Click on the headline to link to the Workers Vanguard website for an online copy of Part Two of this article
Markin comment:
Maybe one hundred years or so ago one could have rationally assumed that the Earth would survive with some kind of hodge-podge, off-handed, afterthought economic and social planning among the major imperialist capitalist powers and those actions would, more or less, lift all boats. World War I definitively put an end to that notion. And should have put an end to the notion (and the capitalist system that supports it) that the Earth could survive; survive well and fruitfully, without international centralized planning through workers democracy.
But, alas, we are almost back to square one and the current intense question of climate change is only the most pressing question of the day that requires international centralized planning. I could add about fifty other issues that require that same kind of attention from agriculture production to international labor standards. But to get anyway with those pressing issues we need parties committed to centralized planning. More importantly, we need parties that fight for workers governments who will take power and implement that planning principle. And no, it is not some Green party, spare us that, please. In any case read this article in order to see one more reason why we have to fight, and fight like hell, for our common communist future right now.
*****
Workers Vanguard No. 965
24 September 2010
Production for Profit: Anarchy and Plunder
Capitalism and Global Warming
For Socialist Revolution!
For an Internationally Planned Economy!
Part One
The Earth as a whole is without question heating up. According to figures released in July by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, global land and ocean surface temperatures in June were the highest since monitoring began in 1880—the 304th consecutive month above the 20th-century average—while Arctic sea ice melted at a record-breaking pace. Undoubtedly, the heat can be attributed in good part to periodic and natural changes in ocean temperatures and surface air pressure. But there is some other factor at work behind the overall warming trend. A vast majority of climate scientists worldwide, including not only the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but the national scientific academies of the U.S. and most other countries, identifies that factor as anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gases.
In league with liberal environmentalists, reformist groups like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) have seized on “climate change” to beg the major capitalist powers to join hands in cutting back heat-trapping gases—a goal that significant sections of the ruling capitalist classes have laid claim to. Thus the ISO, Greenpeace et al. put great stock in the climate talks that took place last December in Copenhagen under the sponsorship of the UN, which is, simply, a den of imperialist thieves and their victims.
A new “international climate justice movement” was proclaimed after tens of thousands flocked to the Danish capital, in the main to demand that the world powers agree to curb greenhouse gas emissions and give financial support to Third World countries. The protests included a 100,000-strong demonstration in the middle of the two-week summit, during which heavily armed police squads arrested some 1,000 people. Soon after, thousands of observer delegates, including from such mainstream groups as Greenpeace, were locked out of the conference on its final days.
What some had dubbed “Hopenhagen” ended without reaching its stated goals of renewing the emissions-reduction commitments made by industrialized countries that signed on to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (which the U.S. never ratified) and setting emissions targets for all other countries. This was a predictable outcome. For one thing, the world’s capitalist classes are divided internally over this issue. More fundamentally, each capitalist government is charged with protecting its own “national interests.” The handful of imperialist countries that dominate the world market are in competition with each other for spheres of exploitation around the world, and have already carried out two devastating world wars in their insatiable drive for profit.
Significant emissions shifts would almost certainly mean substantial economic costs, which few capitalist governments want to incur, especially in the face of a global economic slowdown. The main human activity contributing to the release of heat-trapping gases is also the main activity turning the wheels of the modern economy: the combustion of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal. Given the importance of cheap energy sources, imperialist competition for fossil fuels, especially oil, has played a part in sparking numerous military conflagrations in the last century. Countries with a hand on the oil spigot or access to ample coal reserves have a vested material interest in maintaining the status quo.
The example of the United States, the world’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases, is illustrative. Giant American companies like ExxonMobil are central to the global oil cartel, while the core European Union (EU) powers of Germany and France cannot make the same claim. Hence an increase in the world market price of oil not only enriches a dominant sector of corporate America but also increases the energy costs of rival French and German capitalists. For years, the U.S. clashed with the EU over carrying out the Kyoto Protocol, because the nominal emissions caps included in the accord would have affected the U.S. most directly.
Whatever their differences with each other, the imperialists, led by the U.S., have joined together in recent climate talks to pressure China, a bureaucratically deformed workers state, largely in order to throttle its growing industrial strength. After winning EU backing to shift the burden of emissions-reduction agreements onto the more backward countries, the U.S. refused to support any deal at Copenhagen that did not include stringent monitoring of China’s emissions. Behind such maneuvers lies the imperialists’ strategic goal of smashing the Chinese workers state and once again subjecting the country to untrammeled capitalist exploitation. Against the environmentalists and fake socialists who join in the China-bashing, we stand for the unconditional military defense of China against imperialism and capitalist counterrevolution.
For Marxists, addressing the human-derived aspect of global warming is fundamentally not a technical but a social problem. Marxism is opposed to environmentalist ideology, which accepts the inviolability of capitalist class rule, in which production is profit-driven and society’s wealth is monopolized by a tiny bourgeois ruling class. We fight for a society that will provide more, not less, for the working people and the impoverished masses of the world. Our goal is to eliminate material scarcity and qualitatively advance the living standards of all. To this end, we fight for socialist revolutions in the capitalist countries to expropriate the bourgeoisie and for proletarian political revolutions in China and the other bureaucratically deformed workers states, laying the basis for the construction of a planned, collectivized world economy. With production liberated from the profit motive, humans’ creative powers will be unleashed to build a society in which poverty, malnutrition, inequality and oppression are things of the past.
When the workers of the world rule, energy will be generated and used in the most rational, efficient and safe manner possible, including by developing new energy sources. We do not rule out in advance the use of fossil fuels or any other energy source—nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind, etc. Simply to promote modernization and all-round development in the Third World, where today billions are locked in desperate poverty, would almost certainly involve far greater energy production on a global scale.
It is futile to attempt to deal with climate-related problems within the boundaries of the anarchic, nationally based capitalist system. The climate is the outcome of interactions among the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice sheets, living organisms and the soils, sediments and rocks, which all affect, to a greater or lesser extent, the movement of heat around the surface of the Earth. The best prospect for positively influencing something as dynamic, large and complex as the climate system is to undertake coordinated global action based on the latest science and technology.
With the world economy reorganized on a socialist basis, a plan on a scale unimaginable under capitalism for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the impacts of warming could be worked out and implemented. If necessary, a concerted effort could be undertaken to retool entire industries and transform their operations, whether in energy production and distribution, transportation, construction, manufacturing or agriculture.
Crucially, increasing abundance also will eliminate the material factors—and backward social values, such as those expounded by religions—that fuel population growth. As we will develop in Part Two of this article, a socialist reorganization of society would lay the basis for a prolonged, mild population shrinkage, helping to ensure that there are enough resources for the well-being of all.
Climate Science and Global Warming
The climate of the Earth naturally undergoes constant change, driven by periodic shifts in the Earth’s orbital motions and axial tilt as well as variations in sunlight intensity and volcanic activity. Analysis of ice and ocean sediment cores has shown periods of prolonged ice ages and interglacial periods over the past few million years. The interglacials include times when the world was warmer than today and cold-intolerant reptiles lived above the Arctic Circle. The geological record indicates that the transition from the last ice age, which peaked 20,000 years ago, to the warmth of today was no gentle change but rather the wildest of roller-coaster rides. The beginning and end of some climate spikes took place over mere decades.
Outside of the “climate skeptics” (including those in the pay of Big Oil), it is widely accepted that human activities are also influencing the climate. The 2007 report of the IPCC, arguably the world’s most authoritative climate body, concludes: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.” The report adds: “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations.” Written and reviewed by thousands of scientists worldwide, this report draws on the latest scientific and technical data and represents a broad consensus within the scientific community.
“Anthropogenic greenhouse gases” impact the climate by enhancing what is called by inaccurate analogy the atmospheric “greenhouse effect.” As mathematical physicist Jean Baptiste Fourier first described in the 1820s, energy in the form of light from the sun mostly passes through the atmosphere to reach the surface of the Earth and heats it, but heat cannot so easily escape back into space. The air absorbs a significant fraction of the total infrared radiation (what Fourier called “dark heat”) emitted by the Earth, and some of this thermal energy is radiated back down to the surface, helping it to stay warm. The surface of an Earth-like planet with no atmosphere would be on average roughly 59°F (33°C) colder than the Earth actually is, and the contrast in temperature between night and day and between summer and winter would be very large, as suggested by the case of the Moon.
However, not all gases in the atmosphere are equal in keeping the Earth warm. The most abundant atmospheric constituents, diatomic nitrogen and oxygen, are almost transparent to infrared radiation, which is strongly absorbed by molecules of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Outside of water vapor, carbon dioxide is the most abundant of these “greenhouse gases,” presently constituting about 390 parts per million (ppm) by volume and amounting to a total mass of roughly 3,000 metric gigatons (three trillion tons). This concentration has risen significantly in a relatively short time from a level of 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution, as determined by ice-core measurements. Carbon dioxide is presently accumulating at a rate of over two ppm per year.
Humans through a variety of activities contribute significantly to the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases. Burning fossil fuels and wood releases carbon dioxide; livestock, oil production and coal mining add methane; agricultural processes and the production of nitric acid contribute nitrous oxide. Other practices, such as logging, also play a role because forests absorb carbon dioxide from the air and store it. But the spotlight has fallen on fossil fuel combustion, which accounts for the vast majority of carbon dioxide emitted annually through human activity. While the oceans, topsoil and land vegetation absorb about half of these emissions, the rest accumulate in the atmosphere, where they are available to strengthen the greenhouse effect.
The possible consequences of global warming evoked by a number of scientists are extremely serious. But the workings of the climate system are still only partly understood, so nobody can say that any projection is certain to happen. There is a chance that the impact of human-induced warming will not be as bad as predicted by the IPCC and others, but there also is a chance that the outcome will be worse. The range of possibilities finds its reflection in the scientific community, with a small minority criticizing the 2007 IPCC report as overstated and others disapproving of its “conservatism.”
The report predicts rising sea levels and coastal flooding as the result of melting polar ice sheets and thermal expansion of the oceans. It projects climate shifts that would cause populated areas to become arid or inundated and would bring about the extinction of many marine and terrestrial species. Already the number of “very dry areas” on the planet has more than doubled since the 1970s to about 30 percent of the total landmass. Reduction of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets similar to past interglacial reductions would cause the sea level to rise ten or more meters, enough to submerge dozens of great world cities, from New York to Shanghai.
Significant warming over decades could also trigger mechanisms that would qualitatively alter the climate. The complete thawing of the Arctic permafrost could unlock gigatons of stored carbon, most of it in the form of methane, a significantly more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. An even more remote but far-reaching possibility would be the release of the colossal amounts of methane now enclosed in water-ice crystals (structures known as clathrates) found in the depths of the Arctic and other oceans.
Paradoxically, the warming of the atmosphere might also plunge much of the Northern Hemisphere into a deep freeze. If a sufficient flow of freshwater from melting ice were dumped into the North Atlantic, the vast ocean conveyor known as the Gulf Stream would collapse. Originating in the Gulf of Mexico, this powerful current drags warm water northward and is responsible for heating West Europe, Canada and the Northeast U.S.
A raft of findings since 2007 has refined and altered the IPCC’s predictions—and shown the uncertainties involved with climate modeling. In one case, the latest research by MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel, earlier one of the leading proponents of a link between global warming and much stronger and more frequent hurricanes, now calls into question that conclusion. Earlier this year, the IPCC acknowledged a series of scientific blunders and retracted the dramatic warning in its 2007 report that most Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035. Scientific rigor is further put at risk by climate researchers who refuse to publish the computer code for their models, a practice that came to light during the University of East Anglia “Climategate” e-mail scandal engineered by right-wingers.
Even the most sophisticated models grossly oversimplify physical processes like the complex dynamics of water vapor. More fundamentally, the accompanying projections presuppose a static social reality. The predictions in the 2007 IPCC report are based on different “storylines” of growth and development. But any number of events could radically alter the story. A Scientific American (January 2010) article titled “Local Nuclear War, Global Suffering” concludes that in a conflict between, say, India and Pakistan, 100 nuclear bombs dropped on cities and industrial areas would produce enough smoke to blot out the sun and cripple global agriculture. This scenario pales in comparison to the threat posed by the massive nuclear arsenal in the hands of the U.S. imperialists. Just one Ohio-class American submarine can launch up to 192 independently targetable thermonuclear warheads.
The Ravages of Imperialism
Whatever the timetable and actual consequences of global warming, one thing is certain: in a world dominated by imperialist capitalism, the human toll—whether measured in famine, dislocation or disease—would overwhelmingly be borne by working people and the poor. The world’s least developed countries, with woeful infrastructure and with the fewest resources available to adapt to new conditions, would be especially hard hit. The real culprit is not climate change as such but rather the world capitalist system, which imposes inhuman conditions on the semicolonial countries and deprives their population of the most elementary provisions, and not only for times of calamity.
Modern imperialism, marked by the export of capital, developed at the end of the 19th century, as the boundaries of the nation-state proved too narrow and confining to satisfy the capitalists’ demand for new markets and sources of cheap labor. With blood and iron, the advanced countries essentially carved up the world into competing spheres of exploitation, a process described by V.I. Lenin in his classic work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). The imperialist powers embarked on a series of colonial conquests and wars, culminating in World Wars I and II, as each capitalist ruling class sought to further its interests at the expense of its rivals.
Along with exploiting the working class at home, the capitalist classes of North America, Europe and Japan exploit and oppress the downtrodden masses in Asia, Africa and Latin America, arresting the all-round social and economic development of the vast majority of humanity. Environmentalists cite more than four decades of drought and erratic rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa’s Sahel region, which extends from the Atlantic Ocean to Sudan, as proof positive of the high price of climate change. Rapid desertification in the Sahel, where the population largely consists of pastoral nomads and peasant farmers, has exacerbated competition for land resources among the region’s myriad ethnic groups. But the pushing of the Sahel deeper into poverty, starvation and misery is at bottom a manmade phenomenon—a byproduct of imperialist subjugation.
Out of the total land area in Africa, only a fraction is currently arable. The irrigation projects, drainage of swamps and cleaning of disease-infested areas that would be required to develop Africa’s agricultural potential are unthinkable as long as the continent is squeezed in the vise of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Africa is caught in the blind alley, inherited from colonialism, of concentrating its agriculture on tropical cash crops for sale on the world market to pay off usurious debt—accrued in large part to pay for massive quantities of food imports. The devastation of the African continent was greatly exacerbated by the destruction in 1991-92 of the Soviet degenerated workers state, removing the main counterweight to U.S. imperialism and cutting off a key source of aid for various Third World regimes.
