Subject: [L-I] MYSTICAL IMPERIALISM [was Leo Casey's "Democratic Left" position on Cuba] - msg#00068

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[L-I] Gadar Heritage Foundation condemns the recent gruesome massacre of Hindus in Kas

Gadar Heritage Foundation condemns the recent gruesome massacre of Hindus in Kashmir Valley On March 24, 2003 minority Hindus in the village of Nadimarg in Kulgam-Shopian belt in southern part of Kashmir Valley, 70 km away from Srinagar, were pulled out of their homes, herded under a Chinar tree and mowed down by bullets sprayed by Islamic terrorists. The 10 to 15 terrorists who posed as Security Forces, disarmed the 9-member Police Guard and killed all but two Hindus, the latter escaping with injuries. Among the 24 persons killed were two children aged 4 and 5 years, 11 women and eight elderly people. Gadar Heritage Foundation strongly condemns these brutalities against innocent civilians. As of today, more than 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus have been forced to flee their homes in the Valley after many of them became victims of terrorist attacks in the early 1990s. The terrorist movement in Jammu & Kashmir state of India draws its inspiration, material and moral support from the state of Pakistan, its various agencies such as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the numerous jehadi outfits spawned during the decade long U.S. sponsored, Saudi Arabia financed and Pakistan managed war against a progressive Afghanistan. The turmoil in Jammu & Kashmir has incorrectly been characterized by many well-meaning but ill-informed people as a national liberation movement. Such a characterization makes a mockery of the national liberation struggles waged throughout the world during the colonial era. Jammu & Kashmir is a geographically diverse multi-ethnic and a multi-religious state. None of the local militant / terrorist organizations, based primarily in the Kashmir Valley, has put forward any political-economic program for the state, let alone a democratic, secular political program with social and economic justice. This contrasts with the "New Kashmir" program of the National Conference of the 1940s in which peasantry was to be liberated from oppressive landlordism and usurious debt, in which workers were to be protected, women to be extended full rights, and special efforts were to be made to liberate marginal communities such as the pastoral/nomadic people from their poverty and backwardness. This "New Kashmir" program had the enthusiastic support of Indian leaders like Nehru and was opposed by leaders of Muslim League of Pakistan. Under the the leadership of the National Conference and the support of the Central Government in New Delhi, people of Kashmir made significant advances on all fronts. Today, however, the militant/terrorist organizations in Jammu & Kashmir receive their inspiration, not from the visionaries of 1940s liberation movement but from the most reactionary elements of the Pakistani state and society including many jehadi groups within Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their activities in the state are no different than the activities of various fundamentalist groups of Afghanistan who pushed that country into medieval barbarism. Jammu & Kashmir state has had the misfortune of being a victim of imperialist intrigue ever since the decolonisation of India in 1947. The region is strategically situated in Asia since it borders India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and is separated from Tajikistan by a narrow strip of Afghan territory. The British retained control, by proxy, over the northern area of this region by staging a 'revolt' in the Gilgit/Baltistan region in 1947, having it 'secede' from the state of Jammu & Kashmir and be absorbed in Pakistan. British goals were to continue their Central Asian Great Game, their hostile policy against the then Soviet Union, in which they had a wholehearted willing ally in Pakistan. With the formation of People's Republic of China in 1949, Jammu & Kashmir received increased attention from the U.S. led imperialist powers since the region was ideally situated to serve as a springboard for aggressive implementation of imperialism's policy of encirclement of Soviet Union and China. Towards this end, imperialism encouraged the secession of the state from the anti-imperialist Indian Union. By 1980, the U.S. had launched a full scale proxy war in Afghanistan to destroy the progressive government there and trap Soviet Union into the Afghani tribal/fundamentalist quagmire. What Jammu & Kashmir is witnessing today is the spillover from that fratricidal Afghan war conducted by Pakistan at America's behest to destroy Soviet Union, the only force in the world which not only kept the predatory imperialism of the