losses since the Great Depression of 1929. This crisis is the end of an era of unrestrained 'neo-liberal' capitalism that became public policy during the Reagan administration. The crisis marks a new level of instability with the growth of a global financial elite that targeted US workers and our trade unions after World War II.
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Capitalism may well collapse under its own excesses, but what would one propose to replace it? Margaret Thatcher's mantra was TINA...There Is No Alternative. David Schweickart's vision of "Economic Democracy" proposes a serious alternative. Even more fundamentally, it opens the door to thinking about alternatives. His may or may not turn out to be the definitive "successor system," but he is a leader in breaking out of the box. |
by Paul KrehbielAutumn Leaf Press, $25.64 | | Shades of Justice Video: Bringing Down a President, Ending a War |
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Essays on Mondragon, Marx, Gramsci
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Solidarity Economy:What It's All About
Edited by Jenna Allard, Carl Davidson and Julie Matthaei
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Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement
By Don Hamerquist
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An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 Union Busting,
Legal Lynching
--21st Century Style
We're the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism...Do you have friends who should see this? Pass it on...Do you have a blog of your own? Others you love to read every day? Well, this is a place where you can share access to them with the rest of your comrades. Just pick your greatest hits for the week and send them to us at carld717@gmail.com!
Most of all, it's urgent that you oppose war on Iran, defend voter rights, plan for 2014 races now, oppose austerity, support the 'Moral Mondays' in North Carolina, the Congressional Progressive Caucus' 'Back to Work Budget'! We're doing more than ever, and have big plans. So pay your dues, make a donation and become a sustainer. Do it Now! Check the link at the bottom... |
Turning 'Self Defense' into Legal Lynching
Verdict in Jordan Davis Case Highlights Continuing Injustice of 'Stand Your Ground'
By Brendan Fischer
PR Watch | Report
Feb 18, 2014 - Once again, Florida's Stand Your Ground law has helped a man escape conviction for killing an African-American teenager.
After thirty hours of deliberations, on February 15 a Florida jury declared it could not reach a decision about whether Michael Dunn, 47, could be convicted of first degree murder for shooting and killing 17-year-old Jordan Davis.
In November 2012, Davis and his three teenage friends were parked in an SUV when Dunn pulled up and confronted them about the volume of their music. After an argument, Dunn fired ten shots into the vehicle; three of the bullets hid Davis, a student at Wolfson High School, killing him. Dunn then picked up his fiancé and drove off, never mentioning the shooting to her or claiming that he saw a gun, as he would later tell police. Instead, Dunn ordered a pizza, walked his dog, and went to bed.
The jury convicted Dunn of three counts of attempted second degree murder, and one count of firing into a vehicle. He could face as many as 75 years in prison, but the twelve jurors could not reach a verdict on whether Dunn acted in self-defense after being instructed by the judge about Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. Prosecutors say they plan to ask for a retrial on the murder charge.
"He was a good kid," Ron Davis said of his son after the verdict. "There's a lot of good kids out there . . . And they should have a voice. They shouldn't live in fear to walk around the streets worrying about if someone has a problem with somebody else, that if they get shot, it's collateral damage."
"I hate that thug music"
On November 23, 2012, Dunn and his fiancé left his son's wedding, and stopped at a gas station for wine and chips. Dunn parked next to the vehicle containing Jordan Davis and his three friends. The teenagers were listening to rap music, loudly.
"I hate that thug music," Dunn told his fiancé, according to her testimony.
Dunn confronted the teenagers over the music after his fiancé went into the gas station. They turned down the music, then turned it back up. Following an argument, Dunn took a handgun out of his glovebox, loaded it, then fired six shots into the vehicle. He fired four more as the teenagers drove away in fear. Three of the bullets hit Davis, killing him.
When Dunn's girlfriend returned to the car, he didn't say anything about the altercation; they went to a hotel room, ordered pizza, and he took his dog for a walk. The next morning, Dunn made the two-and-a-half hour drive home. It wasn't until the following day that Davis called police.
The fact that Dunn did not call police, state attorney Erin Wolfson argued, suggested "he thought he got away with murder."
