Saturday, July 11, 2009

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- No Black-Bordered Obituary For Defense Secretary Robert McNamara

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- No Black-Bordered Obituary For Defense Secretary Robert McNamara 




A Link To "New York Times" July 6, 2009 Obituary For Robert McNamara. The Point Of This Link Is To Teach The Next Generation To Know The "Rational" Kind Of Monster We Have To Boot Out In Order To Get The Just World WE Desperately Need.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all


Commentary (July 6, 2009)


The recent death, at 93, of Kennedy/Johnson Vietnam War-era War Secretary Robert McNamara has been met with a number of tributes in the bourgeois media about his role as architect of various Cold War military policies in defense of the American Imperial state. That is to be expected for those sources. There is, apparently, an unwritten rule that one does not speak ill of the dead in those circles. Including legitimate war criminals. And in the normal course of events that might be an appropriate response. But one Robert Strange McNamara is of a different stripe.

After a life time of public service to the bourgeois state Mr. McNamara, seemingly, late in life started to worry about his eternal soul and the harm that he had done to it by trying, as an example, to wipe the country of Vietnam, North and South at the time, off the face of the earth with his incessant strategic bombing policy. After exhibiting some qualms late in the Johnson presidency (and around the time of TET 1968) he was booted upstairs to become President of the American-dominated World Bank. Nice soft landing for a war criminal, right?

And who called him a war criminal? Well, of course, this writer did (and does). And so did many of the anti-war activists of the 1960’s. Those calls are to be expected (and might be considered to constitute a minimum response to his egregious policies). But, surprise, surprise late in life, after serious reflection, McNamara implied, haltingly to be sure, in his memoirs (a review of which is re-posted below) that that might have been the case. However, unlike some of his compadres at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunals and other such venues, Mr. McNamara died quietly in his bed.

Not so fortunate were the millions of Vietnamese peasants and workers who bore the onslaught of the maximum fire-power the American military could lay down. No, there will be no final justice in this sorry old world until a future American Workers Republic pays real justice (and serious cash) to the people of Vietnam. As for Robert Strange McNamara, if the worst that happened to him was a “bad conscience” he got off easy.

******

Reposted below is a review of Robert Strange McNamara’s memoirs and of a documentary “Fog Of War” used by him in order to help “the second draft” of history of his legacy.

Reposted From April 30, 2009 Entry

The Fog Of War, Part II- War Secretary Robert McNamara’s View Of His Handiwork in Vietnam

Book Review

In Retrospect: The Tragedy And Lessons Of Vietnam, Robert Strange McNamara with Brain VanDeMark, Random House, 1995


Anyone who had caught the Friday March 27, 2009 headlines is aware that the Democratic Party-run Obama government has called for some 4,000 additional troops for Afghanistan and what they, euphemistically, call civilian support teams in order to bolster the sagging regime of “Mayor of Kabul” Karzai. Those numbers are in addition to the 17,000 extras already committed by the Obama regime in February. Does the word escalation seem appropriate here?

One of the problems of having gone through the Vietnam experience in my youth (including periods of lukewarm support for American policy under John F. Kennedy, a hands-off attitude in the early Lyndon B. Johnson years and then full-bore opposition under the late Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford regimes) is a tendency to view today’s American imperial policy in the same by-the-numbers approach as I took as a result of observing the Vietnam War as it unfolded. There are differences, some of them hugely so, between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Just as, I have previously noted in this space, there are differences between Vietnam and the recently “completed” Iraq War. (Hey, I’m just going by what the media tells me is going on. They wouldn’t lead us astray, would they?)

But, I keep getting this eerie feeling in the back of my neck every time I hear, or see, anything concerning Afghanistan coming out of this new Obama administration. They appear clueless, yet are determined to forge ahead with this policy that can only lead to the same kind of quagmire than Vietnam and Iraq turned into. That is where the analogies to Vietnam do connect up. In this regard, I have recently been re-reading Kennedy/Johnson War Secretary Robert Strange (that’s his middle name, folk, I didn’t make it up and didn’t need to) McNamara’s memoirs, written in 1995, of his central role in the development of Vietnam policy, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam”.

Obviously McNamara has put his own ‘spin’ on his personal role then in order to absolve himself (a little) before history. That is to be expected. What comes through crystal clear, however, because in the final analysis McNamara still doesn’t get it, is that when you’re the number one imperial power all the decisions you make are suppose to fall into place for your benefit because you represent the “good guys”. Regardless of what you do, or do not, know about the internal workings of the situation at hand. The Kennedy/Johnson administrations were almost totally ignorant of the internal working of Vietnamese society. That is why I have that eerie, very eerie, feeling about this Obama war policy.