West at bay but supported the many struggles of people in various parts of the world against imperialist domination. The post 9/11 situation sees the U.S. well entrenched in Afghanistan and the neighboring Central Asian states. The U.S. may no longer be keen to push for an independent state of Jammu & Kashmir. Even if that were so, with the growth and spread of jehadi culture in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an 'independent' Kashmir will still spell doom for its people, especially its women and non-Muslim minorities. The immense progress on social and economic fronts that the people of Jammu & Kashmir have made by being part of the Indian Union in the last 56 years will be reversed as jehadi culture takes over. Afghanistan is a reminder of the fate that awaits an 'independent' Kashmir or a Kashmir that becomes part of reactionary Pakistan. It is in the interests of the Kashmiri people to stay within the democratic and secular India and struggle with all Indians for a better India. It is also the duty of all progressives to educate those Kashmiris, who see their salvation in secession, on the dangers of religious fundamentalism that has gradually crept into their lives and into their thinking over the years. Gadar Heritage Foundation supports the struggles of all Indians, Kashmiris included, for a socially just, secular, egalitarian and united India. In these struggles all the working people of India must unite, cutting across all artificial barriers of ethnicity, language, religion and caste, barriers used by the ruling classes and imperialist predators to divide the people and weaken their struggles. In these struggles all forms of religious fundamentalism become debilitating obstacles and must be vigorously opposed. Maharaj Kaul Gadar Heritage Foundation gadar.homestead.com gadarheritage@xxxxxxxxxxx P O Box 23532 Pleasant Hill CA 94523 USA _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list Leninist-International@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

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[L-I] North Carolina and Jesse Helms [Personal Reminiscence]

Note by Hunterbear: One of the few glimpses of the Sun in the otherwise darkened sky of late has been the departure of Jesse Helms from the United States Senate. Sworn enemy of All That's Good, staggering through History with his Shovel, he buried Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in many settings over many decades. Here's a repost of a piece I initially did when he announced his forthcoming retirement. And now that he really did leave, I'm running it one more time. And, believe me, before too much longer, the Sun -- Our Sun -- will shine again. Best - Hunterbear Personal Reminiscence: North Carolina and Jesse Helms [Hunter Gray] PUBLISHED IN THE SOCIALIST [SPUSA] RALEIGH, N.C. JAN/FEB 2003 The departure of Jesse Helms [hopefully forever] from the national political scene is a vastly pleasant and encouraging development -- much, much more than, say, even the fading of an especially cruel winter in the Northern Plains or rain in Death Valley. I met him directly only once -- a long, long time ago. More on that in a few moments. Helms comes from Monroe -- Union County -- North Carolina. Even into historically recent times, the racism of this place was among the worst in the South [today, it's becoming a suburb of Charlotte -- but I suspect even a thin scratch would produce the heavy and oppressive odor of contemporary, essentially unyielding racism.] This was the setting where, in the late '50s and just into the '60s, Black leader Rob Williams, a World War II vet and then president of the local NAACP, and with other very courageous souls, conducted a series of hard-fought desegregation campaigns at Monroe. The Black community in that hate-filled town was violently attacked at different points by increasingly heavy Klan forces -- and Williams, with an NRA charter, organized an armed self-defense group. Condemned increasingly by the North Carolina state government, he also wound up on the "hate-list" of the FBI because of his strong support of the Cuban Revolution. In 1961, a massive, armed Klan attack was directed against the Black community of Monroe which climaxed at night. Rob Williams called the office of North Carolina governor, Terry Sanford, to demand state protection -- but was told pleasantly by Sanford's assistant, "I would have thought you'd be swinging from that big tree in the Monroe courthouse yard by this time, Rob." In the chaos of that final terrible late afternoon and night, Williams and his people took into protective custody a white couple that, either with malice or accidentally, had gone "behind the lines" in the Black community. Although the white couple was released quite unharmed a few hours later, Williams and others were