As long as capitalism remains, it will continue to reproduce mass hunger and other scourges, such as epidemics of preventable disease resulting from the lack of sewers, clean water and other basic social infrastructure. Even if human-induced warming were somehow arrested under capitalism, imperialist depredation would continue unabated. Among other things, this renders billions of people vulnerable to “natural” climate change, variations in local weather patterns, “extreme weather events” like hurricanes, and other natural disasters. The January earthquake in Haiti is a case in point. The death toll of some 250,000 people was a product of over a century of imperialist oppression that left the desperately poor country totally exposed to the quake’s impact, as shoddily built structures in Port-au-Prince simply collapsed. Today, some 1.5 million Haitians are still living in makeshift tents.
The struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of the decaying capitalist order is a matter of human survival. One small indication of the advantages of a collectivized economy over the capitalist system of production for profit is the success the Cuban deformed workers state has had in protecting its population from devastating hurricanes. In 2008, four hurricanes battered Haiti, killing some 800 people. Two of those storms also passed over Cuba, claiming a total of four lives. Despite the bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy and the country’s relative poverty, deepened by over four decades of U.S. economic embargo, Cuba is well known for its efficient evacuation of citizens in the face of such disasters. The government provides early forecasting, educates and mobilizes the population and has arrangements in place for shelters, transport, food and medical backup.
Profiteering and Protectionism
Although many green radicals would describe themselves as anti-capitalist, all varieties of environmentalism are an expression of bourgeois ideology, offering fixes predicated on scarcity and class-divided society. Many environmentalists back market-driven “solutions” to global warming favored by capitalist governments the world over. The centerpiece is the “cap and trade” system that now covers the EU economies. Under this scheme, a generous limit is set on the amount of greenhouse gases firms can emit (the “cap”). Those that emit more than the cap must buy credits from others that emit less than they were allocated (the “trade”). At the end of the day, it is the working class that pays for this setup, in the first instance by way of higher energy and fuel costs, as it would also if a carbon tax were levied to make its “price” reflect its “social cost.”
Alternately, companies can avoid cutting their own emissions by investing in “offsets”—projects elsewhere, often in poor countries, that purport to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. One such project supplies poor rural families in India with human-powered treadle pumps for irrigating farmland, while another encourages Kenyans to use dung-powered generators. Tree-planting projects in Guatemala, Ecuador and Uganda have disrupted local water supplies, resulted in the eviction of thousands of villagers from their land and cheated them out of promised payments for upkeep of the trees. Western environmentalists might “offset” their liberal guilt over their comfortable lives by pushing such programs. But in the Third World, the end result is the reinforcement of mass impoverishment.
Cap-and-trade has become a new arena of capitalist profiteering. Some chemical companies, such as DuPont, have ramped up production of a particular refrigerant in order to make a bundle of “offset” money by incinerating the waste by-product HFC-23, a highly potent greenhouse gas. Carbon trading also promises a massive new speculators’ playground for venture capitalists and investment banks, not unlike the one in mortgage-based securities that precipitated the implosion of the global economy. More than $130 billion changed hands in the global carbon market in 2009.
Environmentalism also goes hand in hand with national chauvinism, as seen, for example, in its embrace of trade protectionism. If the major players had come to terms at Copenhagen, a likely result would have been renewed protectionism. As Michael Levi noted in Foreign Affairs (September-October 2009): “The world has few useful options for enforcing commitments to slash emissions short of punitive trade sanctions or similarly unpalatable penalties.” Indeed, environmental regulations have long served as a cover for tariffs, a practice ensconced in the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Historically, protectionism has fueled retaliatory trade wars, which have a way of turning into shooting wars.
Last year, the president of the European Commission threatened to slap tariffs on goods from the U.S. and other non-Kyoto Protocol nations to protect European business. Buried within a House version of a cap-and-trade bill drawn up by the Democrats is a provision for imposing duties against imports from countries that have not limited emissions as of 2020. The U.S. steel industry is already calling for sanctions against Chinese steelmakers if Beijing doesn’t commit to carbon limits. Following suit, the chauvinist, anti-Communist United Steelworkers union bureaucracy has filed a case charging China with violating WTO rules by subsidizing exports of solar panels, wind turbines and other “clean energy” equipment. Promoting the lie that workers in each country are bound to their exploiters by common “national interests,” protectionism is poison to international working-class solidarity.
Protectionism directed against Brazilian sugar cane ethanol importers and others is also a component part of the Obama administration’s plan for U.S. “energy independence.” As Obama has made clear by describing U.S. reliance on Near Eastern oil as its Achilles heel, “energy independence” is a rallying cry for improving U.S. imperialism’s capacity to pursue its global military and economic ambitions through diversifying and strengthening control of energy sources.
It is no accident that groups like Greenpeace echo the call for “energy independence.” The main political organizations of the environmentalists, the Green parties, are small-time capitalist parties hostile to the proletariat. In the U.S., the Greens act as a liberal pressure group on the Democratic Party, home to such environmental evangelists as Al Gore, who as Bill Clinton’s vice president helped carry out starvation sanctions against Iraqis and the bombing of Serbia. In Germany, the Green Party was part of a capitalist coalition government with the Social Democratic Party from 1998 to 2005. During this time, German environmentalists commingled with the far right, whose anti-immigrant racism was echoed by the Greens in the name of combating overpopulation. Green foreign minister Joschka Fischer deployed the German military outside of its borders—for the first time since Hitler’s Third Reich—to participate in U.S.-led wars against Serbia and Afghanistan.
The Rise of Green Capitalism
Environmentalism is not in the least antagonistic to production for private profit. A New York Times (21 April) article under the headline “At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business” commented: “So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins ‘to challenge corporate and government leaders.’ Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.”
There is more “green” rhetoric than ever emanating from corporate boardrooms. Reflecting competing interests in the American bourgeoisie, in 2009 a legion of big-name companies quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over its policy of outright denial of global warming. Several major companies have opted to go “carbon neutral,” such as Internet giant Google, which prides itself on building energy-efficient data centers and investing in corporate solar installations and wind farms.
The former CEO of British Petroleum (BP), Lord Browne, helped set the fashion in the mid 1990s by restyling gains in efficiency as emissions cuts and trumpeting them in press releases. At a time when his counterparts in the U.S. were pouring millions into the coffers of the “Global Climate Coalition,” one of the most outspoken industry groups battling reductions in emissions, Browne anticipated a cornucopia of subsidies and tax breaks flowing from the emerging Western consensus to treat carbon emissions as a problem. He renamed his company “Beyond Petroleum” and adopted a new “environmentally conscious” logo as he went about transforming BP from a regional producer of petroleum into a global oil enterprise that also dabbled in “alternative” energy. All the while, BP was slashing costs by using cheap construction materials and cutting back on safety mechanisms on oil rigs, setting the stage for numerous “accidents” such as the blowout in April that took the lives of eleven workers and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (see “Gulf Coast Disaster: Capitalist Profit Drive Kills,” WV No. 961, 2 July).
While liberal environmentalists and the ISO reformists wag their fingers at BP for “greenwashing” its fossil fuel operations, Browne has, in fact, been something of a trendsetter for the “go green” movement. Media attention surrounding an energy consumption calculator placed on BP’s Web site in 2005 helped popularize the notion of reducing individual “carbon footprints.” The following year, Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth instructed people to abandon allegedly wasteful lifestyles by consuming less, using less hot water, changing incandescent light bulbs to CFLs at home and properly inflating their car tires. The London Economist (31 May 2007), a mouthpiece of finance capital, wryly observed, “Individual economic choices are not going to make a blind bit of difference to the future of the planet. Nobody is going to save a polar bear by turning off the lights.” Gore’s lectures about cutting consumption certainly haven’t stopped him from enjoying the luxury of his Nashville mansion or his private jet.
“Doing more with less” is hardly an option for unemployed workers in the industrial wasteland of Detroit or the teeming masses housed in the enormous slums of Calcutta. Companies going “carbon neutral” will not improve conditions for workers on assembly lines, where the bosses threaten life and limb by speeding up production to extract the utmost profit. The use of “alternative” energy will not diminish the concentration of pollution in poor and working-class neighborhoods. The corporations producing energy will, however, be raking in the money.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Monday, October 11, 2010
*Out In The Be-Bop Night- Fragments On The Ethos Of Working Class Culture- The Old "Beat" Town, Circa 2010-For Barbara, Class Of 1964
Click on the headline to link to an American Left History blog entry, Fragments On The Ethos Of Working Class Culture–Frankie’s Big Summer’s Day Walk, Circa 1960, dated Friday, August 13, 2010, the first entry in this series, to read the introduction to the series.
Markin comment:
Crossing the Neponset River Bridge from the Boston side these days, walking-sore-footed, ankle-ached, worn-out, scuffed leather shoes, rounded-heel shoes, soles thinned-out shoes walking-just as was almost always my mode of transportation, and maybe yours, in the old days, and sometimes for me in the not so old days-ain’t like it used to be. That new (1970s new, anyway), higher-standing , pot-holed patched, unevenly asphalt-paved even on good days, uninviting, if not just plain dangerous, walk-way, ugly slab-concreted, built by the lowest bidder, bridge that routes traffic, hither and yon, is not like the old one, “ walking to think things over friendly."
Not today, anyway, as I brace myself for a serious look see at our beat-up, beat-down, beaten-back, back-seat-taking, smudged-up, blood and sweat-stained, bitter-teared (very bitter-teared), life-drained, seen better days (although I do not, personally, remember having seen those better days, but people keep saying, even now, there was a such a time so let’s leave it at that), almost genetically memory embedded , character-building (yes, that old chestnut, as well), beautiful (yes, beautiful too, oddly, eerily beautiful, or as mad, shamanic poet Yeats, he of that that fine Anglo-Irish word edge, would put it, "terrible beauty a-borning" beautiful ), old working class home town.
It’s silly, I know, to get misty-eyed over it but I miss the old archaic pre-1970s drawbridge bridge with its ghastly-green gates to stop car traffic (how else could you describe that institutional color that no artist would have on his or her palette, and no serious professional business painter would stoop to brush on anything much less a gate) and the lonely stony-eyed concrete medieval fortress of a tower (and its poor, bored, had to be bored, keeper, or tender or whatever you call that “look out for the big boats coming and going” guy, and it was always some old guy who looked like he could swap stories, buddy to buddy, with King Neptune, and probably did) to let the bigger boats, courtesy of the law of the seas, make their way to dock.
Or, better, I hope, I fervently hope, for the boats to get clearance from that old codger, old Neptune’s brother, to race, to crawl, to put-put, to hoist sail or whatever such boats do to get to the open sea, the wide open blue-grey, swirling, mad, rushing, whirling dervish of a sea, out to beyond the breakwaters, out to beyond the harbor islands, to the land becoming mere speck, and then mere vanish, and more adventure than I could even dream of, or think of dreaming of. At least I hope those oil-stained, diesel-fuelled (including those awful faint-producing fumes), powerfully-engined, deep-drafted, fully–stocked boats that drove river traffic and stopped car traffic came back or went out in search of those adventures away from the placid wooden-lumbered doldrums docks up along the Quincy side of the river.
But, one thing is for sure, whatever happened to the boats, or on them, that old bridge, that old green-gate painted monster of a drawbridge, gave you a chance to pause mid-bridge, fright-free, not-having-to-watch-your-back-for-fast-cars-caroming-by free even, to look up and down midstream; to dream, perhaps, of tidal drifts and fair winds to the far reaches of this good, green planet, as far as you could carry yourself and your backpacked, bed-rolled belongings, or as long as the money held out; to bestir yourself afresh to think of oneness with the seventy-eight trillion life forms (hey, I didn’t count them, alright, this is just an estimate, a very rough estimate) that flow in the murky, and on some days very murky, depths right before your eyes down to our homeland, the sea; to dream vista dreams of far away picture postcard cooling ports-of-call in the sweaty, sultry summer day airs or churn madly with the flow of wild summer night airs that led from the old home town west, north, south, somewhere, anywhere; to dream the dream of dreams of misspent (no way, no way misspent), suggestive, very suggestive, radio-blared Lets Spend The Night Together or The Night Time Is The Right Time, whiskey-bottle in hand (or, maybe, beer-canned if dough was tight, or way back when and you were underage if your wino buyer didn't show that night), best-gal swinging (quaint, okay, but we are all adults and you know what I mean) Saturday nights; and, to think that one thought, that one midstream on the bridge-driven thought that would spring you from the woes of woe begotten, troubled-filled (for me, and, maybe, you) dear, (now dear, anyway) beat, ancient-ached, old timey, presidential graveyard of a growing-up home town.
This new one, this new bridge, as I stand mid-bridge and peek back to my left routes, if you can even call it that, traffic via a Daytona race track-worthy, curvy-swurvy ramp to the beach, Wollaston Beach, down the now, in places anyway, three lane-wide, freshly-paved and white-lined Quincy Shore Drive. That’s our old Wollaston Boulevard, down by shore everything’s alright, of sacred ashy memory. And as I watch the traffic flow, the car traffic I think not of vanilla, too bright, too light, too slight day time beach, for now, because I am flooded with visions of the “real” beach of my manic dreams- “the night time is the right time" beach. Enough of daytime, kiddish, bucket and shovel whines and childish butterfly daydreams, enough. Alright?
I just now, and you can follow along too, float dream of teenaged Saturday nights, or maybe even Friday nights, or both, cruising, nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, to the pink- blue, cloud-swollen, sun-devouring, Western nightdream skies, always just beyond our reach. Of you riding "shotgun" in your buddy’s car, a be-bop car, or, I hope, at least bop, late 1950s, and pray hard for a ’57 Chevy or something “cool” like that, borrowed from his old man, stopped at close by high school (remember), Merit gas station and filled, two-dollars-worth-of-gas-check the oil-please-filled. Or his own car, your buddy's, the old man's, leavings, given gratis, when that self-same old man stepped up to a new, bigger-finned, power-steered, rumble-engined, airplane of a car, a new sign that he had “made it” in hard dollar America. Of stolen sickly-sweet wines or breathe-soured whiskeys to ward off the night-forebodings, made sweeter or more sour by the stealing from that same old man’s, or maybe your old man's, liquor cabinet, if they had such an upscale thing, or else just from some dusty high cupboard shelf so the kids can’t get at it place. And, and, oh boy, visions of those moon-beamy, dreamy, seamy, steamy Saturday night beach parking, car-fogged, car-wrestled, “submarine races” watchings that were the subject of Monday morning boys’ rest room (okay, “lav”) roll call, recital and retailing (or, hell, probably in the girls’ room too, I bet, but the now women can tell their own tales). Whoa!
