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Detroit’s July ’67 Rebellion…
08
July

As we approached Detroit at 5,000 feet, I could see a dozen columns of black smoke climbing into the still July air. Hitting an inversion layer, the smoke spread out forming a great vaulted ceiling over the city.

It was all quite surreal. I was conscious of Lenin’s return to revolutionary Russia in a sealed train. No ego-mania, just a sign of how seriously we took our politics back then.

Early that Sunday morn, July 23rd, I got a call from a comrade in Detroit advising me to return immediately, “The revolution is on!” “Revolution” was a bit over the top, but it was most certainly one hell of a rebellion. more…

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Voting, Democracy & Revolution…
10
June

This is a monologue of a few ideas that are irritatingly rolling around in my brain like a BB in a boxcar. It’s longer than my usual articles, given the subject matter. I ‘spect it’s not the final word…

One of my earliest memories was listening to a political campaign on the radio—1944? ’48?—and asking my mother what was meant by “Democrats and Republicans?”

She answered in her Irish-New England lilt, “Republicans are the rich people, Nicky. Democrats are the rest of us.”  I admit, that always stuck with me. more…

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Category: JohnsonLB, ObamaBarack, Voting, VVAW  2 Comments
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CIA: Conservative, Inept, Air-heads…
11
April

In the summer of ‘66, leaving UC Berkeley, Frank J. Rafalko applied to the CIA to become a spy. He spent the next 32 years staying in-the-box with an adagio performance of the requisite noblesse oblige before the altar of gov’t service.

Rafalko is the author of a 4-volume series on the history of counter-intelligence in America. In 2011 he published, MH/CHAOS, The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Naval Institute Press). Save your money, they aren’t worth the postage. more…

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Category: CIA/chaos, GriffinRufus, Palestine, SchleiferAbdallah, VVAW, WilliamsRobtF  Leave a Comment
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Praise the Warrior, Not the War…
19
December

By 1968, with more than 500,000 troops in Vietnam, many were returning home from the war.  Survivors usually served 13 months in-country, unlike the multiple deployments today. And, of course, Vietnam was the last war of involuntary conscription…unlike the “poverty draft” today.

Gallop polls back in 1967 indicated 52% of the American public was opposed to the war. With mass demonstrations growing, the American antiwar movement welcomed many Vietnam veterans into its ranks (besides, we had rock ‘n roll, dope, long hair and free love…where else were they gonna go?).

As a Vietnam era veteran of the 101st Airborne (1959-61), I co-founded the Veterans Against the War (VAW, 1967) in Detroit, Michigan. With other national vet groups, we then helped found the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). By May of 1970, there were some 50,000 members of the VVAW. more…

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Category: IVAW, LembckeJerry, VVAW, WarCrimes, WinterSoldiers...  Leave a Comment
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Drug Dealing…Econ 0730…
11
February

(Given the nature of this article, I’ve departed from my short versions…this one is just over twice as long as usual…)

While the central focus of a prisoner’s existence is the cause that put us in here and the terms and conditions that we have to serve, most of us cease being overly obsessed with the issue within a year-or-so.

The Real Plan Colombia...

The conservative and public myth is that most prisoners claim they’re innocent.  Actually, very few do.  However, many do claim mischarging and draconian sentencing.

Given all the hidden stats (youth, worker immigrants, security, etc.) we’re close to 3 million souls in the American prisoner gulag.  The largest prison system in the history of the world. more…

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Category: Drugs & Prohibition, History, State Crime, VVAW  2 Comments
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Qui Nous Sommes…
30
September

Who we are is obviously quite different than what the public believes.  At least it’s obvious to most anyone who enters the prison system—whatever their moral/political framework.

More than a game...

 

Like Vietnam veterans, felons/prisoners are attaining a self and social identification that is increasingly integrated with their other relationships.

Given the reality of the current American criminal justice system, a fewer percentage every day are social predators, as is increasingly the condition of those who rule and enforce.

People will not long live in fear before that emotion turns to action.  Felons will not always identify themselves as “criminals,” at least not the sort that is politically imposed upon them.  more…

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