charged with kidnapping -- and, though he was able to make his getaway to Cuba, others were caught. They came to trial in February, 1964 at Monroe. In those rich and turbulent days, I was Field Organizer for the radical Southern Conference Educational Fund [SCEF], and based at Raleigh, NC, working across the Deep South in grassroots civil rights organizing and anti-Klan work. I was also a very publicly listed and active supporter of the Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants [CAMD] -- headed by the excellent Berta Green [a Trotskyist] and George Weissman and others. The principal lawyer for my group, SCEF, was Bill Kunstler who was also one of the attorneys for the Monroe victims. I got into Monroe for the trial in the early evening before, noting the huge lighted [Christian?] cross on the hill above, and stopped for gas at what we rather callously used to refer to in those days as a "cracker nest." A young white man handled the gas and, when that was completed, I asked him directions to a particular address -- which was that of the home of the embattled Dr Albert Perry, a civil rights stalwart where Berta and the others were staying. He looked at me with great distaste. "Why that's Coon Town," and he spit it out. "Just tell me where it is, " I said. He gestured vaguely and backed away. At Dr Perry's home, the CAMD leaders were gathered -- enmeshed in an extremely difficult crisis. The "other" defense committee, the Monroe Defense Committee [MDC] [ Workers World], was also of course, at that moment, in Monroe. Relationships between the two groups and their followers were extremely hostile. There had been altercations. The prospect of going into a major legal defense trial in such a divisive context -- a trial that was drawing considerable national and international attention -- was clearly very bad business for everyone on our general side. Since I was very much of the ecumenical Left, I immediately offered to go to the local headquarters of the Monroe Defense Committee to see if a pragmatic armistice could be arranged. I did and, ushered in by heavily armed guards, met the very charming Mrs Clarence Senior, who with her husband, spearheaded the MDC. I had no sooner introduced myself when she warmed very visibly, with a huge smile. "Professor Salter of Tougaloo College," she said, "I know all about you!" Very soon, and congenially, we had agreement on treaty basics -- and, with only a few more back and forth middle-of-the-night trips [Berta et al. and CAMD were as agreeable as Mrs Senior and MDC], we had full agreement on joint cooperation in all key areas -- including media presentations and statements. The trial, as massive a perversion of justice as I've ever seen anywhere, took place in this absolutely hate-filled town of Monroe [the Helms' home-town], saturated with obvious [if ungarbed] Ku Kluxers, a raft of Federal and state finks, and newspersons from the four corners of the globe. A blatantly stacked-deck -- a completely unabashed one from the outset -- the "trial" ran its obviously racist course -- presided over by an openly " hanging judge" type flanked by a gaggle of heavily armed deputies. The Monroe victim defendants were, of course, convicted -- and appealed -- and eventually were finally freed. One of the most conspicuous regional media outfits in Monroe for this nefarious affair was the racist television station from Raleigh in which Jesse Helms was the major fixture -- WRAL-TV. It also always played a conspicuously prolonged rendition of "Dixie" each night before its merciful shut-down. About a year later, I was -- as I had been for some many, many months -- directing a major, intensive and increasingly successful civil rights, voter registration, and anti-Klan campaign in the extremely racist, rigidly-segregated, poverty-stricken, Klan-infested multi-county Northeastern North Carolina Blackbelt. This region, although predominately Black , also had a substantial and equally victimized Native American population which was deeply involved in our Movement. Our campaign was, in the face of virulently racist opposition -- e.g., antagonistic and viciously resistant voter registrars, widespread economic reprisals, open violence from police and Klan-types [and with hostile state agents from the NC State Bureau of Investigation and equally hostile FBI finks hovering in the shadows] organizing the grassroots, county by county, and generating extremely capable local leadership. Excellent lawyers [Bill Kunstler, Morty Stavis, Phil Hirschkop] were major and critical assets. As all of this burgeoned along, WRAL-TV and Jesse Helms at Raleigh were among our shrillest and most hostile media critics. And then, at one point, in that Spring of '65, Jesse Helms, in a news cast, levied an especially venomous Red-baiting blast against me and our