Dunn later claimed under oath that he saw a four-inch shotgun barrel poking out of the SUV's rear window, but no gun was ever found. His fiance testified that Dunn never told her anything about a gun, and the other three teenagers testified that there was no gun in the vehicle. Prosecutors argued that Dunn fabricated the claim of the gun to bolster his self-defense claim.
However, under Florida's Stand Your Ground law, Dunn need only reasonably believe that he saw a shotgun, which can be informed by his own biases. During testimony, Dunn referred to the African-American high schoolers listening to music as "gangsters." His letters from jail as he awaited trial contained shockingly racist sentiments.
"This jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs," he wrote. "If more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they're threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior."...(Click title for more)
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After UAW Defeat at VW Plant, Theories Abound
Workers and organizers cite outside interference, management collusion, union missteps, two-tier agreements and Neil Young
By Mike Elk
In these Times
Feb 15, 2014 - "I am excited," auto worker Justin King told me as he put on his cowboy boots to get ready for the victory party planned for late Friday night. At approximately 10 p.m., the United Auto Workers union and Volkswagen would announce the results of a three-day union election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.
King had reason to be excited. For nearly three years he had campaigned to get the union into his plant. As one of the leaders of the drive, his sense was that the UAW had the support of the majority of the plant's 1,550 hourly workers. Unlike in most union drives, organizers didn't have to worry about the company threatening workers' job, because Volkwagen had agreed to remain neutral in the process, so King felt cautiously optimistic that the support would hold.
But Justin King never got to enjoy his victory party. An hour after we spoke, retired Circuit Court Judge Samuel H. Payne announced to a roomful of reporters assembled in a Volkswagen training facility that the UAW had lost the campaign, with 626 workers voting in favor of the union and 712 voting against. To the labor reporters, who had seen many union election results, it was jaw-dropping news. How could a union lose an unopposed campaign?
Volkswagen signed a 22-page neutrality agreement pledging not to interfere in the union election at the Chattanooga plant. The company even let the union onto the shop floor in early February to give a presentation on the merits of organizing.
It is impossible to say why each of those 712 workers voted against the union and what the UAW could have done differently to win them over one by one. However, In These Times' interviews with both pro-union and anti-union workers-as well as low-level Volkswagen supervisors, top UAW officials and community activists-point to a confluence of factors, including outside interference by GOP politicians and unsanctioned anti-union activity by low-level supervisors. Some questioned, too, whether missteps by the UAW and concerns about its prior bargaining agreements played a role.
GOP influence
The UAW was quick to blame the loss on public anti-union threats by right-wing politicians. Immediately following the election results, UAW President Bob King informed reporters, "We are obviously deeply disappointed. We're also outraged by the outside interference in this election. Never before in this country have we seen a U.S. senator, a governor and a leader of the Legislature threaten the company with incentives and threaten workers with a loss of product. That's outrageous."
Last week, Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Haslam told the Tennessean, "I think that there are some ramifications to the vote in terms of our ability to attract other suppliers. When we recruit other companies, that comes up every time."
On Monday, two days before the election began, Republican State Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Bo Watson and Republican House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick suggested that Volkswagen might not receive future state subsidies if the plant unionized.
Then on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)-the former mayor of Chattanooga-who had pledged the previous week not to comment publicly about the ongoing election, waded back into the debate to declare, "I've had conversations today and based on those am assured that should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in Chattanooga."
When Volkswagen Chattanooga Chairman and CEO Frank Fischer refuted Corker, saying the union election would have no effect on the SUV decision, Corker doubled down. "Believe me, the decisions regarding the Volkswagen expansion are not being made by anyone in management at the Chattanooga plant, and we are also very aware Frank Fischer is having to use old talking points when he responds to press inquiries," Corker said in a statement on Thursday. "After all these years and my involvement with Volkswagen, I would not have made the statement I made yesterday without being confident it was true and factual."
At a press conference following the vote announcement, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams echoed union president Bob King in blaming the loss of support for the union on the Republican politicians' statements.
"When the governor made his comments, we saw some movement at that time," said Williams. "When Sen. Corker said he was not going to be involved and then he came back from Washington, D.C., we had a feeling that something was happening. Forty-three votes was the difference, so it's very disturbing when this happens in the United States of America when a company and a union come together and have a fair election process."
The UAW also announced shortly after the election that it was exploring legal options and might petition the National Labor Relations Board to order a new election because of the threats issued by Corker, the governor and the leaders of the Tennessee State House and Senate.
