*From The "SteveLendmanBlog" -The Latest On Lynne Stewart- Free Lynne Stewart -She Must Not Die In Prison

Click on the headline to link to the "SteveLendmanBlog" for an update entry on the case of Lynne Stewart, the New York "people's lawyer" sitting in jail for merely being a zealous advocate for her clients. A thing that she is suppose to do according to even the obscure bourgeois precepts of law.


I will merely repost here in April 2010 what I wrote in honor of Lynne Stewart for Women's History Month last month.

March Is Women's History Month.

Markin comment:

On a day when I am honoring the great revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg, the "Rose of the Revolution", it seems very, very appropriate to enter a post from the Lynn Stewart Defense Committee Website. Both women have worked the same side of the street- for the poor, for the working people, for women, for the downtrodden. I will repeat here what has become something of a constant refrain-and will continue so until Lynn Stewart and her co-workers are free. Lynn Stewart must not die in jail!

*The Latest From The "Trade Unionist And Socialist Coalition (Britain)" Website- As The British Elections Draw Near

Click on the headline to link to the " Trade Unionist And Socialist Coalition" Website for an update on the pre-election situation in Britain.

Markin comment:

I know this following comment will have more than one New Labor so-called socialist advocate squirming in his or her seat but the beginning of wisdom is a NO vote for New Labor. One can no longer, as a socialist of any stripe, hide behind Vladimir Lenin's old slogan back in the days- Support Labor like a rope supports a dying man- No pull the trap.

*The Latest From The Anti-War Movement in the "Belly Of The Beast"- The Fort Drum- "Different Drummer Internet Cafe" Website

Click on the headline to line to latest from the anti-war movement in the "Belly Of The Beast"- The Fort Drum "Different Drummer Internet Cafe" Website.

Markin comment:

When soldiers turn against the war, haltingly at first, half-fearfully at first, half-shamefacedly at first, then you know when you reach enough of them that that war's days are numbered. Our problem right now is to get that "enough of them". But when we do... watch out!

*UJP's Protest Of President Obama's Afghan War Policy In Boston On April 1st-Troops Out Now

Click on the headline to link to the "United For Justice With Peace" Website for a posting on their anti-Afghan war demonstration against President Barack Obama when he came to Boston in order to raise funds for the Democratic National Committee.


Markin comment:

The stars are not in alignment these days. At least not in alignment in our favor, for those of us who have opposed President Obama, his governance of the American imperial state and , particularly, his Iraq and Afghan war policies from the left. No question that Obama is riding “high” after a few well-published victories for his domestic policies (the truly ugly and poorly thought-out, even by bourgeois standards, health care package that just passed Congress) and an appearance of doing something in foreign policy by taking a “red-eye express” flight to Afghanistan to lay down the law to the “Mayor of Kabul”, the current squirming American puppet, Karzai.

In light of that flourish Obama has deemed it safe to run around the country raising huge sums of cash for his political party. Part of that effort brought him to Boston on April 1st. (No sophomoric jokes necessary here. Moreover, in Obama we are not dealing with a fool like the last guy, uh, Bush, who ran the ship of imperial state into the ground but rather a very capable agent of that state.) In response the local chapter of the United For Justice With Peace Coalition (UJP) sponsored a protest centered on Afghanistan to greet him. And that is the reason that I say for us today that the stars are not aligned.

No question that Obama, for a myriad of reasons, has gotten a free pass, except for the crazies on the right and their front, “The Tea Party Express”, from the general populace. More importantly, he has gotten a free pass on the Afghan question and not just from the general populace but, apparently for now, a fair share of the left. At least, that part of the left that we are interested in making anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist fighters. I offer the response to the UJP demonstration call and who came to the protest as prima facie evidence for that comment.