Blackbelt project: 2 minutes and 18 seconds of it. But, in his fervor, he'd overstepped -- and the upshot was that I got "equal time." Seeing no point in responding to his Red charges, I put together, instead, a necessarily trenchant statement which discussed the hideous nature of the North Carolina Blackbelt setting and its power structure, also attacked the United Klans of America, and called for a strong Federal voting rights act [then in the Congressional hopper.] My statement, which I refined and honed and read to my patient, watch-holding wife at least 15 times, fell neatly into the 2 minutes, 18 seconds context. When the day came, I went to WRAL, on the outskirts of Raleigh. Entering the station, I noted the delegation of several somber-faced white men approaching me -- led by a black-suited entity which I realized was Jesse Helms. We faced each other, staring, for a very long moment indeed. He saw whatever he saw in me -- and I saw a pudgy, rather heavy-faced man, wearing glasses behind which his quite conspicuous eyes blinked rapidly. He was sweating. Then he stuck out his hand, with the coldest formality I've ever encountered, and I took it -- and we, very perfunctorily, shook hands. "Are you ready?" he asked me. "I am," said I. "Quite ready indeed." As though we were en route to the ultimate manifestation of The Code Duello under the Southern pines, we walked, he and I together, and followed by his colleagues, up a stairway, to a broadcasting room. There, with Jesse Helms sweating even more profusely, I took out my written statement. Still staring, he told me, "You have two minutes and eighteen seconds, son." Ignoring that, I nodded. The lights were fixed hard and heatedly upon me and I could sense Jesse Helms' cold and distasteful stare from behind. I read my statement, briskly and clearly, and I got it all in: the awful nature of the Blackbelt and its power structure, the intimidation and violence, the Klan -- and the need for a very strong Federal voting rights act. When it was over, after 2 minutes and 18 seconds, we walked back downstairs -- followed by his colleagues. Obviously angry and with his face still sweating profusely and his eyes big and cold, Jesse Helms looked at me and I at him. Without saying a word, he stuck out his hand again and I took it and we shook -- this time, very very perfunctorily. He and his group turned and stalked away. The next day, back up in the Blackbelt, I was asked by my very good friends and civil rights colleagues, Reed and Willa [Cofield] Johnson of Enfield -- another hate-filled little bastion -- just what it was like to shake hands with Jesse Helms. I thought for a long moment. "It was like shaking hands with a toad's belly," said I. And I still hold, to this very day, to that very accurate descriptive analysis of that absolutely weird and surrealistic experience. Our Northeastern Blackbelt project rolled on to many, many successes. In time, I went on to many other organizing campaigns. And Jesse Helms went to the U.S. Senate where his Never Never Potions and Malevolent Witch-Craft have poured rank poison into our national culture and the long-suffering world scene for a very, very long and tragic time. In the Spring of 1996, I was chairing, as a recently retired University of North Dakota professor, a panel on Native American challenges in education and related dimensions at Indian Time Out Week, held by the Native students at UND. One panel participant, a well-known Native educator and old friend from a bit further west, had just returned to the Northern Plains from a trip to Washington to which he'd gone seeking funds for his Native community college. When he finished his presentation, he said, "Have kind of an interesting story." It developed that our friend and colleague, somewhere along the puddle-jumping plane trip to the Twin Cities, had found himself sitting next to -- Jesse Helms! As he briefly described Helms, black suit and sweat, I remembered my long-ago meeting with the Entity from Monroe. With our naturally uneasy friend, Helms had tried to say how much he admired Indian people but it fell 'way short, tumbling out of sight into a Grand Canyon of obvious,syrupy hypocrisy. They left that plane, Helms following our colleague. "Did he stick out his hand when you parted?" I asked. "He did," said our friend. "And we shook hands, though it seemed strange." "Well," said I, "he does know the amenities." And then, of course, I told the tale that I've just told you-all, the readers. In Solidarity - Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] [formerly, John Salter, Jr.] Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] www.hunterbear.org Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. [Hunterbear] _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list Leninist-International@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