Opposition at the plant
However, threats of workers losing their jobs are routine during union elections-though they usually come from management, not outside forces-and unions still often prevail. Both pro-union workers and anti-union activists said that other factors played key roles in derailing the union drive.
While the neutrality agreement forbade Volkswagen from campaigning against the drive, plant worker and union activist Byron Spencer says that low-level supervisors and salaried employees-who were not eligible for the union-ignored the directive and actively opposed the drive. He also reports seeing multiple low-level supervisors and salaried employees at the plant wearing "Vote No" T-shirts in the days leading up to the union election....(Click title for more)
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UAW, Unions Need New Strategy
Reflections on the defeat suffered by the TN workers in Volkswagen
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Progressive America Rising via BillFletcherJr.com
Feb 18 , 2014 ˇ The election loss at the Chattanooga plant of VW was, first and foremost, a loss suffered by the workers. Secondarily it was a loss suffered by the United Auto Workers.
The workers at that facility lost the chance to bargain collectively and to obtain a voice in their workplace.
This was a loss that was mainly the result of the all-out right-wing offensive that took place in TN against the workers and their-the workers'-decision to seek representation. And, as is the case for all workers who lack collective bargaining (or the even rarer personal contract), they remain in a free-fire zone where they can be removed from their job for any reason or no reason as long as the reason does not violate statute. I am sorry; i just needed to cut to the chase.
Yet, we cannot stop there with our reflections on what transpired. This was a situation where the company-VW-agreed to be neutral and, in many ways, seemed to welcome the union. Nevertheless, by a relatively slim majority, the proponents of workers' rights did not prevail. This reality emphasizes the point that employer neutrality, while important, is insufficient. There are larger factors at stake when workers must make a decision on union representation, particularly in a period where labor unions have been under such vicious assault. The decision, in this case, of the Republican Party and others on the political Right to draw a line in the sand and go all out to intimidate the workforce is a case-in-point. The workers, their families and friends had to decide whether the threats coming from the political Right were genuine or just rhetoric. Given the history of anti-worker repression in the South, along with the on-going racist efforts to secure a 'white bloc' against progress, the messages of the political Right came through loud and clear.
At the same time there was another factor that i found particularly striking. It was mentioned in an article on the election in the Washington Post yesterday (Monday). They indicated that within the anti-union vote there were those who were angered by the UAW's willingness to keep the wages and benefits of VW workers in TN 'competitive.' This was particularly interesting because herein lay a critique of the UAW that may have surprised many people. The workers were saying that they did not want to guarantee to VW that their wages would stay below those of Chrysler, Ford or GM workers.
The UAW finds itself in a bind. For more than thirty years it has engaged in concessionary bargaining with employers under the banner of "jointness." Only a few years ago it approved a two-tier agreement by which the wage and benefit package for incoming workers would differ from veteran workers. Two-tier systems are by their very nature demoralizing and undermine any real sense of solidarity. They are also a poison pill that can kill the patient over time as the newer workers come to resent the benefits that they do not have, but which are held by the veteran workers. Jointness, two tier concessions and a failure-until relatively recently-to develop innovative approaches toward organizing auto "transplants" and auto parts manufacturers in the South have come back to bite the UAW, and to bite with fangs of steel.
The defeat in TN will lead some commentators to suggest that organizing in the South, or in any hostile environment, is pointless short of changes in labor law. Such conclusions, which we hear periodically, are ahistoric and defeatest. Yet there are sobering conclusions, or at least suggestions that must be considered. With all due respect, let me propose a few.
One, the UAW needs to build a local union in that TN plant. The fact that the election was lost should not mean that the union disappears. Rather, there is the notion that has become increasingly popular over the last 20 years of what are called "non-majority unions," that is, unions that are organized in a situation where they have not won majority status and, therefore, cannot bargain collectively, but where they can organize the workers and build alternative forms of representation. The UAW needs to make that commitment and flip the script....(Click title for more)
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The Moral March protest in Raleigh, N.C on Saturday drew more than 100,000 people calling for a new progressive agenda. (Photo: United Workers/Flickr Creative Commons)
By Ira Chernus
Common Dreams
Feb 11, 2014 - Nearly 100,000 people took to the streets in Raleigh, North Carolina on February 8 in a Moral March to say "NO" to the state's sharp right-wing political turn and "YES" to a new, truly progressive America.