As the linked post above graphically demonstrates few people (about 100) showed up and those who did had, frankly, a “more in sorrow than anger” perspective in confronting the Democratic Party bigwigs who showed up to rub shoulders with their President. The core of the protest was led by Raging Grannies and Code Pink activists. Now, before I am tarred and feathered, and rightly so for making sport of the efforts of my fellow AARPers and their allies to “bring the war home” let me say that I have worked, of necessity, with these kind of groups all my political life. And where we can agree on an issue, like Afghanistan withdrawal, if not the strategy to accomplish that, I am more that willing to “united front” with them. My point here is rather why, in 2010, are raging grannies, raging mid-life protesters, raging pacifists of all ages standing almost alone along side the remnants of the anti-imperialist left that was so vociferous earlier in the decade. This local configuration reflects the same phenomena that was witnessed in the Washington March 20th anti-war demonstration.

Something is indeed out of alignment when grey hair, grey beards, granny shoes (for real), granny glasses and all the other impedimenta of old age greatly outnumber the single idealist young student, the young working class parents worried about the future of the planet for their kids, and blacks and other minorities who have been beaten down, and beaten down hard in this decade. With no relief in sight. Obviously we continue to organize as best we can but I believe, at least I believe today, that all this “apathy” in the face of serious social destruction here, and internationally, among the young cannot be simply reduced to changes in lifestyle, changing technology, and changes in the way that youth connect socially. I mentioned at one time in a earlier post that I thought, as a rule, the youth that I run into today have no grand dreams, no grand schemes like those that drove my generation in our youth, but try to get by day to day as best they can. I also mentioned that I was perfectly willing to be corrected on that score. And I still am. But in the meantime- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq And Afghanistan!

*The Latest From The "Black Is Back Coalition" Website- A Haiti Rally

Click on the title to link to the latest from the "Black Is Back Coalition" Website- A Haiti Rally

*The Latest From The "HistoMat" Blog- It Time For Class War In England (And America)

Click on the headline to link to a "HistoMat" blog entry on the need to talk "Bolshevik" to the bosses in...England. Hell, here in America as well.

Markin comment:

The writer of the "HistoMat" blog must be reading my mind. I have been thinking and writing about just this subject very recently. In fact check later today for a comment on the Afghan/Iraq anti-war struggle (or lack of it) in the United States that makes the same general point. Thanks, "HistoMat".

*From "The Rag Blog"- Haiti Looking More Like A War Zone- A Guest Commentary

Click on the headline to link to a "The Rag Blog" etry concerning the latest from devastated Haiti.

Markin comment:

On this entry a picture speaks one thousand, no one million, words.

*The Latest From Anti-War Movement In The "Belly Of The Beast"- The Fort Lewis "GI Voice" Website

Click on the headline to line to latest from the anti-war movement in the "Belly Of The Beast"- The Fort Lewis "GI Voice" Website.

Markin comment:

When soldiers turn against the war, haltingly at first, half-fearfully at first, half-shamefacedly at first, then you know when you reach enough of them the war's days are numbered. Our problem right now is to get that "enough of them". But when we do... watch out!

*From The "SteveLendmanBlog"-Indoctrinating Israeli Youths to be Warriors -A Guest Commentary

Click on the headline to link to the "SteveLendmanBlog" entry noted in the headline above.

Markin comment:

I am, as I have mentioned before, always happy to link to this blog, especially when the subject is the intractable Palestinian situation, and the ever-expanding, provocative Israeli settlements. Every time that I even think about this situation it is clear that nothing short of socialism, and all that means about the changes in political consciousness on every side that would put that solution on the agenda in this situation, will settle this thing. But let us be clear, today the obligation of every leftist militant is encapsulated in this slogan- "Defend the Palestinian People"- and I would, add, the best way we can. More on this later.

*The Latest From The "An Unrepentant Communist" Blog- The Action in Greece

Click on the headline to link to the "Unrepentant Communist" blog entry for an update on the situationof one old time anti-fascist militant in Greece during th erecent anti-governmental struggles there.

Markin comment:

We had best preserve, and do so quickly, the words, thoughts and comments of heroic old time World War II anti-fascist fighters like Manolis Glezos while they are still alive, whether they fought under the Stalinist banner or ours. In that struggle Stalinist militants like Glezos were our people, even if they were not "our people". I am making some effects to touch base these days with the remnants of the American Abraham Lincoln Batallion of the 15th International Brigade who fought in the Spanish Civil War with that same intention, and there are precious fewer of those "pre-mature" anti-fascists left.