Beatified night-dreamed beach Quincy Shore Drive also routes, now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, to daydream summer sunbathing, or maybe even before summer sunbathing for early tans to drive away the fierce, ghost-like New England winter pales, in the real sun daytime down by the weather-beaten yacht clubs (tumbleweedy, seedy, paint-needy Wollaston and Squantum). Away, well a little away, from the early encountered mephitic sea grass marshes near the Causeway (you know where, right?-the old First National supermarket, now CVS drugs-for all occasions-store location), away from the deadened, fetid, scattered sea grasses and the muck, and in plain kid talk, away from the “stinks”, away from the tepid waves apologetically splashing on the ocean smooth-stoned dunes, away too from the jelly-fish (are they poisonous, or not?) spawning and spattered along the edges of the low tide line, and, most fervently, away, away from the oil-slicked mud flats of childish shovel and pail clam-digging adventures, clams squirting and screaming from their sand hovels that need not detain us here, that story has been told elsewhere by me, and often.
Once you have passed the fetid swamps, the mephitic marshes…, but wait a minute, who knows such un-childlike, or un-teenager-like, for that matter, words like fetid and mephitic and where, as a child, even if you knew the words, would you connect those words with pail and shovel digging to China, or some faraway place, beach; with tide-melting, furtive but fevered, sand castle-making, beach; with coolly and focused looking for treasure, somebody’s leavings, some body’s rich leavings so you think, beach; with learning about the fury of Mother Nature and the pull and push of tides first hand when old Mother (like womb mother) turns her fury on, beach; with later finger (or stick) sand-tracing of your name defying the tides to erase your brand as you fight, and fight hard, for your place in the sun (and maybe linking up your sweetie’s name, just for good measure, in that struggle with eternity), beach; with fellaheen digging for clams for fun or profit (or food for table, who knows) down at the Merrymount end, beach; with family barbecue outings, hot dogs and hamburgers, extra ketchup, please, beach. With, well, beach, beach. No, fetid and mephitic will not do, I like my dreams, my child remembrance dreams, cloud puffy and silky.
This bridge, this too far bridge, this man-standing memory bridge, or however you named it, or whatever you thought of it, or wherever you were heading, destiny-heading, heading to your growing-up-like-a-weed town, heading just like a-lemming-to-the-sea town pushes the brain in a couple of directions. Heading south anyway, shore drive south, south to the rivieras, south to the old time kid’s Paragon Park. Rickety, always needed, desperately needed, fresh paint coat, landlocked, off-limits showboat bar-entranced (gay place, before gay word existed as a social category, but what did we know then, or care, just quarters for skeets, please, ah, please), ocean-aired, between-the toes-sanded, sun glass-visioned against the furious midday sun Paragon Park. Roller coaster Paragon Park (hey, maybe sick, before you got the hang of it, right), wild mouse (kid's stuff, ya I know) Paragon Park, cheap, colorful skeet ball points trinket prize, sugar high, lips smacked cotton-candy, stuck to the roof of your mouth, roof of the world, salt water taffy-twisted, hot-dogged (hold the mustard, no onions), pin ball wizard’d, take your baby to the carnival feel the tunnel of love, Paragon Park.(Or later, coming of another age, the Surf, and a whole other memory bridge of dreams, not for now though.) Or south of that south to some old time, unnamed, misty adventure, some ancient Pilgrim-etched mayflower rocky shored adventure, some ancient forebear's praise Jehovah plainsong heard whistling through some weed-filled granite slate graveyards, not mine; mine is of shanty Irish "famine" ships and old kicked out of England convict labor, hell-hole, "hillbilly" Appalachia work the coal mines, boats. Down along that old slow as molasses, take your time, wait at every just barely red stoplight, watch out for side-glanced cop cars, two-laned, white stripped, no passing (hardly), ocean-touched (in places) road. Memory-washed, memory-etched, memory south youth road, ah.
Yes, that cotton-candy dream is enough to stir even a hardened soul, but as I shift, stiffly shift, weight on my tired old high-soled, age-qualified, age-necessary, bop-bop shoes(no more of "young" fashionista statement, skinny-soled, fire engine red Chuck Taylor’s, now of sturdy, new age, aero-flow, aero-glow, aero-know, aero-whatever, for this heavy work, this airy memory work, bop-bop shoes), I stand straight up in mid-bridge balance and veer my head to the right. That move makes me focus my mind’s eye to the heart, the soul, the guts of the old growing-up town via a narrow, straight and narrow, slit in the road, a road constructed in such a way as if to say no cuts-ups, fops (quaint, again), or oddballs wanted here, as it swerves to the edgings, the bare edgings, amidst the gathering flotsam and jetsam as it piles up on riverside old Hancock Street and as it meanders along like some far-removed river of its own, river of its own sorrows, river of its own pent-up angers, toward the Square.
But more than sorrows, ancient sorrows, more than angers, angers of whatever age, I am attacked, and not just in my mind’s eye either, by the myriad mirror-glassed buildings, mostly office buildings, maybe some apartments or condos but I hope not, that reflect off each other in some secret Bauhaus bright light, dead of night pact, post-post-modern architecture I am sure, functional I am sure, although when future, future generations dig up the artifacts I am also sure they will be as puzzled by the idea of such forms of shelter and commerce as I am. And beyond those future subjects of artifact a picture, a picture to feed the hungry buildings, of tactless, thoughtless pizza shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, donut shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, hamburger shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, Applebee’s family-friendly food named, now you-name-it-for-me, please, fast-food shop, mini-mart shop, fill-up gas-station of many names, Hess named, that dot, no, deluge strip mall-heavy Hancock Street up pass our sanctified raider red-bled high school. And beyond to dowdy, drowsy, dusty–windowed (really, I actually touched one once, not a white glove inspection but it, the window that is, didn’t pass muster even by my liberal standards), how do they stay in business against the pull of the major chains (or their chains), small-stored, small-dreamed business ownership, Norfolk Downs.
Norfolk Downs, the good old “Downs” (although we just called it plain, old, ordinary, vanilla-flavored, one-horse Norfolk Downs back in the day) anchored still by named pizza shop, Balducci’s. Balducci’s of after school pizza slices or after nightime across the street hang-around underground bowling alley hungers. Plain, please, no one hundred and one choice toppings, thank you, and coke (bluish-green bottled Coca-Cola, okay, for the evil-minded): of nickels and dimes dropped in one-armed-bandit jukebox to hear the latest Stones (or Beatles) tune, or whatever struck a chord in those jumping-jack times, maybe some mopey thing if girl desire was high; yes, but also of weary, so weary, lonely, so lonely night time standings up against the front door wall, waiting, waiting for...(and, maybe, someone, some guy, some long side-burned, engineer-booted guy, cigarette pack, unfiltered, rolled in tee-shirt guy, some time machine guy, is still waiting, still holding up that wall today. Nobody told him the world, the world that counts, the teen world, had moved to the malls). And beyond Norfolk Downs, up that asphalt river, on to the fate of a million small city centers, ghost-towned, derelict, seen better days, for sure, no question, no question, Quincy Center.
But I find myself , just now, as a stream of cooling air, finally, finally crosses my bridge-stuck, bridge-dreamed path, not in thoughts of jumbled mist of time high school-hood Saturdays nights (nor Friday nights either) in Norfolk Downs pizza parlors or bowling alleys, but of whirling past anciently walked, shoe leather-beaten (always leather-beaten, crooked-heeled, thinning-soled shoes that could be the subject of their own separate bridge-like dream thoughts), oceaned-breezed (just like the breeze crossing over me now , ‘cause that is where it is coming from, it has to be), sharp-angled memories: some of hurt, some of high-hatted hurt, worse, a few, too few, of funny kiddish, ding-dong dumb done things (ever when too old to hide under that womb-like kiddish umbrella), the memories that is, of Atlantic streets, of breezing Quincy bays, of oceans-abutted streets etched deep, almost DNA deep.
Name names. Okay. Well-trodden Appleton Street sidewalks, drawn like a moth to flame to some now-forgotten she, by flickering, heart-quickening, unrequited, just barely teenage, but self-consciously teenage anyhow, romantic trance longings, doggedly working up non-courage, yes non-courage a very common thing in those days, to speak, or better, to write that one word, that one word still now not easily come by, that would spark interest (her interest), as I turned from boy to the buddings of manhood; of the close-quartered, no space, no space for anything but small pinched, tightly pinched, dreams , no room to breathe, no room to breathe anything but small breathe, hacked up, asphalted-up, lawn-free yards to quench driveway car thirsting, two and three-decked Atlantic Street houses passed on quick high school cross country practice runs; of family relative-burdened, just getting-started in adult life, small, cramped five room and tiny bath apartment dotted Walker and Webster Streets; of the closely-cornered, well-kept small manicured-lawn’d, busily repair-worked, no beach parking on the street in summertime, working class cottage-mansions of Bayfield Road (I always forget which is North and which is South, but no matter the description fits both as they feed to the endless sea stopped by that infernal stop light that keeps you waiting, waiting beyond impatience, to cross to the much repaired and replaced seawall and view of seaward homeland.); of Atlantic Junior High School’d (ya, I know, Middle School) teen angst (under either junior or middle school names), mad, hormonally mad, teen-brokered years, world wised-up with some twists, but also world sorry, straight-up, Hollis Avenue; and on and on, through to the beach-drained, tree-named streets. Sanctified beyond name streets all; beat, beatified streets all; mist-filled dream streets all; memory-soaked streets all; be-bop, then real gone daddy, now hip-hop, big old pie-in-the-sky looking for the universe somewhere, streets all.
But enough of old dog-eared memories let me get moving, after all with this bridge, this “new” bridge, one has to cross with purpose, serious purpose, and maybe a wing and a pray that one can get back to the old home town in one piece or, at least, be able to think that one precious thought that drove me, lemming-like, here in the first place. I walk down the broken hand-railed, dirt-piled , drift winds-sent littered steps to get off the bridge and immediately stretched before me ; one million water-logged, stubbed cigarette-butts; one thousand stray, crushed, empty, cellophaned cigarette-packages blown around seeking their rightful owners; one hundred infinite brand-named (ice cold something pictured Bud Lite seems like the winner), crushed (or at least dented) beer cans; assorted, unnumbered, brown whiskey(or were they gin) bottles, mainly cheap from the look of them, a drunkard’s feast at one time; high gloss advertisement mailings(endless CVS drugs to take your world’s pain away, Shaw’s food to curb that incurable hunger that gnaws away at your stomach, Wal-Mart back-to-school trinkets, gadgets and throw-aways when the kids find out, and find out fast, that this crap is not “cool”, K-Mart holiday bargains, three for a dollar); yellowing, dated, newspapers (local this-and-that news, distant war drum news, more war drum news from some other earth corner, bad news badder, and celebrity relief news, Lady GaGa, or some such doings, that’s the ticket for our times) strewn every which way, discarded fast food packages of all descriptions that I have no time to describe. On to the street I step, the hard-scrabble growing up street. Home.
Markin comment:
Crossing the Neponset River Bridge from the Boston side these days, walking-sore-footed, ankle-ached, worn-out, scuffed leather shoes, rounded-heel shoes, soles thinned-out shoes walking-just as was almost always my mode of transportation, and maybe yours, in the old days, and sometimes for me in the not so old days-ain’t like it used to be. That new (1970s new, anyway), higher-standing , pot-holed patched, unevenly asphalt-paved even on good days, uninviting, if not just plain dangerous, walk-way, ugly slab-concreted, built by the lowest bidder, bridge that routes traffic, hither and yon, is not like the old one, “ walking to think things over friendly."
Not today, anyway, as I brace myself for a serious look see at our beat-up, beat-down, beaten-back, back-seat-taking, smudged-up, blood and sweat-stained, bitter-teared (very bitter-teared), life-drained, seen better days (although I do not, personally, remember having seen those better days, but people keep saying, even now, there was a such a time so let’s leave it at that), almost genetically memory embedded , character-building (yes, that old chestnut, as well), beautiful (yes, beautiful too, oddly, eerily beautiful, or as mad, shamanic poet Yeats, he of that that fine Anglo-Irish word edge, would put it, "terrible beauty a-borning" beautiful ), old working class home town.
It’s silly, I know, to get misty-eyed over it but I miss the old archaic pre-1970s drawbridge bridge with its ghastly-green gates to stop car traffic (how else could you describe that institutional color that no artist would have on his or her palette, and no serious professional business painter would stoop to brush on anything much less a gate) and the lonely stony-eyed concrete medieval fortress of a tower (and its poor, bored, had to be bored, keeper, or tender or whatever you call that “look out for the big boats coming and going” guy, and it was always some old guy who looked like he could swap stories, buddy to buddy, with King Neptune, and probably did) to let the bigger boats, courtesy of the law of the seas, make their way to dock.
Or, better, I hope, I fervently hope, for the boats to get clearance from that old codger, old Neptune’s brother, to race, to crawl, to put-put, to hoist sail or whatever such boats do to get to the open sea, the wide open blue-grey, swirling, mad, rushing, whirling dervish of a sea, out to beyond the breakwaters, out to beyond the harbor islands, to the land becoming mere speck, and then mere vanish, and more adventure than I could even dream of, or think of dreaming of. At least I hope those oil-stained, diesel-fuelled (including those awful faint-producing fumes), powerfully-engined, deep-drafted, fully–stocked boats that drove river traffic and stopped car traffic came back or went out in search of those adventures away from the placid wooden-lumbered doldrums docks up along the Quincy side of the river.