In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were very necessary in his case and hence he had to go to the prints in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his “ghost writer” not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 8o something, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic “The Best and The Brightest”.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the “lessons” to be drawn from experiences (eleven in all by the way). Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate “war criminal” to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery. Yet, like that freshman course there are things to be learned despite the professor and more to learn, if only by reading between the lines, than he or she wanted to express.

McNamara presents his take by dividing the Vietnam War buildup, at least at the executive level, into periods; the early almost passive Kennedy days; the post Kennedy assassination period when Lyndon Johnson was trying to be all things to all men; the decisive post-1964 election period; and, various periods of fruitless and clueless escalation. It is this process that is, almost unwittingly, the most important to take from this world. Although McNamara, at the time of writing was an older and wiser man, when he had power he went along with ever step of the “hawks”, civilian and military. He led no internal opposition, and certainly not public one. This is the classic “good old boys” network where one falls on one’s sword when the policy turns wrong. And he is still scratching his head over why masses of anti-war protesters chanted “war criminal” when they confronted him with his deeds. And then listen to the latest screeds by current War Secretary Gates concerning Afghanistan. It will sound very familiar.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to read this book if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defended their state then, and now.

DVD REVIEW

The Fog of War, starring former Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara, 2003


In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, former Kennedy and Johnson Administration Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were not enough and hence he had to go before the cameras in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his interviewer not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 85, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic The Best and The Brightest.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the `lessons' to be drawn from experiences. Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's Freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate `war criminal' to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to watch this film if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defend their state.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

*Oppose The Military Coup In Honduras, Ahora- A Guest Commentary

Click On Title To Link To Guest Commentary Concerning The Struggle Against The Recent Military Takeover In Honduras.

Markin Commentary

Some of the points I agree, some not. The situation there, especially from this distance, seems somewhat murky. Especially suspect are the leftist populist credentials of the deposed Zelaya and his actions to gain reelection (or at least run for reelection). But know this, we leftists (and here I mean socialists, anarchists and both branches of the communist movement (including the Communist International before its Stalinist degeneration), Stalinist And Trotskyist, have been sometimes too slow to oppose military takeovers of democratically-elected governments. And , on occasion too quick to support certain so-called leftist military one like in China and Bulgaria in the 1920's. Yes, we want our day but that does not mean that today we are indifferent to the norms of bourgeois democracy. In Honduras we oppose the military junta, if for no other reason than we can work better for our socialist goals and easier under bourgeois norms than the norms of military rule. I will have more to say on this later. For now though the immediate thread of our work (and slogans) should be to fight for the return of the democratic norms linked to the struggle for a workers republic-ahora.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

*A Salute To Mountain Music- "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of The Persall Sisters Doing "Angel Band". Ya, I know they were not on this CD reviewed below but I am doing a separate review of Ralph Stanley (and his brother) elsewhere and will put their version of "Angel Band" there. The sisters, in any case, do a great job on this.

CD REVIEW

O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Music from the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?, various artists, UMG Recordings, 2000.

Sometimes a revival of a musical form, like the "talking blues", that highlighted the urban folk revival of the early 1960's is driven by a social need. In that case it was to provide a format for the "glad tidings" that a new political and social movement was a-bornin'. In the case of the revival several years ago of what is called "mountain music" it was the films "The Song Catcher" and, more importantly, the very popular movie starring George Clooney, " O Brother, Where Art Thou?". The CD under review is a compilation of music from that movie, a not unnatural tie-in in the modern entertainment business. The movie deserves a separate review, however, this CD can stand on its own as a very nice cross section of "mountain music", some familiar most not so.

Without straining credulity "mountain music" is the music of the simple folk of Appalachia, those who worked hard in the coal mines, on the hard scrabble farms and in the isolated mills of the region. This was their Saturday night entertainment and with the advent of radio was a unifying cultural experience. The songs "speak" of hard and lonely lives, the beauty of the then pristine countryside, the usual vagaries of love and lost and the mysterious ways of a very personal, if arbitrary, god. Throw in a few upbeat tunes reflecting the love of "corn" liquor, women and the sometimes funny side of coping with life's trials and tribulations and you have the mountain version of the folk experience. Sound familiar? Sure it does, except, it is done with simple guitar, a blazing fiddle and, hopefully, a full-bodied mandolin.