***Books To While Away The Class Struggle By-From The Pages Of "Dissent"- An Irving Howe Literary Criticism Primer

Click on the headline to link to a 'Wikipedia" entry for "Dissent" magazine, a journal that Irving Howe, the social-democratic literary critic was instrumental in producing from the 1950s on until his death.


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

Book Review

Irving Howe: Selected Writings 1950-1990, Irving Howe, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1990

A couple of years ago, as part of a series of some youthful recollections triggered by a fellow high school classmate who was looking for a far different type response, more banal and routine family stuff mainly, I dragged out memories of my first associations with the name Irving Howe and his New York-based journal, “Dissent”, that I frequently read at the local branch of the library. The points there can rightly serve as background of Howe’s selected writings, mainly from “Dissent”, under review here:


“In two recent commentaries I have done my fair share of kicking Professor Irving Howe, the late social democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around. And I am not finished by any means. (See "The Retreat of the “Greatest Generation” Intellectuals" and "Who ‘Lost’ the Sixties?" in the May 2008 archives) But today, as this is as is oft-quoted a confessional age, I have a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about my connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it takes to write this commentary up I will call an armed truce with the shades of the professor.

Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent". The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read latter left me cold but there you have it.

Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro". I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his Howe biography notes that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.

The funny thing about reading "Dissent", at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was suppose to be an independent 'socialist' magazine. Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water.


Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Trotskyist world view. As I noted last year I have been a Marxist since 1972. But after some 150 years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. This year marks my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution", a section called "On Dual Power". I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars- the truce is over.”

That said, it is again time to call a truce, or at least a momentary “ceasefire” as I briefly mention how good Professor Howe can be when he is away from the class struggle and deep in reflection on his specialty, American literary traditions, important Western canon authors and even, occasionally, a gem about the trials and tribulations of past history of the generic socialist movement in America.

This selection includes provocative essays on the benighted William Faulkner; the heroic Soviet writer, Isaac Babel; unkindly digs at the reputation of Theodore Dreiser; the then unjustifiably much neglected Sholom Aleichem; a very justifiably angry Richard Wright, a quirky view of George Eliot; and, Jewish characters in Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist”. Not bad, right?

And then, less successfully, some more generic essays about his crowd, the malaise of, mainly Jewish, New York intellectuals of the 1950s. Also an objectivist apologia for the failure of socialist ideas to take roots in the mainstream of American political life thus retrospectively (and prospectively as well) absolving himself, and his crowd, from a share of the responsibility for its then current failure by “farming” out the task to the American imperial state, the "State Department socialism' that is still with us. I guess with that last phase the "ceasefire" is over. But read this book if you want to know what high-grade literary criticism was like before the zany deconstructionists held sway.

*What's Up With The Leninist Vanguard Party Concept?- A Discussion Note

Click on the headline to link to the "Lenin Internet Archive" online copy of Lenin's famous, "What Is To Be Done?: Burning Issues Of Our Movement" that will give the entry below some perspective.

Markin comment;

Recently I have mentioned in a number of entries that I have worked in the past with, and now work with, a loose "circle" of local anti-war militants who have decided on a three point program to fight Obama’s war policies over the coming year, highlighted by the struggle to create anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees.
I have also recently placed a number of pieces of historical interest around the World War I anti-imperialist, anti-war work done by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party that he led at the time. A comparison of the differences between the two types of political work as portrayed in my entries, and as was pointed out to me most graphically by a local political opponent who is a supporter of an organization that claims a Leninist organizational heritage, seems to be contradictory. Add in the factor that this blog, in many ways, does not have much meaning or reason for existence except as a vehicle to learn the lessons that Lenin and Trotsky drew about revolutionary politics, and organization, and the contradiction seems even greater.