They weren't just marching for one issue or another. They were marching for every issue progressives care about: economic justice; a living wage for every worker; support for organized labor; justice in banking and lending; high quality, well-funded, diverse public schools; affordable health care and health insurance for all, especially women; environmental justice and green jobs; affordable housing for every person; abolishing the death penalty and mandatory sentencing; expanded services for released prisoners; comprehensive immigration reform to provide immigrants with health care, education, and workers rights; insuring everyone the right to vote; enhancing LGBT rights; keeping America's young men and women out of wars on foreign soil; and more.
"They weren't just marching for one issue or another. They were marching for every issue progressives care about..."
All this in Raleigh, a metro area of barely more than a million people. It's as if a million and half turned out in New York or DC, or a million in San Francisco. When was the last time we saw such huge crowds in the streets demanding a total transformation in our way of life? This could be the start of something big.
And it was all led by . . . God?
Many of the marchers would say so. Many others would doubt it. The march organizers invited "secular and religious progressives alike," people of every faith and no faith at all. And that's what they got. "The march brought together a diverse group from Baptists to Muslims and gay marriage supporters," as USA Today reported.
But no one doubts that it was all started by a man of faith, the Rev. William Barber.
"We will become the 'trumpet of conscience' that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called upon us to be, echoing the God of our mothers and fathers in the faith," the Disciples of Christ minister told the huge crowd, exhorting them to "plant America on higher ground." Then he prayed: "Lord, Lord plant our minds on higher ground. Plant our hearts on higher ground. Plant our souls on higher ground. Lord, lift us up, lift us up, lift us up and let us stand. Plant our feet on higher ground."
The night before the march he led what a local TV station called "a spiritual pep rally" the Abundant Life Christian Center, designed (the organizers said) to prepare the marchers "by spiritually invoking ... love, peace, and a source of power beyond what can be seen with our eyes or calculated with our minds."
Those organizers, many of them clergy and religious leaders, are well aware that "some secular progressives object to the use of this kind of language because of its religious overtones. ... Sure, Barber prays in public, uses church language and premises many of his beliefs and arguments on his understanding of the teachings of his faith -- he's a preacher for Pete's sake! But his policy messages, his organization and his objectives are thoroughly secular and open to all, whatever their beliefs or lack thereof when it comes to religion."
It's not surprising that his politics would be thoroughly secular. He's got a BA in political science and a PH.D. in public policy as well as pastoral care. He's proving himself to be a shrewd, hard-headed organizer and political tactician. 100,000 progressives don't just appear out of nowhere.
In fact, the Moral March was initiated by the "Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) People's Assembly Coalition," started by Barber and other religious leaders back in 2007. It took plenty of hope and faith to believe that within just seven years a small group could swell to such a huge crowd.
But building this mass movement also took political smarts. And HKonJ has shown plenty of smarts, especially at the North Carolina state house. They played an important role in passage of a Racial Justice Act, obtaining Same Day Voting; winning workers the right to unionize; getting a former Democratic governor to veto Voter I.D. Laws, an unfair budget, and repeal of a Racial Justice Act. ...(Click title for more)
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Frank Hammer: UAW's 'Fatal Flaw' in Tennessee
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UAW Effort to Organize Tennessee VW Plant "Fatally Flawed" From The Outset
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What Happened To Being a 'Good Neighbor'?
US Support for 'Regime Change' in Venezuela is a Mistake The push to topple the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro once again pits Washington against South America
By Mark Weisbrot
Beaver County Peace Links via The Guardian/UK
Feb. 18, 2014 - When is it considered legitimate to try and overthrow a democratically-elected government? In Washington, the answer has always been simple: when the US government says it is. Not surprisingly, that's not the way Latin American governments generally see it.
On Sunday, the Mercosur governments (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela) released a statement on the past week's demonstrations in Venezuela. They described "the recent violent acts" in Venezuela as "attempts to destabilize the democratic order". They made it abundantly clear where they stood.
The governments stated:
their firm commitment to the full observance of democratic institutions and, in this context, [they] reject the criminal actions of violent groups that want to spread intolerance and hatred in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a political tool.