But, one thing is for sure, whatever happened to the boats, or on them, that old bridge, that old green-gate painted monster of a drawbridge, gave you a chance to pause mid-bridge, fright-free, not-having-to-watch-your-back-for-fast-cars-caroming-by free even, to look up and down midstream; to dream, perhaps, of tidal drifts and fair winds to the far reaches of this good, green planet, as far as you could carry yourself and your backpacked, bed-rolled belongings, or as long as the money held out; to bestir yourself afresh to think of oneness with the seventy-eight trillion life forms (hey, I didn’t count them, alright, this is just an estimate, a very rough estimate) that flow in the murky, and on some days very murky, depths right before your eyes down to our homeland, the sea; to dream vista dreams of far away picture postcard cooling ports-of-call in the sweaty, sultry summer day airs or churn madly with the flow of wild summer night airs that led from the old home town west, north, south, somewhere, anywhere; to dream the dream of dreams of misspent (no way, no way misspent), suggestive, very suggestive, radio-blared Lets Spend The Night Together or The Night Time Is The Right Time, whiskey-bottle in hand (or, maybe, beer-canned if dough was tight, or way back when and you were underage if your wino buyer didn't show that night), best-gal swinging (quaint, okay, but we are all adults and you know what I mean) Saturday nights; and, to think that one thought, that one midstream on the bridge-driven thought that would spring you from the woes of woe begotten, troubled-filled (for me, and, maybe, you) dear, (now dear, anyway) beat, ancient-ached, old timey, presidential graveyard of a growing-up home town.
This new one, this new bridge, as I stand mid-bridge and peek back to my left routes, if you can even call it that, traffic via a Daytona race track-worthy, curvy-swurvy ramp to the beach, Wollaston Beach, down the now, in places anyway, three lane-wide, freshly-paved and white-lined Quincy Shore Drive. That’s our old Wollaston Boulevard, down by shore everything’s alright, of sacred ashy memory. And as I watch the traffic flow, the car traffic I think not of vanilla, too bright, too light, too slight day time beach, for now, because I am flooded with visions of the “real” beach of my manic dreams- “the night time is the right time" beach. Enough of daytime, kiddish, bucket and shovel whines and childish butterfly daydreams, enough. Alright?
I just now, and you can follow along too, float dream of teenaged Saturday nights, or maybe even Friday nights, or both, cruising, nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, to the pink- blue, cloud-swollen, sun-devouring, Western nightdream skies, always just beyond our reach. Of you riding "shotgun" in your buddy’s car, a be-bop car, or, I hope, at least bop, late 1950s, and pray hard for a ’57 Chevy or something “cool” like that, borrowed from his old man, stopped at close by high school (remember), Merit gas station and filled, two-dollars-worth-of-gas-check the oil-please-filled. Or his own car, your buddy's, the old man's, leavings, given gratis, when that self-same old man stepped up to a new, bigger-finned, power-steered, rumble-engined, airplane of a car, a new sign that he had “made it” in hard dollar America. Of stolen sickly-sweet wines or breathe-soured whiskeys to ward off the night-forebodings, made sweeter or more sour by the stealing from that same old man’s, or maybe your old man's, liquor cabinet, if they had such an upscale thing, or else just from some dusty high cupboard shelf so the kids can’t get at it place. And, and, oh boy, visions of those moon-beamy, dreamy, seamy, steamy Saturday night beach parking, car-fogged, car-wrestled, “submarine races” watchings that were the subject of Monday morning boys’ rest room (okay, “lav”) roll call, recital and retailing (or, hell, probably in the girls’ room too, I bet, but the now women can tell their own tales). Whoa!
Beatified night-dreamed beach Quincy Shore Drive also routes, now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, to daydream summer sunbathing, or maybe even before summer sunbathing for early tans to drive away the fierce, ghost-like New England winter pales, in the real sun daytime down by the weather-beaten yacht clubs (tumbleweedy, seedy, paint-needy Wollaston and Squantum). Away, well a little away, from the early encountered mephitic sea grass marshes near the Causeway (you know where, right?-the old First National supermarket, now CVS drugs-for all occasions-store location), away from the deadened, fetid, scattered sea grasses and the muck, and in plain kid talk, away from the “stinks”, away from the tepid waves apologetically splashing on the ocean smooth-stoned dunes, away too from the jelly-fish (are they poisonous, or not?) spawning and spattered along the edges of the low tide line, and, most fervently, away, away from the oil-slicked mud flats of childish shovel and pail clam-digging adventures, clams squirting and screaming from their sand hovels that need not detain us here, that story has been told elsewhere by me, and often.
Once you have passed the fetid swamps, the mephitic marshes…, but wait a minute, who knows such un-childlike, or un-teenager-like, for that matter, words like fetid and mephitic and where, as a child, even if you knew the words, would you connect those words with pail and shovel digging to China, or some faraway place, beach; with tide-melting, furtive but fevered, sand castle-making, beach; with coolly and focused looking for treasure, somebody’s leavings, some body’s rich leavings so you think, beach; with learning about the fury of Mother Nature and the pull and push of tides first hand when old Mother (like womb mother) turns her fury on, beach; with later finger (or stick) sand-tracing of your name defying the tides to erase your brand as you fight, and fight hard, for your place in the sun (and maybe linking up your sweetie’s name, just for good measure, in that struggle with eternity), beach; with fellaheen digging for clams for fun or profit (or food for table, who knows) down at the Merrymount end, beach; with family barbecue outings, hot dogs and hamburgers, extra ketchup, please, beach. With, well, beach, beach. No, fetid and mephitic will not do, I like my dreams, my child remembrance dreams, cloud puffy and silky.
This bridge, this too far bridge, this man-standing memory bridge, or however you named it, or whatever you thought of it, or wherever you were heading, destiny-heading, heading to your growing-up-like-a-weed town, heading just like a-lemming-to-the-sea town pushes the brain in a couple of directions. Heading south anyway, shore drive south, south to the rivieras, south to the old time kid’s Paragon Park. Rickety, always needed, desperately needed, fresh paint coat, landlocked, off-limits showboat bar-entranced (gay place, before gay word existed as a social category, but what did we know then, or care, just quarters for skeets, please, ah, please), ocean-aired, between-the toes-sanded, sun glass-visioned against the furious midday sun Paragon Park. Roller coaster Paragon Park (hey, maybe sick, before you got the hang of it, right), wild mouse (kid's stuff, ya I know) Paragon Park, cheap, colorful skeet ball points trinket prize, sugar high, lips smacked cotton-candy, stuck to the roof of your mouth, roof of the world, salt water taffy-twisted, hot-dogged (hold the mustard, no onions), pin ball wizard’d, take your baby to the carnival feel the tunnel of love, Paragon Park.(Or later, coming of another age, the Surf, and a whole other memory bridge of dreams, not for now though.) Or south of that south to some old time, unnamed, misty adventure, some ancient Pilgrim-etched mayflower rocky shored adventure, some ancient forebear's praise Jehovah plainsong heard whistling through some weed-filled granite slate graveyards, not mine; mine is of shanty Irish "famine" ships and old kicked out of England convict labor, hell-hole, "hillbilly" Appalachia work the coal mines, boats. Down along that old slow as molasses, take your time, wait at every just barely red stoplight, watch out for side-glanced cop cars, two-laned, white stripped, no passing (hardly), ocean-touched (in places) road. Memory-washed, memory-etched, memory south youth road, ah.
Yes, that cotton-candy dream is enough to stir even a hardened soul, but as I shift, stiffly shift, weight on my tired old high-soled, age-qualified, age-necessary, bop-bop shoes(no more of "young" fashionista statement, skinny-soled, fire engine red Chuck Taylor’s, now of sturdy, new age, aero-flow, aero-glow, aero-know, aero-whatever, for this heavy work, this airy memory work, bop-bop shoes), I stand straight up in mid-bridge balance and veer my head to the right. That move makes me focus my mind’s eye to the heart, the soul, the guts of the old growing-up town via a narrow, straight and narrow, slit in the road, a road constructed in such a way as if to say no cuts-ups, fops (quaint, again), or oddballs wanted here, as it swerves to the edgings, the bare edgings, amidst the gathering flotsam and jetsam as it piles up on riverside old Hancock Street and as it meanders along like some far-removed river of its own, river of its own sorrows, river of its own pent-up angers, toward the Square.
But more than sorrows, ancient sorrows, more than angers, angers of whatever age, I am attacked, and not just in my mind’s eye either, by the myriad mirror-glassed buildings, mostly office buildings, maybe some apartments or condos but I hope not, that reflect off each other in some secret Bauhaus bright light, dead of night pact, post-post-modern architecture I am sure, functional I am sure, although when future, future generations dig up the artifacts I am also sure they will be as puzzled by the idea of such forms of shelter and commerce as I am. And beyond those future subjects of artifact a picture, a picture to feed the hungry buildings, of tactless, thoughtless pizza shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, donut shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, hamburger shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, Applebee’s family-friendly food named, now you-name-it-for-me, please, fast-food shop, mini-mart shop, fill-up gas-station of many names, Hess named, that dot, no, deluge strip mall-heavy Hancock Street up pass our sanctified raider red-bled high school. And beyond to dowdy, drowsy, dusty–windowed (really, I actually touched one once, not a white glove inspection but it, the window that is, didn’t pass muster even by my liberal standards), how do they stay in business against the pull of the major chains (or their chains), small-stored, small-dreamed business ownership, Norfolk Downs.
Norfolk Downs, the good old “Downs” (although we just called it plain, old, ordinary, vanilla-flavored, one-horse Norfolk Downs back in the day) anchored still by named pizza shop, Balducci’s. Balducci’s of after school pizza slices or after nightime across the street hang-around underground bowling alley hungers. Plain, please, no one hundred and one choice toppings, thank you, and coke (bluish-green bottled Coca-Cola, okay, for the evil-minded): of nickels and dimes dropped in one-armed-bandit jukebox to hear the latest Stones (or Beatles) tune, or whatever struck a chord in those jumping-jack times, maybe some mopey thing if girl desire was high; yes, but also of weary, so weary, lonely, so lonely night time standings up against the front door wall, waiting, waiting for...(and, maybe, someone, some guy, some long side-burned, engineer-booted guy, cigarette pack, unfiltered, rolled in tee-shirt guy, some time machine guy, is still waiting, still holding up that wall today. Nobody told him the world, the world that counts, the teen world, had moved to the malls). And beyond Norfolk Downs, up that asphalt river, on to the fate of a million small city centers, ghost-towned, derelict, seen better days, for sure, no question, no question, Quincy Center.
But I find myself , just now, as a stream of cooling air, finally, finally crosses my bridge-stuck, bridge-dreamed path, not in thoughts of jumbled mist of time high school-hood Saturdays nights (nor Friday nights either) in Norfolk Downs pizza parlors or bowling alleys, but of whirling past anciently walked, shoe leather-beaten (always leather-beaten, crooked-heeled, thinning-soled shoes that could be the subject of their own separate bridge-like dream thoughts), oceaned-breezed (just like the breeze crossing over me now , ‘cause that is where it is coming from, it has to be), sharp-angled memories: some of hurt, some of high-hatted hurt, worse, a few, too few, of funny kiddish, ding-dong dumb done things (ever when too old to hide under that womb-like kiddish umbrella), the memories that is, of Atlantic streets, of breezing Quincy bays, of oceans-abutted streets etched deep, almost DNA deep.
Name names. Okay. Well-trodden Appleton Street sidewalks, drawn like a moth to flame to some now-forgotten she, by flickering, heart-quickening, unrequited, just barely teenage, but self-consciously teenage anyhow, romantic trance longings, doggedly working up non-courage, yes non-courage a very common thing in those days, to speak, or better, to write that one word, that one word still now not easily come by, that would spark interest (her interest), as I turned from boy to the buddings of manhood; of the close-quartered, no space, no space for anything but small pinched, tightly pinched, dreams , no room to breathe, no room to breathe anything but small breathe, hacked up, asphalted-up, lawn-free yards to quench driveway car thirsting, two and three-decked Atlantic Street houses passed on quick high school cross country practice runs; of family relative-burdened, just getting-started in adult life, small, cramped five room and tiny bath apartment dotted Walker and Webster Streets; of the closely-cornered, well-kept small manicured-lawn’d, busily repair-worked, no beach parking on the street in summertime, working class cottage-mansions of Bayfield Road (I always forget which is North and which is South, but no matter the description fits both as they feed to the endless sea stopped by that infernal stop light that keeps you waiting, waiting beyond impatience, to cross to the much repaired and replaced seawall and view of seaward homeland.); of Atlantic Junior High School’d (ya, I know, Middle School) teen angst (under either junior or middle school names), mad, hormonally mad, teen-brokered years, world wised-up with some twists, but also world sorry, straight-up, Hollis Avenue; and on and on, through to the beach-drained, tree-named streets. Sanctified beyond name streets all; beat, beatified streets all; mist-filled dream streets all; memory-soaked streets all; be-bop, then real gone daddy, now hip-hop, big old pie-in-the-sky looking for the universe somewhere, streets all.
But enough of old dog-eared memories let me get moving, after all with this bridge, this “new” bridge, one has to cross with purpose, serious purpose, and maybe a wing and a pray that one can get back to the old home town in one piece or, at least, be able to think that one precious thought that drove me, lemming-like, here in the first place. I walk down the broken hand-railed, dirt-piled , drift winds-sent littered steps to get off the bridge and immediately stretched before me ; one million water-logged, stubbed cigarette-butts; one thousand stray, crushed, empty, cellophaned cigarette-packages blown around seeking their rightful owners; one hundred infinite brand-named (ice cold something pictured Bud Lite seems like the winner), crushed (or at least dented) beer cans; assorted, unnumbered, brown whiskey(or were they gin) bottles, mainly cheap from the look of them, a drunkard’s feast at one time; high gloss advertisement mailings(endless CVS drugs to take your world’s pain away, Shaw’s food to curb that incurable hunger that gnaws away at your stomach, Wal-Mart back-to-school trinkets, gadgets and throw-aways when the kids find out, and find out fast, that this crap is not “cool”, K-Mart holiday bargains, three for a dollar); yellowing, dated, newspapers (local this-and-that news, distant war drum news, more war drum news from some other earth corner, bad news badder, and celebrity relief news, Lady GaGa, or some such doings, that’s the ticket for our times) strewn every which way, discarded fast food packages of all descriptions that I have no time to describe. On to the street I step, the hard-scrabble growing up street. Home.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC) statement in support of groups raided by FBI
APSC statement in support of groups raided by FBI
by Uhuru Solidarity Committee
(No verified email address) 30 Sep 2010
The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) denounce the September 24, 2010 subpoenas and raids of the homes and offices of solidarity and anti-war activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.
African People's Solidarity Committee
Published Sep 30, 2010
The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) denounce the September 24, 2010 subpoenas and raids of the homes and offices of solidarity and anti-war activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.