That said, what is the great to-do about? Just this. The core of Leninist politics has historically evolved around intransigent opposition to non-revolutionary strategic considerations in the struggle for our communist future AND the notion of a vanguard working class party as the vehicle to take power on the road to that future. The organizational form that that party form has taken, for those who today may not be familiar with what in the past was a serious difference of political perspectives, was that this organization would be staffed by, in short, professional revolutionaries and held together by democratic-centralist discipline. That form of discipline, when in right working order allowed for pretty free-wheeling discussion internally between comrades but once a decision was made, right or wrong, in public the party would operate under that majority line. The other, traditional social-democratic form called for a party of the whole class, warts and all, and a basic cavalier attitude toward carrying out the party line, except when you crossed swords with the party bureaucracy. Trotsky had many early disagreements with Lenin over this dispute but, for our purposes here, once he was won over to Lenin’s organizational perspective he held to that view until his assassination by a Stalinist agent in 1940.

That is, in a nutshell, the outline of the historic argument. How does that fit in with the work of a man, this writer, who claims to stand in the Leninist tradition today yet who works in a “circle”, a devise that in Russian revolutionary history was discarded by almost all serious revolutionaries in the late 19th century as inadequate to the tasks at hand for the upcoming revolution that everyone saw as necessary, and was coming in due course? Well, a history of the “circle” is in order. The core of this group, including this writer, came together in the fall of 2001 in response to the threat of then President George W. Bush’s to blow Afghanistan to smithereens in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.

I have mentioned, I think, in previous entries that there have been quite a few times in my long “street” political career that I have faced all sorts of dangerous situations and that I was very seldom fearful for my person. In those post-Trade Center days being out on the streets in opposition to that Afghan war I was afraid, more often than not. Not from the right wing crazies; that comes with the territory of left wing politics. Nor from the police who see these things all in day’s work whether they get to beat heads or not. Nor, as in past experiences, from some bizarre Stalinist or anarchoid left political "thugs". No this fear stemmed from the reaction of the average placid fellow citizen who was ready to take my scalp and made me realize that while I might have American citizenship I was not an American to them. What got me, and us, through those days was the internal discipline and camaraderie of the "circle". That, my friends, was a baptism of fire that you do not walk way from easily, not should you, all other things being equal.

And what of the political composition of the circle? Well, it was, and is, all over the place from semi-pacifist to ostensibly Leninist, with some quasi-anarchism thrown in for good measure, but the core that has held it together, other than that extreme sense of camaraderie mentioned above, is an anti-American imperialist ethos. A need to see the American “monster” held in check, tamped down. The current “three whales” program is a codification of that- opposition to American military adventures as they pop up; a need to break with the old politics and create a workers party that fights for a workers government; and, as the most overt expression of that need to “tamp down” the “monster”, those anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees. That we agree on.

I also wrote in a recent blog that there was internal controversy over the question of putting energies into building the then called-for spring anti-war rallies in Washington, D.C. on March 20th. We are thus emphatically not a democratic- centralism organization. I would, since I have to write about it here, characterize it as an on-going rolling “united front”. Others may, given my description, call it a propaganda bloc. Not Leninist, in any case. Yet, until I see something on the horizon that is more attractive and more coherent that the myriad other "circles", leagues, groups, tendencies, committees and "parties" I am perfectly comfortable with this formation. Lenin may turn over in his mausoleum but that is the case right now

*The Latest From The "Belly Of The Beast"- The Fort Hood "Under The Hood" Website

Click on the headline to link to the latest from the "Belly Of The Beast"- The Fort Hood "Under The Hood" Website.


Markin comment:

When soldiers turn against the war, haltingly at first, half-fearfully at first, half-shamefacedly at first, then you know when you reach enough of them the war's days are numbered. Our problem right now is to get that "enough of them". But when we do... watch out!

*The Latest From The "Black Agenda Report" Website- Black Is Back,I Hope

Click on the headline to link to the latest from the "Black Agenda Report" Website.

Markin comment:

The headline says it all on this one-Black Is Back, I Hope.

*On Coming Of Political Age In The 1960s - A Personal View

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the 1968 Democratic Party nominating convention in Chicago, a seminal event in increasing the leftist political consciousness for many in that generation, including this writer.

