Click on the headline to link to a Occupy Boston entry from the Occupy Boston website an occupation that started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post updates as they appear on this site.
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el
99%
Dewey Square
Cercerde South Station
ASAMBLEA GENERALTODOS LOS DIAS
6:00PM
vvww.occupyboston.com
Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square
en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
******
Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment October 2, 2011:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council) coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
Markin comment October 9, 2011:
Word comes, via National Public Radio (NPR), that Mayor Menino believes that the time to shut down the Occupy Boston site at Dewey Square is nearing. That despite the hard facts that there have been no problems, no trouble caused, and nothing but good-will on the part of the occupation forces. We must all tell, loudly tell, Mayor Menino- Hands Off The Occupy Boston Site! Hands Off The Occupiers!
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Our Mother, The Mountain- The Music Of Jean Ritchie"
Our Mother, The Mountain- The Traditional Mountain Music Of Jean Ritchie
CD REVIEW
Mountain Hearth And Home, Jean Ritchie, Rhino Handmade, 2004
The last time that the name of traditional mountain folk singer Jean Ritchie was mentioned in this space was as part of the lineup in Rosalie Sorrel’s last concert at Harvard University that spawned a CD, The Last Go-Round. At that concert she, as usual, she performed, accompanied by her sweet dulcimer, the mountain music particularly the music that she learned in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and that she has been associated with going back at least to the early 1960’s. Here, in the CD under review, Mountain Hearth and Home, we get a wide range of those traditional mountain songs from those parts that provide something for every palate.
The songs, simple songs of the mountains that befit a simple folk with simple lyrics, chords and instrumentation representing what was at hand, many of which have their genesis back in the hills of Scotland and Ireland, never fail to evoke a primordial response in this listener. The songs speak of the longings created by those isolated spaces; and, occasionally of those almost eternal thoughts of love, love thwarted, love gone wrong or love disappearing without a trace. Or songs of the hard life of the mountains whether it is the hard scrabble to make a life from the rocky farmland that will not give forth without great struggle or of the mines, the coal mines that in an earlier time (and that are making a comeback now out west) represented a key energy source for a growing industrial society. Many a tale here centers on the trails and tribulations of the weary, worked-out mines and miners. Add in some country lullabies, some religiously-oriented songs representing the fundamental Protestant ethic that drove these people and some Saturday dancing and drinking songs and you have a pretty good feel for the range of experience out there in the hills, hollows and ravines of Eastern Kentucky.
Several time over the past year or so I have mentioned, as part of my remembrances of my youth and of my political and familial background, that my father was a coal miner and the son of a coal miner in the hills of Hazard, Kentucky (a town mentioned in a couple of the songs here) in the heart of Appalachia. I have also mentioned that he was a child of the Great Depression and of World War II. He often joked that in a choice between digging the coal and taking his chances in war he much preferred the latter. Thus, it was no accident that when war came he volunteered for the Marines and, as fate would have it, despite a hard, hard life after the war, he never looked back to the mines or the hills. Still this music flowed in his veins, and, I guess, flows in mine.
My Boy Willie
Traditional
Notes: This song has the exact same tunes as the song "The Butcher Boy" and is of a similar theme.
It was early, early in the spring
my boy Willie went to serve the king
And all that vexed him and grieved his mind
was the leaving of his dear girl behind.
Oh father dear build me a boat
that on the ocean I might float
And hail the ships as they pass by
for to inquire of my sailor boy.
She had not sailed long in the deep
when a fine ship's crew she chanced to meet
And of the captain she inquired to
"Does my boy Willie sail on board with you?"
"What sort of a lad is your Willie fair?
What sort of clothes does your Willie wear?"
"He wears a coat of royal blue,
and you'll surely know him for his heart is true".
"If that's your Willie he is not here.
Your Willie's drowned as you did fear.
'Twas at yonder green island as we passed by,
it was there we lost a fine sailor boy".
Go dig my grave long wide and deep,
put a marble stone at my head and feet.
And in the middle, a turtle dove.
So the whole world knows that I died of love.
"The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore"
When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down on his knee
He said, "son, go to school and get your letters,
Don't you be a dusty coal miner, boy, like me."
[Chorus:]
I was born and raised at the mouth of hazard hollow
The coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty row all empty
Because the l & n don't stop here anymore
I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
But now he goes to town with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow
[Chorus]
I never thought I'd learn to love the coal dust
I never thought I'd pray to hear that whistle roar
Oh, god, I wish the grass would turn to money
And those green backs would fill my pockets once more
[Chorus]
Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my pay like a had done before
But them ol' kudzu vines were coverin' the door
And there were leaves and grass growin' right up through the floor
[Chorus]
Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies
Come all ye fair and tender ladies
Take warning how you court your men
They're like a star on a summer morning
They first appear and then they're gone
They'll tell to you some loving story
And they'll make you think that they love you well
And away they'll go and court some other
And leave you there in grief to dwell
I wish I was on some tall mountain
Where the ivy rocks were black as ink
I'd write a letter to my false true lover
Whose cheeks are like the morning pink
I wish I was a little sparrow
And I had wings to fly so high
I'd fly to the arms of my false true lover
And when he'd ask, I would deny
Oh love is handsome, love is charming
And love is pretty while it's new
But love grows cold as love grows older
And fades away like morning dew
"BLACK IS THE COLOUR"
Black is the colour of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She's the sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground wheron she stands
I love my love and well she knows
I love the ground whereon she goes
But some times I whish the day will come
That she and I will be as one
Black is the colour of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She's the sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground wheron she stands
I walk to the Clyde for to mourn and weep
But satisfied I never can sleep
I'll write her a letter, just a few short lines
And suffer death ten thousand times
Black is the colour of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She's the sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground wheron she stands
Blue Diamond Mines
I remember the ways in the bygone days
when we was all in our prime
When us and John L. we give the old man hell
down in the Blue Diamond Mine
Well the whistle would blow 'for the rooster crow
full two hours before daylight
When a man done his best and earned his good rest
at seven dollars a night
In the mines in the mines
in the Blue Diamond Mines
I worked my life away
In the mines in the mines
In the Blue Diamond Mines
I fall on my knees and pray.
You old black gold you've taken my lung
your dust has darkened my home
And now I am old and you've turned your back
where else can an old miner go
Well it's Algomer Block and Big Leather Woods
now its Blue Diamond too
The bits are all closed get another job
what else can an old miner do?
Now the union is dead and they shake their heads
well mining has had it's day
But they're stripping off my mountain top
and they pay me eight dollars a day
Now you might get a little poke of welfare meal
get a little poke of welfare flour
But I tell you right now your won't qualify
'till you work for a quarter an hour.
CD REVIEW
Mountain Hearth And Home, Jean Ritchie, Rhino Handmade, 2004
The last time that the name of traditional mountain folk singer Jean Ritchie was mentioned in this space was as part of the lineup in Rosalie Sorrel’s last concert at Harvard University that spawned a CD, The Last Go-Round. At that concert she, as usual, she performed, accompanied by her sweet dulcimer, the mountain music particularly the music that she learned in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and that she has been associated with going back at least to the early 1960’s. Here, in the CD under review, Mountain Hearth and Home, we get a wide range of those traditional mountain songs from those parts that provide something for every palate.
The songs, simple songs of the mountains that befit a simple folk with simple lyrics, chords and instrumentation representing what was at hand, many of which have their genesis back in the hills of Scotland and Ireland, never fail to evoke a primordial response in this listener. The songs speak of the longings created by those isolated spaces; and, occasionally of those almost eternal thoughts of love, love thwarted, love gone wrong or love disappearing without a trace. Or songs of the hard life of the mountains whether it is the hard scrabble to make a life from the rocky farmland that will not give forth without great struggle or of the mines, the coal mines that in an earlier time (and that are making a comeback now out west) represented a key energy source for a growing industrial society. Many a tale here centers on the trails and tribulations of the weary, worked-out mines and miners. Add in some country lullabies, some religiously-oriented songs representing the fundamental Protestant ethic that drove these people and some Saturday dancing and drinking songs and you have a pretty good feel for the range of experience out there in the hills, hollows and ravines of Eastern Kentucky.
Several time over the past year or so I have mentioned, as part of my remembrances of my youth and of my political and familial background, that my father was a coal miner and the son of a coal miner in the hills of Hazard, Kentucky (a town mentioned in a couple of the songs here) in the heart of Appalachia. I have also mentioned that he was a child of the Great Depression and of World War II. He often joked that in a choice between digging the coal and taking his chances in war he much preferred the latter. Thus, it was no accident that when war came he volunteered for the Marines and, as fate would have it, despite a hard, hard life after the war, he never looked back to the mines or the hills. Still this music flowed in his veins, and, I guess, flows in mine.
My Boy Willie
Traditional
Notes: This song has the exact same tunes as the song "The Butcher Boy" and is of a similar theme.
It was early, early in the spring
my boy Willie went to serve the king
And all that vexed him and grieved his mind
was the leaving of his dear girl behind.
Oh father dear build me a boat
that on the ocean I might float
And hail the ships as they pass by
for to inquire of my sailor boy.
She had not sailed long in the deep
when a fine ship's crew she chanced to meet
And of the captain she inquired to
"Does my boy Willie sail on board with you?"
"What sort of a lad is your Willie fair?
What sort of clothes does your Willie wear?"
"He wears a coat of royal blue,
and you'll surely know him for his heart is true".
"If that's your Willie he is not here.
Your Willie's drowned as you did fear.
'Twas at yonder green island as we passed by,
it was there we lost a fine sailor boy".
Go dig my grave long wide and deep,
put a marble stone at my head and feet.
And in the middle, a turtle dove.
So the whole world knows that I died of love.
"The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore"
When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down on his knee
He said, "son, go to school and get your letters,
Don't you be a dusty coal miner, boy, like me."
[Chorus:]
I was born and raised at the mouth of hazard hollow
The coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty row all empty
Because the l & n don't stop here anymore
I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
But now he goes to town with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow
[Chorus]
I never thought I'd learn to love the coal dust
I never thought I'd pray to hear that whistle roar
Oh, god, I wish the grass would turn to money
And those green backs would fill my pockets once more
[Chorus]
Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my pay like a had done before
But them ol' kudzu vines were coverin' the door
And there were leaves and grass growin' right up through the floor
[Chorus]
Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies
Come all ye fair and tender ladies
Take warning how you court your men
They're like a star on a summer morning
They first appear and then they're gone
They'll tell to you some loving story
And they'll make you think that they love you well
And away they'll go and court some other
And leave you there in grief to dwell
I wish I was on some tall mountain
Where the ivy rocks were black as ink
I'd write a letter to my false true lover
Whose cheeks are like the morning pink
I wish I was a little sparrow
And I had wings to fly so high
I'd fly to the arms of my false true lover
And when he'd ask, I would deny
Oh love is handsome, love is charming
And love is pretty while it's new
But love grows cold as love grows older
And fades away like morning dew
"BLACK IS THE COLOUR"
Black is the colour of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She's the sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground wheron she stands
I love my love and well she knows
I love the ground whereon she goes
But some times I whish the day will come
That she and I will be as one
Black is the colour of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She's the sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground wheron she stands
I walk to the Clyde for to mourn and weep
But satisfied I never can sleep
I'll write her a letter, just a few short lines
And suffer death ten thousand times
Black is the colour of my true love's hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She's the sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground wheron she stands
Blue Diamond Mines
I remember the ways in the bygone days
when we was all in our prime
When us and John L. we give the old man hell
down in the Blue Diamond Mine
Well the whistle would blow 'for the rooster crow
full two hours before daylight
When a man done his best and earned his good rest
at seven dollars a night
In the mines in the mines
in the Blue Diamond Mines
I worked my life away
In the mines in the mines
In the Blue Diamond Mines
I fall on my knees and pray.
