*Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Absurd in the 1950's

Click on title to link to a website that has information about the 1950's. This site is presented here for informational purposes only I will not vouch for its accuracy or political perspective.

Commentary

For regular readers of this space the following first few paragraphs will constitute something of a broken record. For those who are not familiar this commentary constitutes an introduction to the politics of class struggle as it gets practiced down as the base of society-away from the headlines of the day. As I have mentioned in my profile, and also in the purpose section of this space, I am trying to impart some lessons about how to push the struggle for working class solidarity forward so that, to put it briefly, those who labor rule.

My political grounding as I have evolved as a socialist over the years speaks for itself in my commentaries. The prospective that had been lacking, and which has probably plagued my efforts over the years, since I long ago first started out on my political journey is a somewhat too strong attachment to the theoretical side of the need for socialist solutions. Oddly, perhaps, although I now proclaim proudly that I am a son of the working class I came to an understanding of the need for the working class to take power without taking my being part of the class into consideration. One of the tasks that I have tried to undertake in this space over the past year, as a corrective, is to make some commentary about various events in my life that reflect my evolving understanding of class society and the class struggle. I am actually well qualified to undertake that chore.

The impetus for undertaking this task, as is also now well known to readers, was an unplanned trip back to the old working class neighborhood of my teenage years. That led to a series of stories about the trials and tribulations of a neighborhood family and can be found in this space under the title "History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga" (Yes, I know, that is a rather bulky title for a prosaic story but, dear reader, that is the price for my being a ‘political junkie’. If I were a literary type I would probably have entitled it Sense and Sensibility or something like that, oops, that one is taken- but you get the point.).

I have also started another series here, one that indirectly came to life through that trip back to the old neighborhood, entitled "Tales From The ‘Hood" going back to my early childhood days as a product of a housing project. However, in that effort, I consider myself merely the medium, as the narrator is really a woman named Sherry whom I consider the ‘the projects’ historian. This present series will center on my personal experiences both about the things that formed and malformed me and that contributed to my development as a conscious political activist. The closest I have ever come to articulating that idea through examination of my personal experiences was a commentary written in this space last year entitled "Hard Times in Babylon" (and hence the genesis for the current series title). Even at that, this was more an effort to understand the problems of my parents’ generation, the generation that came of age in the Great Depression and World War II. That, my friends, nevertheless, is probably a good place to take off from here.

The gist of the commentary in "Hard Times in Babylon" centered on the intersection of two events. One was the above-mentioned trip back to the old neighborhood and the other was a then recent re-reading of famed journalist David Halberstam’s book "The Fifties", which covered that same period. His take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of my own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age’, rekindled some memories. It is no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon for Markin’s family. My parents reacted to those events one way, this writer another. The whys of that are what I am attempting to bring before the radical public. I think the last lines from Babylon state the proposition as clearly as I can put it. “And the task for me today? To insure that future young workers, unlike my parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice.”

There are many myths about the 1950’s, to be sure. One was that the rising tide of the pre-eminent capitalist economy in the world would cause all boats to rise with it. Despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide’. The experience of my parents is proof of that. I will not go through all the details of my parents’ childhoods, courtship and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II are plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. One detail is, however, important and that is that my father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and by Michael Harrington in his 1960’s book "The Other America". This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these ‘hillbillies’ were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder that when World War II began my father left to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.

I have related in "Tales From The ‘Hood’" some details that my ‘ the projects’ historian Sherry told me about her relationships with some of the girls from the wealthier part of town with whom we went to elementary school. She spend her whole time there being snubbed, insulted and, apparently, on more than one occasion physically threatened by the prissy girls from the other peninsula for her poor clothing, her poor manners and for being from the ‘projects’. I will spare you the details here. Moreover, she faced this barrage all the way through to high school graduation. It was painful for her to retell her story, and not without a few tears.

Moreover, it was hard for me to hear because, although I did not face that barrage then, I faced it later when my family moved to the other side of town and kids knew I was from the 'projects’. I faced that same kind of humiliation on a near daily basis from the boys, mainly. I will, again, spare the details. I can, however, distinctly remember being turned down for a date by an upscale girl in class because, as she made clear to all within shouting distance, although she thought I was personally okay (such nobility) my clothes were ‘raggedy’ and, besides, I did not have a car. That is the face of the class struggle, junior varsity division.

The early years of the Kennedy Administration were filled with hopes and expectations, none more so than by me. As I have noted elsewhere in this space I came of political age with the elections of 1960. This, moreover, was a time where serious social issues such as how to eradicate poverty in America were seriously being discussed by mainstream politicians. I mentioned above the widespread popularity of Michael Harrington’s "The Other America" and its mention of quintessential other America, including Hazard, Kentucky. But, here is the personal side. One of the most mortifying experiences of my life was when the headmaster of my high school came over the loudspeaker to announce that our high school was going to begin a fundraising drive in earnest to help those less fortunate in Other America. And that other America in this case had a specific name-Hazard, Kentucky. I froze in my seat. Then came the taunts from a couple of guys who knew my father was from there. That is the face of the class struggle, varsity edition

As I finished up my remarks in "A Tale of Two Peninsulas" trying to sum up the meaning of the events that Sherry had related about her brushes with the class struggle in her youth I asked a couple of rhetorical question. After what I have described here I asked those same questions. Were the snubs and other acts of class hatred due to our personalities? Maybe. Are these mere examples of childhood’s gratuitous cruelty? Perhaps. But the next time someone tells you that there are no classes in this society remember Sherry’s story. And mine. Then remember Sherry’s tears and my shame. Damn.

The Battered, Tattered Generation of ' 68, Part II- Hands Off Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn

There is currently a tempest in a teapot swirling around Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama concerning his relationship with former Weatherpeople Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Here are a couple of reviews from last year on the historic significance of that movement. The real question to ask though is not why Obama was hanging around with Ayers and Dohrn but why they were hanging around with this garden-variety bourgeois candidate on the make. Enough said.

YOU DO NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

DVD REVIEW

THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND: REBELS WITH A CAUSE, 2003

In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company.

One of the political highlights of the film is centered on the 1969 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Convention that was a watershed in the student anti-war protest movement. That was the genesis of the Weathermen but it was also the genesis of the Progressive Labor Party-led faction that wanted to bring the anti-war message to the working class by linking up the student movement with the fight against capitalism. In short, to get to those who were, or were to be, the rank and file soldiers in Vietnam or who worked in the factories. In either case the point that was missed, as the Old Left had argued all along and which we had previously dismissed out of hand, was that it was the masses of working people who were central to ‘bringing the war home’ and the fight against capitalism. That task still confronts us today.

One of the paradoxical things about this film is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century. If we had we would have found that that movement also fought out the above-mentioned fight in 1969. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the worldwide revolutionary movement in order to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) had a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx.


YOU NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS, PART II

BOOK REVIEW

FUGITIVE DAYS, A MEMOIR, BILL AYERS, PENGUIN, 2001

Recently in this space I reviewed the documentary Weather Underground so that it also makes sense to review the present book by Bill Ayers, one of the ‘talking heads’ in that film and a central leader of both the old Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground that split off from that movement in 1969 to go its own way. Readers should see the documentary as it gives a fairly good presentation of the events around the formation of the Underground, what they tried to accomplish and what happened to them after the demise of the anti-war movement in the early 1970’s.

To get a better understanding of what drove thousands of young American students into opposition to the American government at that time the documentary Rebels With A Cause (also reviewed in this space) is worth looking at as well. Between those two sources you will get a better understanding of what drove Professor Ayers and many others, including myself, over the edge. Professor Ayers makes many of those same points in the book. Thus, I only want to make a couple of political comments about the question of the underground here. They were also used in my review of the Weather Underground documentary and apply to Professor Ayers thoughts as well. I would also make it very clear here that unlike many other leftists, who ran for cover, in the 1970’s I called for the political defense of the Weather Underground despite my political differences with their strategy under the old leftist principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. Moreover, and be shocked if you will, the courageous, if misguided, actions of the Weather Underground require no apology today. I stand with the Professor on that count. Here are the comments.

“In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company. ......


"One of the paradoxical things about the documentary is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century. If we had we would have found that that movement also fought out the above-mentioned fight in 1969. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the worldwide revolutionary movement in order to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) had a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx.”

*Another Time To Try Men's Souls-The American Civil War-James MacPherson's View

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for historian James MacPherson.