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[L-I] Gadar Heritage Foundation condemns the recent gruesome massacre of Hindus in Kas

Gadar Heritage Foundation condemns the recent gruesome massacre of Hindus in Kashmir Valley On March 24, 2003 minority Hindus in the village of Nadimarg in Kulgam-Shopian belt in southern part of Kashmir Valley, 70 km away from Srinagar, were pulled out of their homes, herded under a Chinar tree and mowed down by bullets sprayed by Islamic terrorists. The 10 to 15 terrorists who posed as Security Forces, disarmed the 9-member Police Guard and killed all but two Hindus, the latter escaping with injuries. Among the 24 persons killed were two children aged 4 and 5 years, 11 women and eight elderly people. Gadar Heritage Foundation strongly condemns these brutalities against innocent civilians. As of today, more than 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus have been forced to flee their homes in the Valley after many of them became victims of terrorist attacks in the early 1990s. The terrorist movement in Jammu & Kashmir state of India draws its inspiration, material and moral support from the state of Pakistan, its various agencies such as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the numerous jehadi outfits spawned during the decade long U.S. sponsored, Saudi Arabia financed and Pakistan managed war against a progressive Afghanistan. The turmoil in Jammu & Kashmir has incorrectly been characterized by many well-meaning but ill-informed people as a national liberation movement. Such a characterization makes a mockery of the national liberation struggles waged throughout the world during the colonial era. Jammu & Kashmir is a geographically diverse multi-ethnic and a multi-religious state. None of the local militant / terrorist organizations, based primarily in the Kashmir Valley, has put forward any political-economic program for the state, let alone a democratic, secular political program with social and economic justice. This contrasts with the "New Kashmir" program of the National Conference of the 1940s in which peasantry was to be liberated from oppressive landlordism and usurious debt, in which workers were to be protected, women to be extended full rights, and special efforts were to be made to liberate marginal communities such as the pastoral/nomadic people from their poverty and backwardness. This "New Kashmir" program had the enthusiastic support of Indian leaders like Nehru and was opposed by leaders of Muslim League of Pakistan. Under the the leadership of the National Conference and the support of the Central Government in New Delhi, people of Kashmir made significant advances on all fronts. Today, however, the militant/terrorist organizations in Jammu & Kashmir receive their inspiration, not from the visionaries of 1940s liberation movement but from the most reactionary elements of the Pakistani state and society including many jehadi groups within Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their activities in the state are no different than the activities of various fundamentalist groups of Afghanistan who pushed that country into medieval barbarism. Jammu & Kashmir state has had the misfortune of being a victim of imperialist intrigue ever since the decolonisation of India in 1947. The region is strategically situated in Asia since it borders India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and is separated from Tajikistan by a narrow strip of Afghan territory. The British retained control, by proxy, over the northern area of this region by staging a 'revolt' in the Gilgit/Baltistan region in 1947, having it 'secede' from the state of Jammu & Kashmir and be absorbed in Pakistan. British goals were to continue their Central Asian Great Game, their hostile policy against the then Soviet Union, in which they had a wholehearted willing ally in Pakistan. With the formation of People's Republic of China in 1949, Jammu & Kashmir received increased attention from the U.S. led imperialist powers since the region was ideally situated to serve as a springboard for aggressive implementation of imperialism's policy of encirclement of Soviet Union and China. Towards this end, imperialism encouraged the secession of the state from the anti-imperialist Indian Union. By 1980, the U.S. had launched a full scale proxy war in Afghanistan to destroy the progressive government there and trap Soviet Union into the Afghani tribal/fundamentalist quagmire. What Jammu & Kashmir is witnessing today is the spillover from that fratricidal Afghan war conducted by Pakistan at America's behest to destroy Soviet Union, the only force in the world which not only kept the predatory imperialism of the West at bay but supported the many struggles of people in