Gov. Walker: About That National Guard Thing...

I was greatly jazzed to read the new statement from Iraq Veterans Against the War which declares: “We Are Public Workers Too!” and opens:

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) calls on all U.S. military service members to refuse and resist any mobilization against workers organizing to protect their basic rights. IVAW stands in solidarity with the multitude gathered in Madison, Wisconsin and many other cities to defend their unions. IVAW members across the Midwest are mobilizing to take part in the mass demonstration in Madison on Saturday in defense of unions and the right of public sector workers to collective bargaining.

It is, of course, Governor Scott Walker’s threat to deploy the Wisconsin National Guard to quell the storm of protest against his union-busting drive that makes the IVAW stance so important.

Those who thought this was probably idle bluster are probably reconsidering in light of the declaration today by the head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association that the union supports the demonstrators and opposes any attempt to clear the Capitol building of its peaceful occupiers. Union executive director Jim Palmer added a call to members to join the occupation:

Law enforcement officers know the difference between right and wrong, and Governor Walker’s attempt to eliminate the collective voice of Wisconsin’s devoted public employees is wrong. That is why we have stood with our fellow employees each day and why we will be sleeping among them tonight.

The Wisconsin National Guard has been mobilized for strikebreaking duty in the past, notably in the bitter 1934 strike at the Kohler Company, one of the state’s largest industrial firms. 400 gunthugs were hired to break an AFL strike for union recognition and when their initial attacks killed two workers and injured scores more, they were met by militant and sometimes armed self-defense. As a former governor of Wisconsin, company president Walter J. Kohler, Sr. had no trouble getting a National Guard company deployed to “restore order”--resulting in the strike’s defeat.

But, as a retired postal worker, let me counter that bit of history with a more recent clash that Walker should contemplate before he makes good on his threat.

In 1970, employees of the United States Post Office Department were among the country’s poorer workers, paid so little that in large cities postal workers with families often applied for, and got, welfare to survive. Their unions were little more than fraternal organizations, with no right to bargain collectively or sign contracts.

At 12:01 on March 19 of that year, members of the Letter Carriers, following a vote in their local which rolled over objections from the longtime leadership, set up picket lines at facilities in the Bronx and Manhattan. Within a couple of days the strike had spread to other crafts, notably the clerks and mailhandlers, and to other major hubs, especially in the Northeast. The nation’s postal system started to grind to a halt.

In those pre-Internet, pre-direct deposit days, this had a massive impact on the economy. President Nixon got on teevee and ordered the strikers back to work. Some obeyed. Others walked out for the first time.

On March 25, Nixon took to the airwaves again to announce that he was mobilizing 25,000 National Guard (and even some elements of the Army and Marine Corps) in Operation Graphic Hand to get the mail flowing again. This turned out to be a massive failure.

In NYC, the epicenter of the strike, young troops--many deeply opposed to the war and part of the ‘60s “youthquake” (as Fortune Magazine termed it)--did show up at the designated postal facilities. Some of those mobilized were postal workers themselves, and they told the strikers what was going on inside--almost nothing. Better yet, when some officer came around to try and squeeze some work out of the Guardsmen, a sack of mail destined for, say, Huntsville, Alabama, would get a Juneau, Alaska destination tag slipped in its metal clip and be sent on its merry way.

Within days, things were even more fucked up than before. The government caved, and the US Postal Service was set up under the Postal Reorganization Act which recognized postal unions and permitted collective bargaining about wages, benefits, working conditions, health and safety and so on.

These are different times than 1970, to be sure, but Governor Walker might do well to reflect on the old saying: Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it!

Read more!

Casey Porter Is Back Behind The Camera

[Fire on the Mountain is proud to able to post the latest video produced by Iraq Veterans Against the War member Casey J. Porter from the frontlines in Iraq. Previous installments can be found here and here.



I'm not going to try to better Casey's description:

The latest film, Deconstructed, continues to show the realities of war. Featuring statements from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Former President Bill Clinton, The O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly, amongst many others, this is a look into the arrogance and lies of those who promoted, and continue to promote this war interlaced with combat footage straight from Iraq. Included are scenes of Soldiers not only speaking their minds, but speaking the truth about the continued occupation of Iraq.