You old black gold you've taken my lung
your dust has darkened my home
And now I am old and you've turned your back
where else can an old miner go
Well it's Algomer Block and Big Leather Woods
now its Blue Diamond too
The bits are all closed get another job
what else can an old miner do?
Now the union is dead and they shake their heads
well mining has had it's day
But they're stripping off my mountain top
and they pay me eight dollars a day
Now you might get a little poke of welfare meal
get a little poke of welfare flour
But I tell you right now your won't qualify
'till you work for a quarter an hour.
The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
Saturday, October 08, 2011
The Latest From The SteveLendmanBlog
Markin comment:
I am always happy to post material from the SteveLendmanBlog, although I am not always in agreement with his analysis. I am always interested in getting a left-liberal/radical perspective on some issues that I don’t generally have time to cover in full like the question of Palestine, the Middle East in general, and civil rights and economic issues here in America and elsewhere. Moreover the blog provides plenty of useful links to other sources of information about the subject under discussion.
I am always happy to post material from the SteveLendmanBlog, although I am not always in agreement with his analysis. I am always interested in getting a left-liberal/radical perspective on some issues that I don’t generally have time to cover in full like the question of Palestine, the Middle East in general, and civil rights and economic issues here in America and elsewhere. Moreover the blog provides plenty of useful links to other sources of information about the subject under discussion.
Greetings From Occupied Boston-Via The "Occupy Boston (#TomemonosBoston)" Website-The Latest From "Occupy Boston"-Day Nine Round-Up- We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
Click on the headline to link to a Occupy Boston entry from the Occupy Boston website an occupation that started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post updates as they appear on this site.
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el
99%
Dewey Square
Cercerde South Station
ASAMBLEA GENERALTODOS LOS DIAS
6:00PM
vvww.occupyboston.com
Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square
en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
******
Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment October 2, 2011:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
ANTI-IMPERIALISM, an injury to one is an injury to all, anti-capitalism, Bolsheviks, class struggle defense, Occupy Boston, Russian revolution
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el
99%
Dewey Square
Cercerde South Station
ASAMBLEA GENERALTODOS LOS DIAS
6:00PM
vvww.occupyboston.com
Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square
en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
******
Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment October 2, 2011:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
ANTI-IMPERIALISM, an injury to one is an injury to all, anti-capitalism, Bolsheviks, class struggle defense, Occupy Boston, Russian revolution
Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Our Mother, The Mountain- The Music Of Jean Ritchie"
Click on title to link to my American Left History entry for Our Mother, The Mountain-The Traditional Kentucky Music Of Jean Ritchie
From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-"Defend Longview ILWU Against Bosses’ Cops and Courts!"-All Labor Must Defend The Long View Port Workers
Workers Vanguard No. 987
30 September 2011
Police Assaults, Arrests, Injunctions
Defend Longview ILWU Against Bosses’ Cops and Courts!
SEPTEMBER 27—Six days ago, the small town of Longview on the Columbia River in Washington State was occupied by an army of police from throughout the surrounding area. Armored SWAT vehicles and rifle-wielding cops in riot gear flooded the streets and closed down roads leading to the town’s port. Around the port rail tracks outside EGT Development’s newly built grain terminal, which is being run with scab labor, were some 50 protesting members and supporters of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 21. As a train carrying grain appeared, cops swarmed the tracks, handcuffing and arresting ten protesters, including Local 21 president Dan Coffman and wives and mothers of longshoremen. One 57-year-old woman had her rotator cuff torn. When two Local 21 officers rushed to her aid, they were hurled to the ground and cuffed, their faces shoved into the gravel and their eyes directly and repeatedly sprayed with mace. Now they’re charged with assaulting the police!
This massive display of force by the cops is the latest chapter in the ILWU’s struggle against the multinational EGT conglomerate, which is dead set on breaking the union’s 80-year hold on work at Pacific Northwest grain terminals. Like every conflict between labor and capital, the confrontation in Longview is a hard-nosed struggle between class forces whose interests are irreconcilable. Which side prevails is determined by the relative strength of the opposing forces. Repeatedly, Local 21 has mobilized militant labor action to stop trains from bringing grain shipments into the terminal. On September 8, the union came out on top when it brought its power to bear as several ports across Washington were idled and picket lines in Longview reinforced. Before the day was over, police and private security had reportedly turned tail and EGT was howling about all the grain strewn on the tracks.
The ILWU and its allies are up against EGT and its allies—the cops, the courts and capitalist government agencies like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The giant grain exporter wants to establish the $200 million, state-of-the-art Longview terminal as a prime location for shipments to growing markets in Asia. If EGT gets away with refusing to hire Local 21 members as its lease with the Port of Longview obliges it to do, it would embolden other employers up and down the coast to gun for the ILWU. In the face of this deadly threat to the ILWU’s future, the rest of the labor movement must rally to the defense of Local 21.
The cop rampages, including a September 7 assault on ILWU International president Robert McEllrath, amply demonstrate the role of the police: to protect the property and profits of the capitalist class through brute force. Following the union victory on September 8, Longview police and Cowlitz County sheriff’s deputies unleashed a campaign of terror and intimidation. Trade unionists, among them Local 21 leaders, were accosted in their homes and cars, arrested and jailed by gangs of cops for non-violent misdemeanor citations that ordinarily would not merit arrest, let alone jail. To date, at least 135 ILWU members and supporters have been arrested in connection with union protests.
McEllrath, who had a warrant for his arrest stemming from the union’s actions on September 7-8, turned himself in to Cowlitz County authorities yesterday and was released after being given a citation. Officials from both the ILWU and the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which is based on the East and Gulf coasts, accompanied McEllrath in solidarity and, according to the ILWU, longshoremen all along the West Coast stopped work for 15 minutes.
A federal civil rights lawsuit filed on September 22 by the ILWU against Sheriff Mark Nelson and Police Chief Jim Duscha details one brutal arrest after another. Describing an attack on a Local 21 member and former union official outside her home, the suit states that the cops “grabbed her, threw her down onto her stomach, shoved her onto the hood of her car and handcuffed her with her hands behind her back. Then, before putting her into the police car, two officers proceeded to slam her body onto the side of her car and then onto a wooden fence even though she was already handcuffed.” A member of another ILWU local, who is also a minister, was dragged from his home by cops, one of whom brandished a semiautomatic weapon, and taken to a crowded school parking lot where he was handcuffed and arrested in front of his wife and children. Even people just driving vehicles or wearing clothes identifying them as ILWU supporters have been followed and roughed up. This criminalization of longshoremen smacks of the arrests, beatings and worse that the cops mete out to black people every day in America’s urban ghettos.
On September 16, some 200 union members and supporters, led by Coffman and ILWU Coast Committeeman Leal Sundet, marched to the Cowlitz County Hall of Justice to offer themselves up for mass arrest. This was a sharp statement against the cops’ “made for TV” assaults, in which individual unionists are picked up and hauled off. Some 30 police officers in full riot gear were assembled inside, but the unionists, who waited around for a half hour, were just told to go home. Then, a couple of hours later, the vicious roundups resumed with the arrest of Local 21 vice president Jake Whiteside in front of his children in a church parking lot.
The day before the march, Sundet had sent Sheriff Nelson a letter voicing unionists’ anger at the arrests and police brutality, pointing out that those being rounded up were the same ones who had dispersed on his orders from the port railroad tracks on September 7 and were not arrested at the time. The letter nailed the sheriff as “EGT’s propagandist” for carrying out a “sensationalized media campaign to mischaracterize union members as lawless criminal aggressor thugs.” Among the lies planted in news outlets was the accusation that union members pepper-sprayed policemen when, as the letter states, “it was the other way around.”
Sundet’s letter made an appeal to the sheriff to “remain neutral” in this conflict, and now the union has launched a petition campaign to recall Nelson. The notion of police “neutrality” is a suicidal illusion. The cops are the hired guns of the capitalists. As one old labor saw goes, there is more education at the end of a policeman’s nightstick than in four years of college. During the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, seven union men were killed, including two gunned down by San Francisco cops on “Bloody Thursday,” July 5, which sparked a citywide strike that led to the founding of the ILWU. Unions in the U.S. were built in the course of just such bitter battles against the capitalist state—the cops, courts and military like the National Guard—and its strikebreaking auxiliaries, from the Pinkertons to the Ku Klux Klan. The struggle to organize unions and win real gains is a history of laws broken and injunctions defied.
The Constitution of Bay Area ILWU Local 10 codifies an important corollary lesson coming out of such hard-fought strikes: “No member of the State Militia, or officer or agent of a corporation or association of employers, or a deputized city, county or state police officer, shall be permitted to hold membership in this Union.” But the enlistment of port security—the “ILWU Watchmen”—in Bay Area Local 75 is a direct violation of this prohibition. Security guards at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port and elsewhere are also in the ILWU. EGT’s own private security force has served as the prosecution’s main witnesses against the ILWU. Neither the cops and prison guards nor private security guards have any place in the labor movement!
While the ILWU and every other union might have to fight some battles in the courts, there should be no illusion that the “justice” system is anything but a tool of the capitalist ruling class. In fact, the federal district court where the ILWU lawsuit against the police was filed is the same one coming down like gangbusters on the union. At the request of the NLRB, most of whose members are Democratic Party appointees, this court had earlier issued an injunction prohibiting the ILWU from aggressive picketing. The union was then found in contempt of court for the September 7-8 protests, with the judge giving the company and police carte blanche to come up with figures to set fines against Local 21, which according to the NLRB may reach nearly $300,000. The NLRB, whose purpose is to demobilize labor struggle and maintain class “peace” on behalf of the bosses, is building a case for slapping the union with additional penalties for the September 21 protests.
As we wrote in “ILWU Fights Deadly Threat” (WV No. 986, 16 September), “it’s been clear from the beginning that EGT wants a non-union facility” in Longview. The company has tried to disguise its union-busting as a “jurisdictional dispute” between the ILWU and scabs in Operating Engineers Local 701, who are working the Longview terminal. Criminally, AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka has sided with the company by promoting this lie. The Trumka bureaucracy wants to squelch the ILWU’s battle for fear of undermining the Democratic Party and its leader, Barack Obama, whose 2012 presidential campaign is in trouble.