Here you have all the above types of songs mentioned above in one spot. The cadence of the work in hard prison life gets a nod in "Po Lazarus". The hobo's national anthem (Great Depression era version) "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is also here. The vagaries of love get spelled out in "Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby". For uplift try the one everyone knows- "You Are My Sunshine". Norman Blake, worthy of a separate review of his own as a master of mountain music, provides a very rich instrumental "A Man Of Constant Sorrow". Finally, no recent compilation of mountain music is complete without Ralph Stanley's eerie "O Death" and "Angel Band". If you need a primer for learning about mountain music here you are.

Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow Lyrics

I am the man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to ol' Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.

The place where he was born and raised

For six long years I've been in trouble,
no pleasure here on earth I've found
For in this world, I'm bound to ramble,
I have no friends to help me now.

He has no friends to help him now

It's fair thee well, my old true lover,
I never expect to see you again.
For I'm bound to ride that Northern Railroad,
perhaps I'll die upon this train

Perhaps he'll die upon this train

You can bury me in some deep valley,
For many years where I may lay.
And you may learn to love another
while I am sleeping in my grave.

While he is sleeping in his grave

Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
My face you never will see no more
But there is one promise that is given,
I'll meet you on Gods golden shore

He'll meet you on God's golden shore

Big Rock Candy Mountain

One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains


Ralph Stanley - O Death Lyrics

O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I'll fix your feet til you cant walk
I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very air, come and go with me
I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim

O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you're treatin' me
You've close my eyes so I can't see
Well you're hurtin' my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don't take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul

O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year

The Stanley Brothers - Angel Band Lyrics

The latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph is begun
O come Angel Band, come & around me stand
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
I know I'm near the holy ranks of friends & kindred dear
I've brushed the dew on Jordan's banks, the crossing must be near
I've almost gained my Heavenly home, my spirit loudly sings
The Holy ones, behold they come, I hear the noise of wings
O bear my longing heart to Him who bled & died for me
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin & gives me victory

Deep In The Hills And Hollows Of Mountain Country- “The “Appalachians” In Story And Song

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Iris Dement performing "Pretty Saro" in the film "Song Catcher".

DVD Review

The Appalachians, 3 DVD set, various commentators and mountain musicians, PBS Productions, 2005


I have spend no little time over the past several months putting roots music, the historical roots of mountain music in the hills and hollows of the Appalachians, especially Kentucky and my own personal connection with the place as a son of a coal mining son of the region together. This film documentary takes two of those strands, roots music and the history of the region and tries to explain the values behind the music and behind the pioneer spirit that drove some of our forbears to those lonely hill and hollows to eke out a an existence and create a cultural gradient that is not always understandable to those of us not immersed in that milieu. Except those virtues of hard work, hard religion, hard times and hard liquor are not all that far from the mainstream experiences, at least of earlier generations. In a sense this film is a tribute to a vanishing breed, a breed the mined the coal in the eastern mines, and farmed those hard rock acres. I like to think that some of those virtues and, of course, the music would not die.

Along the way this documentary traces the roots of the original Northern European settlers as they fled, or were pushed , from the East Coast and sought the new virgin lands of the then ‘west’ in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their uneasy relationship, finally untenable, with the various indigenous Native American tribes in the 19th century. The film also points out the gathering storm over the slavery issue that would literally become the “brothers’ war” in much of the region in the mid-19th century civil war. In the post- Civil War period the outlines of a distinctive Appalachian cultural gradient became recognizable through an exploitation of the natural resources of the area generated by the needs of the emerging industrial age, especially mining of the abundant coal fields. The struggle between labor and capital takes center place as the driving force from then until the near present. This includes the titanic struggles for mine workers union recognition, the demise of labor intensive coal mining and the rise of mass high tech mining that has ravished the land.

But, mainly this film is an exposition on the music. Without straining credulity "mountain music" is the music of the simple folk of Appalachia, those who worked hard in the coal mines, on the hard scrabble farms and in the isolated mills of the region. This was their Saturday night entertainment and with the advent of radio was a unifying cultural experience. The songs "speak" of hard and lonely lives, the beauty of the then pristine countryside, the usual vagaries of love and lost and the mysterious ways of a very personal, if arbitrary, god. Throw in a few upbeat tunes reflecting the love of "corn" liquor, women and the sometimes funny side of coping with life's trials and tribulations and you have the mountain version of the folk experience. Sound familiar? Sure it does, except, it is done with simple guitar, a blazing fiddle and, hopefully, a full-bodied mandolin.