BOOK REVIEW

For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought The Civil War, James McPherson, Harperbooks, New York, 1998

This month marks the 147th Anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War and the fight to preserve the union and end slavery.

Any war, as a violent, organized explosion of human emotions, produces some very unnatural responses on the part of soldiers and civilians alike. James McPherson, undoubtedly now the preeminent American Civil War scholar has, in the words of his own introduction, tried to make sense of what was similar to other wars but also what was different about that experience for the soldiers on both sides of the divide in that war. Working from a plethora of soldiers' letters and other observations he has tried to explain why the citizen soldiers on both sides of that bloody conflict kept at it despite the grueling circumstances, including extremely high casualty rates.

I make no bones about my partisanship for the Northern, Union and anti-slavery side in that conflict. However in war, and civil war in particular, one can note the attributes of bravery, honor and heroism of the opposing side without giving an inch on the political questions. If one thinks about it if one does not recognize those characteristics in the soldiers of the other side one places oneself in a very hard place. The Geneva Conventions, weak as they are, codify that understanding.

McPherson goes into great detail about the phases of the war-the general bloodthirsty and energetic desire of both sides to get at it; the sobering effects of actual combat; the psychological traumas produced in men before, during and after battle. In short, the passion and anger that drive men to fight-and soldiers to reflect a bit afterward. He details the sense of patriotism, honor, manhood, shame and other virtues of mid-Victorian America that further drove these men. Probably his weakest part is an examination of the personal politics of the soldiers, although that may be, in part, a function of the fuzziness of their goals as they became overwhelmed by the other considerations previously listed.

However, overall, McPherson more than adequately makes his point that many considerations entered into the calculations of those who freely volunteered for the citizen armies on both sides, fought tremendous and bloody battles and slogged on through thick and thin. I will stop here with one comment that struck me from a Northern soldier about his reasons for fighting. Admittedly this soldier was a high abolitionist but here is what he said-" I want to be able to sing `John Brown' [John Brown's Body, the anti-slavery hymn and precursor for the Battle Hymn of The Republic] in the streets of Charleston [South Carolina]." Yes, I can, indeed, get behind that sentiment as a reason for fighting.

*From The Pages Of “Workers Vanguard”-Mumia Abu-Jamal Radio Interview -“Frederick Douglass Taught Us That Power Concedes Nothing Wit

Click on the headline to link to the article from “Workers Vanguard” described in the title.


Markin comment:

As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.

*James Connolly-Commandant- Irish Citizens Army- A Critical Appreciation Of Easter, 1916

Click on title to link to "Workers Hammer" (International Communist League/Great Britain newspaper) critical appreciation of James Connolly, a hero of the Irish rebellion of Easter , 1916.

"James Connolly"

The man was all shot through that came to day into the Barrack Square

And a soldier I, I am not proud to say that we killed him there

They brought him from the prison hospital and to see him in that chair

I swear his smile would, would far more quickly call a man to prayer

Maybe, maybe I don't understand this thing that makes these rebels die

Yet all men love freedom and the spring clear in the sky

I wouldn't do this deed again for all that I hold by

As I gazed down my rifle at his breast but then, then a soldier I.

They say he was different, kindly too apart from all the rest.

A lover of the poor-his wounds ill dressed.

He faced us like a man who knew a greater pain

Than blows or bullets ere the world began: died he in vain

Ready, Present, and him just smiling, Christ I felt my rifle shake

His wounds all open and around his chair a pool of blood

And I swear his lips said, "fire" before my rifle shot that cursed lead

And I, I was picked to kill a man like that, James Connolly



A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainham

Their heads all uncovered, they knelt to the ground.

For inside that grim prison

Lay a great Irish soldier

His life for his country about to lay down.

He went to his death like a true son of Ireland

The firing party he bravely did face

Then the order rang out: Present arms and fire

James Connolly fell into a ready-made grave

The black flag was hoisted, the cruel deed was over

Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well

There was many a sad heart in Dublin that morning

When they murdered James Connolly-. the Irish rebel



"James Connolly"

Marchin' down O'Connell Street with the Starry Plough on high
There goes the Citizen Army with their fists raised in the sky
Leading them is a mighty man with a mad rage in his eye
"My name is James Connolly - I didn't come here to die

But to fight for the rights of the working man
And the small farmer too
Protect the proletariat from the bosses and their screws
So hold on to your rifles, boys, and don't give up your dream
Of a Republic for the workin' class, economic liberty"

Then Jem yelled out "Oh Citizens, this system is a curse
An English boss is a monster, an Irish one even worse
They'll never lock us out again and here's the reason why
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die....."

And now we're in the GPO with the bullets whizzin' by
With Pearse and Sean McDermott biddin' each other goodbye
Up steps our citizen leader and roars out to the sky
"My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...

Oh Lily, I don't want to die, we've got so much to live for
And I know we're all goin' out to get slaughtered, but I just can't take any more
Just the sight of one more child screamin' from hunger in a Dublin slum
Or his mother slavin' 14 hours a day for the scum
Who exploit her and take her youth and throw it on a factory floor
Oh Lily, I just can't take any more

They've locked us out, they've banned our unions, they even treat their animals better than us
No! It's far better to die like a man on your feet than to live forever like some slave on your knees, Lilly

But don't let them wrap any green flag around me
And for God's sake, don't let them bury me in some field full of harps and shamrocks
And whatever you do, don't let them make a martyr out of me
No! Rather raise the Starry Plough on high, sing a song of freedom
Here's to you, Lily, the rights of man and international revolution"

We fought them to a standstill while the flames lit up the sky
'Til a bullet pierced our leader and we gave up the fight
They shot him in Kilmainham jail but they'll never stop his cry
My name is James Connolly, I didn't come here to die...."

*On The Anniversary Of Vladimir Lenin's Birthday- Those Who Honor Lenin Are Kindred Spirits

Click on title to link the "Vladimir Lenin Internet Archive" for an online copy of his 1917 article, "The Tasks Of The Proletarian In Our Revolution".

Markin comment:

The name Lenin, the party Bolshevik and the revolution Russian need no introduction to readers of this space. We are still trying assimilate the lessons that Lenin drove home in the early struggles for socialism. Happy Birthday, Comrade Lenin wherever you are doing your revolutionary time.

The Tattered, Battered Generation of '68

Commentary

In searching for a couple of old neighbors, whose stories I have related in this space, from the old working class neighborhood where I grew up I, unintentionally, found some other people from my high school class who helped me in my search. In what I, innocently, thought was a simple effort to help out one particular classmate, a former class officer, I agreed to answer some questions for a project that my class, the Class of 1964, was doing in preparation for next year’s 45th (ouch!) class reunion. Apparently, this is to be an endless series of questions that is starting to make my run of the mill entries in this space seem like child’s play by comparison. I am placing here, as I have done in the past, the answer to the question below, as it may be of interest to those who, long of tooth now, come from that time. I cannot complaint too much on this particular question, however, since I motivated it by a comment that I made to a previous question on the class survey.

Today’s Question: Do you consider yourself a member of the Generation of ‘68?

"In that time, twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.


I mentioned in the Tell My Story section of my profile that while we were all members of the Class of 1964 some of us were also members of the Generation of ’68. I guess to those of us who considered themselves part of that experience no further explanation is necessary. However, if you are in doubt then let me give my take on what such membership would entail.

This question is actually prompted by an observation made by my old friend, and our classmate, the legendary track and cross-country runner Bill C. Part of my motivation for joining in this work was to find him. I have done so and we have started to keep in touch again. At one of the bull sessions that we have had I asked him whether he had gone to any class reunions. I had not done so and therefore I was interested in his take on the subject. Bill said that the only one that he had gone to was the 5th reunion in 1969. Of course that is the high water mark for the Generation of ’68. A key observation that he related, as least for my purpose here, is that when he went to that reunion and people came up to him to introduce themselves he had trouble identifying people, especially the guys, because of all the beards and long hair that were supreme tribal symbols at the time. So that is one, perhaps superficial, criterion for membership.

Frankly, dear classmates, among the reasons that I turned my back on the old hometown right after high school was that it seemed like a ‘square’ (remember that tribal term from our youth meaning not hip) working class town that did not fit in with my evolving political and cultural, or rather counter-cultural, interests. Thus, Bill’s comments rather startled me. My assumption would have been that the ‘squares’ would have gotten a job after high school (or gone to college and then gotten a job), gotten married, had kids, bought a house and followed that trail, wherever it led. This new knowledge may tell me something different.