We may recall that when much larger demonstrations rocked Brazil last year, there were no statements from Mercosur or neighboring governments. That's not because they didn't love President Dilma Rousseff; it's because these demonstrations did not seek to topple Brazil's democratically-elected government.
The Obama administration was a bit more subtle, but also made it clear where it stood. When Secretary of State John Kerry states that "We are particularly alarmed by reports that the Venezuelan government has arrested or detained scores of anti-government protestors," he is taking a political position. Because there were many protestors who committed crimes: they attacked and injured police with chunks of concrete and Molotov cocktails; they burned cars, trashed and sometimes set fire to government buildings; and committed other acts of violence and vandalism.
An anonymous State Department spokesman was even clearer last week, when he responded to the protests by expressing concern about the government's "weakening of democratic institutions in Venezuela", and said that there was an obligation for "government institutions [to] respond effectively to the legitimate economic and social needs of its citizens". He was joining the opposition's efforts to de-legitimize the government, a vital part of any "regime change" strategy.
Of course we all know who the US government supports in Venezuela. They don't really try to hide it: there's $5m in the 2014 US federal budget for funding opposition activities inside Venezuela, and this is almost certainly the tip of the iceberg - adding to the hundreds of millions of dollars of overt support over the past 15 years.
But what makes these current US statements important, and angers governments in the region, is that they are telling the Venezuelan opposition that Washington is once again backing regime change. Kerry did the same thing in April of last year when Maduro was elected president and opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles claimed that the election was stolen. Kerry refused to recognize the election results. Kerry's aggressive, anti-democratic posture brought such a strong rebuke from South American governments that he was forced to reverse course and tacitly recognize the Maduro government. (For those who did not follow these events, there was no doubt about the election results.)...(Click title for more)
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By New China News Agency
English.news.cn
GUANGZHOU, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- A tough crackdown on the illegal but highly lucrative sex trade in China's "capital of sex" has once again thrown a spotlight on this controversial issue.
Late on Sunday, more than 6,700 police officers swooped on saunas, hotels, massage parlors and karaoke bars suspected of harboring prostitutes in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, a manufacturing center and a booming entertainment hub infamous for its rampant sex industry.
It came hours after a China Central Television (CCTV) program revealed that a dozen hotels in Dongguan were offering sex services. Video clips showed that the daring sex trade even included a parade of prostitutes wearing revealing clothes to demonstrate their bodies in front of prospective clients.
By Monday morning, 12 entertainment venues involved in prostitution and other sexual services had been closed and 67 people had been placed under investigation, according to the Dongguan municipal public security bureau.
The latest crackdown immediately prompted diverse reactions ranging from sympathies for the sex workers to support for the police in a country where prostitution has been outlawed over the past six decades.
PERSISTENT ISSUE
This is not the first time that Dongguan, a city with a population of over 8 million known for its lavish casinos and bath houses, as well as its back-street brothels, has been the subject of a police campaign designed to smash the sex trade.
Crackdowns like this have been seen at least three times in Dongguan over the past decade, said Dr. Ding Yu, a lecturer with the sociology department at Sun Yat-sen University. Ding has been studying the development of China's sex industry and the lives of those it employs.
Many question whether entrenched sex businesses in the city can ever truly be stamped out thanks to a local "protective umbrella."
"It is sometimes hard to decide whether pornographic activities are violating the law, so the police always have a major say in sex trade crackdowns," Ding said, but stopped short of saying Dongguan police have been protecting sex businesses.
Footage shot by CCTV reporters with a hidden camera showed that hotel managers did not seem in the least bit worried about being found offering sex services. They told the reporter that no police officer would come. "Otherwise, we would have been out of business a long time ago," one manager said.
Although no evidence has been provided, it is widely speculated by the public that local police offer protection for Dongguan's rampant prostitution, a dynamic which could stimulate local consumption and bring job opportunities.
Media reports put the number of people working in the sex industry in Dongguan at 300,000 at least, although Xinhua has been unable to verify that number.
In the video clips, a CCTV reporter called police twice to blow the whistle on prostitution in two hotels, but no police showed up.
Officials in Dongguan have denied that the city's prosperity is a result of its underground sex industry. In 2011, Lu Weiqi, vice head of the Dongguan municipal security bureau, told media that "the thriving hotel business in the city does not necessarily imply a prospering sex industry."