These raids, violating the civil rights of the targeted activists, were carried out by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force allegedly as part of an “ongoing investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”
Groups under attack include the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee and Students for a Democratic Society.
APSC expresses our support for all these groups and individuals under attack by the US government.
We defend the right of all of us to stand in solidarity with all peoples anywhere in the world fighting to throw off the yoke of colonial violence, war and oppression imposed on them by the terrorist US government.
We affirm all of our unalienable rights to raise resources for movements for national liberation and justice.
The US, Europe and the capitalist system itself are the real terrorists!
The US built its wealth and power out of the European assault on Africa that destroyed African freedom and independence at the point of the gun.
African people were brutally kidnapped and violently forced by the millions to become the world’s most lucrative commodity as enslaved laborers for hundreds of years.
The US is the real terrorist, carrying out open policies of genocide against the Indigenous people, through torture, murder and war, stealing Indigenous land and forcing the people into concentration camps called reservations today where the life expectancy is 46 years.
The US is the real terrorist having consistently waged countless open and covert wars of occupation, plunder and extermination against the peoples of the Philippines, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Africa, Occupied Palestine and the Arab world and elsewhere in order to create the highest standard of living on the planet for North America.
The US is the real terrorist and wages a brutal counterinsurgency war against the African, Mexican and Indigenous communities inside this country today with militarized police forces shooting down young black men on a regular basis.
It is currently imprisoning 2.5 million people — mostly African and Mexicans — on designer, Jim Crow laws after imposing an illegal drug economy on those communities.
The US is the real terrorist, hunting down and rounding up Mexican people who have come across the illegal border set up by the US after stealing the land of the Mexican people.
This attack follows history of attacks on the African Liberation Movement
We recognize that this kind of US government attack on white activists is being perpetrated on a history of attacks against African Liberation activists inside this country since the Black Power Movement of the 1960s which was crushed by a terroristic program called COINTELPRO.
This US government secret program was responsible for assassinating and imprisoning movement leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Hutton and Fred Hampton. Some activists of the 1960s are still in prison today, including Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier and so many others.
We recognize that white activists are being attacked on the heels of the frame ups by the FBI and other US government agencies of Mumia Abu Jamal, and more recently on the Liberty City 7 in Miami, the San Francisco 8 activists, the assassination earlier this year of Detroit black activist Imam Luqman and so many others.
We recognize that the white activists are attacked today on the heels of the political conviction of Uhuru Movement organizer Diop Olugbala who protested Barack Obama’s presidential campaign event in 2008 by raising the banner “What about the black community, Obama!” and who was arrested for leading protests against Philadelphia’s planned $1.1 billion war of intensified police repression against the African community there.
These attacks against the progressive organizations on September 24 are happening under the murderous neocolonial regime of US president Barack Obama who is carrying out and intensifying the terroristic imperialist agenda of his predecessors.
We have a right to stand in solidarity with African and other oppressed peoples struggling for justice and liberation
We affirm our right and responsibility to continue to stand in solidarity with African and Indigenous peoples inside this country and with peoples around the world struggling for justice and liberation from US terror!
We uphold our right to stand in material solidarity with those movements by sending resources to support their work and struggle!
The African People’s Solidarity Committee is an organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which leads the Uhuru Movement.
APSC’s work revolves around raising reparations or material support from white people for the liberation movement of African people inside this country and around the world.
For almost 40 years the APSP has led the movement for African Liberation, uniting Africans as one people around the world struggling to liberate and reunite Africa and all its resources as the birthright of African people everywhere.
Stop the US government repression against all solidarity and anti-war activists!
Fight for our right to stand in solidarity with peoples worldwide struggling for national liberation!
Victory and self-determination to African, Afghani, Palestinian, Indigenous, Colombian and oppressed and colonized people around the world!
Down with US imperialism!
by Uhuru Solidarity Committee
(No verified email address) 30 Sep 2010
The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) denounce the September 24, 2010 subpoenas and raids of the homes and offices of solidarity and anti-war activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.
African People's Solidarity Committee
Published Sep 30, 2010
The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) denounce the September 24, 2010 subpoenas and raids of the homes and offices of solidarity and anti-war activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.
These raids, violating the civil rights of the targeted activists, were carried out by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force allegedly as part of an “ongoing investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”
Groups under attack include the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee and Students for a Democratic Society.
APSC expresses our support for all these groups and individuals under attack by the US government.
We defend the right of all of us to stand in solidarity with all peoples anywhere in the world fighting to throw off the yoke of colonial violence, war and oppression imposed on them by the terrorist US government.
We affirm all of our unalienable rights to raise resources for movements for national liberation and justice.
The US, Europe and the capitalist system itself are the real terrorists!
The US built its wealth and power out of the European assault on Africa that destroyed African freedom and independence at the point of the gun.
African people were brutally kidnapped and violently forced by the millions to become the world’s most lucrative commodity as enslaved laborers for hundreds of years.
The US is the real terrorist, carrying out open policies of genocide against the Indigenous people, through torture, murder and war, stealing Indigenous land and forcing the people into concentration camps called reservations today where the life expectancy is 46 years.
The US is the real terrorist having consistently waged countless open and covert wars of occupation, plunder and extermination against the peoples of the Philippines, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Africa, Occupied Palestine and the Arab world and elsewhere in order to create the highest standard of living on the planet for North America.
The US is the real terrorist and wages a brutal counterinsurgency war against the African, Mexican and Indigenous communities inside this country today with militarized police forces shooting down young black men on a regular basis.
It is currently imprisoning 2.5 million people — mostly African and Mexicans — on designer, Jim Crow laws after imposing an illegal drug economy on those communities.
The US is the real terrorist, hunting down and rounding up Mexican people who have come across the illegal border set up by the US after stealing the land of the Mexican people.
This attack follows history of attacks on the African Liberation Movement
We recognize that this kind of US government attack on white activists is being perpetrated on a history of attacks against African Liberation activists inside this country since the Black Power Movement of the 1960s which was crushed by a terroristic program called COINTELPRO.
This US government secret program was responsible for assassinating and imprisoning movement leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Hutton and Fred Hampton. Some activists of the 1960s are still in prison today, including Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier and so many others.
We recognize that white activists are being attacked on the heels of the frame ups by the FBI and other US government agencies of Mumia Abu Jamal, and more recently on the Liberty City 7 in Miami, the San Francisco 8 activists, the assassination earlier this year of Detroit black activist Imam Luqman and so many others.
We recognize that the white activists are attacked today on the heels of the political conviction of Uhuru Movement organizer Diop Olugbala who protested Barack Obama’s presidential campaign event in 2008 by raising the banner “What about the black community, Obama!” and who was arrested for leading protests against Philadelphia’s planned $1.1 billion war of intensified police repression against the African community there.
These attacks against the progressive organizations on September 24 are happening under the murderous neocolonial regime of US president Barack Obama who is carrying out and intensifying the terroristic imperialist agenda of his predecessors.
We have a right to stand in solidarity with African and other oppressed peoples struggling for justice and liberation
We affirm our right and responsibility to continue to stand in solidarity with African and Indigenous peoples inside this country and with peoples around the world struggling for justice and liberation from US terror!
We uphold our right to stand in material solidarity with those movements by sending resources to support their work and struggle!
The African People’s Solidarity Committee is an organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which leads the Uhuru Movement.
APSC’s work revolves around raising reparations or material support from white people for the liberation movement of African people inside this country and around the world.
For almost 40 years the APSP has led the movement for African Liberation, uniting Africans as one people around the world struggling to liberate and reunite Africa and all its resources as the birthright of African people everywhere.
Stop the US government repression against all solidarity and anti-war activists!
Fight for our right to stand in solidarity with peoples worldwide struggling for national liberation!
Victory and self-determination to African, Afghani, Palestinian, Indigenous, Colombian and oppressed and colonized people around the world!
Down with US imperialism!
From The "United For Justice With Peace"( UJP) Website- Boston Protest Of The FBI Midwest Anti-War Activist Raids
Click on the headline to lin to the United For Justice With Peace" (UJP) Website for the entry- Boston Protest Of The FBI Midwest Anti-War Activist Raids.
*********
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
*********
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
*********
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
*********
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
*From The "Students For A Democratic Society" (SDS) Website- Statement On The Recent FBI Anti-War Activist Raids
Students for a Democratic Society Speaks Out Against FBI Raids
September 24, 2010 - 6:58pm
Tags:CointelproFBISDS Statements
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the country in the face of FBI repression of progressive causes. SDSers, along with members of the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera had their homes searched and documents and electronic devices seized.
"The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes," said Colombia solidarity activist Tom Burke, one of those handed a subpoena by the FBI. "They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America."
Grace Kelley, an SDSer from the University of Minnesota, said “SDS at the U of M condemns the terror tactics used by the FBI to silence activists who organize against wars and for peace here in Minneapolis as well as across the nation. Tracy Molm from SDS at U of M was one of the activists whose house was raided. SDSers across the country need to stand up and condemn these raids and say that we will not be scared into silence, that we will continue to stand up and fight for what’s right”.
Several activists in Minnesota and Chicago have had papers, CDs, and cell phones stolen among other items; as well as being issued subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury. The FBI are apparently looking for evidence linking activists to "material support of terrorism" specifically liberation struggles in Colombia and Palestine. In addition to SDSers being harassed in Minneapolis, two SDSers in Milwaukee were also contacted by the FBI about their anti-war activism.
The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. No arrests have been made – make no mistake, this is a fishing expedition by the FBI.
We urge all progressive activists to show solidarity with those individuals targeted by the U.S. Government. Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse - just say “No”.
Show your support! Organize solidarity actions in your city demanding that the FBI halt all searches and seizures against progressive activists who have done nothing wrong. Contact your local media and let them know that we will not tolerate this kind of harassment from the government. And be aware – if the FBI knocks, you do not have to give out any information or answer any questions.
For more information, contact:
Grace Kelley, University of Minnesota SDS: 612.709.3424
Kas Schwerdtfeger, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee SDS: 262.893.2806
******************
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
September 24, 2010 - 6:58pm
Tags:CointelproFBISDS Statements
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the country in the face of FBI repression of progressive causes. SDSers, along with members of the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera had their homes searched and documents and electronic devices seized.
"The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes," said Colombia solidarity activist Tom Burke, one of those handed a subpoena by the FBI. "They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America."
Grace Kelley, an SDSer from the University of Minnesota, said “SDS at the U of M condemns the terror tactics used by the FBI to silence activists who organize against wars and for peace here in Minneapolis as well as across the nation. Tracy Molm from SDS at U of M was one of the activists whose house was raided. SDSers across the country need to stand up and condemn these raids and say that we will not be scared into silence, that we will continue to stand up and fight for what’s right”.
Several activists in Minnesota and Chicago have had papers, CDs, and cell phones stolen among other items; as well as being issued subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury. The FBI are apparently looking for evidence linking activists to "material support of terrorism" specifically liberation struggles in Colombia and Palestine. In addition to SDSers being harassed in Minneapolis, two SDSers in Milwaukee were also contacted by the FBI about their anti-war activism.
The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. No arrests have been made – make no mistake, this is a fishing expedition by the FBI.
We urge all progressive activists to show solidarity with those individuals targeted by the U.S. Government. Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse - just say “No”.
Show your support! Organize solidarity actions in your city demanding that the FBI halt all searches and seizures against progressive activists who have done nothing wrong. Contact your local media and let them know that we will not tolerate this kind of harassment from the government. And be aware – if the FBI knocks, you do not have to give out any information or answer any questions.
For more information, contact:
Grace Kelley, University of Minnesota SDS: 612.709.3424
Kas Schwerdtfeger, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee SDS: 262.893.2806
******************
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
*From The" Minnesota Hands Off Honduras" Website- The Recent FBI Anti-War Activists Raids-Down With The Grand Jury Hearings-Hands Off The Anti-War Activists!
Click on the headline to link to the Minnesota Hands Off Honduras website for a statement on the recent FBI raids on various anti-war organizations and individuals in the Midwest.
**********
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
**********
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
*From The "Minnesota Anti-War Commitee" Website- Statement On The Recent FBI Raids-"The FBI StoleOUr Computers- We Need Your Information Back"
Click on the headline to link to the Minnesota Anti-War Commitee website for their statement on the recent FBI raids of their premises.
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
Markin comment:
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
*From The "Freedom Road Socialist Organization" Website-Statement On Recent FBI Raids-We Must All Stand Together against FBI Repression of Anti-war and Solidarity Activists
We Must All Stand Together against FBI Repression of Anti-war and Solidarity Activists
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad (FRSO/OSCL) denounces in the strongest possible terms the recent FBI raids against activists in the anti-war and international solidarity movement some of whom are members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO [Fight Back]). That organization, a group which split from FRSO/OSCL just over a decade ago, is made up of dedicated people working for justice for the people of the world. The actions of the FBI have nothing to do with law enforcement or “anti-terrorism” and everything to do with the repression of legitimate dissent in this country and abroad.
**********
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad (FRSO/OSCL) denounces in the strongest possible terms the recent FBI raids against activists in the anti-war and international solidarity movement some of whom are members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO [Fight Back]). That organization, a group which split from FRSO/OSCL just over a decade ago, is made up of dedicated people working for justice for the people of the world. The actions of the FBI have nothing to do with law enforcement or “anti-terrorism” and everything to do with the repression of legitimate dissent in this country and abroad.
**********
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Obama- Hands Off The Minnesota Anti-War Committee And Other Anti-War Activists
The following information is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I do not have any more information on this situation at this time so any additional information would be greatly appreciated to get a better picture of the lengths the Obama government is prepared to go to stifle anti-war dissent. As always- Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American And Allied Troops From Afghanistan And Iraq!
September 30, 2010
On September 24, the Obama administration launched a coordinated series of sinister FBI raids on homes of numerous leftists and anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targeted were a chief union steward in the SEIU, prominent members of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, along with supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. FBI agents seized boxloads of personal belongings including computer drives and papers. The menacing feds also issued subpoenas for the activists to appear before grand juries investigating activities in solidarity with the oppressed in the Middle East and Latin America.