Over the past several years I have spent some time, sometimes an inordinate amount of time, thinking through and writing about the course of my political evolution. Hardly a unique pursuit among professional politicians or wannabes of all stripes, except that in America that political evolution is somewhat freakish, if not bizarre. In the land of hard, bitter-hard, at times irrationally and over the top hard, anti-communism, of a frosty post- World War II Cold War that had many believing, including those in my own household, that next week the bomb, some bomb, was coming, FOB, and that there would be no tomorrow or worst yet believing it was better to be “dead that red” my trajectory, circuitous as it was, was leading toward a life time devotion to the ideals of that self-same hated communism. I have filled up many a post with one or another detail of that experience. I have been asked to write it up in some kind of memoir form so the kids now and in the future will know what it was all about, and have rejected the idea. Nevertheless, I have not regrets, no regrets at all, about my choice. Except that we should have won, and we still need to. Let me tell you some more of my story, at least the story of my political coming of age.

How does one really know, except by reflection and certain introspection long, long after the event, when one comes of political age? If anybody really cares about asking such a question. But after a life time of political activity I have a gut instinct that more people than you might think have both thought about the question and have come to a decision about it. And frankly, many have made the decision to avoid politics at all costs and to not touch it with that proverbial ten-foot pole. Alas, that was not my fate. I was the guy pulling to get his greedy little hands on the pole.

There are little signposts along the way, some meaningful some not, like my over-weaning interest in political news in 1956 when I was excited by the Adlai Stevenson for President campaign and was crestfallen when he lost. That, however, was a mere episodic thing, and in fact I was more than happy to be selected by my teacher to write, in magic marker “Eisenhower Wins” on the daily bulletin that we kept up with in the hall next to our elementary school classroom. Hell, maybe I was just sucking up to the teacher, who I may, or may not, have had a crush on. Or maybe wondering what it was that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg did that was so bad. Or why Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was saying that there were “reds under every bed” in the Army. But this was all just passing noise to a growing boy’s real interest- how to get girls to like you. I swear half the political things I was interested in really came out of an attempt to appear sophisticated to the neighborhood girls. Why else would a young boy pore over a punishment paper for some infraction on democracy and what it means and insist, no demand, that he read it in front of the class. But again this is not really anything but a scatter-shot build-up to coming of age, politically.

Let's, maybe, take it from a difference perspective and see if it makes more sense. Having grown up in a dirt- poor working class family and living in those early days of the post- World War II “American Century” which promised unheard of prosperity after the trials and tribulations of the 1930s Great Depression and the World War II fight certainly made a deep impression on me. Living in an almost exclusively working poor/lumpen environment with all of its adverse pathologies, however, also can give one a much distorted world view. As I pointed out in a commentary last year it was a very long time before I knew that there was anything other than being poor, although I sensed it on the few occasions that I came up against middle class and rich kids. So early on I knew that there was an us, and them. And I definitely was with us-whatever that meant. But does that lead to political consciousness much less class consciousness? Given our few numbers today among those of my generation I think not. That is as much a prescription for lumpen criminal activity against the nearest and most vulnerable targets as of a desire to serve humankind.

So that is predicate-but how does that take us from what, in most cases, is a turning inward away from society rather than defiantly fighting the "monsters". That, my friends is not a simple story and do not believe those who give too quick an answer to how they developed their world views. It is a mix of impressions, understandings, misunderstandings and turning points. Hell, some of it is just happenstance, or at least it seems that way. How explain that in the heart of the Joe McCarthy-led “red scare” that I did not hate communists. I definitely did not, like others I knew, want to turn anyone I suspected of such views in to the government. In fact a quick run through of my political trajectory that I have made people laugh over is that when told that someone was a communist (meaning American Communist Party supporter) I said, in my best “family of the left” voice- "so what, that is one more for our side." When I finally did move left and was actively searching for those same communists to unite with I could only find them deep inside the Democratic Party. And when I seriously took up a Marxist worldview I dreaded running into them.