Also featured are some of the harsh realities of combat and in the midst of that combat, good Soldiers continuing to make the best out of it by helping their "adopted" child at their combat outpost. This is an honest look into the minds of Soldiers, and an honest look into their lives during a deployment.

This is Deconstructed.

[The usual hat tip to Jeri Reed.]

Read more!

Casey J Porter Breaks the Lob-Bomb Story!

Two days ago the Washington Post broke a story on a new weapon that Shi'ite resistance forces in Iraq are using against US Troops there.

U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets.

Then again, you might have already known about it, that is, if you follow the videos being posted by Casey J Porter, a soldier based near Baghdad who is an active-duty member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. FotM has been proud to carry previous videos of his, like this one, and a moving letter of apology for the occupation he wrote.

His latest vlog from inside the Sandbox is call "A.O.--Area of Operations."

The video opens with this text:

Lob-Bombs are the new threat here in Iraq. It is the process of taking an oxygen tank that is used for welding and using it as a weapon. You cut it open and pack a portion of it with ball bearings, screws, and bolts. You then weld the tank back together and put pressure into it, some 3,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.

For maximum effectiveness, you attach mortars or small rockets to the side and set those off.

The video gives you a real-time glimpse of a Lob-Bomb attack in which two US troops died. Casey points out that the military reported these deaths to the media and the American public as resulting from "small arms fire."

Unh-hunh.

[And thanks again to the invaluable Jeri Reed for the tip-off.]

Read more!

Black NJ Organizes Against the War--2008 edition!

Yesterday, the People's Peace and Justice Coalition held its 2008 conference in Newark, NJ. Fire on the Mountain has been covering the Coalition since before the inaugural conference was held last year with over 500 participants. Since then, the Coalition held an even larger indoor rally and the historic People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice through downtown Newark on a scorching August day.

When the assembly was called to order by Larry Hamm of the People's Organization for Progress, we thought we might be looking at a real setback--there were fewer than one hundred people in the hall at Rutgers. As it turned out, folks kept coming and, unusually, the conference hit its peak in mid-afternoon with over 250 people present at one time, overwhelmingly from the African-American, Latina/o and other minority communities of Northern NJ.

Among them was a sizable contingent from the street organization The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, who have seen a good number of their Northern NJ members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They attended workshops with titles like "Challenging Military recruitment Among the Poor, Working Class, People of Color & Immigrants," "Stop the Violence: Ending the War in Our Streets," "Building the Peace Justice Movement Among Young People," and "The Influence of the Prison Industrial Complex & the War."

Still, while the event went very well, we need to reflect on why participation in the Coalition has not continued to grow. POP Chairman Larry Hamm and I had to cut out at the start of the morning workshops and make a run to the Ironbound section of Newark for a community and hospital workers rally against the closing of St. James Medical Center. The drive over gave us a chance to consider why the attendance was off back at Rutgers. Brother Hamm felt that the short participation might be his fault, given that he hadn't spent a lot of time making his usual personal phone calls to build attendance among the clergy and elected officials. I suggested a significant growth in cynicism since the Democratic majority in Congress had essentially ignored why their Republican rivals had been tossed out in '06 ("End this criminal war, dummies!").

In Ironbound, we came face to face with another reason: about 750 people, mostly neighborhood residents, protesting the closing of their hospital! This was an interesting contrast to the weak community response to the closing of other hospitals throughout Newark and Essex County recently. This powerful protest reminded us was that the survival struggles of poor and working folk are so urgent that they take priority over issues like stopping the war, even though most of them recognize the direct connection with the trillions of dollars being wasted on the war and worsening living conditions here.

Back at the conference, a conversation with Margaret Stevens of Iraq Veterans Against the War (a sponsoring organization of the Peace & Justice Coalition) helped me see something else that has changed since last year. Margaret described how one early and dedicated member of the new NJ Chapter of IVAW had gotten so wrapped up in the presidential campaign of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, that he is not very active in the veterans anti-war movement. The lure of "quick fixes" is in some ways a mirror image of the view that the war against Iraq a matter of individual leadership errors. So too many concentrate on electing a President who promises (sort of) to end the war, or on impeachement, at the expense of the drive to bring the troops home has disarmed the bring the troops home movement.