Is it possible that there were many other kindred spirits from our class who broke from that pattern, as least for a while? Who not only grew their hair long (male or female) or grew beards (male) but maybe dressed in the symbolic Army/ Navy store fashions of the day (male or female) or burned their bras (female)? Or did some dope (Yes, I know we are all taking the Bill Clinton defense on this one. Now) and made all the rock concerts? Or hitchhiked across the country? Or opposed the damn Vietnam War and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported the black liberation struggle and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported an end to the draft, ROTC on campus, etc. and got......well, you know the rest of the line? Or lived in a commune or any number of other things of like kind that were the signposts of the generation of ’68? In short, tried to 'storm heaven'. We lost that fight but the storm clouds are gathering again in 2008. Your stories, please (and that includes those ‘squares’ who do not now seem quite that way anymore).

Tales From The 'Hood- The Endless Road?

Commentary

This is the fifth and final story about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series in this space entitled History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor gets implanted early in life. The poor really are different from you the reader. The what to do about it part I discuss, ad infinitum, elsewhere in this space.

As I write this final piece a line from a song is going through my head, Jerry Garcia’s Ripple-“There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night” That idea of the road, as I will discuss below, very neatly sums up the situation here. Some of this tale is meant as obvious metaphor, other parts are the real deal. In any case here is the central axis of this story line. We are in series talking about growing up 1950’s. This is quintessentially the 'golden age' of the automobile in America. You know the vast possibilities of the open highway – the road-and the promise of adventure-fast and effortless.

The hard fact for the Markin family was that through most of this period we did not have that automobile to break out with. When we did this writer remembers mainly ‘clunkers’ with their inevitable breakdowns in odd and foreboding locations. But, mostly, we had no car. Even in a housing project there was a social dividing line between those with automobiles who could get out and those who were stuck. We were, forever it seems, dependent on the kindnesses of neighbors. Or, ususally, walking, public transportation in that isolated location then, as now, being haphazard. I learned to dread the weekly walk to get groceries, etc. Ouch, I can still feel those hot summer roads.

Okay, so you can now say that walking is good for you. Fair enough. But here is where the tale gets weird. I have mentioned on several other occasions another wealthy peninsula (detailed in the first tale – A Story of Two Peninsulas) that abutted the peninsula where my housing project was located. I have also mentioned that I had been stopped, young as I was, in that locale by the local constabulary who asked where I was from and what was my purpose in being there. Hell,all I wanted to do was to walk along the streets that paralleled the ocean there. The tip-off for the police, apparently, was that I had entered the area on foot (as opposed to having been driven there like ‘normal’ people, I suppose) and they took it from there. When cops start infringing on your right to walk in public space wherever and whenever you feel like then you know that you are in a very class bound society-at least in these neighborhoods. In short, I was guilty of walking while poor. Enough said.

What have I tried to present here? Clearly, not all class struggles are limited to the visible ones of the picket line or the barricade. Certainly the working class struggles that I have noted here fall well below the radar but they also point some hard facts about why we have so little working class political class-consciousness. Putting up with their class hatred of us, their social humiliation of us, the mere fact of being poor, of being constantly on the edge of violence, and of facing the hazards of life in a dysfunctional family that detailed in these stories are all impediments to political class consciousness. And that is before we even get to the streets. Remember though ‘there is a road, no simply highway’-the class struggle road.

Tales From The 'Hood- Growing Up Absurd

Commentary

This is the fourth of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series in this space entitled History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor gets implanted early. That the poor are really different from you the reader. The what to do about it part I discuss, ad infinitum, elsewhere in the blogosphere.

The previous tale in this series, A Piece of Cloth, about my less than heroic misadventures as an up and coming square dancer (apparently in preparation for an career on the Grand Ole Opry) sets the tone for this story. In that tale I was subjected to a poor working class mother’s rage for cutting up one of my precious few pairs of pants in order to impress a girl. I learned then, if more painfully than necessary, the hard lesson that the Markin family was poor, dirt poor, in this world.

Those kinds of incidents involving my mother and I (and my brothers, as well), although generally more severe and less amiably subject to public treatment than that bittersweet tale, were standard fare in the Markin household. Their type is, moreover, well documented in literature and the media and would be merely cumulative if discussed here. Only the reality is grimmer than anything portrayed in book or film. Not physically, there was thankfully little of that, but the psychological warfare was almost as devastating. Let me nevertheless try to put this thing in some perspective now, although Lord knows I was incapable of that as I was going through it.

I have mentioned elsewhere in this space some of the small details of my parent’s struggle for survival. (See archives for Hard Times In Babylon). I have also mentioned that their life profiles fit into a familiar pattern similar to others who survived the Great Depression of the 1930’s and fought or endured World War II. I still feel no need to go into great detail about that here. I however find that I need to mention that my mother married my serviceman father just out of high school and quickly became a teenage mother. Moreover, she had great difficulties with the births of my brothers and I. The bunch of us furthermore were only separated by a year or so each. In short, a handful.

Those facts along with my father’s continual and constant difficulties in holding onto the unskilled jobs that he was forced into meant a very, very tough existence for a woman who was something a princess (a working class one, to be sure-there is a different but a princess nevertheless) to her parents and brothers. The woman’s respond to her conditions was to be in a constant rage. It was not pleasant. We called it, among us boys, the Irish shaming routine. In short, what is apparent here is that the nuclear family structure was far too narrow a basis for her and us to survive under the circumstances. I survived. My brothers did not.

Sherry my invaluable ‘hood historian has related some of the same kind of stories to me about her family life except her family was larger, her mother died when she was a teenager and she found herself as the oldest girl taking care of the household. Others survivors of ‘the projects’ have related very similar stories, almost monotonously so. We need not even speak here of such things as the effects of alcoholism, and later drugs and other social maladies on this fragile nuclear family structure.

To be sure, even under socialism, it will take a massive reallocation of funds to right these kinds of situations. Moreover, and here is the hard part for many to understand today, rich or poor, the nuclear family structure is just too narrow a setting to free up the potential energies of humankind. It needs be replaced. Despite all the pains of growing up poor, despite all the dislocations of psyche that I have dealt with over lifetime to fight the good fight for socialism it has still been worthwhile if only for the promise that some future generation will not have to go through my childhood experiences. Although I will not live long enough to see the replacement of the nuclear family with something better and more attuned to human potentialities I am satisfied with that. On reviewing this piece I find that it was not really a story after all but one of my political screeds. However, remember that mother’s impotent rage against her fate. That is the story.

Tales From The 'Hood- A Piece of Cloth

This is the third of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series in this space entitled History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor gets implanted early. The what to do about it part I discuss, ad infinitum, elsewhere in the blogosphere.

The question posed above concerning how working class consciousness gets instilled is important to know, especially for ‘politicos’ trying to organize working people so that labor can rule. So, how does one become conscious that one is poor, comes from a poor family, and lives in poor housing in a poor neighborhood when one is, say, ten years old, the time frame for the story I want to tell here? This requires some reflection because, without exterior prompts, it is not immediately obvious to a ten year old; at least it was not to this ten year old.

Is it the run down school that one goes to? Is it the garbage-strewn unkempt yards? Is it the constant screaming of kids, parents, or anyone who has a voice and wants someone in this sorry world to listen? Is it your father home on a workday because he has no work? Or is it that very much smaller portion of Christmas presents under the tree than one had wished for? Well, all of those things are certainly candidates but follow me here and I will tell you exactly how this writer learned the elemental social facts of life. Moreover, Sherry, my invaluable ‘hood historian for this series was there to witness my baptism of fire.

At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably suppose to learn to do two intertwined socially-oriented skills- the basics of some kind of dancing and be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present that scenario. In my case the dancing part turned out to be the basics of square dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy young boy have to do the basic 'swing your partner’ but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with a girl that I had a ‘crush’ on. That girl, moreover, was not from the ‘hood but from that other peninsula, the rich one, that formed the backdrop for the first story in this series- A Story of Two Peninsulas. I will not describe her, although I could do so even today, but let us leave it that her name was Rosalind. Enchanting name, right? Nothing special about the story so far though, right? Just your average one of the stages of coming of age story. I wish.

Well, the long and short of it was that we were practicing this square dancing to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of activity unless one can impress one’s parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosalind, I had, earlier in the day , cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square dancer look.