There have been a number of statements and resolutions from the ILA and other unions in the U.S. in support of Local 21, as well as from dock workers unions overseas and Japan’s Doro-Chiba rail workers union. The 24,000-member, Portland-based Joint Council of Teamsters No. 37 has voiced its support for the Longview longshoremen. At the same time, it is Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen members who are crossing picket lines by driving trains into EGT’s Longview terminal. There’s a word for this: scabbing!
Some ILWU officials have presented the Longview struggle as a fight between the “local community” and a “foreign corporation.” But the Longview “community” includes the cops who are busting unionists’ heads, and the U.S. components of the EGT conglomerate are no less committed than their foreign partners to keeping the port union-free. The ILWU has the potential to win this struggle precisely because it is not local but coastwide. As the shipping industry’s Journal of Commerce (19 September) acknowledged: “It is this unchallenged jurisdiction at West Coast ports that makes the ILWU one of the most powerful unions in the United States. In the container sector, shipping executives know a dispute at one port can lead to the ILWU shutting down their operations on the entire coast.” If the union is going to stand down EGT, it has to be prepared to continue playing to its strengths: its collective organization and its ability to stop the flow of goods.
International working-class solidarity could be decisive, especially if scab grain starts being shipped out. The Journal of Commerce observed: “The bigger concern for EGT, however, could be the close connections the ILWU maintains with dockworker unions in Asia, where most of its grain will be exported. The ILWU and its Asian counterparts in the past have coordinated job actions on both sides of the Pacific against vessels involved in labor disputes at U.S. and Asian ports.” The ILWU augmented its power, as did the 250-member Panama Canal pilots union, when the pilots affiliated with the ILWU on September 17. But when ILWU leaders rail against EGT as a “foreign” threat to U.S. shippers, they line up behind the profitability of ILWU members’ red-white-and-blue exploiters and undermine international labor solidarity.
The ILWU Ladies Auxiliary has played a prominent role in protesting EGT’s union-busting. Alliances with working-class women and the unemployed played an important role historically in union organizing and strike battles. The ILWU’s multiracial membership—majority black in the Bay Area and Latino in L.A.—gives the union the potential to forge strong bonds with the ghetto and barrio masses. But to galvanize such support behind the unions requires a labor movement that links its struggles to the fight for black freedom and immigrant rights and defends all those thrown onto capitalism’s scrap heap.
The backstabbing role of the Trumka AFL-CIO leadership epitomizes the policies of the U.S. labor bureaucracy, which is wedded to the continued rule of capital and preaches reliance on the bosses’ state and political parties, especially the Democrats. Labor needs a leadership based on a class-struggle program and committed to the independence of the working class from the class enemy. Such a leadership would support the building of a workers party to lead all the exploited and oppressed in the fight for a workers government, destroying the capitalists’ repressive state machinery root and branch.
30 September 2011
Police Assaults, Arrests, Injunctions
Defend Longview ILWU Against Bosses’ Cops and Courts!
SEPTEMBER 27—Six days ago, the small town of Longview on the Columbia River in Washington State was occupied by an army of police from throughout the surrounding area. Armored SWAT vehicles and rifle-wielding cops in riot gear flooded the streets and closed down roads leading to the town’s port. Around the port rail tracks outside EGT Development’s newly built grain terminal, which is being run with scab labor, were some 50 protesting members and supporters of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 21. As a train carrying grain appeared, cops swarmed the tracks, handcuffing and arresting ten protesters, including Local 21 president Dan Coffman and wives and mothers of longshoremen. One 57-year-old woman had her rotator cuff torn. When two Local 21 officers rushed to her aid, they were hurled to the ground and cuffed, their faces shoved into the gravel and their eyes directly and repeatedly sprayed with mace. Now they’re charged with assaulting the police!
This massive display of force by the cops is the latest chapter in the ILWU’s struggle against the multinational EGT conglomerate, which is dead set on breaking the union’s 80-year hold on work at Pacific Northwest grain terminals. Like every conflict between labor and capital, the confrontation in Longview is a hard-nosed struggle between class forces whose interests are irreconcilable. Which side prevails is determined by the relative strength of the opposing forces. Repeatedly, Local 21 has mobilized militant labor action to stop trains from bringing grain shipments into the terminal. On September 8, the union came out on top when it brought its power to bear as several ports across Washington were idled and picket lines in Longview reinforced. Before the day was over, police and private security had reportedly turned tail and EGT was howling about all the grain strewn on the tracks.
The ILWU and its allies are up against EGT and its allies—the cops, the courts and capitalist government agencies like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The giant grain exporter wants to establish the $200 million, state-of-the-art Longview terminal as a prime location for shipments to growing markets in Asia. If EGT gets away with refusing to hire Local 21 members as its lease with the Port of Longview obliges it to do, it would embolden other employers up and down the coast to gun for the ILWU. In the face of this deadly threat to the ILWU’s future, the rest of the labor movement must rally to the defense of Local 21.
The cop rampages, including a September 7 assault on ILWU International president Robert McEllrath, amply demonstrate the role of the police: to protect the property and profits of the capitalist class through brute force. Following the union victory on September 8, Longview police and Cowlitz County sheriff’s deputies unleashed a campaign of terror and intimidation. Trade unionists, among them Local 21 leaders, were accosted in their homes and cars, arrested and jailed by gangs of cops for non-violent misdemeanor citations that ordinarily would not merit arrest, let alone jail. To date, at least 135 ILWU members and supporters have been arrested in connection with union protests.
McEllrath, who had a warrant for his arrest stemming from the union’s actions on September 7-8, turned himself in to Cowlitz County authorities yesterday and was released after being given a citation. Officials from both the ILWU and the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which is based on the East and Gulf coasts, accompanied McEllrath in solidarity and, according to the ILWU, longshoremen all along the West Coast stopped work for 15 minutes.
A federal civil rights lawsuit filed on September 22 by the ILWU against Sheriff Mark Nelson and Police Chief Jim Duscha details one brutal arrest after another. Describing an attack on a Local 21 member and former union official outside her home, the suit states that the cops “grabbed her, threw her down onto her stomach, shoved her onto the hood of her car and handcuffed her with her hands behind her back. Then, before putting her into the police car, two officers proceeded to slam her body onto the side of her car and then onto a wooden fence even though she was already handcuffed.” A member of another ILWU local, who is also a minister, was dragged from his home by cops, one of whom brandished a semiautomatic weapon, and taken to a crowded school parking lot where he was handcuffed and arrested in front of his wife and children. Even people just driving vehicles or wearing clothes identifying them as ILWU supporters have been followed and roughed up. This criminalization of longshoremen smacks of the arrests, beatings and worse that the cops mete out to black people every day in America’s urban ghettos.
On September 16, some 200 union members and supporters, led by Coffman and ILWU Coast Committeeman Leal Sundet, marched to the Cowlitz County Hall of Justice to offer themselves up for mass arrest. This was a sharp statement against the cops’ “made for TV” assaults, in which individual unionists are picked up and hauled off. Some 30 police officers in full riot gear were assembled inside, but the unionists, who waited around for a half hour, were just told to go home. Then, a couple of hours later, the vicious roundups resumed with the arrest of Local 21 vice president Jake Whiteside in front of his children in a church parking lot.
The day before the march, Sundet had sent Sheriff Nelson a letter voicing unionists’ anger at the arrests and police brutality, pointing out that those being rounded up were the same ones who had dispersed on his orders from the port railroad tracks on September 7 and were not arrested at the time. The letter nailed the sheriff as “EGT’s propagandist” for carrying out a “sensationalized media campaign to mischaracterize union members as lawless criminal aggressor thugs.” Among the lies planted in news outlets was the accusation that union members pepper-sprayed policemen when, as the letter states, “it was the other way around.”
Sundet’s letter made an appeal to the sheriff to “remain neutral” in this conflict, and now the union has launched a petition campaign to recall Nelson. The notion of police “neutrality” is a suicidal illusion. The cops are the hired guns of the capitalists. As one old labor saw goes, there is more education at the end of a policeman’s nightstick than in four years of college. During the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, seven union men were killed, including two gunned down by San Francisco cops on “Bloody Thursday,” July 5, which sparked a citywide strike that led to the founding of the ILWU. Unions in the U.S. were built in the course of just such bitter battles against the capitalist state—the cops, courts and military like the National Guard—and its strikebreaking auxiliaries, from the Pinkertons to the Ku Klux Klan. The struggle to organize unions and win real gains is a history of laws broken and injunctions defied.
The Constitution of Bay Area ILWU Local 10 codifies an important corollary lesson coming out of such hard-fought strikes: “No member of the State Militia, or officer or agent of a corporation or association of employers, or a deputized city, county or state police officer, shall be permitted to hold membership in this Union.” But the enlistment of port security—the “ILWU Watchmen”—in Bay Area Local 75 is a direct violation of this prohibition. Security guards at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port and elsewhere are also in the ILWU. EGT’s own private security force has served as the prosecution’s main witnesses against the ILWU. Neither the cops and prison guards nor private security guards have any place in the labor movement!
While the ILWU and every other union might have to fight some battles in the courts, there should be no illusion that the “justice” system is anything but a tool of the capitalist ruling class. In fact, the federal district court where the ILWU lawsuit against the police was filed is the same one coming down like gangbusters on the union. At the request of the NLRB, most of whose members are Democratic Party appointees, this court had earlier issued an injunction prohibiting the ILWU from aggressive picketing. The union was then found in contempt of court for the September 7-8 protests, with the judge giving the company and police carte blanche to come up with figures to set fines against Local 21, which according to the NLRB may reach nearly $300,000. The NLRB, whose purpose is to demobilize labor struggle and maintain class “peace” on behalf of the bosses, is building a case for slapping the union with additional penalties for the September 21 protests.
As we wrote in “ILWU Fights Deadly Threat” (WV No. 986, 16 September), “it’s been clear from the beginning that EGT wants a non-union facility” in Longview. The company has tried to disguise its union-busting as a “jurisdictional dispute” between the ILWU and scabs in Operating Engineers Local 701, who are working the Longview terminal. Criminally, AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka has sided with the company by promoting this lie. The Trumka bureaucracy wants to squelch the ILWU’s battle for fear of undermining the Democratic Party and its leader, Barack Obama, whose 2012 presidential campaign is in trouble.
There have been a number of statements and resolutions from the ILA and other unions in the U.S. in support of Local 21, as well as from dock workers unions overseas and Japan’s Doro-Chiba rail workers union. The 24,000-member, Portland-based Joint Council of Teamsters No. 37 has voiced its support for the Longview longshoremen. At the same time, it is Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen members who are crossing picket lines by driving trains into EGT’s Longview terminal. There’s a word for this: scabbing!