As of Monday afternoon, eight police officers including the director of the police station which failed to immediately respond to the CCTV informants' reports of illegal activities, have been suspended, the city's municipal public security bureau said in a statement.
It also suggested the local industrial and commercial bureau revoke the licenses of the 12 entertainment venues exposed to be involved in selling sex.
The public security department of Guangdong Province, home to Dongguan, has promised a sweeping crackdown on pornography and gambling sites across the province.
Local police who provide protection to the sex industry will be severely punished, according to the Guangdong provincial government.
SYMPATHY
Prostitution has been outlawed in China since the Communist Party of China took power in 1949.
But a few Chinese activists and scholars believe that the world's oldest profession should be legalized in the country, arguing that it would increase government tax revenue and better protect the vulnerable and currently "invisible" prostitutes from sexually transmitted diseases and violence.
While the topic remains by and large taboo out of morality concerns, the latest crackdown in Dongguan has prompted sharply divided opinions among the Chinese.
Some supported the campaign, saying it would make China more beautiful and civilized. But sympathies for Dongguan's sex workers also poured in on the country's Twitter-style microblogging service Sina Weibo, where "Dongguan sex trade crackdown" is among the most re-tweeted topics as of Monday afternoon.
"It is not those who sell their bodies that should be condemned," said a user with the screen name "Sophie203." "It is the parasites who make money by supporting the illegal business."
Netizen "Chongshangwuqing" said he believed that the campaign will result in a more miserable life for sex workers, and predicted a slump in the city's economy.
A large number of Weibo users are also criticizing CCTV for airing the program without blurring the sex workers' faces, accusing it of violating the prostitutes' rights.
"Some netizens equate freedom of sex to freedom of the sex market," said Professor Lyu Xinyu with the Department of Journalism at Fudan University. "That's why so many of them are sympathizing with the sex workers in Dongguan and supporting the legalization of prostitution."
"But as long as there is a sex trade, prostitutes are always the victims," he added.
(To stay up to date with the latest China news, follow XHNews on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/XHNews and Xinhua News Agency on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/XinhuaNewsAgency.)n ...(Click title for more)
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Scene from Riots in the Ukraine
By Harry Targ
Diary of a Heartland Radical
Sixty years ago, in March, 1954, National Security Document 5412 was distributed to President Eisenhower's National Security Council by the Central Intelligence Agency recommending the adoption of a program of covert operations so that:
"U.S. Government responsibility for them is not evident and if uncovered the U.S. government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them. Specifically, such operations shall include...propaganda; political action; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition; escape and evasion and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states or groups including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, support of indigenous and anti-communist elements; and deception plans and operations." (Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower; A Divided Legacy, Doubleday, New York, 1981).
A decade later Operation Plan 34A, a secret plan to pressure the North Vietnamese to lean on their comrades in the South to stop fighting the U.S. regime in South Vietnam, was discussed and adopted by the Lyndon Johnson administration. If that failed, it was hoped, the Indochinese peninsula would be so destabilized that the United States could justify a massive escalation of military involvement in South Vietnam.
Upon the death of President Kennedy, incumbent foreign policy advisers warned the new President, Lyndon Johnson, that the Saigon regime in South Vietnam was near collapse. A decade of repression including targeted killings of Vietnamese nationalists living below the 17th parallel (the once "temporary" dividing line between North and South Vietnam) was carried out by the odious regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. A destabilizing military coup in South Vietnam leading to the assassination of Diem and some of his extended family was carried out just three weeks before Kennedy himself was killed.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, supported by the Secretary of State Dean Rusk, military adviser Maxwell Taylor, and others, reported to the new President that the post-coup regime was unable to consolidate its power. The guerrilla movement in the South was growing and protest against the dictatorship in Saigon by the Buddhist community had increased. The short-term fix without U.S. intervention would be a neutral government in the South to be followed by a Communist one.
While all agreed that victory by the rebels in the South, supported by Ho Chi Minh's forces in the North, would be devastating for the struggle against international communism, the new President faced a dilemma. He wanted to run for president in 1964 and his likely opponent would be the Cold War hawk, Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona. The American people, Johnson surmised, would not want to vote for a presidential candidate who had initiated significant military escalation in Southeast Asia. The dilemma as LBJ saw it was how to avoid "losing" South Vietnam while being able to run as the "peace" candidate for President in 1964 against the dangerous hawk Goldwater.