I thought I looked pretty good. That is until my mother saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me and started yelling about my disrespect for my father’s and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity. Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father heard about it when he got home, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my ‘chances’ with dear, sweet Rosalind.

Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the class struggle that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Surely, not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? Maybe. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. But, ah, Rosalind…

Tales From The 'Hood- "The Romance of the Gun"

Commentary


This is the second of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. I spent my early childhood in an all-white public housing project that is the locale for the stories that form this series. My later childhood was spent in a poor all-white working class neighborhood filled with small, cramped single-family homes packed in closely together with little yards and few amenities. Places where one could almost hear one neighbor snoring in the night or another screaming, usually at anyone at anytime. And those were the good days.

In adulthood I have lived in poor white neighborhoods, mixed student neighborhoods, the black enclaves of Oakland, Detroit and Washington, D.C., and, back in the days, in an integrated urban commune (for those who do not know, that is a bunch of unrelated people living on the same premises by design). I have even, during the few times that I have had rich girlfriends, lived in the leafy suburbs. I now live in a middling working class neighborhood. In short, I have been all around the housing question. Today’s story from the ‘hood deals with the relationship between where you live and crime. More particularly the tolerance for the culture of crime, really, the 'romance' of crime, if you will, that is inherent in living down at the bottom of society. Make no mistake, my friends, that is indeed a dangerous place.

More than one sociological survey has noted the correlation between low income and high crime rates, although I note that they tend to come up short, very short on what to do about it. That is, however, a point for another time. More importantly now is this question-where, dear reader, is that correlation closer than in the housing projects- down there in the mean streets of America, the streets of busted dreams, or no dreams? My housing project did not start out as a haven for hoodlums. As I have mentioned it initially was a way station, due to the extreme housing shortage, for returning World War II veteran like my father. But, in the nature of things, as those who were going to make it in post-war society moved on and the rest of us were left behind that is the reputation that it started to develop well before it was converted to a subsidized low-income housing project in the 1960's. We had left by that point, but not without the scars.

In conversation with Sherry (my invaluable ‘hood historian for this series and elementary school classmate) I asked about the fate of a number of our classmates, mainly boys that I had hung around with. Without exaggerating their numbers to buttress my point here, it appears to me, from her very detailed knowledge of their fates that an extraordinary number of boyhood friends wound up serving prison sentences for aggravated crimes, or died from unnatural causes early as a result of that life. Sherry related a number of such cases in her own family, including one younger brother still imprisoned, through several generations, not without a sense of embarrassment. Down among the desperate working poor the line between respectability and the lure of the lumpen lifestyle is, indeed, a very, very close thing.

I further note that this is true, if a little less so, for the neighborhood where I came of political age. (See my History and Class Consciousness series for details of the fate of one such other family). I will, moreover, confess here that one of my own brothers spent considerable time in state prison for a laundry list of offenses, and another was in and out the county jails for many years for a host of petty crimes (mainly against property). My own brushes with the law have been for political offenses (except for one silly hitchhiking offense in Connecticut way back when, but you know how that state is) so those do not count. I guess that makes me the ‘good’ son just like Sherry was the good survivor. What gives here?

Part of the headline of this piece is titled “Romance of the Gun”, and with reason. The gun, whether I am using this term here as a metaphor for toughness and a lumpen existence or actual guns, was central to ‘the projects’ culture. Not that we young boys ever had one (as far as I know) but we knew older boys and men who did and did things with them. Things like gas station stickups, robbing taxis or the like. Those who were capable of that or, at least, had that reputation we looked up to, if not idolized (with a little fear thrown in). These things did not occur every day nor did they include police shoot-outs, drive-bys or anything dramatic but the thrill of learning about such exploits was palpable. It was like the air we breathed.

If imitation is a form of flattery then the lumpen existence of the older boys and men set the standard. The main thing was that they seemed to always have money in contrast to, let us say, my poor father who lived from check to check with hungry young mouths to feed and who constantly feared been laid off from the little work that he was able to obtain. No hero there for young boys, right? My brothers could not resist the draw of the lumpen life style and eventually were drawn into that life, as a way of life. But that is not where lumpen influence ended. Even for a ‘good’ boy like myself and some of the boys that I hung around with there were certain rituals to prove our ‘manhood’. This, inevitably entailed stealing things, at first from grocery stores, then department stores, and ultimately jewelry stores. I did it for a while but the glamour wore off soon enough and I retreated to the library and adventures of the mind. Some others, however, took it seriously and form part of the statistic of the ‘hood mentioned above but for me it was just too much work. But I was in the minority and took more than one physical beating for my nerdishness from the ‘boyos’. Still, those ‘hard boys’ were something to wonder at.

Well, I can end this story by trying to draw a few conclusions. One of the things that drew me to working to defend the Black Panthers (at the times when they would cooperate with white leftists) and later the Irish Republican Army (Provos) in the old days were the simple facts that they, as least the street cadre, were from their own ‘hoods like mine, knew the busted dream scheme of life by heart just as I did, and were not afraid to pick up the gun to defend themselves, if necessary. I did not need to glorify the lumpen proletariat as the vanguard. I did not need to read Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth to theorize about the purifying nature of violence against the oppressor. I did not need to justify every idiotic criminal act as a revolutionary act. All I needed to do was remember those ‘hard boys’, including my brothers, from my youth and what happened to them without a political perspective. So much for the “romance of the gun”.

Tales From The 'Hood- A Story of Two Peninsulas

This a repost of the first story of this series that I have decided to run in consecutive order rather than as occasional commentaries.

Commentary

This is the first of a series of stories that I have previously introduced in this space (See Tales From the 'Hood- An Introduction)about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series in this space entitled History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga (hereafter H&C) that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood.

For the benefit of the two or three people in the blogosphere who do not know by now my own family started life in the housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell holes of crime and deprivation that they later became but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the nirvana of the newly emerging outer suburbs. The housing project that I grew up in was originally meant to serve as a way station for returning veterans from World War II caught up in the post war housing shortage. Thus, we were actually the first tenants in our unit, although it did not take long for the place to seem old. Perhaps, needless to say as well this project was all white, reflecting the population of city at the time where it is located. Now it is about 20% minority, mainly Asian-American, reflecting the city's population change.

A recent trip back there in order to do research for this series revealed that the place is in something of a time warp. The original plot plan consisted of a few hundred four-unit two-floor apartment complexes, a departure from the ubiquitous later high-rise hellholes at least. It looks, structurally, almost the same as in the 1950’s except that it is dirtier, much less kept-up and I believe that the asphalt sidewalks and streets have not been repaved since our family left in the late 1950’s. A very visible police substation is the only apparent addition to the scene. That tells the tale.

This housing project is located on what was an isolated, abandoned piece of farmland on a peninsula that juts out into a bay and is across from various sea-going industrial activities. This complex of industrial sites and ocean-related activity mars the effect of being near the ocean here. Certainly no Arcadian scenes come to mind. Moreover, I recall that the smells and sounds from those activities were nauseating and annoying at times. A particularly pungent smell of some soap product filled the air on many a summer’s evening. Ships unloading provided the sound effects.

A narrow two-lane, now deeply pot-holed, road is the only way in or out of this location. Over fifty years later the nearest shopping center or even convenient store is still several miles away requiring an automobile or reliance on haphazard and apparently infrequent public transportation. In short, and I have asked people about this, one could live within shouting distance of the place and not know where it is. Does that sound like a familiar concept of public welfare social planning-out of sight, out of mind?

This is, in any case, where I passed my early childhood, including elementary school. The elementary school was, however, located not in the project but up that narrow road some distance away at the beginning of another peninsula. That other peninsula, with its unobstructed views of the open ocean and freedom from the sight and sound of those previously mentioned industrial complexes, had many sought after old money, old fashioned Victorian houses and a number of then recently constructed upscale colonial-type houses favored by the up and coming middle class of the fifties. The place might as well have been in another world. The school nevertheless, at least in the 1950’s, serviced the children of both peninsulas.

I might add here that I never had one friend from that other peninsula. Conversations with others, who also grew up in the housing project, concur with my observation. I can also relate a couple of stories of being stopped by the local constabulary, even at that young age, and asked where I was from and what I was doing there but the details of those episodes will wait for another time. You can see what is coming though, right?