Some ILWU officials have presented the Longview struggle as a fight between the “local community” and a “foreign corporation.” But the Longview “community” includes the cops who are busting unionists’ heads, and the U.S. components of the EGT conglomerate are no less committed than their foreign partners to keeping the port union-free. The ILWU has the potential to win this struggle precisely because it is not local but coastwide. As the shipping industry’s Journal of Commerce (19 September) acknowledged: “It is this unchallenged jurisdiction at West Coast ports that makes the ILWU one of the most powerful unions in the United States. In the container sector, shipping executives know a dispute at one port can lead to the ILWU shutting down their operations on the entire coast.” If the union is going to stand down EGT, it has to be prepared to continue playing to its strengths: its collective organization and its ability to stop the flow of goods.
International working-class solidarity could be decisive, especially if scab grain starts being shipped out. The Journal of Commerce observed: “The bigger concern for EGT, however, could be the close connections the ILWU maintains with dockworker unions in Asia, where most of its grain will be exported. The ILWU and its Asian counterparts in the past have coordinated job actions on both sides of the Pacific against vessels involved in labor disputes at U.S. and Asian ports.” The ILWU augmented its power, as did the 250-member Panama Canal pilots union, when the pilots affiliated with the ILWU on September 17. But when ILWU leaders rail against EGT as a “foreign” threat to U.S. shippers, they line up behind the profitability of ILWU members’ red-white-and-blue exploiters and undermine international labor solidarity.
The ILWU Ladies Auxiliary has played a prominent role in protesting EGT’s union-busting. Alliances with working-class women and the unemployed played an important role historically in union organizing and strike battles. The ILWU’s multiracial membership—majority black in the Bay Area and Latino in L.A.—gives the union the potential to forge strong bonds with the ghetto and barrio masses. But to galvanize such support behind the unions requires a labor movement that links its struggles to the fight for black freedom and immigrant rights and defends all those thrown onto capitalism’s scrap heap.
The backstabbing role of the Trumka AFL-CIO leadership epitomizes the policies of the U.S. labor bureaucracy, which is wedded to the continued rule of capital and preaches reliance on the bosses’ state and political parties, especially the Democrats. Labor needs a leadership based on a class-struggle program and committed to the independence of the working class from the class enemy. Such a leadership would support the building of a workers party to lead all the exploited and oppressed in the fight for a workers government, destroying the capitalists’ repressive state machinery root and branch.
From The United National Anti-War Committee (UNAC) Website-Boston, October 15, 2011- MARCH & RALLY TO STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD
Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Committee (UNAC) Website for more information about the October 15, 2011 day of anti-war protest.
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. Not all the demands of this committee are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
************
MARCH & RALLY TO STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD-
Americans want the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere to end. Instead, the White House has extended and expanded its war actions, now entering its second decade, with no end in sight. US forces are still in Iraq, assassination drones attack Pakistan and Somalia, and Libya is being bombarded while a new western occupation is planned. The U.S. backs Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine, maintains 900 military bases around the world, and threatens Iran and other countries. Which country will be the next target of U.S. and U.S.-led wars?
These endless wars have terrible costs - lives lost; countries devastated; trillions of dollars spent resulting in service cuts, privatizations, and increased poverty; scapegoating Muslims and immigrants; and other wars at home on the Black, Latino, and Native communities.
The tiny minority who run the military-economic-industrial-financial machine are thriving while the rest of us increasingly struggle to get by. This has to end!
US Troops, Contractors, and Bases out of Afghanistan and Iraq NOW!
NATO/US Out of Libya and Pakistan!
End US Aid to Israel! Hands-Off Iran!
Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Incarceration!
Bring Our War Dollars Home Now! Stop the Scapegoating of Arabs and Muslims!
SATURDAY, OCT 15,1PM
Park Street Station at Boston Common (Park & Tremont)
Sponsors include: Boston United National Antiwar Coalition; ANSWER Coalition; Boston United for Justice with Peace; Boston Stop the Wars Coalition; Cape Coders for Peace & Justice; International Socialist Organization; International Action Center; New England United Antiwar Network; Rl Mobilization Committee; Socialist Party Boston
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. Not all the demands of this committee are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
************
MARCH & RALLY TO STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD-
Americans want the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere to end. Instead, the White House has extended and expanded its war actions, now entering its second decade, with no end in sight. US forces are still in Iraq, assassination drones attack Pakistan and Somalia, and Libya is being bombarded while a new western occupation is planned. The U.S. backs Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine, maintains 900 military bases around the world, and threatens Iran and other countries. Which country will be the next target of U.S. and U.S.-led wars?
These endless wars have terrible costs - lives lost; countries devastated; trillions of dollars spent resulting in service cuts, privatizations, and increased poverty; scapegoating Muslims and immigrants; and other wars at home on the Black, Latino, and Native communities.
The tiny minority who run the military-economic-industrial-financial machine are thriving while the rest of us increasingly struggle to get by. This has to end!
US Troops, Contractors, and Bases out of Afghanistan and Iraq NOW!
NATO/US Out of Libya and Pakistan!
End US Aid to Israel! Hands-Off Iran!
Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Incarceration!
Bring Our War Dollars Home Now! Stop the Scapegoating of Arabs and Muslims!
SATURDAY, OCT 15,1PM
Park Street Station at Boston Common (Park & Tremont)
Sponsors include: Boston United National Antiwar Coalition; ANSWER Coalition; Boston United for Justice with Peace; Boston Stop the Wars Coalition; Cape Coders for Peace & Justice; International Socialist Organization; International Action Center; New England United Antiwar Network; Rl Mobilization Committee; Socialist Party Boston
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-Troy Davis Execution: Racist State Murder-Down With The Barbaric Death Penalty!
Workers Vanguard No. 987
30 September 2011
Troy Davis Execution: Racist State Murder
Troy Davis is dead. At 11:08 p.m. on September 21, Davis, a 42-year-old black man, was murdered by the legal guardians of the capitalist ruling class. For 22 years, Davis fought to prove his innocence of the 1989 killing of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia, only to spend the last moments of his life strapped to an execution gurney. For its part, the U.S. Supreme Court went through the charade of reviewing his petition for a last-minute stay of execution. As protests took place around the world, hundreds of Davis’s supporters rallied outside the Jackson, Georgia, prison—officially known as the Diagnostic and Classification Prison—while millions followed the story on TVs, radios and cell phones, hoping for a semblance of justice for this black man caught in the American “justice” system.
The killing of Troy Davis was racist legal lynching! In place of hooded KKK nightriders were pin-striped prosecutors and black-robed judges, along with the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which turned down Davis’s bid for clemency the day before the execution. In place of the lynch rope were needles dispensing the life-ending chemical cocktail. The substantial evidence of Davis’s innocence meant nothing. A white uniformed enforcer of capitalist law and order had been killed, and this black life had to be taken in return. Here is a stark demonstration of the workings of the capitalist state—an instrument of organized violence to protect the class rule and profits of the tiny handful of capitalists against the workers and the oppressed. The death penalty is the ultimate sanction of a “justice” system that is not only stacked against workers and the poor but also, in this society founded on slavery and maintained on a bedrock of black oppression, racist to its core.
The story of Troy Davis’s frame-up is a familiar one for black people in this country. In 1991, he was sentenced to death after a frame-up conviction based on questionable “eyewitness” identifications, dubious accounts that he confessed and testimony coerced by the cops. Not a shred of physical evidence linked him to the killing. Seven of the prosecution’s nine witnesses have since recanted. The only holdouts were a man who may be the actual killer and another who first denied being able to identify the shooter, only to finger Davis at trial two years later.
What sets Davis’s case apart were the worldwide calls to stop his execution, ultimately including even former FBI director William Sessions and former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr—both staunch proponents of capital punishment—as well as the Pope and ex-president Jimmy Carter. Protests were held in cities internationally following the signing of his death warrant on September 6. In the last days of his life over 600,000 people signed petitions on Davis’s behalf. Just as a federal court judge last year dismissed evidence of Davis’s innocence as “smoke and mirrors,” the state authorities answered these calls for mercy with contempt.
Almost a century ago, Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs powerfully condemned the barbarism of the death penalty, writing in a May 1913 letter: “The taking of human life through criminal impulse or in an hour of passion by an individual is not to be compared to the immeasurably greater crime committed by the State when it deliberately puts to death the individual charged with such crime. Society may not consistently condemn murder as long as it is itself red-handed with that crime.”
As Marxists, we oppose the death penalty on principle and everywhere—from the capitalist U.S., Japan, Iran and Russia to the Chinese deformed workers state. This principle applies for the guilty as well as the innocent. We do not accord the state the right to decide who shall live and who shall die. Abolish the racist death penalty!
Legacy of Slavery
Other than the U.S. and Japan, every advanced capitalist country has eliminated capital punishment as part of its criminal code. The European bourgeoisies are brutally repressive. But the continued use of the death penalty in the U.S. speaks to the particular depravity of this country’s capitalist rulers. More fundamentally, capital punishment in the U.S. is rooted in the origins of its capitalist system, which was built on the backs of black slaves. Under the Slave Codes, blacks were killed with impunity for “crimes” ranging from insolence toward whites to rebellion against the slave masters.
This legacy can be seen today in the dungeons of death row. Of the more than 3,200 men and women there, over 40 percent are black, and another 12 percent are Latino. Among the 36 states that maintain the death penalty, California has the largest death row population. But capital punishment remains a largely Southern institution. Over 70 percent of executions since the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976 have taken place in the states of the former Confederacy—and more than half of those in Texas and Virginia. In Davis’s Georgia, black males make up 15 percent of the population but constitute nearly half of those on death row.
Among those speaking out against the racist death penalty is the family of James Anderson, a black auto worker who was brutally murdered by white-supremacists in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 26 (see “Lynch Mob Murder of Black Worker,” WV No. 985, 2 September). In a letter to the Hinds County district attorney, Anderson’s sister Barbara Anderson Young asked that he “not seek the death penalty for anyone involved in James’ murder,” noting the family’s religious opposition to capital punishment. She added, “We also oppose the death penalty because it historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites.”
The cheapness of black life to the American ruling class is evident not just in who is sent to death row, but also in whose loss of life constitutes a capital offense. Although blacks and whites are murder victims in roughly the same numbers, 80 percent of those executed have been convicted of killing a white person. Just hours before Troy Davis was put to death, the state of Texas executed Lawrence Brewer, one of three racist thugs convicted for the gruesome 1998 killing of James Byrd, a black man who was decapitated as he was dragged to death from the back of a pickup truck. While Texas has carried out over 470 executions since 1976, Brewer became only the second white person ever executed in the state for the murder of a black person.
The discriminatory application of the death penalty was sanctified by the U.S. Supreme Court 24 years ago in the case of Warren McCleskey, a black prisoner who was executed in Georgia in 1991. McCleskey’s attorneys presented the Court with an authoritative study detailing that black people in Georgia convicted of killing whites were sentenced to death 22 times more frequently than those convicted of killing blacks. In rejecting McCleskey’s appeal, the Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged that to accept this premise would throw “into serious question the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system.” In its callous pronouncement, the court expressed a basic truth. McCleskey was a victim of the racism that pervades the criminal justice system—who the cops stop on the street, who the prosecutors choose to indict, what charges and sentences are sought, who sits on juries, who gets paroled and who gets executed.