But enough of that. What do you make of this- In 1960 I distinctly remembered rooting for the Soviet Union to win more gold medals than the United States at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Or, being in a frenzy to get a copy of the “Communist Manifesto”, although for fairly long time as a political opponent of that world view. (Which I got by sending away to the Government Printing Office. The reason they offered it was that it was part of the ‘evidence’ from the famous 1960 San Francisco sessions of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that were also were demonstrated against as one of the first acts of the 1960s rebellion in the North or West.) Or being non-plussed when a high school history teacher called me a “Bolshevik” (I really wasn’t… then) for some minor disobedience. Those are all well and good examples but let’s leave it at this. All of this was the stuff that made up, helter-skelter, the development of my political class consciousness. I like to think that all of it was natural for a working class kid. Hey, a theory that says labor must rule should be like moth to a flame for such a kid. I have never regretted sticking with my class. And I never have regretted my “softness” for the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. And to 'prove' it let me finish strong- Forward to new Octobers

*The Latest From BAAM-The April 2010 Edition Of The Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement Newsletter #32

Click on the headline to link to the latest BAAM Newsletter.


Markin comment:

As always, I disclaim any political kinship with this newsletter. However, I have many times found interesting articles there. This issue has a good article on the struggle in Greece. And, in any case, it is always good to see what the younger anarchist militants are up to.

*The Latest From The "Veterans And Service Members Against The War" Website

Click on the headline to link to the latest from the "Veterans And Service Members Against The War" Website.

Markin comment:

When soldiers turn against the war, haltingly at first, half-fearfully at first, half-shamefacedly at first, then you know when you reach enough of them the war's days are numbered. Our problem right now is to get that "enough of them". But when we do... watch out!

*The Latest From The "Daily Kos" Website- Know Thy Enemy

Click on the title to link to the "Daily Kos" home page. This site is valuable, mainly, to get the polls and other technical information that major American bourgeois party politics thrives on.

Markin comment:

This site is for bourgeois techno-politicos. At one time I would have stayed up all night to read this stuff. Fortunately, serious politics by Marx, Lenin and Trotsky saved my young hide. Still, "know thy enemy" (and what he or she is up to) is a good political policy, no matter the times.

*Books To While Away The Class Struggle By-James T. Farrell’s “Studs Lonigan”- When A Man’s Grasp Does Not Exceed His Reach

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Irish- American writer, James T. Farrell.

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

Book Review

Judgment Day, James T. Farrell, Random House, New York, 1935

Over the past several years, as part of re-evaluating the effect of my half-Irish diaspora heritage (on my mother’s side) on the development of my leftist political consciousness I have read, and in some cases re-read, some of the major works of the Irish American experience. Of course, any such reading list includes tales from the pen of William Kennedy and his Albany sagas, most famously “Ironweed”. And, naturally, as well the tales of that displaced Irishman, the recently departed Frank McCourt and his “Angela’s Ashes”, a story that is so close to the bone of my own “shanty” Irish diaspora upbringing that we are forever kindred spirits. That said, here to my mind is the “max daddy” of all the American disapora storytellers, James T. Farrell, and his now rightly famous trilogy, “Studs Lonigan” (hereafter, “Studs”).

And in his storytelling of his people, the Chicago Irish, Farrell does not let us down. “Studs” is only marginally concerned with political issues, and then only of the bourgeois kind rampant amount the Irish in the early part of the 20th century when they were taking over local politics in a number of cities from their WASP guardians. However, he has hit so many “hot buttons” about “lace curtain” Irish sensibilities and the struggle against “shanty” Irishness that he, Kennedy, and McCourt could have easily compared notes for their respective works.

In the old suburban Boston Irish neighborhood where I grew up there were four basic male figures who dominated the local life: stage Irish in popular culture, if you will, but present nevertheless-the beat cop, the local gangster, the on-the-make politician, and the parish priest. We kids, at least, treated them all the same and with a certain cynicism, maybe a less so for the priest, depending on your age and the gravity of the sins that you carried around. Beyond those figures were the rest of us, trying to get by the day as best we could. Studs Lonigan is one of us, although, perhaps a little more full of himself than we were.

