In Boston -7th Annual Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Day - Sunday, August 26, 2012

In Boston -7th Annual Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Day - Sunday, August 26, 2012

Gather at the Boston Common Visitor Center (Tremont/West) at 2PM to star marching toward the North at 3PM. Then rally at 4PM the Greenway Park, Hanover St. and Cross Street in the NOrth End of Boston.

This event is dedicated to all political prisoners and victims of state repression.

JUSTICE CRUCIFIED NO MORE!

Sponsored by the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society and the I.W.W.

Endorsed by the Lantern Collective, Bread and Roses Heritage Committee, Common Struggle

For more info: info[at]saccoandvanzetti.org or call 617-290-5614

Interview with Theodore Grippo, author of the book "With Malice
Aforethought, The Execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti"
07/24/2012 [DOCUMENTS] -

“When I was ten years old, I asked my father about Sacco and Vanzetti. I had heard their names, probably on the radio, in connection with the tenth anniversary of their executions. I still remember the look on my father’s face as he explained that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been sentenced to death for robbery and murder, but many believed they were innocent. My father spoke emotionally of the beautiful letters Sacco wrote to his children just before he was executed, and of Vanzetti’s kind nature and brilliant mind. I believe that my father, an Italian immigrant shoemaker, identified with Sacco, an Italian immigrant shoe trimmer. My father’s expression and tone denoted sadness marked with a fear I could not then understand. I later learned he felt threatened by the ill will many Americans displayed toward Italians as a result of that case.”

Grippo will be speaking Tuesday, August 28th at 6:00 the Boston Public Library , Central Library, Orientation Room, 700 Boylston Street and again on Wednesday, August 29th at 7:00 at the Dante Alighieri Italian Cultural Center, 41 Hampshire Street, Cambridge.

*SACCO AND VANZETTI- A Documentary Look At The Case That Will Not Die

SACCO AND VANZETTI- THE CASE THAT WILL NOT DIE NOR SHOULD IT

DVD REVIEW

SACCO AND VANZETTI, PETER MILLER, 2006

This is a re-post of an earlier blog entry.

I have used some of the points mentioned here in previous reviews of books about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenbergs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the raw tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the film under review.

Using documentary footage, reenactment and ‘talking head’ commentary by interested historians, including the well-known author of popular America histories Howard Zinn, the director Peter Miller and his associates bring this case alive for a new generation to examine. In the year 2007 one of the important lessons for leftists to be taken from the case is the question of the most effective way to defend such working class cases. I will address that question further below but here I wish to point out that the one major shortcoming of this film is a lack of discussion on that issue. I might add that this is no mere academic issue as the current case of the death-row prisoner, militant journalist Mumia-Abu-Jamal, graphically illustrates. Notwithstanding that objection this documentary is a very satisfactory visual presentation of the case for those not familiar with it.

A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the director’s overall thesis that the two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 were railroaded to know that the case against them 'stunk' to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force the most mildly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on.

Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This film does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless it does not adequately address a question that is implicit in its description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?

The film spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the 'grandees' and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. It does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. It gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles and a friend of Carlos Tresca, a central figure in the defense case) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about its place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. Hopefully it will draw the viewer to read one or more of the many books on the case. Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.

*Artists' Corner- On The Anniversary Of Their Execution-Ben Shahn's "The Passion Of Sacco And Vanzetti"

Click on the headline to link to a viewing of artist Ben Shahn's The Passion Of Sacco And Vanzetti.



Markin comment:


As we commemorate the 88th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927 this comment is easy. Those, like artist Ben Shahn, who honor Sacco and Vanzetti are kindred spirits.

*Sacco And Vanzetti- The Case That Will Not Die-Nor Should It

Click on the title to link to "Wikipedia"'s entry for the Sacco and Vanzetti case, provided here as background. As always with this source and its collective editorial policy, especially with controversial political issues like the Sacco and Vanzetti case, be careful checking the accuracy of the information provided at any given time.

BOOK REVIEW

JUSTICE CRUCIFIED, ROBERTA STRAUSS FEURERLICHT, MCGRAW-HILL, NEW YORK, 1977

HONOR THE MEMORY OF SACCO AND VANZETTI

Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the book under review. I note that it is as much a polemic on American nativism and Puritan skullduggery as it is a thorough study of the particulars of the case. After reading the book those whose sense of the 1920’s in America was formed by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age will have to think again.