The buildup to Troy Davis’s execution sparked something of a public discussion on capital punishment in the bourgeois press, especially as it intersected the ascendance of Texas governor Rick Perry as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Earlier this month, Texas authorities had planned to execute four prisoners in the space of a week. Among those was Duane Buck, whose September 15 execution was stayed by the Supreme Court at the last minute. Convicted of killing his former girlfriend and a friend of hers in 1995, Buck was one of seven black men sentenced to death based on the “expert” testimony of a Texas prison psychologist that because they were black they should be expected to engage in violent behavior in the future!
Death Penalty: Bipartisan Policy
At the September 7 Republican candidates’ debate, Perry received a wild ovation for having overseen 234 executions. He further burnished his credentials by assuring moderator Brian Williams that this body count never cost him a wink of sleep. In an editorial titled “Cheering on the Death Machine,” the New York Times (11 September) declared that Perry’s “attitude about death may make sense in the hard-edged Republican primaries, but other voters should have serious doubts about a man who seems to have none.”
There is no question that the sinister Christian fundamentalist Perry is an outright reactionary, one of several in the Republican contest. But the Democrats—the other party of racist capitalist rule—are themselves no slouches in administering the rulers’ assembly line of death. Barack Obama, a supporter of the death penalty, refused to intervene as time ran out for Davis, with press secretary Jay Carney declaring: “It is not appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution.”
Obama was not so shy about “weighing in” on the case of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther spokesman and a MOVE supporter who was framed up and sentenced to death on false charges of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. State and federal courts have repeatedly refused to hear the massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence, including another man’s confession to the killing. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Michael Smerconish, a right-wing Philadelphia journalist leading the calls for Mumia’s head, asked Obama about Mumia’s case. According to Smerconish, Obama replied by denying knowing much about the case while assuring him nevertheless that anyone convicted of killing a cop should be executed or imprisoned for life.
What to expect of the Democrats can be seen in the case of Shaka Sankofa, who was executed in June 2000 at the height of the presidential campaign in the face of international opposition similar to that which sought to stop Davis’s execution. As then-governor of Texas George W. Bush and his advisers weighed the political risks of stopping the execution—or not—his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, not only reaffirmed his commitment to the death penalty but gave the go-ahead to execute a likely innocent man, declaring that “mistakes are inevitable.” Eight years earlier, Bill Clinton interrupted his first presidential campaign by flying back to Arkansas, where he was governor, to oversee the execution of Rickey Ray Rector, a brain-damaged black man.
The liberals at the New York Times may be appalled that Rick Perry and the Republican right openly revel in state murder and indifference to the likelihood of killing innocent people. But Perry & Co. are only giving voice to what has been ruling-class policy—implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike—to massively bolster the repressive forces of the capitalist state. It was Clinton’s 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that cut off the possibilities of presenting new evidence of innocence by eviscerating the right of federal habeas corpus to overturn state death sentences. By 2010, the prison population had reached 2.3 million people, over half of whom were black and Latino, the majority convicted on nonviolent drug charges. In the calculations of the American bourgeoisie, the urban ghettos, which used to provide a reservoir of unskilled labor for the auto plants and steel mills, are simply written off as an expendable population, revealing the racist rulers’ impulse to genocide.
While a widely cited poll shows that nearly two-thirds of the population continues to support the death penalty, there has been a drop in public support over the past several years. The fact that more than 130 people on death row have been proven innocent since 1973, including through DNA testing in recent years, has given sections of the ruling class some pause in the accelerated rush to execution, and juries have become a little more reluctant to issue death sentences. On March 9, Illinois became the fifth state since 2004 to eliminate the death penalty.
In their attempts to fine-tune the system of capitalist repression, liberals often promote the living death of “life without parole” as an alternative to state execution. A New York Times (12 September) editorial upholds life without parole as “a sound option” in capital cases even though it complains that this sentence is otherwise often misused. The Times pointed out that blacks make up 56.4 percent of those serving life without parole in the U.S. but only 37.5 percent of the country’s prison population. This statistic further underscores that there can be no fair or “humane” system of “justice” for minorities or for the working class as a whole in a society based on the exploitation of labor and maintained through the special oppression of black people.
While the face of death row is now primarily black and Latino, fighters for labor’s cause have also been targeted for death by the capitalist state: the Haymarket anarchists, labor organizers who fought for the eight-hour day and were put to death in 1877; IWW organizer Joe Hill, executed in 1915; anarchist workers Sacco and Vanzetti, who died in the electric chair in 1927. This ruling-class venom toward those perceived as challenging their oppressive rule is seen today in the death sentence hanging over the head of Mumia, a prize-winning journalist renowned as a powerful voice for the oppressed.
Following the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, James P. Cannon, founder and secretary of the International Labor Defense, wrote: “It is the vengeful, cruel and murderous class which the workers must fight and conquer before the regime of imprisonment, torture and murder can be ended. This is the message from the chair of death. This is the lesson of the Sacco-Vanzetti case” (“A Living Monument to Sacco and Vanzetti,” Labor Defender, October 1927). This too must be the lesson of the case of Troy Davis, whose murder at the hands of the state will be avenged when a workers party leads all the exploited and oppressed in a socialist revolution that sweeps away the entire barbaric apparatus of capitalist repression.
30 September 2011
Troy Davis Execution: Racist State Murder
Troy Davis is dead. At 11:08 p.m. on September 21, Davis, a 42-year-old black man, was murdered by the legal guardians of the capitalist ruling class. For 22 years, Davis fought to prove his innocence of the 1989 killing of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia, only to spend the last moments of his life strapped to an execution gurney. For its part, the U.S. Supreme Court went through the charade of reviewing his petition for a last-minute stay of execution. As protests took place around the world, hundreds of Davis’s supporters rallied outside the Jackson, Georgia, prison—officially known as the Diagnostic and Classification Prison—while millions followed the story on TVs, radios and cell phones, hoping for a semblance of justice for this black man caught in the American “justice” system.
The killing of Troy Davis was racist legal lynching! In place of hooded KKK nightriders were pin-striped prosecutors and black-robed judges, along with the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which turned down Davis’s bid for clemency the day before the execution. In place of the lynch rope were needles dispensing the life-ending chemical cocktail. The substantial evidence of Davis’s innocence meant nothing. A white uniformed enforcer of capitalist law and order had been killed, and this black life had to be taken in return. Here is a stark demonstration of the workings of the capitalist state—an instrument of organized violence to protect the class rule and profits of the tiny handful of capitalists against the workers and the oppressed. The death penalty is the ultimate sanction of a “justice” system that is not only stacked against workers and the poor but also, in this society founded on slavery and maintained on a bedrock of black oppression, racist to its core.
The story of Troy Davis’s frame-up is a familiar one for black people in this country. In 1991, he was sentenced to death after a frame-up conviction based on questionable “eyewitness” identifications, dubious accounts that he confessed and testimony coerced by the cops. Not a shred of physical evidence linked him to the killing. Seven of the prosecution’s nine witnesses have since recanted. The only holdouts were a man who may be the actual killer and another who first denied being able to identify the shooter, only to finger Davis at trial two years later.
What sets Davis’s case apart were the worldwide calls to stop his execution, ultimately including even former FBI director William Sessions and former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr—both staunch proponents of capital punishment—as well as the Pope and ex-president Jimmy Carter. Protests were held in cities internationally following the signing of his death warrant on September 6. In the last days of his life over 600,000 people signed petitions on Davis’s behalf. Just as a federal court judge last year dismissed evidence of Davis’s innocence as “smoke and mirrors,” the state authorities answered these calls for mercy with contempt.
Almost a century ago, Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs powerfully condemned the barbarism of the death penalty, writing in a May 1913 letter: “The taking of human life through criminal impulse or in an hour of passion by an individual is not to be compared to the immeasurably greater crime committed by the State when it deliberately puts to death the individual charged with such crime. Society may not consistently condemn murder as long as it is itself red-handed with that crime.”
As Marxists, we oppose the death penalty on principle and everywhere—from the capitalist U.S., Japan, Iran and Russia to the Chinese deformed workers state. This principle applies for the guilty as well as the innocent. We do not accord the state the right to decide who shall live and who shall die. Abolish the racist death penalty!
Legacy of Slavery
Other than the U.S. and Japan, every advanced capitalist country has eliminated capital punishment as part of its criminal code. The European bourgeoisies are brutally repressive. But the continued use of the death penalty in the U.S. speaks to the particular depravity of this country’s capitalist rulers. More fundamentally, capital punishment in the U.S. is rooted in the origins of its capitalist system, which was built on the backs of black slaves. Under the Slave Codes, blacks were killed with impunity for “crimes” ranging from insolence toward whites to rebellion against the slave masters.
This legacy can be seen today in the dungeons of death row. Of the more than 3,200 men and women there, over 40 percent are black, and another 12 percent are Latino. Among the 36 states that maintain the death penalty, California has the largest death row population. But capital punishment remains a largely Southern institution. Over 70 percent of executions since the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976 have taken place in the states of the former Confederacy—and more than half of those in Texas and Virginia. In Davis’s Georgia, black males make up 15 percent of the population but constitute nearly half of those on death row.
Among those speaking out against the racist death penalty is the family of James Anderson, a black auto worker who was brutally murdered by white-supremacists in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 26 (see “Lynch Mob Murder of Black Worker,” WV No. 985, 2 September). In a letter to the Hinds County district attorney, Anderson’s sister Barbara Anderson Young asked that he “not seek the death penalty for anyone involved in James’ murder,” noting the family’s religious opposition to capital punishment. She added, “We also oppose the death penalty because it historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites.”
The cheapness of black life to the American ruling class is evident not just in who is sent to death row, but also in whose loss of life constitutes a capital offense. Although blacks and whites are murder victims in roughly the same numbers, 80 percent of those executed have been convicted of killing a white person. Just hours before Troy Davis was put to death, the state of Texas executed Lawrence Brewer, one of three racist thugs convicted for the gruesome 1998 killing of James Byrd, a black man who was decapitated as he was dragged to death from the back of a pickup truck. While Texas has carried out over 470 executions since 1976, Brewer became only the second white person ever executed in the state for the murder of a black person.
The discriminatory application of the death penalty was sanctified by the U.S. Supreme Court 24 years ago in the case of Warren McCleskey, a black prisoner who was executed in Georgia in 1991. McCleskey’s attorneys presented the Court with an authoritative study detailing that black people in Georgia convicted of killing whites were sentenced to death 22 times more frequently than those convicted of killing blacks. In rejecting McCleskey’s appeal, the Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged that to accept this premise would throw “into serious question the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system.” In its callous pronouncement, the court expressed a basic truth. McCleskey was a victim of the racism that pervades the criminal justice system—who the cops stop on the street, who the prosecutors choose to indict, what charges and sentences are sought, who sits on juries, who gets paroled and who gets executed.