On the day after these direct attacks on First Amendment Rights, the PDC wrote a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder. As we pointed out, "From its inception under the Bush administration, the 'war on terror,' which initially victimized Arab and Muslim immigrants, set into motion repressive measures that also target leftists, trade unionists, and black people. Now the Obama administration is escalating these wholesale attacks on civil liberties with these neo-McCarthyite raids." We demanded that the subpoenas be withdrawn, no charges be pressed and that all belongings taken in the raids be returned immediately. Stop the witchhunt! Hands off the activists!
*From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America)- The Twelfth National Convention ofThe Socialist Workers Party (1946)
Click on the headline to link to the article described in the title.
Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League. A recent example of that linkage in this space was when I argued in this space that, for those who stand in the Trotskyist tradition, one must examine closely the fate of Marx’s First International, the generic socialist Second International, Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Revolution-inspired Communist International, and Trotsky’s revolutionary successor, the Fourth International before one looks elsewhere for a centralized international working class organization that codifies the principle –“workers of the world unite.”
On the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I am speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that made up the organization under review, the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Beyond that there are several directions to go in but these are the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s. If I am asked, and I have been, this is the material that I suggest young militants should start of studying to learn about our common political forbears. And that premise underlines the point of the entries that will posted under this headline in further exploration of the early days, “the dog days” of the Socialist Workers Party.
Note: I can just now almost hear some very nice and proper socialists (descendents of those socialism for dentist-types) just now, screaming in the night, yelling what about Max Shachtman (and, I presume, his henchman, Albert Glotzer, as well) and his various organizational formations starting with the Workers party when he split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1940? Well, what about old Max and his “third camp” tradition? I said the Trotskyist tradition not the State Department socialist tradition. If you want to trace Marxist continuity that way, go to it. That, in any case, is not my sense of continuity, although old Max knew how to “speak” Marxism early in his career under Jim Cannon’s prodding. Moreover at the name Max Shachtman I can hear some moaning, some serious moaning about blackguards and turncoats, from the revolutionary pantheon by Messrs. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. I rest my case.
********************
Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League. A recent example of that linkage in this space was when I argued in this space that, for those who stand in the Trotskyist tradition, one must examine closely the fate of Marx’s First International, the generic socialist Second International, Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Revolution-inspired Communist International, and Trotsky’s revolutionary successor, the Fourth International before one looks elsewhere for a centralized international working class organization that codifies the principle –“workers of the world unite.”
On the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I am speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that made up the organization under review, the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Beyond that there are several directions to go in but these are the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s. If I am asked, and I have been, this is the material that I suggest young militants should start of studying to learn about our common political forbears. And that premise underlines the point of the entries that will posted under this headline in further exploration of the early days, “the dog days” of the Socialist Workers Party.
Note: I can just now almost hear some very nice and proper socialists (descendents of those socialism for dentist-types) just now, screaming in the night, yelling what about Max Shachtman (and, I presume, his henchman, Albert Glotzer, as well) and his various organizational formations starting with the Workers party when he split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1940? Well, what about old Max and his “third camp” tradition? I said the Trotskyist tradition not the State Department socialist tradition. If you want to trace Marxist continuity that way, go to it. That, in any case, is not my sense of continuity, although old Max knew how to “speak” Marxism early in his career under Jim Cannon’s prodding. Moreover at the name Max Shachtman I can hear some moaning, some serious moaning about blackguards and turncoats, from the revolutionary pantheon by Messrs. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. I rest my case.
********************
*Northampton (Ma.) City Council Passes Afghan & Iraq Anti-War Resolution
Click on the headline to link to an Associated Press article detailing Northampton's adoption of an anti-war resolution.
Markin comment:
This little news item about a small Massachusetts town’s adoption of an anti-war resolution against Obama’s, yes, Obama’s Afghan and Iraq wars would usually slip by my radar except Northampton is one of those little enclaves that harbor all manner of old time radicals, old New Leftists, feminists, etc. who moved out of the big cities in the 1970s and 1980s looking for the bucolic life while also remaining in the orbit of academia (there are several colleges in the area). Other similar places(non-exclusive list) include Cambridge, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Seattle, Madison (Wis.), Austin (Tex.).
The import of this action is more about the first, tentative, local parliamentary rumblings from the left, the left that supported Barack Obama in 2008 based on his anti-Iraq position (among other things). Now Mr. Obama finds himself in the company of more well-known war criminals like Lyndon Johnson and the Bushes, father and son on the receiving end of anti-war resolutions. Nice company.
Resolutions like this are fine, mainly, as one small aspect of anti-war policy, but I should like to remind all anti-warriors that the real fight on passing such resolutions is around avoiding the vague sentiments reportedly expressed here and a real anti-imperialist position of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied Troops from Afghanistan, Iraq (and the world come to think of it). And then push on from there in our anti-war opposition.
******
In their own words:
Northampton Organizers Summarize "Bring Our War Dollars Home" Campaign
Submitted by ujpadmin on Thu, 10/07/2010 - 10:31am.
by Carl Moos and Sally Weiss
Northampton is a city of about 30,000 in western Massachusetts. It is governed by a Mayor and a nine-member City Council.
This campaign to Bring Our War Dollars Home was led by Dr. Martha Nathan with the help of many members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass.
Petitioning: We heard about the “Bring Our War Dollars Home” campaign which was started in 2009 by Bruce Gagnon in Maine. From the website of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org), we extracted the dollar cost of the war for our small city (which was easily done with the sophisticated software that NPP has set up). Then in April we were able to draft a resolution based on the original one from Maine and took it as a petition to the streets, the farmers’ markets, even at the town dump. We were impressed by the eagerness of many citizens to add their signatures as a way to express their chagrin with the war. When we had 300 signatures, we approached some friendly members of the City Council, who agreed to sponsor the measure in the Council. It was introduced at a mid-June Council meeting, and we mobilized many of our supporters to speak in the “public comment period” of the meeting, including veterans from IVAW and VFP, some of whom had served in Iraq or Afghanistan and spoke against the wars. Some other local military personnel spoke against our resolution. The City Council decided to refer it to three committees of the Council and to call for a Public Forum on the question.
Throughout the entire period, we continued the petition drive, finally ending with about 1,250 names. The campaign was further fueled by our writing op-eds and letters to the editor in the local daily paper. Contrary opinions appeared as well. The newspaper lent editorial space, not taking sides but in support of the community engaging with such a vital topic as war, peace, and the expenditure of the taxes of local citizens.
Public Forum: The forum was one of the best outcomes of the campaign. It was chaired by the mayor; a lot of citizens spoke. Many facets of what is a controversial idea – curtailing money for an ongoing war – were aired. It became a true community dialogue. We supporters of the resolution were in the majority in the audience, but the mayor insisted on dissenters being given a respectful hearing. The newspaper gave good coverage of the Public Forum, and it was broadcast by community TV and our local low-power radio station.
City Council Action: It was time for the voting in City Council. The three committees had reported back (two pro and one con). There were a couple of delays due to absences of key Council members. We kept on coming to Council meetings, bringing in more petitions, and using the public comment period. Responding to concerns expressed at the Public Forum and in consultation with us, two Councilors amended the Resolution to add explicit language calling for bringing the troops home as well as the dollars, and adding concerns about respect for soldiers and veterans’ care. The first Council vote on the final amended resolution came in at 6-2-1; the required second and final vote will occur on October 7. The Mayor and the Council will then be instructed to deliver the War Dollars Resolution to our members of Congress: Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, and Rep. Richard Neal (MA-2). [The City Council resolution is attached - Ed.]
Community Follow-up: A call for a more informal and extended discussion format was called for by several speakers at the Public Forum. Our Alliance took up that call. Two intimate meetings between two members of the peace community and a few veterans’ families – an exquisitely delicate dialogue – have occurred and will continue.
Regional Outreach: Members of our Alliance for Peace and Justice who live in nearby cities and towns of western Massachusetts are rewriting the petitions and beginning to gather signatures. It is heartening that other calls will go out to Bring Our War Dollars Home. We are happy for this chance to explain the War Dollars campaign through the national networking of UFPJ and PDA.
Lessons learned: It was a long campaign, with ups and downs. We needed to be in it for the long haul because it consumed five months of steadfast organizing.
Using the remarkably easy system of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org) to determine the cost of war over these last nine years for each locality was essential to defining “the war dollars”.
Talking to anti-war veterans and getting their engagement in the process was vital.
Contacting and lobbying members of the City Council in advance was important to getting them engaged and knowledgeable about the campaign and therefore to the ultimate success of the measure. Diligent efforts were needed as well to get so much coverage in the local press.
Whether we won or lost the final vote, a key valuable outcome of the effort was the prolonged time of having the question of our war dollars before the public, getting many people thinking and talking with their family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and therefore being willing to participate in the Public Forum.
-- Submitted by Sally Weiss and Carl Moos, members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass., and of the End the War and Occupation “IOT” of Progressive Democrats of America
Markin comment:
This little news item about a small Massachusetts town’s adoption of an anti-war resolution against Obama’s, yes, Obama’s Afghan and Iraq wars would usually slip by my radar except Northampton is one of those little enclaves that harbor all manner of old time radicals, old New Leftists, feminists, etc. who moved out of the big cities in the 1970s and 1980s looking for the bucolic life while also remaining in the orbit of academia (there are several colleges in the area). Other similar places(non-exclusive list) include Cambridge, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Seattle, Madison (Wis.), Austin (Tex.).
The import of this action is more about the first, tentative, local parliamentary rumblings from the left, the left that supported Barack Obama in 2008 based on his anti-Iraq position (among other things). Now Mr. Obama finds himself in the company of more well-known war criminals like Lyndon Johnson and the Bushes, father and son on the receiving end of anti-war resolutions. Nice company.
Resolutions like this are fine, mainly, as one small aspect of anti-war policy, but I should like to remind all anti-warriors that the real fight on passing such resolutions is around avoiding the vague sentiments reportedly expressed here and a real anti-imperialist position of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied Troops from Afghanistan, Iraq (and the world come to think of it). And then push on from there in our anti-war opposition.
******
In their own words:
Northampton Organizers Summarize "Bring Our War Dollars Home" Campaign
Submitted by ujpadmin on Thu, 10/07/2010 - 10:31am.
by Carl Moos and Sally Weiss
Northampton is a city of about 30,000 in western Massachusetts. It is governed by a Mayor and a nine-member City Council.
This campaign to Bring Our War Dollars Home was led by Dr. Martha Nathan with the help of many members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass.
Petitioning: We heard about the “Bring Our War Dollars Home” campaign which was started in 2009 by Bruce Gagnon in Maine. From the website of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org), we extracted the dollar cost of the war for our small city (which was easily done with the sophisticated software that NPP has set up). Then in April we were able to draft a resolution based on the original one from Maine and took it as a petition to the streets, the farmers’ markets, even at the town dump. We were impressed by the eagerness of many citizens to add their signatures as a way to express their chagrin with the war. When we had 300 signatures, we approached some friendly members of the City Council, who agreed to sponsor the measure in the Council. It was introduced at a mid-June Council meeting, and we mobilized many of our supporters to speak in the “public comment period” of the meeting, including veterans from IVAW and VFP, some of whom had served in Iraq or Afghanistan and spoke against the wars. Some other local military personnel spoke against our resolution. The City Council decided to refer it to three committees of the Council and to call for a Public Forum on the question.
Throughout the entire period, we continued the petition drive, finally ending with about 1,250 names. The campaign was further fueled by our writing op-eds and letters to the editor in the local daily paper. Contrary opinions appeared as well. The newspaper lent editorial space, not taking sides but in support of the community engaging with such a vital topic as war, peace, and the expenditure of the taxes of local citizens.
Public Forum: The forum was one of the best outcomes of the campaign. It was chaired by the mayor; a lot of citizens spoke. Many facets of what is a controversial idea – curtailing money for an ongoing war – were aired. It became a true community dialogue. We supporters of the resolution were in the majority in the audience, but the mayor insisted on dissenters being given a respectful hearing. The newspaper gave good coverage of the Public Forum, and it was broadcast by community TV and our local low-power radio station.
City Council Action: It was time for the voting in City Council. The three committees had reported back (two pro and one con). There were a couple of delays due to absences of key Council members. We kept on coming to Council meetings, bringing in more petitions, and using the public comment period. Responding to concerns expressed at the Public Forum and in consultation with us, two Councilors amended the Resolution to add explicit language calling for bringing the troops home as well as the dollars, and adding concerns about respect for soldiers and veterans’ care. The first Council vote on the final amended resolution came in at 6-2-1; the required second and final vote will occur on October 7. The Mayor and the Council will then be instructed to deliver the War Dollars Resolution to our members of Congress: Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, and Rep. Richard Neal (MA-2). [The City Council resolution is attached - Ed.]
Community Follow-up: A call for a more informal and extended discussion format was called for by several speakers at the Public Forum. Our Alliance took up that call. Two intimate meetings between two members of the peace community and a few veterans’ families – an exquisitely delicate dialogue – have occurred and will continue.
Regional Outreach: Members of our Alliance for Peace and Justice who live in nearby cities and towns of western Massachusetts are rewriting the petitions and beginning to gather signatures. It is heartening that other calls will go out to Bring Our War Dollars Home. We are happy for this chance to explain the War Dollars campaign through the national networking of UFPJ and PDA.
Lessons learned: It was a long campaign, with ups and downs. We needed to be in it for the long haul because it consumed five months of steadfast organizing.
Using the remarkably easy system of the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org) to determine the cost of war over these last nine years for each locality was essential to defining “the war dollars”.
Talking to anti-war veterans and getting their engagement in the process was vital.
Contacting and lobbying members of the City Council in advance was important to getting them engaged and knowledgeable about the campaign and therefore to the ultimate success of the measure. Diligent efforts were needed as well to get so much coverage in the local press.
Whether we won or lost the final vote, a key valuable outcome of the effort was the prolonged time of having the question of our war dollars before the public, getting many people thinking and talking with their family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, and therefore being willing to participate in the Public Forum.
-- Submitted by Sally Weiss and Carl Moos, members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice of Western Mass., and of the End the War and Occupation “IOT” of Progressive Democrats of America
Saturday, October 09, 2010
*From The Pen Of James P. Cannon-How To Organize And Conduct A Study Class (1924)
Click on the headline to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the title.
Markin comment:
James P. Cannon, old time Wobblie (IWW) organizer, Left-wing Socialist Party leader, founder of the American Communist Party and of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, is assuredly qualified to give some advice to us today on organizing classes on the study of socialism, and the political struggle to build an organization to fight for that goal. Particularly, as recent events have demonstrated, when there is a crying need for young and old to learn about socialism as an alternative to this capitalist malaise.