This is as good a place as any to introduce my ‘hood historian Sherry. As part of my research for H&C I connected, by use of various resources including the Internet, with a number of people. One of them is Sherry who is the real narrator of these tales and is the source for many of the observations and physical details that fill out this series. Sherry and I went to elementary school together and she and her family, after my family left, stayed in the projects for almost thirty years so that she saw the place as it evolved from that previously mentioned way station to the classic ‘projects’ of media notoriety. She knows 'the projects'. Moreover, from what I have gathered so far, although she does not have a political bone in her body she wears her working class background on her face, in her personality and her whole manner. Not in abject defeat, however, but as a survivor. That too tells a tale.

As we reconnected the obvious place to start was a little trip down memory lane to old school days. Naturally, since I had an ulterior motive and have a fierce sense of class society, I wanted her opinion on the kids from the other peninsula. Sherry then related, in some detail, what she had to tell about her life in elementary school, not without a tear in her eyes even at this remove. She spend her whole time in that school being snubbed, insulted and, apparently, on more than one occasion physically threatened by the prissy girls from the other peninsula for her poor clothing, her poor manners and for being from 'the projects’. I will spare you the details here, although if you have seen any of the problematic working class ‘coming of age’ movies or suburban teenage cultural spoofs the episodes she related to me are the grim real life underlying premises behind those efforts. Moreover, she faced this barrage all the way through to high school graduation.

It was painful for her to retell her story, and as I said, not without a few tears. Moreover, it was hard for me to hear because, although I did not face that barrage then, I faced it later when my family moved to the other side of town and kids taunted me when they knew I was from ‘the projects’. Now were the snubs and hurts due to Sherry’s personality? Maybe. Is this a mere example of childhood’s gratuitous cruelty? Perhaps. Is this story the equivalent of the working class battles at their nastiest on the picket lines of a strike? Hell, no. But the next time someone tells you that there are no classes in this society remember this story. Then remember Sherry’s tears. Damn.

Tales From The 'Hood- An Introduction

Commentary

I am reposting this introduction here as the start to a consecutive presentation of the stories that I will to tell. Originally I intended to make them occasional pieces but I think they work better as a consecutive series.

This entry announces what promises to be the start of another short series of commentaries like my recently completed History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga (hereafter H&C). Those who followed that story (see archives) know that I have been, for a whole number of reasons both personal and political, on the trail of my roots, including trips to the old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. There through various methods, including extensive use of the Internet, I was able to track down a couple of guys from the old neighborhood whose family story had gripped me and whose personal stories I presented as part of that series.

As an unintended result of that research I have also come in contact with some helpful old high school classmates. One such helpful person, a class officer, asked me to answer some questions that her committee is putting together for our class, the Class of 1964. have posted some of the more pertinent answers here, although this is getting to be a seemingly endless task as the more questions I answer the more they keep sending me. Such is life. But, now I have uncovered more information about my roots coming from an earlier period.

I mentioned in H&C that my family had started life in a housing project with all that implied, then and now. By the beauties of the Internet I have now come in contact with someone who remembers me (or rather my brother- she was sweet on him in elementary school), lived in that housing project during our stay there and for many, many year after my family left, and saw its transformation from a way station for returning World War II veterans to a classic ‘den of iniquity’ as portrayed in media accounts, She has agreed to be my ‘hood historian for this series. Moreover she has brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren who have memories from that place.

If thing work out this could very well be a slice of life series on the trials and tribulations of members of the marginally working poor, a section of the working class with which I am very familiar. And from my vantage point can produce a study, with all its inherent limitations, of the decline and disintegration of working class political consciousness in America since World War II. In H&C that played out one way with a section of the class that is slightly above the one that will be featured here. That saga did not paint a pretty political picture. Nor will, I fear, this one. But, damn, why shouldn’t these people have their stories told, warts and all.

Again, like H&C, this series will really narrate a very prosaic working class set of stories. I will, however, organize these stories differently because now I know what I am looking for and each story will be able to stand on its own. In H&C the story as it unfolded piecemeal, frankly, got out of control and I do not believe that when I put all the parts together at the end that it had the power that I wanted it to have, and that it did have as it unfolded.

That said, if this time last year somebody asked me if I would be doing a series like I would have said they were crazy. I then wanted to discuss the finer theoretical points of organizing for withdrawal from Iraq or building a workers party. But now this is like finding the philosopher’s stone. This is the real deal down at the base of society.

I am now preparing the first story that will deal with how this poor woman Sherry, my ‘hood historian, was humiliated by other students at our elementary school for the mere fact of being from ‘the projects’. This writer is painfully aware of that type of humiliation as he faced the same thing later when he moved to the neighborhood featured in H&C. Again, will there be political lessons to be learned? I do not believe so, directly. However, real stories about the fate of the working class down at the base can help explain the very real retardants to working class political consciousness that we face as we try to organize here in America. I can quote socialist principles, chapter and verse, elsewhere in this space. These stories desperately need to be told here.

THE BLACK-ROBED ANGELS OF DEATH RIDE AGAIN

COMMENTARY

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY NOW!

The United States Supreme Court has just handed down (on April 16, 2008) it latest death penalty-related decision, in this case concerning the mechanics of its application. In a 7-2 decision (with reasoning being all over the place as seven different opinions have been reported) the Court held that the three-stage lethal injection used by Kentucky (and other states) is not cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution. No real surprise there because, as I have noted before, this court, filled as it is with original intent constitutional theorists, still has not decided whether drawing and quartering is unconstitutional. I am sure that they do not believe that it is torturous.

In another piece of news on the death penalty front the court also heard arguments that same day on whether child rape is a capital offense and therefore can constitutionally be subject to the death penalty. I would be surprised (but only a little) if the court expanded the number of crimes legitimately subject to the death penalty at this point.

That said, what I really want to discuss here is Associate Supreme Court Justice John Paul Steven’s commentary (and that is all it is legally because it was not germane to the decision in the case) in his separate opinion (in which he supported the constitutionality of the lethal injection application) that he believed that the death penalty itself is unconstitutional. This is the first time in a long time that a sitting justice of the Supreme Court has taken such a position. And that, my friends, is to the good. Here, however, is my problem with all this. What is he going to do about it?

I remember several years ago liberal anti-death penalty advocates fell all over themselves in honoring former Associate Justice Harry Blackmon when he came out against the death penalty. Of course, that was after he had retired so it did not do one death row inmate one damn bit of good. Is this the case here with Stevens? It does make a legal/technical different for the possible fates of current individual inmates. More to the point this development permits me a chance to restate what we should be fighting for-not in the courts (or not solely in the courts) but in the streets. We do not recognize the state’s right to take a life, for the guilty or the innocent. Abolish the death penalty now!

Who Killed John F. Kennedy?

DVD REVIEW

The Men Who Killed Kennedy, 1988

Those of us who are interested in history often come across situations where we have to defend the notion that there are conspiracies in history but not all history is a conspiracy. In modern times, with the possible future exception of 9/11, the ‘mystery’ of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 has played into the hands of those who see history merely as a conspiracy. I have read more than my fair share of books on the subject, most recently the late Norman Mailer’s book on Oswald, and here I review a documentary from 1988 that, in essence, merely adds fuel to the fire of that controversy. At this remove however, in 2008, I think it is clear that the conspiracy mongers have had their day on the subject and have come up short. Not through lack of trying, though.

Given my leftward political trajectory since the time of the assassination one would think that I would be amenable to some theory of high-level governmental, corporate or criminal conspiracy. As a teenager I campaigned for Kennedy in 1960. I was shocked and dismayed by his murder, throwing away a political notebook that I kept and swearing off politics forever. That resolve obviously did not last long. I am, moreover, more than willing to believe that governmental officials, corporate officers and criminal masterminds are willing to anything to keep their positions of power. However, it just does not wash here. Part of the problem is there are just too many theories to fit the facts.

The real problem with the various conspiracy theories is that they ask us to suspend disbelieve for their theories even greater than the botched up job that the Warren Commission provided. These theories inevitably work between the lines of that report.
I think the classic example in this documentary, that can stand for my opinion in general, is when one of the conspiracy theorists very calmly states his propositions about how the Warren Report botched things and then, as calmly cites four possible groups of conspirators who could have done the deed, anti-Castro Cubans, disgruntled CIA rogue elements, disgruntled militarists and Mafia-types. Well that narrows the field considerably, doesn’t it?