The buildup to Troy Davis’s execution sparked something of a public discussion on capital punishment in the bourgeois press, especially as it intersected the ascendance of Texas governor Rick Perry as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Earlier this month, Texas authorities had planned to execute four prisoners in the space of a week. Among those was Duane Buck, whose September 15 execution was stayed by the Supreme Court at the last minute. Convicted of killing his former girlfriend and a friend of hers in 1995, Buck was one of seven black men sentenced to death based on the “expert” testimony of a Texas prison psychologist that because they were black they should be expected to engage in violent behavior in the future!
Death Penalty: Bipartisan Policy
At the September 7 Republican candidates’ debate, Perry received a wild ovation for having overseen 234 executions. He further burnished his credentials by assuring moderator Brian Williams that this body count never cost him a wink of sleep. In an editorial titled “Cheering on the Death Machine,” the New York Times (11 September) declared that Perry’s “attitude about death may make sense in the hard-edged Republican primaries, but other voters should have serious doubts about a man who seems to have none.”
There is no question that the sinister Christian fundamentalist Perry is an outright reactionary, one of several in the Republican contest. But the Democrats—the other party of racist capitalist rule—are themselves no slouches in administering the rulers’ assembly line of death. Barack Obama, a supporter of the death penalty, refused to intervene as time ran out for Davis, with press secretary Jay Carney declaring: “It is not appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution.”
Obama was not so shy about “weighing in” on the case of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther spokesman and a MOVE supporter who was framed up and sentenced to death on false charges of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. State and federal courts have repeatedly refused to hear the massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence, including another man’s confession to the killing. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Michael Smerconish, a right-wing Philadelphia journalist leading the calls for Mumia’s head, asked Obama about Mumia’s case. According to Smerconish, Obama replied by denying knowing much about the case while assuring him nevertheless that anyone convicted of killing a cop should be executed or imprisoned for life.
What to expect of the Democrats can be seen in the case of Shaka Sankofa, who was executed in June 2000 at the height of the presidential campaign in the face of international opposition similar to that which sought to stop Davis’s execution. As then-governor of Texas George W. Bush and his advisers weighed the political risks of stopping the execution—or not—his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, not only reaffirmed his commitment to the death penalty but gave the go-ahead to execute a likely innocent man, declaring that “mistakes are inevitable.” Eight years earlier, Bill Clinton interrupted his first presidential campaign by flying back to Arkansas, where he was governor, to oversee the execution of Rickey Ray Rector, a brain-damaged black man.
The liberals at the New York Times may be appalled that Rick Perry and the Republican right openly revel in state murder and indifference to the likelihood of killing innocent people. But Perry & Co. are only giving voice to what has been ruling-class policy—implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike—to massively bolster the repressive forces of the capitalist state. It was Clinton’s 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that cut off the possibilities of presenting new evidence of innocence by eviscerating the right of federal habeas corpus to overturn state death sentences. By 2010, the prison population had reached 2.3 million people, over half of whom were black and Latino, the majority convicted on nonviolent drug charges. In the calculations of the American bourgeoisie, the urban ghettos, which used to provide a reservoir of unskilled labor for the auto plants and steel mills, are simply written off as an expendable population, revealing the racist rulers’ impulse to genocide.
While a widely cited poll shows that nearly two-thirds of the population continues to support the death penalty, there has been a drop in public support over the past several years. The fact that more than 130 people on death row have been proven innocent since 1973, including through DNA testing in recent years, has given sections of the ruling class some pause in the accelerated rush to execution, and juries have become a little more reluctant to issue death sentences. On March 9, Illinois became the fifth state since 2004 to eliminate the death penalty.
In their attempts to fine-tune the system of capitalist repression, liberals often promote the living death of “life without parole” as an alternative to state execution. A New York Times (12 September) editorial upholds life without parole as “a sound option” in capital cases even though it complains that this sentence is otherwise often misused. The Times pointed out that blacks make up 56.4 percent of those serving life without parole in the U.S. but only 37.5 percent of the country’s prison population. This statistic further underscores that there can be no fair or “humane” system of “justice” for minorities or for the working class as a whole in a society based on the exploitation of labor and maintained through the special oppression of black people.
While the face of death row is now primarily black and Latino, fighters for labor’s cause have also been targeted for death by the capitalist state: the Haymarket anarchists, labor organizers who fought for the eight-hour day and were put to death in 1877; IWW organizer Joe Hill, executed in 1915; anarchist workers Sacco and Vanzetti, who died in the electric chair in 1927. This ruling-class venom toward those perceived as challenging their oppressive rule is seen today in the death sentence hanging over the head of Mumia, a prize-winning journalist renowned as a powerful voice for the oppressed.
Following the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, James P. Cannon, founder and secretary of the International Labor Defense, wrote: “It is the vengeful, cruel and murderous class which the workers must fight and conquer before the regime of imprisonment, torture and murder can be ended. This is the message from the chair of death. This is the lesson of the Sacco-Vanzetti case” (“A Living Monument to Sacco and Vanzetti,” Labor Defender, October 1927). This too must be the lesson of the case of Troy Davis, whose murder at the hands of the state will be avenged when a workers party leads all the exploited and oppressed in a socialist revolution that sweeps away the entire barbaric apparatus of capitalist repression.
Via "Boston IndyMedia"- Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1%
Markin comment:
Some good point here, although short on program to fight the labor bureaucracy. Damn, I wish we had more leftists inside the unions to lead that fight.
Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1%
by Richard Mellor
Email: we_know_whats_up (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) 06 Oct 2011
The Labor hierarchy is concerned about the influence the Occupy movement might have on the Unions' rank and file and will enter the Occupy movement in order to temper it, derail it and send it in to the Democratic Party as they did with the Madison events. The Occupy movement should beware the hierarchy and Labor's "official" representatives and welcome the rank and file worker.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading and already showing results in that it is pushing Obama and the Democrats to make more public statements about increasing taxes on the rich. As we said, the OWS movement will have an effect on the 2012 elections here in the US.
We have also argued on this bloghttp://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/ that given the stifling bureaucratic grip the Labor hierarchy has on the trade Union apparatus, it would be most likely that resistance to the capitalist offensive from workers and youth would arise outside of these structures and this is what we are witnessing.
The fact that Unions like Local 100 in New York City are openly supporting the movement is extremely positive. In response to the OWS movement Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO said that the Union movement “will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.”
The Labor hierarchy is extremely concerned about these developments. Steven Greenhouse and Cara Buckley writing in today’s New York Times reveal the level of concern atop organized Labor. They describe how Stuart Applebaum, the president of the retail and department store arm of the UFCW has cut off a visit to Tunisia after receiving a “flurry” of e mails and phone calls about the spreading occupation movement. Applebaum was in Tunisia according to the NYT, “advising the fledgling labor movement there.”
Considering the dismal failure of the Union hierarchy’s policies here at home one would have to question what advice a person like Stuart Applebaum could give to Tunisians about Labor struggles. For those of us with some history of struggle in these organizations the answer is pretty clear; he is there to ensure that Tunisian Unions develop along AFL-CIO lines; bureaucratic business-friendly organization with pro market policies. He is there representing the interests of US capitalism.
According to the Times Applebaum recalls asking one of the callers from back home about the movement here. Who is behind the movement? Is it “hippies” “troublemakers” and whether it will “quickly fade”
Some of the young people involved in the Occupy movement may not remember the shutting down of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. This took the US capitalist class and the Labor hierarchy completely by surprise. The Unions had a strong presence there and a section of Labor’s rank and file were influenced by the militancy and courage of the youth as opposed to the prayer and candlelight vigils that are the official strategy of the bureaucracy. This influence on their members’ worried the Labor hierarchy and in movement that followed the aftermath of the Seattle events, they sent in to that movement its full time staff in order to temper the movement it and direct it in to the Democratic party where it would be rendered harmless.
Trade Union leaders have complained that the OWS movement gets lots of press yet they turn out many more people like the 100,000 in the rally in Washington. But the 1% that the OWS movement talks about are confident that the trade Union leaders will not threaten their privileges, that Labor’s ranks will remain firmly under their control and any movement from below that threatens their policies and wants to democratize the movement will be suppressed. Both the Labor leaders and the Democratic Party fear this movement will get out of hand and will seek to control it.
The rank and file of organized Labor has been betrayed time and time again through the policies of leaders like Applebaum and Trumka. Applebaum says that the OWS movement is “Reaching a lot of people and exciting a lot of people that the labor movement has been struggling to reach for years.”
It is not accurate to say that the Labor movement has been “trying”. The hierarchy doesn’t even try to reach their own members never mind the millions of workers outside the ranks of organized Labor. (Look under “Labor” or “Public Sector” on this blog to read examples of this). When rank and file Union members have attempted to resist the bosses’ offensive, the heads of organized Labor, from the UAW to the public sector Unions and folks like Trumka have moved against them, have suppressed any movement from below that threatens their relationship with the employers that is based on cooperation and Labor peace. Many a rank and file Union activist like this author can relate to the local leader who said that if her international fought the bosses as hard as they fought upstart locals or militancy within their ranks she’d be in good shape.
If we buy in to Applebaum’s argument that the hierarchy has been “trying” to reach people then we can only come to the conclusion that the rank and file in the Unions and the millions outside of organized Labor are to blame. The AFL-CIO leadership has been carrying out campaigns that have been a disastrous failure. They had 100,000 workers on the streets in Madison and what did they do with them? Hey sent them home and told them to get involved in an electoral campaign to elect candidates from the other Wall Street party. In that struggle, the entire AFL-CIO leadership supported concessions.
So while it is very positive the Unions are becoming involved we need to be clear that there is a significant difference between the rank and file of organized Labor and its leadership who will try to control and disarm the OWS movement. Who should be welcomed in to the movement as representatives of organized Labor is not the lawyers, full time staffers and paid professional and other hangers on who help the present Union hierarchy maintain control of the movement and continue their business as usual polices but the rank and file member, the worker, the dues payer of the Labor organization. When “official” representatives of organized Labor become more involved as they will, the General Assemblies should ask if they are rank and file dues paying members and if they were elected by their co-workers or from their local Union halls.
All unemployed workers, shift workers those who have time and resources should, as those resources allow, join the Wall Street Occupy movement and help it grow stronger. It has a great slogan that hits the nail right on the head: We are the 99%------they are the 1%. The movement demands that the banks and the rich pay, all workers can support this. Those of us that support this blog offer for discussion to all workers in the movement some demands that we think would appeal to the vast majority of working class people.
We are against the dictatorship of the profit addicted corporations over American society.
We are for at least a $15.00 minimum wage or a $5.00 wage increase for all whichever is the greater.
We are for equal pay for equal work.
We are for jobs for all
We are for free education and free healthcare for all.
We are against racism and for working class unity.
We are for the building of a working peoples' party to end the monopoly of American politics by the bosses' parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.
See also:
http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
Some good point here, although short on program to fight the labor bureaucracy. Damn, I wish we had more leftists inside the unions to lead that fight.