A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the author’s thesis about the original sin of the obtuse ‘righteousness’ which drove the Puritans forebears in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that made it possible to railroad two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 to know that the case against them stunk to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force even a slightly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on. That standard is the minimum one would expect of an author on this subject so long after the events. This author passes that test. Her sympathies lie with the victim hood of the two anarchists and by extension all those who suffered physical and psychological damage from the abysmal social, political and cultural attitudes of the American ruling classes and their henchmen toward the great ‘unwashed’.

Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This author does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless she does not adequately address a question that is implicit in her description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?

The author spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the grandees and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. She does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. She gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe.

The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about it’s place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. In any case-Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.

*The Sacco And Vanzetti Memorial Website- The Case That Will Not Die, Nor Should It

Click on the title to link to the "Sacco And Vanzetti Memorial" Website. The headline above says it all.


Markin comment:

The headline above says all that needs to be said about this seminal working class defense case whose lessons about the manner in which such cases should be conducted should be etched in every leftist militant's mind.

*On The Anniversary Of Their Execution In 1927 -Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON

If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.

And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.

The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.

Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

In Boston -7th Annual Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Day - Sunday, August 26, 2012

In Boston -7th Annual Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Day - Sunday, August 26, 2012

Gather at the Boston Common Visitor Center (Tremont/West) at 2PM to star marching toward the North at 3PM. Then rally at 4PM the Greenway Park, Hanover St. and Cross Street in the NOrth End of Boston.

This event is dedicated to all political prisoners and victims of state repression.

JUSTICE CRUCIFIED NO MORE!

Sponsored by the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society and the I.W.W.

Endorsed by the Lantern Collective, Bread and Roses Heritage Committee, Common Struggle

For more info: info[at]saccoandvanzetti.org or call 617-290-5614

Interview with Theodore Grippo, author of the book "With Malice
Aforethought, The Execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti"
07/24/2012 [DOCUMENTS] -

“When I was ten years old, I asked my father about Sacco and Vanzetti. I had heard their names, probably on the radio, in connection with the tenth anniversary of their executions. I still remember the look on my father’s face as he explained that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been sentenced to death for robbery and murder, but many believed they were innocent. My father spoke emotionally of the beautiful letters Sacco wrote to his children just before he was executed, and of Vanzetti’s kind nature and brilliant mind. I believe that my father, an Italian immigrant shoemaker, identified with Sacco, an Italian immigrant shoe trimmer. My father’s expression and tone denoted sadness marked with a fear I could not then understand. I later learned he felt threatened by the ill will many Americans displayed toward Italians as a result of that case.”

Grippo will be speaking Tuesday, August 28th at 6:00 the Boston Public Library , Central Library, Orientation Room, 700 Boylston Street and again on Wednesday, August 29th at 7:00 at the Dante Alighieri Italian Cultural Center, 41 Hampshire Street, Cambridge.

*Sacco and Vanzetti - The Case That Will Not Go Away-Nor Should It

Click on the title to link to "Wikipedia"'s entry for the Sacco and Vanzetti case, provided ere as background. As always with this source and its collective editorial policy, especially with controversial political issues like the Sacco and Vanzetti case, be careful checking the accuracy of the information provided at any given time.

Markin comment:

I have added a link to the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society. Readers of this space should need no introduction to this case but if you do there are several commentaries that I have made on this historic working class legal defense case in this space. Go to the Society's website for additional information and current projects. Honor the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Anarchist Leader Carlos Tresca

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the great anarchist leader and Sacco and Vanzetti defender, Carlos Tresca.

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Markin comment:

American Communist Party and International Labor Defense (the class struggle defense organization of the CP)leader, James P. Cannon, always spoke highly of Carlos Tresca and his work with the ILD. I might add, from other reading, that Tresca was the behind the scenes man who got the donations from the Italian community and provided the stalwart militants who went all out to save Sacco and Vanzetti. While the Brahmin-led liberal committees got the press it was these militants who formed the backbone of that defense. Has it ever been otherwise in class struggle defense cases?

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Markin comment:

American Communist Party and International Labor Defense (the class struggle defense organization of the CP)leader, James P. Cannon, always spoke highly of Carlos Tresca and his work with the ILD. I might add, from other reading, that Tresca was the behind the scenes man who got the donations from the Italian community and provided the stalwart militants who went all out to save Sacco and Vanzetti. While the Brahmin-led liberal committees got the press it was these militants who formed the backbone of that defense. Has it ever been otherwise in class struggle defense cases?

*Films To While Away The Class Struggle By- A Film On Sacco And Vanzetti

*Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of a movie trailer of the Sacco and Vanzetti case (in Italian).


Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

*****From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

*****From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

 

 

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

 

Frank Jackman Comment: Talking to those who daily stood outside the Federal courthouse in Boston during the Tsarnaev trial, you know Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi,  Catholic Workers, and other anti-death penalty activists out on the streets, you would find a bit of a different take since nowhere were any representatives of this organization seen at that location. Sometimes the streets are the places to be and this was one of them. Think about it.  
 
 
************




Markin comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. (Think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy and think today in Massachusetts with the recent death sentence for the remaining Marathon bomber where some of us were down at the Moakley Federal Court House protesting the death penalty with seeing anybody from the MCADP anywhere near that scene.) In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.

Here is another way to deal with both the question of the death penalty and of political prisoners from an old time socialist perspective taken from a book review of James P. Cannon's Notebooks Of An Agitator:

I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- "An injury to one is an injury to all" therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s longtime companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment, or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class-war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this American injustice system.
***************
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Bury the rag deep in your face For now's the time for your tears." last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan, 1963 

Markin comment (posted September 22, 2011): Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat. On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward. 

 Additional Markin comment posted September 23, 2011: No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00 PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!

From The Archives-A Small Victory- Death Penalty Abolition in New Jersey

Commentary

One of the best pieces of political wisdom I have ever received, and that from an old communist, is that a left political militant must make sure to protect the gains of the past political fights after going on to fight new battles. The nature of capitalist politics is such that no hard-fought political gain comes with an automatic guarantee that it is not reversible. Additionally, I was told that if the political tide is running against you and you cannot hold on to those hard fought gains then you must keep up the propaganda fight and not give into the reactionary flow. Enduring a seemingly never-ending stream of political and social reversals in the ‘culture wars’ over the last few decades that advice has kept my head above water.

In my ‘flaming’ at first liberal, then radical youth three issues formed the core of my political beliefs: the fight for black civil rights in the South (and later in the North); the fight for nuclear disarmament; and, the fight against the barbaric death penalty. A look at the current political landscape confirms that those struggles are still in dire need of completion. One need only look at the current fight for freedom for the Jena Six down in Louisiana, the overflowing American nuclear arsenal and the fact that 37 states and the federal government still have the death penalty on their books. This last fact is what I am interested in commenting on today.

On Thursday December 14, 2007 the New Jersey Assembly voted, apparently mainly along party lines, to abolish the death penalty in that state. As a result it only awaits the governor’s signature to become law and thus become the first state in forty years to take such action. The governor has indicated that he will sign the legislation. What is more, other states are in various stages of taking the same action. And, of course, there is an n unofficial moratorium in place while the United States Supreme Court decides whether lethal injection in the administration of the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. So the worm turns, perhaps.

During the past decade there has been more than enough evidence from such sources as DNA testing to the results of the various Innocent Projects to convince any rationale person that the administration of the death penalty and even the idea of that ultimate act as a penalty is ‘arbitrary and capricious’, as the language of the legal decisions would have it. In the New Jersey debate one Democratic Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo was quoted by Tom Hester, Jr. of the Associated Press as saying “It’s time New Jersey got out of the execution business. Capital punishment is costly, discriminatory, immoral, and barbaric. We’re a better state that one that puts people to death.” Well put. I would only add that from my leftist perspective we do not want to concede to this government the power over life and death for the guilty or the innocent. Put concretely in today’s political terms we do not want the George W. Bushes of the world to have that power.

Coming from Massachusetts, the state that sent the framed-up and martyred Sacco and Vanzetti to their executions, in my youth I was strongly aware of the injustice of the death penalty. One of my early political acts in high school was to attend the annual memorial meeting here in their honor. Moreover, in my household at least, there were always whispers about the injustice done to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Not out of any political sympathy but from the traditional Catholic antipathy to the death penalty. Those were the days when we had the death penalty advocates somewhat on the run but the spirit of the Sixties barely outlasted the decade as the yahoos went on a rampage for reintroduction. Pardon me then if I see just a little glimmer of light that we may have turned the corner on this issue again. But, as noted above, we better keep fighting like hell just the same.

*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.

SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON

If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.

And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.

The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.

Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.

SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON

If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.

And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.

The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.

Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.

SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON

If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.

And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.

The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.

Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"

Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.

SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON

If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.

And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.

The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.

Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

*From The Pen Of International Labor Defense Leader James P. Cannon-"HONOR THE MEMORY OF SACCO AND VANZETTI"

Click on the title to link to "Wikipedia"'s entry for the Sacco and Vanzetti case, provided ere as background. As always with this source and its collective editorial policy, especially with controversial political issues like the Sacco and Vanzetti case, be careful checking the accuracy of the information provided at any given time.