But here is the kicker- I am convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was capable of doing the murder by himself, that he did it and that he stands before history as having done it. Grand conspiracy theories that deny the role of the individual in history do so in this case for no apparent reason. That ‘theory’ may not be sexy enough for some but Oswald should have his fifteen minutes of fame. Unless someone produces the ‘smoking gun’ missing in all other theories-in short, a real named person (or persons) who did the deed let us leave it at that.

*The Russian Revolution in Red and Black- Once Again on Kronstadt

Click on title to link to YouTube footage of the Russian Revolution. Click on from there for other examples.

DVD REVIEW

The Russian Revolution in Color, 2007

The sailors of the Baltic Fleet stationed at Kronstadt on the entrance way to Petrograd played a vanguard and heroic role in the various stages leading up to, and including, the October revolution in Russia in 1917. The sailors of the Baltic Fleet played a vanguard and heroic role in defending that revolution on the many fronts of the three-year Civil War against the Whites. According to the premise of this docudrama, tinged as it is in anarchist and anti-communist colors, the Kronstadt sailors also played a vanguard role in defending the premises of that revolution in their uprising against the seemingly power-crazed Bolsheviks in 1921.

That is where Bolshevik sympathizers, including this writer, part company with the creators of this work on the virtues, especially the political virtues, of the sailors. And it is, whether viewed tragically or not, also the point of departure for those who saw the necessity of defending the Bolshevik experiment, arms in hand, as it lay prostrate after years of civil war and those who later, mainly from their cozy armchairs, made this the definitive point of the degeneration of the revolution of 1917. Moreover, apparently until the end of times someone, somewhere, in some cozy armchair, is going to pose the question of the Kronstadt uprising of 1921 as the defining moment in the process of degeneration of the Russian revolution. I, like the exiled Bolshevik Left-Oppositionist Leon Trotsky, ask the simple question- why? For what purpose? (See archives article entitled Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt, written by Trotsky in 1938).

This two-part docudrama (The Fight For Freedom and Civil War) adequately highlights the social facts that made the Baltic sailors play an important role in the various stages of the revolution during 1917. Their skill levels, their camaraderie and their ties to the peasantry and working class back home made them a lynch pin for all kinds of actions planned by the Bolsheviks once the sailors were won to the need for decisive actions. In fact, as the docudrama points out, at a couple of points-the April and July Days they were ahead of the curve of the revolution. Moreover, the sailors played a decisive role in the actual physical overthrow of the Provisional Government in October and later the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. Throughout the period, however, one should recognize that they did not act as an independent revolutionary factor but acted, for the most part, as agents of a civilian revolutionary party- Lenin’s Bolsheviks.

Needless to say when the storm cloud of civil war raised its head with the uprising of the Czech Legion and the intervention of the united imperialist powers the Kronstadt sailors were at their posts, especially at the critical moments in front of Kazan. They laid down their heads on all the civil war fronts, as well. I should note here that the pen name that I use in this space, Markin, is to honor one of those heroic sailors who laid down his head on one of the many fronts being contested by the Red and White Armies. It is also rather germane to note here that the bulk of the cadre sailors from 1917 either shared Markin’s fate, took administrative jobs with the Bolshevik government of otherwise provided service to the revolution. The upshot, of all this, is to point out, as Trotsky did, that those sailors who rose against the Bolsheviks in 1921 were not the same cadre that performed heroic service earlier.

That view has been contested, and is contested here by some of the inevitable ‘talking heads’ that are interspersed between various action segments. And that is the rub. As pointed out up above the creators of this film have their own axes to grind. So we get the inevitable diabolical Lenin and the Bolsheviks as the personification of evil, all hungry bureaucrats ready to pounce on any political opposition. In short, the traditional anarchist/anti-communist litany that we have heard for the past 90 years. Here, however, beyond the specific chronology of the Kronstadt uprising itself (and the point Trotsky was trying to make in his 1938 article mentioned above) is the key question of when the revolution degenerated (the whys and what to do about it we will leave for another time).

I would argue that if 1921 is the point of qualitative degeneration (and therefore the point that a third revolution is necessary) then the whole Bolshevik experiment was wrong from the beginning, including the heroic role of the Baltic sailors. That means, and here we have the benefit of hindsight such as it is, that the working class is organically incapable of making a working class revolution to implement socialism. I do not subscribe to that opinion but that should send those who are stuck intellectually imprisoned in Kronstadt 1921 cause for pause.

*Honor The Memory of James Connolly-Revolutionary Socialist

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Wolftones Performing The Song In Honor Of "James Connolly". There are also some very good photographs of the destruction of Dublin after the British shelled the downtown area of "their province" to kingdom come.

This is a repost of a commentary from 2006 concerning Jame Connolly's role in the Easter 1916 uprising. The task that he set for himself then remain to be completed.

COMMENTARY

ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY, COMMANDANT- IRISH CITIZEN ARMY- EXECUTED BY THE BLOODY BRITISH IMPERIALISTS MAY, 1916. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF BOBBY SANDS, MP AND THE 10 MARTYRED LONG KESH HUNGER STRIKERS. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF THE 92th ANNIVERSARY OF THE EASTER UPRISING, 1916. BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND TODAY (AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT OUT OF IRAQ).


A word. They tell a story about James Connolly that just before the start of action on Easter Monday, 1916 he told the members of the Irish Citizen’s Army (almost exclusively workers, by the way) that if the uprising was successful to keep their guns handy. More work with them might be necessary against the nationalist allies of the moment organized as the Irish Volunteers. The Volunteers were mainly a petty bourgeois formation that had no intention of fighting for Connolly's vision of a Socialist Republic. True story or not, I think that gives a pretty good example of the strategy and tactics to be used in colonial and third world struggles by the working class. Would that the Chinese Communists in the 1920’s and other colonial and third world liberation fighters since then have paid heed to that strategic concept.

James Connolly, June 5, 1868-May 12, 1916, was of Scottish Irish stock. He was born in Edinburgh of immigrant parents. The explicit English colonial policy of trying to drive the Irish out of Ireland and thus created the Irish diaspora produced many such immigrants from benighted Ireland to England, America, Australia and the far flung parts of the world. Many of these immigrants left Ireland under compulsion of banishment. Deportation and executions were the standard English response in the history of the various “Troubles" from Cromwell’s time on.

Connolly, like many another Irish lad left school for a working life at age 11. The international working class has produced many such self-taught and motivated leaders. Despite the lack of formal education he became one of the preeminent left-wing theorists of his day in the pre- World War I international labor movement. In the class struggle we do not ask for diplomas, although they help, but commitment to the cause of the laboring masses. Again, like many an Irish lad Connolly joined the British Army, at the age of 14. In those days the British Army provided one of the few ways of advancement for an Irishman who had some abilities. As fate would have it Connolly was stationed in Dublin. I believe the English must rue the day they let Brother Connolly near weapons and near Dublin. As a line in an old Irish song goes- ‘ Won’t Old Mother England be Surprised’.

By 1892 Connolly was an important figure in the Scottish Socialist Federation which, by the way, tended to be more militant and more Celtic and less enamored of parliamentarianism than its English counterpart. Later, the failure to gather in the radical Celtic elements was a contributing factor in the early British Communist Party’s failure to break the working class from the Labor Party. Most of the great labor struggles of the period cam from the leadership in Scotland and Ireland. Connolly became the secretary of the Federation in 1895. In 1896 he left the army and established the Irish Socialist Republican Party. The name itself tells the program. Ireland at that time was essentially a classic English colony so to take the honored name Republican was to spit in the eye of the English. Even today the English have not been able to rise to the political level of a republic. Despite Cromwell’s valiant attempt in the 1600's and no thanks to today's British Labor Party’s policies this is still sadly the case. All militants, of whatever nation, can and must support this call- Abolish the British monarchy, House of Lords and the state Church of England.

In England Connolly was active in the Socialist Labor Party that split from the moribund, above-mentioned Social Democratic Federation in 1903. During the period before the Easter uprising he was heavily involved in the Irish labor movement and acted essentially as the right hand man to James Larkin in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. In 1913 when Larkin led a huge strike in Dublin but was forced to leave due to English reprisals Connolly took over. It was at that time that Connolly founded the Irish Citizens Army as a defense organization of armed and trained laboring men against the brutality of the dreaded Dublin Metropolitan Police. Although only numbering about 250 men at the time their political goal was to establish an independent and socialist Ireland.