various parts of the world against imperialist domination. The post 9/11 situation sees the U.S. well entrenched in Afghanistan and the neighboring Central Asian states. The U.S. may no longer be keen to push for an independent state of Jammu & Kashmir. Even if that were so, with the growth and spread of jehadi culture in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an 'independent' Kashmir will still spell doom for its people, especially its women and non-Muslim minorities. The immense progress on social and economic fronts that the people of Jammu & Kashmir have made by being part of the Indian Union in the last 56 years will be reversed as jehadi culture takes over. Afghanistan is a reminder of the fate that awaits an 'independent' Kashmir or a Kashmir that becomes part of reactionary Pakistan. It is in the interests of the Kashmiri people to stay within the democratic and secular India and struggle with all Indians for a better India. It is also the duty of all progressives to educate those Kashmiris, who see their salvation in secession, on the dangers of religious fundamentalism that has gradually crept into their lives and into their thinking over the years. Gadar Heritage Foundation supports the struggles of all Indians, Kashmiris included, for a socially just, secular, egalitarian and united India. In these struggles all the working people of India must unite, cutting across all artificial barriers of ethnicity, language, religion and caste, barriers used by the ruling classes and imperialist predators to divide the people and weaken their struggles. In these struggles all forms of religious fundamentalism become debilitating obstacles and must be vigorously opposed. Maharaj Kaul Gadar Heritage Foundation gadar.homestead.com gadarheritage@xxxxxxxxxxx P O Box 23532 Pleasant Hill CA 94523 USA _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list Leninist-International@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

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[L-I] North Carolina and Jesse Helms [Personal Reminiscence]

Note by Hunterbear: One of the few glimpses of the Sun in the otherwise darkened sky of late has been the departure of Jesse Helms from the United States Senate. Sworn enemy of All That's Good, staggering through History with his Shovel, he buried Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in many settings over many decades. Here's a repost of a piece I initially did when he announced his forthcoming retirement. And now that he really did leave, I'm running it one more time. And, believe me, before too much longer, the Sun -- Our Sun -- will shine again. Best - Hunterbear Personal Reminiscence: North Carolina and Jesse Helms [Hunter Gray] PUBLISHED IN THE SOCIALIST [SPUSA] RALEIGH, N.C. JAN/FEB 2003 The departure of Jesse Helms [hopefully forever] from the national political scene is a vastly pleasant and encouraging development -- much, much more than, say, even the fading of an especially cruel winter in the Northern Plains or rain in Death Valley. I met him directly only once -- a long, long time ago. More on that in a few moments. Helms comes from Monroe -- Union County -- North Carolina. Even into historically recent times, the racism of this place was among the worst in the South [today, it's becoming a suburb of Charlotte -- but I suspect even a thin scratch would produce the heavy and oppressive odor of contemporary, essentially unyielding racism.] This was the setting where, in the late '50s and just into the '60s, Black leader Rob Williams, a World War II vet and then president of the local NAACP, and with other very courageous souls, conducted a series of hard-fought desegregation campaigns at Monroe. The Black community in that hate-filled town was violently attacked at different points by increasingly heavy Klan forces -- and Williams, with an NRA charter, organized an armed self-defense group. Condemned increasingly by the North Carolina state government, he also wound up on the "hate-list" of the FBI because of his strong support of the Cuban Revolution. In 1961, a massive, armed Klan attack was directed against the Black community of Monroe which climaxed at night. Rob Williams called the office of North Carolina governor, Terry Sanford, to demand state protection -- but was told pleasantly by Sanford's assistant, "I would have thought you'd be swinging from that big tree in the Monroe courthouse yard by this time, Rob." In the chaos of that final terrible late afternoon and night, Williams and his people took into protective custody a white couple that, either with malice or accidentally, had gone "behind the lines" in the Black community. Although the white couple was released quite unharmed a few hours later, Williams and others were charged with kidnapping -- and, though he was able to