COMMENTARY

In honor of the anarchist martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti on the 88th Anniversary of their execution by the bloody State of Massachusetts. Their flag was black, this writer's flag is red. Nevertheless, as an elementary act of international working class solidarity we honor their sacrifice-red and black are one on this question. Of such militants as Sacco and Vanzett revolutions are made. The American working class has still not avenged their deaths. Forward.

Below find a commentary on the Sacco and Vanzetti executions by James P. Cannon, founder of the International Labor Defense, a forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, who led the international labor fight to save their lives taken from the American Communist Party’s Daily Worker of August 24, 1927. No comment I could make now could say it better.

I do note, however, that the Sacco-Vanzetti defense was plagued by, among other things, the same kind of political confusionism on the freedom/new trial issue that plagues current political death penalty cases today- witness Mumia Abu-Jamal's case. In political defense cases, particularly death penalty cases, militants support the use of every legal avenue to overturn a conviction while centrally depending on the masses for support in the streets and in meeting halls. Militants then (in the 1920's) correctly called for freedom for Sacco and Vanzetti (their convictions were, after all, prototypical frameups even under the norms of capitalist justice). Liberals and their reformist-minded socialist hangers-on called for new trials, commutations or pardons, etc. Basically this is a position that a simple miscarriage of justice had occurred in the case not that Sacco and Vanzetti had been framed-up. This writer says Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent- what the hell did they need a new trial for? As the Mumia case graphically illustrates-some things just never change.

DAILY WORKER August 24, 1927
The Murder of Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti are dead but their names will live forever and become a shining banner for the upward striving toilers of the world. They have been murdered by the assassins of the capitalist class. Their execution was a cynically brutal defiance of the world-wide demand of the millions of people that they be liberated or at least be given a new trial to prove again their innocence. It was a legal lynching, a fiendish act of class vengeance, cunningly prepared and planned and violently consummated by the willing tools of the capitalist class.

Sacco and Vanzetti died for the working class. Like their immortal comrades of Chicago's Haymarket they died as martyrs to the cause of labor. This was known or felt by tens of millions of workers in every corner of the globe who fought bitterly to the very last moment to vindicate the two martyred labor fighters. Their admirable loyalty and devotion to labor was the only crime they were guilty of; they were innocent of the crime charged against them by their executioners.

The last words of Vanzetti uttered a minute before the current of death silenced his voice were the echo of the deep convictions of the people:

"I wish to tell you that I am innocent and have never committed a crime, but perhaps some sins. I am innocent of all crimes, not only of this one but of all. I am an innocent man."

The Massachusetts executioners have put to death two glorious spirits. These two fighters, living for seven years in the shadow of the electric chair, unceasingly tortured by their suspension between delay and death, calmly watching the relentless net of the capitalist lynchers closing about them, showed by their heroic conduct how the revolutionary fighters of the working class can die at the hands of their class enemy.

The noble dignity and courage which sustained them throughout the seven years remained with them to the end. They went to death calmly and bravely without fear or embarrassment. It was their murderers, the governors and the judges who hid their faces in fear and shame.

Yes, their names will live forever, for the electric current that killed them has burned their names permanently into the hearts of the toilers of the world. Their miserable executioners will be buried in oblivion while the names and struggles of Sacco and Vanzetti still remain a shining guide to the masses, an inspiration to the oppressed everywhere.

They are our noble and heroic martyrs. Their conduct up to the very last moment was in that spirit. Their voices are stilled but their silence thunders around the world. The workers of America who fought to free Sacco and Vanzetti must pay tribute to their heroic memory in every section of the country. The workers must gather at memorial meetings to pledge themselves to keep alive the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti and their fight; to pour their hatred upon the heads of the murderers; to build their strength to prevent new Sacco-Vanzetti cases and to obtain freedom for the class fighters who are also victims of the frame-up and still in prison.

The International Labor Defense will continue its work for that cause in the spirit of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Honor and respect to our fallen comrades! Remember Sacco and Vanzetti! Remember labor's deathless martyrs!

*Sacco And Vanzetti- The Case That Will Not Die, Nor Should It

Click on title to link to Sacco and Vanzetti commemoration site.

Below is a repost of the Sacco and Vanzetti post for 2008. The main points of the book review still tell the tale well about the fate of these class-war prisoners.