Connolly stood aloof from the leadership of the Irish Volunteers, the nationalist formation based on the middle classes. He considered them too bourgeois and unconcerned with Ireland's economic independence. In 1916 thinking the Volunteers were merely posturing, and unwilling to take decisive action against England, he attempted to goad them into action by threatening to send his Irish Citizens Army against the British Empire alone, if necessary. This alarmed the members of the more militant faction -Irish Republican Brotherhood, who had already infiltrated the Volunteers and had plans for an insurrection as well. In order to talk Connolly out of any such action, the IRB leaders, including Tom Clarke and Patrick Pearse, met with Connolly to see if an agreement could be reached. During the meeting the IRB and the ICA agreed to act together at Easter of that year.

When the Easter Rising occurred on April 24, 1916, Connolly was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, and as the Dublin brigade had the most substantial role in the rising, he was de facto Commander in Chief. Following the surrender he was executed by the British for his role in the uprising. Although he was so badly injured in the fighting that he was unable to stand for his execution and he was shot sitting in a chair. The Western labor movement, to its detriment, no longer produces enough such militants as Connolly (and Larkin, for that matter). Learn more about this important socialist thinker and fighter. ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES CONNOLLY.

A word on the Easter Uprising. The easy part of analyzing the Uprising is the knowledge, in retrospect, that it was not widely supported by people in Ireland and militarily defeated by the British forces send in main force to crush it and therefore doomed to failure. Still easier is to criticize the strategy and tactics of the action and of the various actors, particularly in underestimating the British Empire’s frenzy to crush any opposition to its main task of victory in World War I. The hard part is to draw any positive lessons of that national liberation experience for the future. If nothing else remember this though, and unfortunately the Irish national liberation fighters (and other national liberation fighters later, including later Irish revolutionaries) failed to take this into account in their military calculations. The British (or fill in the name of whatever colonial power applies) were entirely committed to defeating the uprising, including burning that colonial country to the ground if need be in order to maintain control. In the final analysis, it was not their metropolitan homeland, so the hell with it. Needless to say, British Labor’s position was almost a carbon copy of His Imperial Majesty’s. Labor leader Arthur Henderson could barely contain himself when informed that James Connolly had been executed. That should, even today, make every British militant blush with shame. Unfortunately, the demand for British militants and all other militants today is the same as back then in 1916- All British Troops Out of Ireland.

In various readings I have come across a theory that the Uprising was the first socialist revolution in Europe, predating the Bolshevik Revolution by over a year. Unfortunately, there is little truth to that idea. Of the Uprising’s leaders, only James Connolly was devoted to the socialist cause. Moreover, while the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army were prototypical models for urban- led national liberation forces such organizations, as we have witnessed in later history, are not inherently socialistic. The dominant mood among the leadership was in favor of political independence and/or fighting for a return to a separate traditional Irish cultural hegemony. Let poets rule the land, an old idea. As outlined in the famous Proclamation of the Republic posted on the General Post Office in Dublin, Easter Monday, 1916 the goal of the leadership appeared to be something on the order of a society like those fought for in the European Revolutions of 1848, a left bourgeois republic. Some formation on the order of the Paris Commune of 1871 or the Soviet Commune of 1917 did not figure in the political calculations at that time.

As noted above, James Connolly clearly was skeptical of his erstwhile comrades on the subject of the nature of the future state and apparently was prepared for an ensuing class struggle following the establishment of a republic. That does not mean that revolutionary socialists could not support such an uprising. On the contrary, Lenin, who was an admirer of Connolly for his anti-war stance in World War I, and Trotsky stoutly defended the uprising against those who derided the Easter Rising for involving bourgeois elements. Participation by bourgeois and petty bourgeois elements is in the nature of a national liberation struggle. The key, which must be learned by militants today, is who leads the national liberation struggle and on what program. As both Lenin and Trotsky made clear later in their own revolutionary experiences in Russia revolutionary socialists have to lead other disaffected elements of society to overthrow the existing order. There is no other way in a heterogeneous class-divided society. Moreover, in Ireland, the anti-imperialist nature of the action against British imperialism during wartime merited support. This is based on the old socialist principle that the main enemy is a home. Chocky Ar La.

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN FROM MEMORY AND THUS SOME OF THE DATES AND ORGANIZATIONAL NAMES MAY BE INCORRECT. THE WRITER WOULD APPRECIATE ANY CORRECTIONS. NEEDLESS TO SAY, NOTWITHSTANDING SUCH ERRORS, THE WRITER STANDS BY HIS POLITICAL CONCLUSIONS.

*"We Are Coming Father Abraham"- A Song Of The American Civil War

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of a New York Regiment performing "We Are Coming Father Abraham".

On the 167th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.

An example of an American Civil War song that I gleaned from reading the book, Civil War Curiosities" by Webb Garrison.

In the event, although the United States Congress authorized and budgeted for those 300,000 soldiers, I do not believe that the quota was met.

WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM
Words by James Sloan Gibbons
Music L.O. Emerson

We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more,
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore.
We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,
With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear.
We dare not look behind us but steadfastly before.
We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

CHORUS: We are coming, we are coming our Union to restore,
We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

If you look across the hilltops that meet the northern sky,
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;
And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride;
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour,
We are coming, father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!

CHORUS

If you look up all our valleys where the growing harvests shine,
You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line;
And children from their mother's knees are pulling at the weeds ,
And learning how to reap and sow against their country's needs;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door,
We are coming, Father Abr'am, three hundred thousand more!

CHORUS

You have called us, and we're coming by Richmond's bloody tide,
To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside;
Or from foul treason's savage group, to wrench the murderous blade;
And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before,
We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

CHORUS

*An Open Letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal Supporters-A Personal Commentary

Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site.


Commentary

The Partisan Defense Committee has passed "An Open Letter to All Supporters of Mumia‘s Freedom" to this writer. Check links to the right under Partisan Defense Committee to read the letter (or click on title). Those few who might not know of the torturous legal battles to free this innocent man can find further information at the above-mentioned Partisan Defense site. I make my own comments below.

Normally I pass information about the case of political prisoner Mumia abu-Jamal on without much comment because the case speaks for itself. The case has been front and center in international labor defense struggles for over two decades. However, in light of the adverse ruling by a majority of a federal Third Circuit Court of Appeal panel in March 2008 that affirmed Mumia’s 1982 conviction for first-degree murder of a police officer and left the only issue for decision that of resentencing to either reinstate his original death sentence or keep him imprisoned for life without parole I have some things to say about this fight.

Occasionally, in the heat of political battle some fights ensue around strategy that after the smoke has cleared, upon reflection, leave one with more sorrow than anger. Not so today. Today I am mad. Am I mad about the irrational decision by the majority of the Third Circuit panel in Mumia’s case? Yes, but when one has seen enough of these cases over a lifetime then one realizes that, as the late sardonic comic and social commentator Lenny Bruce was fond of saying, in the Hall of Justice the only justice is in the halls.

What has got me steamed is the obvious bankruptcy of the strategy, if one can use this term, of centering Mumia’s case on the question of a new trial in order to get the ‘masses’- meaning basically parliamentary liberal types interested in supporting the case. This by people who allegedly KNOW better. The bankruptcy of this strategy, its effects on Mumia’s case and the bewildered response of those who pedaled it as good coin is detailed in the above-mentioned Open Letter. Read it.

Today, in reaction to the Third Circuit court’s decision, everyone and their brother and sister are now calling for Mumia’s freedom. At a point where he is between a rock and a hard place. However, it did not have to be that way. Mumia was innocent in 1982 and he did not stop being innocent at any point along this long road. Freedom for Mumia was (and is) the correct slogan in the case. A long line of political criminal cases, starting in this country with that of the Haymarket Martyrs if not before, confirms that simple wisdom. Those who consciously pedaled this weak ‘new trial’ strategy as a get rich quick scheme now have seen the chickens come home to roost. And Mumia pays the price.

I would point out two factors that made a ‘retrial’ strategy in the case of an innocent man particularly Pollyanna-ish for those honest militants who really believed that Mumia’s case was merely a matter of the American justice system being abused and therefore some court would rectify this situation if enough legal resources were in place. First, it is illusory that somehow, as exemplified in this case, a higher court system would remedy this egregious wrong. Long ago I remember a lawyer, I believe that it might have been the late radical lawyer Conrad Lynn no stranger to political defense work, telling a group of us doing defense work for the Black Panthers, that all these judges belong to the same union. They do not upset each other’s work except under extreme duress.