The crowd was buoyed throughout its day's work by exciting cultural performances including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Columbia High School Gospel Choir, the NJ Industrial Union Council's Solidarity Singers, and the return of Nell Sanders' incredible drumming.

To see addition photographs from the January 2008 People's Peace Conference, go to the People's Organization for Progress photo page http://homepage.mac.com/union_county_labor/Peoples_Org_for_Prog/PhotoAlbum160.html.

Read more!

Take Five: Songs Against The Occupation

[Take Five. Every Friday, Fire on the Mountain picks a category and lists five cool things in it. It's up to you, dear reader, to add your own in the Comments section. Just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of the piece and you're off to the races.]

Hey, this Take Five is a natural. W has just opted for escalating the war in defiance of public opinion, of the brass (sweating over the damage the “new way forward” will do the military), of the new Congress (where the Dems are being forced to deal with the war instead of their First 100 Hour “gimme” list) and of the world (even Bush’s poodle, Tony Blair, is withdrawing troops).

It’s war over the war now, folks. And the soundtrack is being cut as we fight. Here are five I’ve been listening to a lot.

TAKE FIVE

The Price We Had To Pay—Charley Anderson

Take Five isn’t a “Best Of…”, but I challenge anybody: name a better song to come out of this war. Cut by a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and told from the point of view of a returned combat vet, it moves me to tears, or at least toward them, every time I hear it. The cut is playable (maybe even downloadable?) near the bottom of the left hand column of the homepage at the Bring Them Home Now! website, and it’s a very rough recording. Listen anyhow. More than once.

Girl At The March—The Spunk Lads

This is an anomaly here. It isn’t Iraq-specific, though it references the gigantic global mobilization to stop the invasion in February, 2003. Done by Liverpudlian punk, erm, legends, the Spunk Lads, it too combines the political and the personal—the urgency of the great march and the jolting and inspiring effect a single fellow demonstrator can have.

Ain’t Going Back Again--Peace Machine

Dennis Kyne is a veteran of the first Iraq War and a stone activist, in particular around depleted uranium--DU. This song is as timely as they come—watch what happens as National Guard units and reservists are told, forget all those promises, they’re gonna be shipped back to the Sandbox. This song has been in the top 100 for months at Neil Young’s utterly amazing compilation of 1138 (and counting) independent anti-war songs. Give “Ain’t Going Back Again” a vote there.

Halliburton Boardroom Massacre—David Rovics

Rovics is a fine and prolific songwriter, and left as hell. Plus which he puts tons of his stuff up for anyone to download (make a donation, eh?). I could pick a dozen, two dozen songs from his work over the last few years, but I decided to go with this because David chose to make it the title tune of his most recent CD. It’s interesting in this company, because the song’s protagonist is an Iraq vet, like Charley Anderson, and hit by DU poisoning (see Peace Machine above). By me, the well-composed lyrics still lack the power that comes from experiencing the real thing, but the violence fantasy the title references speaks to me loud and clear, and I suspect will to all but the most Gandhian among us.

Bullet—Rhymefest

I went back and forth on including this because only the first verse directly references the war, but decided it’s a definite yes. The title munition in that first verse takes out a high school grad who enlists for the same reason as Rovics' guy:

He ain't really a killa though, takin' a lotta risks
This is what a poor person do for a scholarship
He turned around and got a face full of hollow-tips
But don't be mad, he died for the flag.

Yeah, I know, “hollow points” shows his frame of reference is Hip-Hop Nation, not Anbar Province, but the next two verses make a sharp critique of two poisonous masculinist behaviors—playa and thug-- that connect to the combat macho of the first verse. And the end is just as grim.

We made for more, we die for less,
When you starvin' in the ghetto, I'ma write the rest
See my girl think I'm hard, and my Momma think I'm hard
But when I'm all up in the dark, I just fall on my knees.

There's mine. Kick in one or two of yours.

Read more!