make his getaway to Cuba, others were caught. They came to trial in February, 1964 at Monroe. In those rich and turbulent days, I was Field Organizer for the radical Southern Conference Educational Fund [SCEF], and based at Raleigh, NC, working across the Deep South in grassroots civil rights organizing and anti-Klan work. I was also a very publicly listed and active supporter of the Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants [CAMD] -- headed by the excellent Berta Green [a Trotskyist] and George Weissman and others. The principal lawyer for my group, SCEF, was Bill Kunstler who was also one of the attorneys for the Monroe victims. I got into Monroe for the trial in the early evening before, noting the huge lighted [Christian?] cross on the hill above, and stopped for gas at what we rather callously used to refer to in those days as a "cracker nest." A young white man handled the gas and, when that was completed, I asked him directions to a particular address -- which was that of the home of the embattled Dr Albert Perry, a civil rights stalwart where Berta and the others were staying. He looked at me with great distaste. "Why that's Coon Town," and he spit it out. "Just tell me where it is, " I said. He gestured vaguely and backed away. At Dr Perry's home, the CAMD leaders were gathered -- enmeshed in an extremely difficult crisis. The "other" defense committee, the Monroe Defense Committee [MDC] [ Workers World], was also of course, at that moment, in Monroe. Relationships between the two groups and their followers were extremely hostile. There had been altercations. The prospect of going into a major legal defense trial in such a divisive context -- a trial that was drawing considerable national and international attention -- was clearly very bad business for everyone on our general side. Since I was very much of the ecumenical Left, I immediately offered to go to the local headquarters of the Monroe Defense Committee to see if a pragmatic armistice could be arranged. I did and, ushered in by heavily armed guards, met the very charming Mrs Clarence Senior, who with her husband, spearheaded the MDC. I had no sooner introduced myself when she warmed very visibly, with a huge smile. "Professor Salter of Tougaloo College," she said, "I know all about you!" Very soon, and congenially, we had agreement on treaty basics -- and, with only a few more back and forth middle-of-the-night trips [Berta et al. and CAMD were as agreeable as Mrs Senior and MDC], we had full agreement on joint cooperation in all key areas -- including media presentations and statements. The trial, as massive a perversion of justice as I've ever seen anywhere, took place in this absolutely hate-filled town of Monroe [the Helms' home-town], saturated with obvious [if ungarbed] Ku Kluxers, a raft of Federal and state finks, and newspersons from the four corners of the globe. A blatantly stacked-deck -- a completely unabashed one from the outset -- the "trial" ran its obviously racist course -- presided over by an openly " hanging judge" type flanked by a gaggle of heavily armed deputies. The Monroe victim defendants were, of course, convicted -- and appealed -- and eventually were finally freed. One of the most conspicuous regional media outfits in Monroe for this nefarious affair was the racist television station from Raleigh in which Jesse Helms was the major fixture -- WRAL-TV. It also always played a conspicuously prolonged rendition of "Dixie" each night before its merciful shut-down. About a year later, I was -- as I had been for some many, many months -- directing a major, intensive and increasingly successful civil rights, voter registration, and anti-Klan campaign in the extremely racist, rigidly-segregated, poverty-stricken, Klan-infested multi-county Northeastern North Carolina Blackbelt. This region, although predominately Black , also had a substantial and equally victimized Native American population which was deeply involved in our Movement. Our campaign was, in the face of virulently racist opposition -- e.g., antagonistic and viciously resistant voter registrars, widespread economic reprisals, open violence from police and Klan-types [and with hostile state agents from the NC State Bureau of Investigation and equally hostile FBI finks hovering in the shadows] organizing the grassroots, county by county, and generating extremely capable local leadership. Excellent lawyers [Bill Kunstler, Morty Stavis, Phil Hirschkop] were major and critical assets. As all of this burgeoned along, WRAL-TV and Jesse Helms at Raleigh were among our shrillest and most hostile media critics. And then, at one point, in that Spring of '65, Jesse Helms, in a news cast, levied an especially venomous Red-baiting blast against me and our Blackbelt project: 2 minutes and 18 seconds of it. But, in