Defense intellectuals recommended Operation Plan 34A which was adopted in early February, 1964. The United States would provide training and resources for South Vietnamese troops to engage in covert sabotage against targets in North Vietnam. It was hoped that Commando raids north of the 17th parallel would convince the North Vietnamese to pressure their allies in the South to stop their war against the odious Saigon government.
In support of sabotage in the North, two naval vessels, the Maddox and C. Turner Joy, would be moved to the coastal waters of North Vietnam just above the 17th parallel with equipment to monitor the movement of North Vietnamese troops in the North as well as provide information about desirable targets of sabotage. In addition, the United States launched secret air strikes against targets in neighboring Laos to cut off any flow of supplies from North to South Vietnamese rebels.
Meanwhile, as the Operation 34A mission was carried out, the Joint Chiefs of Staff developed secret plans to escalate the war in Vietnam, if the opportunity to do so arose. Candidate Lyndon Johnson ran for President as the "peace candidate" while figuratively carrying in his pocket a resolution, which would become the nearly unanimously endorsed Congressional resolution (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) that would authorize the President to act as needed if threats to U.S. and South Vietnamese security were challenged. With reported attacks on the two spy ships in August, 1964, Congress gave the President the authority he needed to escalate the war in Vietnam. Of course, the American people did not know that the United States had engaged in covert war against the North Vietnamese for six months before the claimed attacks on U.S. naval vessels in North Vietnamese coastal waters in August, 1964.
In short, from that first meeting of the new President Johnson in December, 1963, with the foreign policy team held over from the Kennedy administration until the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August, 1964, the Johnson administration had been supporting secret military operations in South Vietnam and against the North, and at the same time was planning broader U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war.
The connections seem clear between covert interventions in European and Latin American politics from the end of World War II to the formal articulation of such policies in NSC 5412 to Operation Plan 34A ten years later. They called for the use of whatever means were available to intervene and destabilize regimes and movements opposed to U.S. policy while always maintaining "plausible deniability" of any U.S. role in covert operations. The American people have been the last to learn about covert operations carried out by their government in countries all across the globe....(Click title for more)
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Snake-handling Charismatic Preacher in Religious Thriller
By Rob Staeger
Village Voice
Feb 18, 2014 - Of all the sins a cinematic flock can forgive its preacher, vanity tops the list.
While the backwoods congregation of the Church of One Accord dresses in worn overalls and faded dresses, snake-handling Brother Billy (Joe Egender, who co-wrote the screenplay) testifies in front, pomaded and bursting with rockabilly charisma, a lone primary color in a washed-out sea of pastel.
Into that sea wade Charlotte and Wayne (Emma Greenwell and Brendan McCarthy), a guilt-ridden bartender and the alcoholic ex-Marine she's enlisted to help her look for her sister, an addict last heard from as part of Brother Billy's flock.  | | 'Holy Ghost People' Trailer |
McCarthy, shaky as Wayne tries to kick the bottle, draws us in, but Egender has the plum role. His Brother Billy constantly surprises, whether it's a viper-quick grab of a cigarette or a quiet confession of a love of Neil Young music. Charlotte, unfortunately, remains something of a cipher, despite a series of explicating voiceovers. Director Mitchell Altieri helms the thriller with a sure hand, although his experience as one of horror's "Butcher Brothers" peeks out with the use of the Lost Boys anthem "Cry Little Sister" on the soundtrack.
It feels like a cheat, a garish jab at an emotional button that sacrifices authenticity for a higher high.
Details
Holy Ghost People
Directed by Mitchell Altieri
XLRator Media
Available on demand
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Start 2014 With a Red Resolution...
Become a CCDS member today!
 The time is long past for 'Lone Rangers'. Being a socialist by your self is no fun and doesn't help much. Join CCDS today--$36 regular, $48 household and $18 youth.
Better yet, beome a sustainer at $20 per month, and we'll send you a copy of Jack O'Dell's new book, 'Climbing Jacobs Ladder,' drawing on the lessons of the movement in the South in the 1950s and 1960s.
Solidarity, Carl Davidson, CCDS
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