Occupy Wall Street: Protesters arrested 900--Bankers 0. We are the 1%
by Richard Mellor
Email: we_know_whats_up (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) 06 Oct 2011
The Labor hierarchy is concerned about the influence the Occupy movement might have on the Unions' rank and file and will enter the Occupy movement in order to temper it, derail it and send it in to the Democratic Party as they did with the Madison events. The Occupy movement should beware the hierarchy and Labor's "official" representatives and welcome the rank and file worker.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading and already showing results in that it is pushing Obama and the Democrats to make more public statements about increasing taxes on the rich. As we said, the OWS movement will have an effect on the 2012 elections here in the US.
We have also argued on this bloghttp://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/ that given the stifling bureaucratic grip the Labor hierarchy has on the trade Union apparatus, it would be most likely that resistance to the capitalist offensive from workers and youth would arise outside of these structures and this is what we are witnessing.
The fact that Unions like Local 100 in New York City are openly supporting the movement is extremely positive. In response to the OWS movement Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO said that the Union movement “will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.”
The Labor hierarchy is extremely concerned about these developments. Steven Greenhouse and Cara Buckley writing in today’s New York Times reveal the level of concern atop organized Labor. They describe how Stuart Applebaum, the president of the retail and department store arm of the UFCW has cut off a visit to Tunisia after receiving a “flurry” of e mails and phone calls about the spreading occupation movement. Applebaum was in Tunisia according to the NYT, “advising the fledgling labor movement there.”
Considering the dismal failure of the Union hierarchy’s policies here at home one would have to question what advice a person like Stuart Applebaum could give to Tunisians about Labor struggles. For those of us with some history of struggle in these organizations the answer is pretty clear; he is there to ensure that Tunisian Unions develop along AFL-CIO lines; bureaucratic business-friendly organization with pro market policies. He is there representing the interests of US capitalism.
According to the Times Applebaum recalls asking one of the callers from back home about the movement here. Who is behind the movement? Is it “hippies” “troublemakers” and whether it will “quickly fade”
Some of the young people involved in the Occupy movement may not remember the shutting down of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. This took the US capitalist class and the Labor hierarchy completely by surprise. The Unions had a strong presence there and a section of Labor’s rank and file were influenced by the militancy and courage of the youth as opposed to the prayer and candlelight vigils that are the official strategy of the bureaucracy. This influence on their members’ worried the Labor hierarchy and in movement that followed the aftermath of the Seattle events, they sent in to that movement its full time staff in order to temper the movement it and direct it in to the Democratic party where it would be rendered harmless.
Trade Union leaders have complained that the OWS movement gets lots of press yet they turn out many more people like the 100,000 in the rally in Washington. But the 1% that the OWS movement talks about are confident that the trade Union leaders will not threaten their privileges, that Labor’s ranks will remain firmly under their control and any movement from below that threatens their policies and wants to democratize the movement will be suppressed. Both the Labor leaders and the Democratic Party fear this movement will get out of hand and will seek to control it.
The rank and file of organized Labor has been betrayed time and time again through the policies of leaders like Applebaum and Trumka. Applebaum says that the OWS movement is “Reaching a lot of people and exciting a lot of people that the labor movement has been struggling to reach for years.”
It is not accurate to say that the Labor movement has been “trying”. The hierarchy doesn’t even try to reach their own members never mind the millions of workers outside the ranks of organized Labor. (Look under “Labor” or “Public Sector” on this blog to read examples of this). When rank and file Union members have attempted to resist the bosses’ offensive, the heads of organized Labor, from the UAW to the public sector Unions and folks like Trumka have moved against them, have suppressed any movement from below that threatens their relationship with the employers that is based on cooperation and Labor peace. Many a rank and file Union activist like this author can relate to the local leader who said that if her international fought the bosses as hard as they fought upstart locals or militancy within their ranks she’d be in good shape.
If we buy in to Applebaum’s argument that the hierarchy has been “trying” to reach people then we can only come to the conclusion that the rank and file in the Unions and the millions outside of organized Labor are to blame. The AFL-CIO leadership has been carrying out campaigns that have been a disastrous failure. They had 100,000 workers on the streets in Madison and what did they do with them? Hey sent them home and told them to get involved in an electoral campaign to elect candidates from the other Wall Street party. In that struggle, the entire AFL-CIO leadership supported concessions.
So while it is very positive the Unions are becoming involved we need to be clear that there is a significant difference between the rank and file of organized Labor and its leadership who will try to control and disarm the OWS movement. Who should be welcomed in to the movement as representatives of organized Labor is not the lawyers, full time staffers and paid professional and other hangers on who help the present Union hierarchy maintain control of the movement and continue their business as usual polices but the rank and file member, the worker, the dues payer of the Labor organization. When “official” representatives of organized Labor become more involved as they will, the General Assemblies should ask if they are rank and file dues paying members and if they were elected by their co-workers or from their local Union halls.
All unemployed workers, shift workers those who have time and resources should, as those resources allow, join the Wall Street Occupy movement and help it grow stronger. It has a great slogan that hits the nail right on the head: We are the 99%------they are the 1%. The movement demands that the banks and the rich pay, all workers can support this. Those of us that support this blog offer for discussion to all workers in the movement some demands that we think would appeal to the vast majority of working class people.
We are against the dictatorship of the profit addicted corporations over American society.
We are for at least a $15.00 minimum wage or a $5.00 wage increase for all whichever is the greater.
We are for equal pay for equal work.
We are for jobs for all
We are for free education and free healthcare for all.
We are against racism and for working class unity.
We are for the building of a working peoples' party to end the monopoly of American politics by the bosses' parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.
See also:
http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
Via "Boston IndyMedia"- A Dissenting Voice-"Occupy Boston Struggles to Achieve Democracy"
Markin comment:
Markin comment October 8, 2011:
I have made the following observation about the Occupy Boston occupation (October 1, 2011)and the way things have gone. My objections center more on the lack of political clarity and motion now that people are moving to the streets, and getting ready to fight back. Below my comment I have posted a different kind of dissent which seems somewhat on the mark on the question the post addresses-who's running the show?
******
Markin comment October 1, 2011
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
**********
Occupy Boston Struggles to Achieve Democracy
by Boston IMC
(
No verified email address) 06 Oct 2011
Over the last few days the Occupy Boston protest has made some remarkable achievements. On the infrastructure front, an organized miniature city has emerged to feed, house and provide medical care for campers and visitors alike. Donations of food, equipment and supplies have been pouring in daily. The volume of corporate media coverage has been impressive, and the tone generally less hostile and dismissive than is usual for protest coverage.
This has all been accomplished in a remarkably egalitarian fashion. Formal leaders do not exist, and all decisions are made by consensus, at least in theory. General assemblies are held every morning and evening to attempt to make sure that everyone's voice can be heard.
Yet behind the scenes creeping authoritarianism threatens the occupation.
For starters, the protest marches that regularly leave from the camp are often far less democratic than the assemblies and working group meetings. While the march last Friday night was a freewheeling affair that went where marchers felt like, took the streets, and ended with a spontaneous demonstration in front of a (mostly empty) Federal Reserve building, subsequent marches have been heavily scripted by facilitators with little to no input from outside. A march on Monday morning featured a man with a bullhorn directing the route and tactics with no regard for the wishes of marchers. Anyone straying from the sidewalk was forcibly pulled back and scolded. Furthermore, the march target, originally the Fox News office, was changed to the State House in the middle of the night by a small handful of organizers, without any consultation with the general assembly. The bullhorn dude even attempted to end the march after a speech at the State House steps, but was finally overridden by his exasperated followers, who insisted on making a brief stop at Fox News before marching back to the occupation.
Even the general assemblies, on the surface a model of participatory decision making, have taken on an authoritarian tone. A small group of facilitators largely controls the meeting procedure. While in theory the facilitators are just another working group, open to all, they do not issue group reports like other groups such as Food, Medical or Outreach. In addition their meetings are not always well publicized, and they either have no group liaison or the liaison is seldom at the camp.
The result has been general assemblies where the process for getting a proposal before the assembly has been unclear or even nonexistent. Participants have been reduced to futilely expressing opinions with no obvious way to turn them into reality. Individual facilitators have used their control of the process to push their own agendas and stifle proposals they did not approve of.
None of the above is to say that the situation is beyond salvage. The facilitators meeting on Tuesday was announced, and newcomers were able to block several undemocratic proposals. In addition Direct Action, the working group responsible for planning marches and other protests, saw a flood of new people at their own Tuesday meeting, leading to refreshing discussions on a variety of topics and a couple of ideas for actions.
More importantly, the actions on Wednesday were a stunning rebuke to anyone who sought to control the occupation. These included a student march and blockade that stopped traffic on Atlantic Ave for about 20 minutes, and two marches, one with members of the Mass. Nurses Association, that took over the streets for hours with no preset routes.
More such actions are needed. If the Occupy Wherever movement is to grow into a genuine revolutionary force it must not be hijacked by liberals and politicians. Anyone who wants to prevent this should come to Dewey Square as soon as they can get there, ready to throw down.
Markin comment October 8, 2011:
I have made the following observation about the Occupy Boston occupation (October 1, 2011)and the way things have gone. My objections center more on the lack of political clarity and motion now that people are moving to the streets, and getting ready to fight back. Below my comment I have posted a different kind of dissent which seems somewhat on the mark on the question the post addresses-who's running the show?
******
Markin comment October 1, 2011
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
**********
Occupy Boston Struggles to Achieve Democracy
by Boston IMC
(
No verified email address) 06 Oct 2011
Over the last few days the Occupy Boston protest has made some remarkable achievements. On the infrastructure front, an organized miniature city has emerged to feed, house and provide medical care for campers and visitors alike. Donations of food, equipment and supplies have been pouring in daily. The volume of corporate media coverage has been impressive, and the tone generally less hostile and dismissive than is usual for protest coverage.
This has all been accomplished in a remarkably egalitarian fashion. Formal leaders do not exist, and all decisions are made by consensus, at least in theory. General assemblies are held every morning and evening to attempt to make sure that everyone's voice can be heard.
Yet behind the scenes creeping authoritarianism threatens the occupation.
For starters, the protest marches that regularly leave from the camp are often far less democratic than the assemblies and working group meetings. While the march last Friday night was a freewheeling affair that went where marchers felt like, took the streets, and ended with a spontaneous demonstration in front of a (mostly empty) Federal Reserve building, subsequent marches have been heavily scripted by facilitators with little to no input from outside. A march on Monday morning featured a man with a bullhorn directing the route and tactics with no regard for the wishes of marchers. Anyone straying from the sidewalk was forcibly pulled back and scolded. Furthermore, the march target, originally the Fox News office, was changed to the State House in the middle of the night by a small handful of organizers, without any consultation with the general assembly. The bullhorn dude even attempted to end the march after a speech at the State House steps, but was finally overridden by his exasperated followers, who insisted on making a brief stop at Fox News before marching back to the occupation.