his fervor, he'd overstepped -- and the upshot was that I got "equal time." Seeing no point in responding to his Red charges, I put together, instead, a necessarily trenchant statement which discussed the hideous nature of the North Carolina Blackbelt setting and its power structure, also attacked the United Klans of America, and called for a strong Federal voting rights act [then in the Congressional hopper.] My statement, which I refined and honed and read to my patient, watch-holding wife at least 15 times, fell neatly into the 2 minutes, 18 seconds context. When the day came, I went to WRAL, on the outskirts of Raleigh. Entering the station, I noted the delegation of several somber-faced white men approaching me -- led by a black-suited entity which I realized was Jesse Helms. We faced each other, staring, for a very long moment indeed. He saw whatever he saw in me -- and I saw a pudgy, rather heavy-faced man, wearing glasses behind which his quite conspicuous eyes blinked rapidly. He was sweating. Then he stuck out his hand, with the coldest formality I've ever encountered, and I took it -- and we, very perfunctorily, shook hands. "Are you ready?" he asked me. "I am," said I. "Quite ready indeed." As though we were en route to the ultimate manifestation of The Code Duello under the Southern pines, we walked, he and I together, and followed by his colleagues, up a stairway, to a broadcasting room. There, with Jesse Helms sweating even more profusely, I took out my written statement. Still staring, he told me, "You have two minutes and eighteen seconds, son." Ignoring that, I nodded. The lights were fixed hard and heatedly upon me and I could sense Jesse Helms' cold and distasteful stare from behind. I read my statement, briskly and clearly, and I got it all in: the awful nature of the Blackbelt and its power structure, the intimidation and violence, the Klan -- and the need for a very strong Federal voting rights act. When it was over, after 2 minutes and 18 seconds, we walked back downstairs -- followed by his colleagues. Obviously angry and with his face still sweating profusely and his eyes big and cold, Jesse Helms looked at me and I at him. Without saying a word, he stuck out his hand again and I took it and we shook -- this time, very very perfunctorily. He and his group turned and stalked away. The next day, back up in the Blackbelt, I was asked by my very good friends and civil rights colleagues, Reed and Willa [Cofield] Johnson of Enfield -- another hate-filled little bastion -- just what it was like to shake hands with Jesse Helms. I thought for a long moment. "It was like shaking hands with a toad's belly," said I. And I still hold, to this very day, to that very accurate descriptive analysis of that absolutely weird and surrealistic experience. Our Northeastern Blackbelt project rolled on to many, many successes. In time, I went on to many other organizing campaigns. And Jesse Helms went to the U.S. Senate where his Never Never Potions and Malevolent Witch-Craft have poured rank poison into our national culture and the long-suffering world scene for a very, very long and tragic time. In the Spring of 1996, I was chairing, as a recently retired University of North Dakota professor, a panel on Native American challenges in education and related dimensions at Indian Time Out Week, held by the Native students at UND. One panel participant, a well-known Native educator and old friend from a bit further west, had just returned to the Northern Plains from a trip to Washington to which he'd gone seeking funds for his Native community college. When he finished his presentation, he said, "Have kind of an interesting story." It developed that our friend and colleague, somewhere along the puddle-jumping plane trip to the Twin Cities, had found himself sitting next to -- Jesse Helms! As he briefly described Helms, black suit and sweat, I remembered my long-ago meeting with the Entity from Monroe. With our naturally uneasy friend, Helms had tried to say how much he admired Indian people but it fell 'way short, tumbling out of sight into a Grand Canyon of obvious,syrupy hypocrisy. They left that plane, Helms following our colleague. "Did he stick out his hand when you parted?" I asked. "He did," said our friend. "And we shook hands, though it seemed strange." "Well," said I, "he does know the amenities." And then, of course, I told the tale that I've just told you-all, the readers. In Solidarity - Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] [formerly, John Salter, Jr.] Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] www.hunterbear.org Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. [Hunterbear] _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list Leninist-International@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international