Second, and this is where the ‘wisdom’ of the reformists about reaching the ‘masses’ by a stagest theory of defense work (fight for retrial first, then freedom) turns in on them. As witness the list of names of those who have signed the Partisan Defense Committee’s call for Mumia’s freedom, excepting professional liberals and their hangers –on, those interested in Mumia’s case (or any leftwing political defense case) will sign on just as easily for freedom as retrial. Thus, opportunism does not pay, even in the short haul. That said, Free Mumia- say it loud, say it proud.

*From The Pages Of “Workers Vanguard”-For Class-Struggle Defense!

Click on the headline to link to the article from “Workers Vanguard” described in the title.


Markin comment:

As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.

On the 33rd Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

This is a repost of an entry from last year. With the recent Congressional hearings on the situation in Iraq involving today's General Westmorland-General Petreaus-and today's Ambassador Bunker-Ambassador Crocker a look at a previous act of American hubris is in order.

BOOK REVIEW

APRIL 30TH MARKS THE 33ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE MILITARY VICTORY OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY/ SOUTH VIETNAMESE NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY


VIETNAM –A HISTORY, STANLEY KARNOW, PENQUIN BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1983

As the current Bush Administration-directed quagmire continues in Iraq it is rather timely to look at the previously bout of American imperialist madness in Vietnam if only in order to demonstrate the similar mindsets, then and now, of the American political establishment and their hangers-on. This book, unintentionally I am sure, is a prima facie argument, against those who see Iraq (or saw Vietnam) as merely an erroneous policy of the American government that can be ‘fixed’ by a change to a more rational imperialist policy guided by a different elite. Undeniably there are many differences between the current war and the struggle in Vietnam. Not the least of which is that in Vietnam there was a Communist-led insurgency that leftists throughout the world could identify with and were duty-bound to support. No such situation exists in Iraq today where, seemingly, from the little we know about the murky politics of the parties there militant leftists can support individual anti-imperialist actions as they occur but stand away, way away from the religious sectarian struggle for different versions of a fundamentalist Islamic state that the various parties are apparently fighting for.

Stanley Karnow’s well-informed study of the long history of struggle in Vietnam against outsiders, near and far, is a more than adequate primer about the history and the political issues, from the American side at least, as they came to a head in Vietnam in the early 1960’s. This work was produced in conjunction with a Public Broadcasting System documentary in 1983 so that if one wants to take the time to get a better grasp of the situation as it unfolded the combination of the literary and visual presentations will make one an ‘armchair expert’ on the subject. A glossary of, by now, unfamiliar names of secondary players and chronology of events is helpful as are some very good photographs that lead into each chapter

This book is the work of a long time journalist who covered Southeast Asia from the 1950’s until at least the early 1980’s when he went back after the war was over and interviewed various survivors from both sides as well as key political players. Although over twenty years has passed since the book’s publication it appears to me that he has covered all the essential elements of the dispute as well as the wrangling, again mainly on the American side , of policy makers big and small. While everyone should look at more recent material that material appears to me to be essentially more specialized analysis of the general themes presented in Karnow’s book. Or are the inevitably self-serving memoirs by those, like former Secretary of War Robert McNamara, looking to refurbish their images for the historical record. Karnow’s book has the added virtue of having been written just long enough after the end of the war that memories, faulty as they are in any case, were still fresh but with enough time in between for some introspection.

The first part of Karnow’s book deals with the long history of the Vietnamese as a people in their various provincial enclaves, or as a national entity, to be independent of the many other powers in the region who wanted to subjugate them, particularly China. The book also pays detailed attention to the fight among the European colonial powers for dominance in the region culminating in the decisive victory for control by France in the 1800’s. That domination by a Western imperialist power, ultimately defeated by the same Communist and nationalist forces that were to defeat the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, sets the stage for the huge role that the United States would come to play from the time of the French defeat in 1954 until their own defeat a couple of decades later. This section is important to read because the premises of the French about their adversary became, in almost cookie-cutter fashion, the same premises that drove American policy. And to similar ends.

The bulk of the book and the central story line, however, is a study of the hubris of American imperialist policy-makers in attempting to define their powers, prerogatives and interests in the post-World War II period. The sub-title of the book, which the current inhabitants of the Bush Administration obviously have not read and in any case would willfully misunderstand, is how not to subordinate primary interests to momentary secondary interests in the scramble to preserve the empire.

Apparently, common sense and simple rationality are in short supply when one goes inside the Washington Beltway. Taking into account the differences in personality among the three main villains of the piece- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon- the similarities of response and need to defend some sense of honor, American honor, are amazingly similar, individual rhetoric aside. There thus can be little wonder the North Vietnamese went about their business of revolution and independence pretty much according to their plans and with little regard to ‘subtleties’ in American diplomacy. But, read the book and judge for yourselves. Do not be surprised if something feels awfully, awfully familiar.

*Singer's Corner- Honor The 100th Birthday Anniversary Of Paul Robeson

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for Paul Robeson. As fate would have it we were political opponents on the left but who could not be thrilled by his rendition of "John Brown's Body" or "Waterboy".

"Waterboy"

Waterboy, where are you hiding
If you don't come right here
Gonna tell you pa on you
There ain't no hammer
That's on a this mountain
That ring like mine boy
That ring like mine

I'm gonna bust this rock boy
From here to the Macon
All the way to the jail boy
All the way to the jail

You Jack o diamond
Jack o diamond
Know you of old boy
I know you're of old
You rob-a my pocket
Rob my pocket
Silver and gold boy
Of silver and gold
There ain't no sweat boy
That's on a this mountain
That run like mine boy
That run like mine

A Crockah Petreaus in the Morning- and the Afternoon too, Part II

Commentary

Immediate Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq!

Well, I do not know about you, fellow readers, but I definitely got a sense of being in a time warp with yesterday's, April 8, 2008, Senate Committee hearings. While it did not have the drama of those of last fall it had the same old actors from central casting, General Petreaus and Ambassador Crockah, eh, Crocker. And the story they had to tell had a very familiar ring. When all is said and done the situation will be almost exactly the same as it was in January 2007 when both the military ‘surge’ strategy took off and the Democrats took over control of Congress on a note of high expectancy about ending the war. A little over six months later and we could have just as well turned on the tapes or read the transcripts from last fall’s hearings.

That said, there is not need to say much more here except this- this writer last year screamed, shouted and got himself into a lather when he stated that the troops would not be coming home before the Bush Administration expired its last breathe. Yesterday we got out faces rubbed in that harsh fact. Moreover, from the prospective of a new administration on January 20, 2009, of whatever stripe, it does not appear that, left to their timetables, that there will be troop withdrawal before 2010. I say start talking to your young children and your grandchildren about the nature of war because it looks like they may need to know something about it before American imperialism hightails it out of Iraq. In the meantime we fight, and fight hard, around the slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries From Iraq! Damn.

The Hour Of The Wolf

DVD REVIEW

Howlin' Wolf, The London Sessions, 1971

One of my first exposures to the world of Chicago-style blues, after a steady diet of country-style Delta blues, was the Rolling Stones’ version of the Willie Dixon classic Little Red Rooster back in the early 1960’s. I thought that was a song to beat all songs and it had nothing to do its allegorical nature, you know, about sex. What, moreover, capped it for me the fact that it was originally banned in Boston- from the radio airwaves of the times. Naturally that made this teenager want to hear it even more.

All this is by way of saying-yes; the Stones did a great version of that song but if you really want it heard then you must go to the master- Howlin' Wolf. That big gravelly-voiced man who, in still pictures that I have seen of him as well as film seems to be inhaling the microphone, lets it all hang out as he struts his stuff on that number. In Do the Do, Little Red Rooster, Killing Floor and on and on the Wolf sweats, bleeds, sucks up the whiskey, has another one for good measure and gets down on his knees, sometimes literally, to belt out the blues.

In this two-disc set of Howlin' Wolf classics some of those Stones did exactly what I mentioned above-went to the source. Listen in to the dialogue when the Wolf tells these trained, experienced musicians how to do the do here on Little Red Rooster. And they are all ears. That says it all. Moreover, the musical excitement builds as song after song gets you in a true blues mood. This is all about sex, about whiskey, about hardworking weeks to get to fun-loving Saturday nights. Yes, the hour of the Wolf is just before the dawn. Get this masterwork. You will not regret it.