As we come to this third book of the trilogy with the advent of “Studs'” maturity, complete with the pressing adult problems with which we are all familiar; job security, money, women, marriage, and so on. With his demise, after what seems to have been a too short life one can say with certainty that he was a classic underachiever, except perhaps, in his day dreams. This type we too know from the old neighborhood, a little too closely for comfort at times. The old neighborhood was always filled with half-wise, “street smart” guys who spend more time dreaming of the "angles" than doing. However, it took James T. Farrell to fill in the blanks of that kind of life for his generation, and for ours as well. That is what makes these three books, an over one thousand page march, great literature.

*Books To While Away The Class Struggle By-James T. Farrell’s “Studs Lonigan”-Ain’t Got Not Time For The Corner Boys

Click on the headline to link to the "Literary Encyclopedia" entry for Irish-the American writer, James T.Farrell.

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

Book Review


The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, James T. Farrell, Random House, New York, 1934

Over the past several years, as part of re-evaluating the effect of my half-Irish diaspora heritage (on my mother's side) on the development of my leftist political consciousness I have read, and in some cases re-read, some of the major works of the Irish American experience. Of course, any such reading list includes tales from the pen of William Kennedy and his Albany sagas, most famously "Ironweed". And, naturally, as well the tales of that displaced Irishman, the recently departed Frank McCourt and his "Angela's Ashes", a story that is so close to the bone of my own "shanty" Irish diaspora upbringing that we are forever kindred spirits. That said, here to my mind is the "max daddy" of all the American disapora storytellers, James T. Farrell, and his now rightly famous trilogy, "Studs Lonigan" (hereafter, "Studs").

And in his storytelling of his people, the Chicago Irish, Farrell does not let us down. "Studs" is only marginally concerned with political issues, and then only of the bourgeois kind rampant amount the Irish in the early part of the 20th century when they were taking over local politics in a number of cities from their WASP guardians. However, he has hit so many "hot buttons" about "lace curtain" Irish sensibilities and the struggle against "shanty" Irishness that he, Kennedy, and McCourt could have easily compared notes for their respective works.

The story line for this second book of the trilogy is reflected in the headline to this entry, at least ironically. In the first book we leave our daydreaming, wise guy- affecting, just-hanging out with the guys "Studs" in his late teen years in the 1920s, a time when he is trying to figure out life's short-cut angles but, mainly, has, in fact, plenty of time for the corner boys. He works a little for old man Lonigan as a painter but, for the most part, he hangs around pool halls, speakeasies, and cat houses. Oh Studs dreams alright, or rather day dreams about being a great athlete, a war hero, a ladies' man, and the like but does not take step one to do anything about it. By the end of this second book it is clear that the struggle between his gentile "lace curtain" home life and his "shanty" ways that surfaced in the first book ("Young Lonigan") has tilted decisively toward the latter. "Studs" has, moreover, settled in as primarily a man of the neighborhood, the Irish neighborhood as it shifts in place in Southside Chicago with the migration of blacks, the hated 'n----rs', that appear as the main enemy to the narrow world view of the inhabitants of the Irish diaspora way of life then, and now. We'll pick up the story in the third book and see which ethos, in the end, wins the battle.

Note: Toward the end of the second book "Studs" and his cohorts attend a Catholic Church-sponsored mission. For those who have been through that process I need give no explanation but for those who have not this mission idea is to give one an extra chance to gain grace by attending meetings, ceremonies and the like over several days, usually conducted by an itinerant priest. Here the character is named Father Shannon and Farrell goes into great detail about the subject matter of his sermon at one night's session. That sermon exemplifies everything that the Roman Catholic Church stood for, and mainly still stands for: anti-abortion, anti-premarital sex; anti-marrying outside the religion; anti-raising the children outside of the religion; the necessity of avoiding about seven hundred sins, large and small; also alcohol, pool halls, rough talk, etc. Just about everything that "Studs" stands for in his young life. My point in making this note, however, is this: this sermon could have been delivered, and maybe was delivered, by some itinerant priest when I was young and went to such missions in the 1950s. Hey, they must go to school for that, right? If you can stand it, that sermon section alone is reason enough to read this book.