Sacco and Vanzetti- Class War Prisoners in the Dock, Circa 1920

BOOK REVIEW

Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti on this the 82st Anniversary of their execution by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruce Watson, Viking, New York, 2007

I like to put each item about the Sacco and Vanzetti case that I review in historical context with this well-worn standard first paragraph of mine. It, I believe, holds up today as in the past- Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the book by Professor Bruce Watson under review here.

In the year 2008 one, like myself, who openly proclaims partisanship for the heroic memory of Sacco and Vanzetti when looking for a book to help instruct a new generation about the case is not after all this time afraid of a little partisanship by its author. One is also looking to see if, given advances in modern criminology and technology, those sources have presented any new information that would change the judgments of history. That is apparently not the case with Professor Watson’s book. It is rather another garden variety narrative of the events that have been covered elsewhere by partisans on either side of the divide on the question of the guilt or innocence of the pair. Nevertheless it is good to have an updated narrative so that the youth will know that the pressing issues around the case have not gone away.

Professor Watson has presented a good description of the events that led up to the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in a Dedham, Massachusetts court presided over by an old WASP figure, Judge Webster Thayer. He details the hard work lives of the two Italian immigrants, the problems with foreigners especially South Europeans like them trying to gain a toehold in America, the future troubles to be brought on by their anarchist beliefs and more damagingly their departure for Mexico in 1917 to avoid being drafted into the American army after its entry into World War I.

Professor Watson further links the personal trials and tribulation of Sacco and Vanzetti with the general political atmosphere after World War I with its wave of anarchist bombings, the victory of the Russian Revolution and the response of capitalist America with the Attorney-General Palmer-led “ Red Scare, Part I”. He further details the South Braintree payroll robbery that set in motion the events of the next seven years that would bring world-wide attention to the cause of the two beleaguered anarchists. He gives the factual events of the day of the robbery and double murders, the subsequent search for the robbers, the narrowing of the chase to these two who were found to be armed at a later date in a very different context and their arrest and indictments for murder.

Needless to say any narrative of the Sacco and Vanzetti case needs to pay close attention to the trial itself, the personalities of the players and the evidence. In the background one has to look at the state of the law, especially its procedural aspects, at that time concerning capital punishment and further the social climate against foreigners, specifically Italians here. Watson, more than most accounts, gives special emphasis to chief trial defense lawyer Fred Moore and his various maneuvers, intrigues and, frankly, mistakes.

Of course, the heart of the book is an account of the appeals both legal and political throughout the seven year period. That included various strategies from calls for gubernatorial clemency to mass strikes by labor so the whole litany of class struggle defense policies gets a workout in the case. Although Professor Watson does a creditable job of describing these efforts as far as he goes I object, on political grounds, to his short shrift of the work of the Communist International and its class defense organization the International Labor Defense in publicizing the case. Who do you think brought the masses of workers out world-wide? It was not those Brahmin ladies on Beacon Hill, well-intentioned or not. This is certainly a subject for further comment by any reader of these lines.

The other point that I object to is Watson’s agnostic approach to the question of the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti. At this far remove it is not necessary to be skittish about the question of their guilt or innocence in a legal sense. There is, obviously, not quite the sense of urgency of the call today for Mumia Abu Jamal’s freedom rather than retrial. However, although 80 years separate the two cases there is a steady tendency to limit justice in these cases to calls for retrial. However, in both cases the parties were innocent so the appropriate call would have been and is for freedom. This political ostrich act by Professor Watson, allegedly in the interest of being ‘objective’ and 'letting the new generation decide for itself', does a tremendous disservice to the memories of these class war fighters.

Nevertheless, this is a worthy book to use as a primer toward understanding the background to that long ago case. The end notes are helpful as is the bibliography for further research. Additionally, unlike Professor Watson’s excellent book Bread and Roses that I have previously reviewed in this space here he stays more closely with the subject and avoids bringing in every possible historical fact that might tangentially relate to the case. As always, until ultimate justice in done in the Sacco and Vanzetti case honor their memories today.

*Artist's Corner- Ben Shahn's "The Passion Of Sacco And Vanzetti"

Click on the headline to link to a viewing of artist Ben Shahn's The Passion Of Sacco And Vanzetti.

Markin comment:

As we commemorate the 83rd anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927 this comment is easy. Those, like artist Ben Shahn, who honor Sacco and Vanzetti are kindred spirits.

*On The Anniversary Of The Execution- The Trial Of Sacco And Vanzetti- The Case That Will Not Die, Nor Should It

Click on title to link to legal site for information about the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti- The case that will not die, nor should it.