John Prine, Paradise Lyrics

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Repeat Chorus:

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Repeat Chorus:

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Repeat Chorus:


Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow Lyrics

I am the man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to ol' Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.

The place where he was born and raised

For six long years I've been in trouble,
no pleasure here on earth I've found
For in this world, I'm bound to ramble,
I have no friends to help me now.

He has no friends to help him now

It's fair thee well, my old true lover,
I never expect to see you again.
For I'm bound to ride that Northern Railroad,
perhaps I'll die upon this train

Perhaps he'll die upon this train

You can bury me in some deep valley,
For many years where I may lay.
And you may learn to love another
while I am sleeping in my grave.

While he is sleeping in his grave

Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
My face you never will see no more
But there is one promise that is given,
I'll meet you on Gods golden shore

He'll meet you on God's golden shore

Big Rock Candy Mountain

One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains


Ralph Stanley - O Death Lyrics

O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I'll fix your feet til you cant walk
I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very air, come and go with me
I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim

O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you're treatin' me
You've close my eyes so I can't see
Well you're hurtin' my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don't take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul

O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year

The Stanley Brothers - Angel Band Lyrics

The latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph is begun
O come Angel Band, come & around me stand
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
I know I'm near the holy ranks of friends & kindred dear
I've brushed the dew on Jordan's banks, the crossing must be near
I've almost gained my Heavenly home, my spirit loudly sings
The Holy ones, behold they come, I hear the noise of wings
O bear my longing heart to Him who bled & died for me
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin & gives me victory

Sunday, July 05, 2009

From The Archives (2009)-Capitalist America- Give Youth Work, Or Move On Over!

Click On To Title To Link To The Leon Trotsky Archives For 1938 Under The Transitional Program Concerning A Sliding Scale Of Wages (Popularly Known As "30 For 40")As An Example Of The Way To Address The Problem Di cussed Below.

Commentary

Make no mistake this site, as a general proposition, is fiercely and relentlessly dedicated to the propaganda struggle for a socialist future. But sometimes we have to agitate for some immediate and pressing needs. In this case the need to make sure the youth, and particularly minority youth, has meaningful work. In a society that goes on something of a principle of ‘last hired and first fired ‘(except when it is cheaper to keep the new labor) in its labor practices this latest capitalist recession is hitting the youth disproportionately.

That said, I recently heard an interesting, if disturbing, program on National Public Radio’s “Talk Of The Town” where the subject was PBS “Dateline’s” upcoming program, hosted by Judy Woodruff, concerning the various ways today’s 20-somethings are coping with (or not coping with) this, for them, first serious economic downturn. I heard plenty of anecdotal evidence for why this capitalist really has outlived its usefulness and must be replaced. But that is a subject for another day and one can go elsewhere in this space for various commentaries on the general socialist program. What I want to do is make a few points on the struggle of today’s youth for jobs.

Hey, when those of us who are not 20-something were young and carefree we all, or most of us anyhow, had our share of makeshift jobs in order to survive or to keep us off the streets. Some of us, including this writer, almost made a religion out of keeping just this side of “skid row”. Being footloose and fancy free is a youthful rite of passage, after all (and probably would be more so under a socialist regime). That, however, is not what the callers to this talk show were addressing as they related their stories. What they had to say about their survival skills reflects very well one their individual abilities to adjust to a world that they certainly have not made. They are making career changes, taking odd-ball jobs, retuning home to live in order to cut down on expenses and even that old chestnut, going back to school to ‘reinvent’ themselves.

Okay, that is the good part. But here is where I want to reflect on what the irrationality of the capitalist system has begot. From what I heard there is an incredible amount of social value stored up in today’s youth. Moreover, an incredible amount of social capital has been used to produce these very high priced future contributors to society. No rational society could, or would let this go to waste in the way that it seems to be doing in the current crisis. Wouldn’t a slogan like “30 For 40”, the old radical labor movement idea of redistributing the available work among those , employed and unemployed, hat need it with no loss in pay be just about right at this time. As for the future, to all those young callers-in I will tell you right now that a socialist society would certainly know how to use your skills- “to the max”. Join us in that fight.

****

From The Transistional Program

Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours


Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.