Markin comment:
James P. Cannon, old time Wobblie (IWW) organizer, Left-wing Socialist Party leader, founder of the American Communist Party and of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, is assuredly qualified to give some advice to us today on organizing classes on the study of socialism, and the political struggle to build an organization to fight for that goal. Particularly, as recent events have demonstrated, when there is a crying need for young and old to learn about socialism as an alternative to this capitalist malaise.
Song From Popular American Folklore-The Walkabouts' "Bonnie And Clyde"
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bonnie and Clyde as video accompanying The Walkabout's song on the pair.
Markin comment:
See today's entry on the film Bonnie and Clyde.
Markin comment:
See today's entry on the film Bonnie and Clyde.
*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- Book Reviews
Markin comment:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
**********
Reviews
Martin Alexander and Helen Graham (eds.), The French and Spanish Popular Fronts: Comparative Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp277, £27.50
The appearance over the last decade or so of all-class organisations based upon liberal politics around such issues as racism, women's rights, the environment and militarism, issues on which a Marxist approach is sorely needed, demonstrates the necessity to examine earlier analogous manifestations, the Popular Fronts of the late 1930s. The recent calls by certain Stalinists, Labour Party members and academics for electoral pacts involving outright bourgeois parties, make this task even more pressing. Britain of the late 1980s is not France or Spain of the late 1930s, but the lessons of Popular Frontism have not lost their relevance.
`The picture is full of complications and no more than a fraction of the potential questions have been touched on here.' The words of one contributor sum up some of the problems with this collection. There are over 20 contributions, averaging a dozen pages apiece, covering a very wide range of subjects; the origins of the Popular Fronts, the attitudes of the churches and military towards them, the governments' economic policies, political organisations and regional and cultural studies. It's an eclectic brew, rather too skimpy for the expert - can one cover adequately, say, the left wing opposition to French Stalinism in 12 pages? - and often too obscure for the newcomer; take, for example, the essay `Popular Tourism and Mass Leisure in the Vision of the Front Populaire.' Readers of some knowledge will find plenty of interest, but the eclecticism, each author with his or her own specialised subject, style and outlook, leaves the collection with a decided lack of cohesion. There again, this is always a problem with this type of book.
The centrality of Stalinism to the Popular Front, and its crucial r61e in the subsequent demoralisation and defeat of the French and Spanish working class, are downplayed. We learn very little about how the French Communist Party undermined the mammoth strike wave that shook France in June 1936, other than the albeit telling fact that the Stalinists wouldn't challenge the unions' reluctance to fight for equal pay for women. There's a wealth of material not yet translated into English on French Stalinism which could have been drawn upon. Similarly there's next to nothing on the Stalinists' reign of terror in Spain. It's not just a question of the GPU's methods, horrible as they were, but the fact that outright terror was an essential part of the Popular Front, and that the most militant workers and peasants had to be killed or terrorised if the Popular Front's all-class alliance was to survive. The complex relationships between a Stalinist party and the internal pressures of the capitalist and working classes and the external pressures of the Soviet bureaucracy are only mentioned in passing.
Whilst the formation of the Popular Fronts is well covered, little space is devoted to their demise. Commenting on the social and economic policies of the Spanish left, Jose Manuel Macarro Vera recognises that the Popular Front was historically unviable. The reinforcement of the `proletarian bloc' implied `the whole question of the seizure of political power' and this would have spelt the end of the Popular Front. Conversely, making the Popular Front economically viable meant attacks upon the working class, thus provoking class conflict. And there it's left. Just how this dichotomy worked itself out, either in France or in Spain, is not outlined in this book, which is a serious omission.
The Popular Front governments in both Spain and France were brought into office on tremendous waves of working class militancy, which exploded in response to Fascist provocations. In both countries, this militancy had to be defused, dissipated by the workers' parties supporting the Popular Front to ensure that their bourgeois partners in office would not split the coalition governments. The French and Spanish Stalinists played a key part in this, demoralising the masses and, in Spain, physically exterminating those who attempted to expose the charade. There are no `comparative perspectives' on Stalinist treachery here. Reliant upon the demobilisation of the masses and unable to satisfy them with petty reforms, which only raised the resentment of the capitalists, the Popular Fronts led to disaster.
The Popular Front administrations in France were rapidly followed by Edouard Daladier's increasingly repressive government, which overturned what gains the workers had won, and delivered them to the tender mercies of Marshal Petain. In Spain, the Republic fell victim to Franco's Falangists. The real lesson of the Popular Front is that the democratic rights of the working class can only be defended in and through the struggle for state power. Any attempt to stop half way, or to subordinate politically the labour movement to the liberal end of the ruling class will only lead to disaster. The most important aspect of the Popular Front is that the French and Spanish working classes were defeated precisely because of it, and it's a shame that this central issue is only hinted at in this collection.
Paul Flewers
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
**********
Reviews
Martin Alexander and Helen Graham (eds.), The French and Spanish Popular Fronts: Comparative Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp277, £27.50
The appearance over the last decade or so of all-class organisations based upon liberal politics around such issues as racism, women's rights, the environment and militarism, issues on which a Marxist approach is sorely needed, demonstrates the necessity to examine earlier analogous manifestations, the Popular Fronts of the late 1930s. The recent calls by certain Stalinists, Labour Party members and academics for electoral pacts involving outright bourgeois parties, make this task even more pressing. Britain of the late 1980s is not France or Spain of the late 1930s, but the lessons of Popular Frontism have not lost their relevance.
`The picture is full of complications and no more than a fraction of the potential questions have been touched on here.' The words of one contributor sum up some of the problems with this collection. There are over 20 contributions, averaging a dozen pages apiece, covering a very wide range of subjects; the origins of the Popular Fronts, the attitudes of the churches and military towards them, the governments' economic policies, political organisations and regional and cultural studies. It's an eclectic brew, rather too skimpy for the expert - can one cover adequately, say, the left wing opposition to French Stalinism in 12 pages? - and often too obscure for the newcomer; take, for example, the essay `Popular Tourism and Mass Leisure in the Vision of the Front Populaire.' Readers of some knowledge will find plenty of interest, but the eclecticism, each author with his or her own specialised subject, style and outlook, leaves the collection with a decided lack of cohesion. There again, this is always a problem with this type of book.
The centrality of Stalinism to the Popular Front, and its crucial r61e in the subsequent demoralisation and defeat of the French and Spanish working class, are downplayed. We learn very little about how the French Communist Party undermined the mammoth strike wave that shook France in June 1936, other than the albeit telling fact that the Stalinists wouldn't challenge the unions' reluctance to fight for equal pay for women. There's a wealth of material not yet translated into English on French Stalinism which could have been drawn upon. Similarly there's next to nothing on the Stalinists' reign of terror in Spain. It's not just a question of the GPU's methods, horrible as they were, but the fact that outright terror was an essential part of the Popular Front, and that the most militant workers and peasants had to be killed or terrorised if the Popular Front's all-class alliance was to survive. The complex relationships between a Stalinist party and the internal pressures of the capitalist and working classes and the external pressures of the Soviet bureaucracy are only mentioned in passing.
Whilst the formation of the Popular Fronts is well covered, little space is devoted to their demise. Commenting on the social and economic policies of the Spanish left, Jose Manuel Macarro Vera recognises that the Popular Front was historically unviable. The reinforcement of the `proletarian bloc' implied `the whole question of the seizure of political power' and this would have spelt the end of the Popular Front. Conversely, making the Popular Front economically viable meant attacks upon the working class, thus provoking class conflict. And there it's left. Just how this dichotomy worked itself out, either in France or in Spain, is not outlined in this book, which is a serious omission.
The Popular Front governments in both Spain and France were brought into office on tremendous waves of working class militancy, which exploded in response to Fascist provocations. In both countries, this militancy had to be defused, dissipated by the workers' parties supporting the Popular Front to ensure that their bourgeois partners in office would not split the coalition governments. The French and Spanish Stalinists played a key part in this, demoralising the masses and, in Spain, physically exterminating those who attempted to expose the charade. There are no `comparative perspectives' on Stalinist treachery here. Reliant upon the demobilisation of the masses and unable to satisfy them with petty reforms, which only raised the resentment of the capitalists, the Popular Fronts led to disaster.
The Popular Front administrations in France were rapidly followed by Edouard Daladier's increasingly repressive government, which overturned what gains the workers had won, and delivered them to the tender mercies of Marshal Petain. In Spain, the Republic fell victim to Franco's Falangists. The real lesson of the Popular Front is that the democratic rights of the working class can only be defended in and through the struggle for state power. Any attempt to stop half way, or to subordinate politically the labour movement to the liberal end of the ruling class will only lead to disaster. The most important aspect of the Popular Front is that the French and Spanish working classes were defeated precisely because of it, and it's a shame that this central issue is only hinted at in this collection.
Paul Flewers
*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- Book Reviews
Markin comment:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
**********
Reviews
Karl Kautsky, The Materialist Conception of History, translated by Raymond Meyer and John H. Kautsky, annotated and introduced by John Kautsky, Yale University Press, New Haven 1988, pp.558, £35.00
John Kautsky, the grandson of Karl Kautsky, the ‘Pope of Marxism’, has rendered an immense service in presenting this book in a form that English readers can use. The measure of his achievement (and even more so, that of his grandfather, the author) can be gauged from the fact that this version is smaller than either of the volumes of the German text, but by judicious editing none of the coherence of the original is lost.
The book’s value can hardly be overestimated. Kautsky was the literary legatee of Marx and Engels, and the great systematiser of their work. This volume is thus a synthesis, if not an encyclopaedia of the world view of the German Social Democratic Party, and indeed of the Second International as a whole.
It also represents, of course, the background against which Lenin and Trotsky developed their ideas. Kautsky’s negative attitude to Freud, for example (pp.58, 93, 106-7, 511), stands in marked contrast to Trotsky in Culture and Socialism, and readers of Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-criticism will be interested to learn that Kautsky placed far more value on Mach’s work than Lenin did (p.31). Those who are fond of holding forth on the superiority of Lenin’s dialectics over Kautsky’s alleged ‘mechanical materialism’ will be surprised to find out that he is very critical of Engels’ concept of the ‘dialectics of nature’, holding that “like Hegel, we assume that the dialectic in which the thesis itself generates its own antithesis holds good only for human development in society” (p.218).
Coming to the broad sweep of history, students of the Marxist theory of historical development will note that Kautsky identifies and describes the Asiatic Mode, in which he includes Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian and especially Chinese society (pp.140, 278), whose basic mechanism he accepts as hydraulic works (pp.214, 307-10), and delineates the causes of its limitation and stagnation (pp.317-8, 331, 337-8, 543). He even anticipates the theories of Umberto Melotti’s Marx and the Third World when he explains the state form of the Soviet Union as a reversion to “a new despotism, a bureaucratic military despotism under the leadership of a dictatorship of intellectuals’ (p.414). He has none of the reservations of our modern quasi-Marxists at describing Classical society as slave-based (pp.346-7) and ascribes the ultimate failure of the city state to the inbuilt tendency of the slave mode of production to stagnation and decline (p.352).
There is, of course, a weaker side to the book. Kautsky’s Olympian detachment deserts him when he goes over once again his polemic with Bolshevism, which he accuses of holding “that every antagonism among peoples and classes can only be fought out by bloody war” (p.320), and it is inevitably over the question of revolution and the class theory of the state that he appears most limp. He assures us that “there is no longer room for armed struggle as a way of carrying on class conflicts” in a democratic state, in which even the mass strike “hardly seems applicable” (p.376). Industrial capital, we are told, “cannot simply be expropriated without economic damage to society and to the workers themselves” (p.377). Considerable exegetical violence is done both to Marx, whose concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is identified with a democratic republic (p.390), and to Engels, whose forecast of the state taking possession of production as “an act” is put down to an inability to understand that “this transition can only be a more or less slowly advancing process” (p.446).
Kautsky’s book was published in 1927, in the middle of the palmy days of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and the Stresemann Era, and its trouble-free, evolutionary, unproblematic conception of gradual upward human progress seemed to be a reasonable assumption at the time. Hegelian discontinuities and dialectical leaps are noticeably absent from it. As he admits in several places (pp.6, 66, etc.) he came to his theory of historical change through Darwin rather than Hegel or Marx, and in the end his work is really no more than an immense Darwinian evolutionary rationalisation. History was shortly to deal it a series of rapid and cruel blows. Two years later came the Wall Street crash and another two more years were to see Hitler in power and Kautsky in exile in Prague, where he died in 1938 witnessing the massive wreck of the German workers’ movement.
For there were others who also took their inspiration from Darwin, and developed his insights in unforeseen ways. As opposed to Kautsky, who took over the theory of evolution, others were more interested in natural selection and the survival of the fittest. In several places Kautsky has to argue against racial theories erected on just these Darwinian premises (pp.12,4-5, 137, 149). For the moment Hitler’s movement was no larger than a cloud, the size of a man’s hand, in an otherwise clear sky. “If the expression ‘intensification of class antagonisms’ means that the class struggles assume increasingly violent forms“, Kautsky notes, “then the view implicit in that expression would certainly not be correct” (p.428). He writes his political epitaph, and unfortunately that of the German proletariat as well, with massive if unconscious irony:
The question of whether the capitalists will undertake an armed attack on democracy comes down ... to the question of whether they will be able to find an adequate armed force that is available to them for this purpose ... Today it is the Fascists who have become the paid executioners of the people’s freedom. They are certainly dangerous, but fortunately only under certain conditions that the capitalists cannot conjure up as they choose. In order to be politically effective, the Fascists must appear in large numbers ... In Germany, they will have to be almost one million strong in order to attain this proportion. In an industrialised country, it is impossible to get hold of such a large number of scoundrels in the prime of life for capitalistic purposes (p.394).
Al Richardson
***********
Reviews
Max Adler, A Socialist Remembers, Duckworth, London, 1988, pp174, £16.95
This memoir, with its dedication:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
**********
Reviews
Karl Kautsky, The Materialist Conception of History, translated by Raymond Meyer and John H. Kautsky, annotated and introduced by John Kautsky, Yale University Press, New Haven 1988, pp.558, £35.00
John Kautsky, the grandson of Karl Kautsky, the ‘Pope of Marxism’, has rendered an immense service in presenting this book in a form that English readers can use. The measure of his achievement (and even more so, that of his grandfather, the author) can be gauged from the fact that this version is smaller than either of the volumes of the German text, but by judicious editing none of the coherence of the original is lost.
The book’s value can hardly be overestimated. Kautsky was the literary legatee of Marx and Engels, and the great systematiser of their work. This volume is thus a synthesis, if not an encyclopaedia of the world view of the German Social Democratic Party, and indeed of the Second International as a whole.
It also represents, of course, the background against which Lenin and Trotsky developed their ideas. Kautsky’s negative attitude to Freud, for example (pp.58, 93, 106-7, 511), stands in marked contrast to Trotsky in Culture and Socialism, and readers of Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-criticism will be interested to learn that Kautsky placed far more value on Mach’s work than Lenin did (p.31). Those who are fond of holding forth on the superiority of Lenin’s dialectics over Kautsky’s alleged ‘mechanical materialism’ will be surprised to find out that he is very critical of Engels’ concept of the ‘dialectics of nature’, holding that “like Hegel, we assume that the dialectic in which the thesis itself generates its own antithesis holds good only for human development in society” (p.218).
Coming to the broad sweep of history, students of the Marxist theory of historical development will note that Kautsky identifies and describes the Asiatic Mode, in which he includes Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian and especially Chinese society (pp.140, 278), whose basic mechanism he accepts as hydraulic works (pp.214, 307-10), and delineates the causes of its limitation and stagnation (pp.317-8, 331, 337-8, 543). He even anticipates the theories of Umberto Melotti’s Marx and the Third World when he explains the state form of the Soviet Union as a reversion to “a new despotism, a bureaucratic military despotism under the leadership of a dictatorship of intellectuals’ (p.414). He has none of the reservations of our modern quasi-Marxists at describing Classical society as slave-based (pp.346-7) and ascribes the ultimate failure of the city state to the inbuilt tendency of the slave mode of production to stagnation and decline (p.352).
There is, of course, a weaker side to the book. Kautsky’s Olympian detachment deserts him when he goes over once again his polemic with Bolshevism, which he accuses of holding “that every antagonism among peoples and classes can only be fought out by bloody war” (p.320), and it is inevitably over the question of revolution and the class theory of the state that he appears most limp. He assures us that “there is no longer room for armed struggle as a way of carrying on class conflicts” in a democratic state, in which even the mass strike “hardly seems applicable” (p.376). Industrial capital, we are told, “cannot simply be expropriated without economic damage to society and to the workers themselves” (p.377). Considerable exegetical violence is done both to Marx, whose concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is identified with a democratic republic (p.390), and to Engels, whose forecast of the state taking possession of production as “an act” is put down to an inability to understand that “this transition can only be a more or less slowly advancing process” (p.446).
Kautsky’s book was published in 1927, in the middle of the palmy days of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and the Stresemann Era, and its trouble-free, evolutionary, unproblematic conception of gradual upward human progress seemed to be a reasonable assumption at the time. Hegelian discontinuities and dialectical leaps are noticeably absent from it. As he admits in several places (pp.6, 66, etc.) he came to his theory of historical change through Darwin rather than Hegel or Marx, and in the end his work is really no more than an immense Darwinian evolutionary rationalisation. History was shortly to deal it a series of rapid and cruel blows. Two years later came the Wall Street crash and another two more years were to see Hitler in power and Kautsky in exile in Prague, where he died in 1938 witnessing the massive wreck of the German workers’ movement.
For there were others who also took their inspiration from Darwin, and developed his insights in unforeseen ways. As opposed to Kautsky, who took over the theory of evolution, others were more interested in natural selection and the survival of the fittest. In several places Kautsky has to argue against racial theories erected on just these Darwinian premises (pp.12,4-5, 137, 149). For the moment Hitler’s movement was no larger than a cloud, the size of a man’s hand, in an otherwise clear sky. “If the expression ‘intensification of class antagonisms’ means that the class struggles assume increasingly violent forms“, Kautsky notes, “then the view implicit in that expression would certainly not be correct” (p.428). He writes his political epitaph, and unfortunately that of the German proletariat as well, with massive if unconscious irony:
The question of whether the capitalists will undertake an armed attack on democracy comes down ... to the question of whether they will be able to find an adequate armed force that is available to them for this purpose ... Today it is the Fascists who have become the paid executioners of the people’s freedom. They are certainly dangerous, but fortunately only under certain conditions that the capitalists cannot conjure up as they choose. In order to be politically effective, the Fascists must appear in large numbers ... In Germany, they will have to be almost one million strong in order to attain this proportion. In an industrialised country, it is impossible to get hold of such a large number of scoundrels in the prime of life for capitalistic purposes (p.394).
Al Richardson
***********
Reviews
Max Adler, A Socialist Remembers, Duckworth, London, 1988, pp174, £16.95
This memoir, with its dedication:
*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- Book Reviews
Markin comment:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
********
Reviews
Charles Yelland, Dulcie Yelland, 1907-1987: A Socialist of Our Times, Gipton History Group, Leeds 1988, pp143, £2.50
This is an affectionate personal tribute by a retired printer to his late wife. It tells with wry humour and rich irony many reminiscences of their personal and political lives from the 1930s onwards. Here the picture is not of the Leeds working class deferentially accepting its lot, but of struggle in the labour, trade union and co-operative movements, centred on those past decades during which Labour could still hope to govern. Dulcie’s friends will not forget her humour and liveliness, of which the writer gives numerous reminders.
Yet, does not a book which opens with a foreword by Denis Healey, immediately followed by Dulcie’s favourite quotation from Trotsky (“Civilisation can be saved only by the proletarian revolution”) suggest unresolved problems?
Historians will do well not to overlook this unpretentious account. The author tells how Dulcie sympathised in the late 1930s with the Trotskyist view of the USSR as a degenerated workers’ state. But that is not the whole story. Dulcie was one of the early recruits whom Mary Archer won to the local cell of the Militant Group, which was then made up almost entirely of industrial workers, few of whose names history has recorded. She denounced the Moscow Trials when you needed courage to do so. But she understood that they raised political and not exclusively ‘moral’ questions, and campaigned as a Trotskyist, in the Labour Party, to ensure that the independence of the working class was not undermined by supporters either of ‘official’ Labour or of the Popular Front, or harnessed to the war aims of British imperialism.
Chapter Four does indeed describe, with relish, how during the Second World War, she organised into the trade union movement a series of engineering workplaces in Leeds, how wage rises were won and victimisations blocked, and how a notoriously anti-union boss had a heart attack. Her reputation as a shop steward lived on for many years.
But it omits to mention how she became a target for the Communist Party’s historic pamphlet, Clear out Hitler’s Agents, which in the event did not in the slightest weaken her support among her fellow workers.
She joined the Revolutionary Socialist League in 1938, supporting the leadership of Denzil Dean Harber and Starkey Jackson and, in the fusion of Spring 1944, joined the Revolutionary Communist Party, where she continued her mass activities.
Dulcie’s understanding of workers’ lives and minds contributed much to her immediate circle of comrades. After the war she tended, like many women militants, to turn back to family life after the separation and hardships; and, at the same time, the struggles among the Trotskyists for theoretical clarity in the largely unforeseen conditions of the late 1940s were going clown channels where she could not follow.
Unswerving in her sympathy for Trotsky’s ideas, she refused to be uprooted from the activity of her local Labour Party, in which she became absorbed for the benefit of the advancement of others in the apparatus rather than that of her own ideas. How often was she to hear that she could have commanded eminence – had she but had the ‘right’ rather than the ‘left’ ideas!
Chapter Six is a lively account of how Dulcie supported Vyvyan Mendelson’s motion at the 1957 Labour Party Conference. This sought to pledge a future Labour government to refuse to test, manufacture or use nuclear weapons, and took on not only the traditional pro-American right, but Aneurin Bevan and the Stalinists as well – but the book does not mention that the motion, from the Norwood Labour Party, was initiated by the ‘Healyites’, or that its attempt to place the workers’ movement in the leadership of the struggle against nuclear weapons was quickly followed by the interposition of CND.
It must be said that Dulcie, like her women comrades, did not let herself be over-impressed by leaders of either gender, however eminent or pretentious. There was no petty-bourgeois feminism among them. They took particular notice of the struggles of women workers, and they did not let men dominate them. But they saw the main enemy in the capitalist class and not in men as a gender.
On this political basis, Dulcie contributed frequently to the Newsletter in the later 1950s. The ‘turn’ of the Socialist Labour League (SLL) in 1964 out of the Labour Party was incomprehensible to her, but she continued to help the local comrades until the exclusion of close friends associated with Alan Thornett led her to distance herself from Healy’s apparatus. She had already become increasingly suspicious, not merely of the sectarian evolution of the SLL’s politics, but of the fabricated accounts of the history of Trotskyism in Britain on which he based his claim to predominance. From personal experience, Dulcie knew that these accounts were false, because they wrote out of history both the Workers International League (WIL) majority and all the experience of the tendency to which she had belonged.
Dulcie has been greatly missed by many, not least among militants far younger than herself. In 1983 she was one of the principal speakers at the memorial meeting in Leeds for Mary Archer, who had been her close personal friend for 45 years – and at least half of her audience were under thirty!
Charlie’s book is interestingly written, well produced and very reasonably priced. It is not merely a piece of local working class history ‘from below’; it raises questions which some may find at first disturbing and may feel moved to follow up. Dulcie may have relied heavily on her precious gifts of intuition and imaginative sympathy, which, alas, by themselves are no substitute for Marxism. But the spark which was ready in 1937-38 for Trotsky’s ideas to light, never burnt out.
John Archer
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
********
Reviews
Charles Yelland, Dulcie Yelland, 1907-1987: A Socialist of Our Times, Gipton History Group, Leeds 1988, pp143, £2.50
This is an affectionate personal tribute by a retired printer to his late wife. It tells with wry humour and rich irony many reminiscences of their personal and political lives from the 1930s onwards. Here the picture is not of the Leeds working class deferentially accepting its lot, but of struggle in the labour, trade union and co-operative movements, centred on those past decades during which Labour could still hope to govern. Dulcie’s friends will not forget her humour and liveliness, of which the writer gives numerous reminders.
Yet, does not a book which opens with a foreword by Denis Healey, immediately followed by Dulcie’s favourite quotation from Trotsky (“Civilisation can be saved only by the proletarian revolution”) suggest unresolved problems?
Historians will do well not to overlook this unpretentious account. The author tells how Dulcie sympathised in the late 1930s with the Trotskyist view of the USSR as a degenerated workers’ state. But that is not the whole story. Dulcie was one of the early recruits whom Mary Archer won to the local cell of the Militant Group, which was then made up almost entirely of industrial workers, few of whose names history has recorded. She denounced the Moscow Trials when you needed courage to do so. But she understood that they raised political and not exclusively ‘moral’ questions, and campaigned as a Trotskyist, in the Labour Party, to ensure that the independence of the working class was not undermined by supporters either of ‘official’ Labour or of the Popular Front, or harnessed to the war aims of British imperialism.
Chapter Four does indeed describe, with relish, how during the Second World War, she organised into the trade union movement a series of engineering workplaces in Leeds, how wage rises were won and victimisations blocked, and how a notoriously anti-union boss had a heart attack. Her reputation as a shop steward lived on for many years.
But it omits to mention how she became a target for the Communist Party’s historic pamphlet, Clear out Hitler’s Agents, which in the event did not in the slightest weaken her support among her fellow workers.
She joined the Revolutionary Socialist League in 1938, supporting the leadership of Denzil Dean Harber and Starkey Jackson and, in the fusion of Spring 1944, joined the Revolutionary Communist Party, where she continued her mass activities.
Dulcie’s understanding of workers’ lives and minds contributed much to her immediate circle of comrades. After the war she tended, like many women militants, to turn back to family life after the separation and hardships; and, at the same time, the struggles among the Trotskyists for theoretical clarity in the largely unforeseen conditions of the late 1940s were going clown channels where she could not follow.
Unswerving in her sympathy for Trotsky’s ideas, she refused to be uprooted from the activity of her local Labour Party, in which she became absorbed for the benefit of the advancement of others in the apparatus rather than that of her own ideas. How often was she to hear that she could have commanded eminence – had she but had the ‘right’ rather than the ‘left’ ideas!
Chapter Six is a lively account of how Dulcie supported Vyvyan Mendelson’s motion at the 1957 Labour Party Conference. This sought to pledge a future Labour government to refuse to test, manufacture or use nuclear weapons, and took on not only the traditional pro-American right, but Aneurin Bevan and the Stalinists as well – but the book does not mention that the motion, from the Norwood Labour Party, was initiated by the ‘Healyites’, or that its attempt to place the workers’ movement in the leadership of the struggle against nuclear weapons was quickly followed by the interposition of CND.
It must be said that Dulcie, like her women comrades, did not let herself be over-impressed by leaders of either gender, however eminent or pretentious. There was no petty-bourgeois feminism among them. They took particular notice of the struggles of women workers, and they did not let men dominate them. But they saw the main enemy in the capitalist class and not in men as a gender.
On this political basis, Dulcie contributed frequently to the Newsletter in the later 1950s. The ‘turn’ of the Socialist Labour League (SLL) in 1964 out of the Labour Party was incomprehensible to her, but she continued to help the local comrades until the exclusion of close friends associated with Alan Thornett led her to distance herself from Healy’s apparatus. She had already become increasingly suspicious, not merely of the sectarian evolution of the SLL’s politics, but of the fabricated accounts of the history of Trotskyism in Britain on which he based his claim to predominance. From personal experience, Dulcie knew that these accounts were false, because they wrote out of history both the Workers International League (WIL) majority and all the experience of the tendency to which she had belonged.
Dulcie has been greatly missed by many, not least among militants far younger than herself. In 1983 she was one of the principal speakers at the memorial meeting in Leeds for Mary Archer, who had been her close personal friend for 45 years – and at least half of her audience were under thirty!
Charlie’s book is interestingly written, well produced and very reasonably priced. It is not merely a piece of local working class history ‘from below’; it raises questions which some may find at first disturbing and may feel moved to follow up. Dulcie may have relied heavily on her precious gifts of intuition and imaginative sympathy, which, alas, by themselves are no substitute for Marxism. But the spark which was ready in 1937-38 for Trotsky’s ideas to light, never burnt out.
John Archer
Friday, October 08, 2010
From The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee Website- Happy Birthday Granma Stewart! Free Lynne Stewart Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee Website
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