Even the general assemblies, on the surface a model of participatory decision making, have taken on an authoritarian tone. A small group of facilitators largely controls the meeting procedure. While in theory the facilitators are just another working group, open to all, they do not issue group reports like other groups such as Food, Medical or Outreach. In addition their meetings are not always well publicized, and they either have no group liaison or the liaison is seldom at the camp.
The result has been general assemblies where the process for getting a proposal before the assembly has been unclear or even nonexistent. Participants have been reduced to futilely expressing opinions with no obvious way to turn them into reality. Individual facilitators have used their control of the process to push their own agendas and stifle proposals they did not approve of.
None of the above is to say that the situation is beyond salvage. The facilitators meeting on Tuesday was announced, and newcomers were able to block several undemocratic proposals. In addition Direct Action, the working group responsible for planning marches and other protests, saw a flood of new people at their own Tuesday meeting, leading to refreshing discussions on a variety of topics and a couple of ideas for actions.
More importantly, the actions on Wednesday were a stunning rebuke to anyone who sought to control the occupation. These included a student march and blockade that stopped traffic on Atlantic Ave for about 20 minutes, and two marches, one with members of the Mass. Nurses Association, that took over the streets for hours with no preset routes.
More such actions are needed. If the Occupy Wherever movement is to grow into a genuine revolutionary force it must not be hijacked by liberals and politicians. Anyone who wants to prevent this should come to Dewey Square as soon as they can get there, ready to throw down.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Via The "Occupy Boston" Website-The Latest From "Occupy Boston"-Day Eight Round-Up-Statement From The Massachusetts AFl-CIO In Support Of Occupy Boston
Click on the headline to link to a Occupy Boston entry from the Occupy Boston website an occupation that started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post updates as they appear on this site.
Markin comment:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
AFL-CIO Offers its Full Support for Occupy Boston
Posted on October 6, 2011 by lex
2
RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF
THE “OCCUPY WALL ST./ BOSTON MOVEMENT
THE MASSACHUSETTS AFL-CIO OFFERS ITS FULL SUPPORT TO THE OCCUPT WALL ST./OCCUPY BOSTON MOVEMENT.
THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES THREATENS OUR HOMES, OUR EDUCATION, OUR STATES AND CITIES AND TOWNS. THE WALL ST. BANKS AND THE LARGEST CORPORATIONS REFUSE TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES WHILE OUR INFRASTRUCTURE CRUMBLES. THEY SIT ON RECORD PROFITS WHILE THE REST OF THE COUNTRY SUFFERS, AND THEY STILL REFUSE TO PUT PEOPLE BACK TO WORK. DECENT, FAMILY SUPPORTING JOBS ARE BECOMING A THING OF THE PAST AS CORPORATIONS CUT WAGES, PENSIONS, AND HEALTH CARE BENEFITS AND EVEN OUR RIGHT TO COLLECTIVELY BARGAIN—OUR VOICE ON THE JOB.
WE SALUTE THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN THESE ISSUES TO THE STREETS AND TO THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE OCCUPATION OF
WALL ST. AND NOW BOSTON. YOU SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER—AND YOU SPEAK FOR THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS.
WE JOIN THE OCCUPY WALL ST. MOVEMENT IN THE COMMON FIGHT TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK FROM THE THOSE WHO LIVE OFF OUR LABOR. WE URGE ALL OUR AFFILIATED LOCAL UNIONS TO HELP PARTICIPATE AND HELP OUT IN ANY WAY THAT THEY CAN.
WE, TOO, ARE THE 99%!
MASSSACHUSETTS AFL-CIO
Markin comment:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
AFL-CIO Offers its Full Support for Occupy Boston
Posted on October 6, 2011 by lex
2
RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF
THE “OCCUPY WALL ST./ BOSTON MOVEMENT
THE MASSACHUSETTS AFL-CIO OFFERS ITS FULL SUPPORT TO THE OCCUPT WALL ST./OCCUPY BOSTON MOVEMENT.
THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES THREATENS OUR HOMES, OUR EDUCATION, OUR STATES AND CITIES AND TOWNS. THE WALL ST. BANKS AND THE LARGEST CORPORATIONS REFUSE TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES WHILE OUR INFRASTRUCTURE CRUMBLES. THEY SIT ON RECORD PROFITS WHILE THE REST OF THE COUNTRY SUFFERS, AND THEY STILL REFUSE TO PUT PEOPLE BACK TO WORK. DECENT, FAMILY SUPPORTING JOBS ARE BECOMING A THING OF THE PAST AS CORPORATIONS CUT WAGES, PENSIONS, AND HEALTH CARE BENEFITS AND EVEN OUR RIGHT TO COLLECTIVELY BARGAIN—OUR VOICE ON THE JOB.
WE SALUTE THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN THESE ISSUES TO THE STREETS AND TO THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE OCCUPATION OF
WALL ST. AND NOW BOSTON. YOU SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER—AND YOU SPEAK FOR THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS.
WE JOIN THE OCCUPY WALL ST. MOVEMENT IN THE COMMON FIGHT TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK FROM THE THOSE WHO LIVE OFF OUR LABOR. WE URGE ALL OUR AFFILIATED LOCAL UNIONS TO HELP PARTICIPATE AND HELP OUT IN ANY WAY THAT THEY CAN.
WE, TOO, ARE THE 99%!
MASSSACHUSETTS AFL-CIO
Via The "Occupy Boston" Website-The Latest From "Occupy Boston"-Day Eight Round-Up- We created the wealth, let's take it back!
Click on the headline to link to a Occupy Boston entry from the Occupy Boston website an occupation that started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post updates as they appear on this site.
Markin comment:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back!
Labor and the oppressed must rule!
ANTI-IMPERIALISM, an injury to one is an injury to all, anti-capitalism, bolsheviks, class struggle defense, Occupy Boston, russian revolution
Markin comment:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back!
Labor and the oppressed must rule!
ANTI-IMPERIALISM, an injury to one is an injury to all, anti-capitalism, bolsheviks, class struggle defense, Occupy Boston, russian revolution
Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- "America, Where Are You Now...."- Stepphenwolf's "Monster" –For The Fighters Of The Occupy Movement
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Steppenwolf performing their classic anti-war song (and plaintive plea)Monster.
In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
********
Markin comment on the lyrics here:
Steppenwolf was one of the most political of the rock groups brought forth by the new musical sensibility of the counter-cultural movement in the mid to late 1960s. The narrative here in Monster reads like a capsule history of the American experience up until the 1960s. And a powerful call, a call that should resonate today, for the older generation (now us) to come and help the young fight against the monster of American imperialistic capitalism that is driving us all to the bottom. A theme song for all the Occupy movements springing up around this country.
*************
Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom
(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
********
Markin comment on the lyrics here:
Steppenwolf was one of the most political of the rock groups brought forth by the new musical sensibility of the counter-cultural movement in the mid to late 1960s. The narrative here in Monster reads like a capsule history of the American experience up until the 1960s. And a powerful call, a call that should resonate today, for the older generation (now us) to come and help the young fight against the monster of American imperialistic capitalism that is driving us all to the bottom. A theme song for all the Occupy movements springing up around this country.
*************
Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom
(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
On The 10th (Count 'Em) Anniversary Of The Afghanistan Occupation-*Opinion Polls And The Question Of Peace- A Short Note ( Repost)-Enough-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal From Afghanistan
Reposted from American Left History-Thursday, September 02, 2010
*Opinion Polls And The Question Of Peace- A Short Note
Markin comment:
Recently there have been a number of polls that have come out from various media sources indicating that the majority of American people have, in some form, turned against Obama's Afghan adventure. Every anti-war militant and leftist should take that as good news, at least in the sense that this gives us fertile ground to work in as we fight for out program of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied troops and mercenaries from Afghanistan.
Of course, polls in themselves can only give a very broad and , sometimes misleading, sense of the pulse of the populace at any given time. That is a given, but this short note is motivated by more than that concern. I want to make my point on this not by some high theoretical, high Marxist, high Trotskyist formulation but by a small piece of anecdotal evidence.
In the aftermath of 9/11 tensions, angers, and hatreds were running high, some of it natural under the circumstances some of it not. In any case at that time I was on the listen for any hint that cooler voices might appear that would , frankly, make it easier for we of the anti-war left to get a hearing for our anti-imperialist message. As I have mentioned before previously in this space that period was one of the few time in my long political street career that I feared being on the American protest streets, day or night. Along that line I started listening to a local call-in radio talk show. Now this was not some flaming, fire-red Fox Network/Rush Limbaugh operation but the very soul of discretion, a National Public Radio-like (NPR) talk show. Such shows if you are at all familiar with their format are noted more for long-windedness among the irate than venomous "red meat" statements, and tempers rarely flare up if at all.
On this particular day, this post 9/11, post-Afghan invasion, pre-Iraq invasion day the subject of the program turned on the question of individual callers' "peace strategies" for the Middle East (and, maybe, world peace as well although the focus was on the Middle East). The general tenor of the responses, for the most part, as was to be expected were long on the brotherhood of man (or some such hood) and short of breaking the back of Islamic fundamentalism in a way that would serve our interests (the interest of the anti-war left). Mainly the strategies were drive by proposals from policy wonks who submitted their plans in a manner befitting those who see themselves as policy-makers in exile (remember this was in Boston and and during the Bush administration when such types were around by the bushel full).
The call that drew my attention, however, and has made me even more skeptical and wary of these vaunted opinion polls was one woman caller, a mother of two, a worried distraught mother of two, a self-proclaimed pacifist along Quaker lines (and who articulated the Quaker "inner light" line very well), who solely in the interest of well-being of those two children you understand, proposed that perhaps a couple of surgical tactical nuclear strikes in the heart of the Middle East wouldn't make those two winsome children's future just a bit more secure.
Now I will not get into the little, the tiny little problem of those other mothers, those Middle Eastern mothers with their own two little winsome children and their fates under this program. I will merely speculate here, that, assuming this concerned mother did not personally have a couple of extra tactical nuclear weapons around the house (for the safety of those kids, remember) that this job, practically speaking would, of necessity, have to be detailed to the American imperial state.
But here is the kicker- when asked if she supported the furious rush to war by the Bush Administration in Iraq she quickly and unequivocally said no. I assume those quick strike nukes on behalf of Johnny and Jimmy were enough for her. So the next time you get really hung up and all excited about increased opposition to Obama's Afghan fiasco remember this little tale, this little cautionary tale, about the vagaries of peace-the peace of the graveyard. And organize, organize like crazy to get those troops out of Afghanistan before that 'concerned' mother steps into the breach.
*Opinion Polls And The Question Of Peace- A Short Note
Markin comment:
Recently there have been a number of polls that have come out from various media sources indicating that the majority of American people have, in some form, turned against Obama's Afghan adventure. Every anti-war militant and leftist should take that as good news, at least in the sense that this gives us fertile ground to work in as we fight for out program of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all American/Allied troops and mercenaries from Afghanistan.
Of course, polls in themselves can only give a very broad and , sometimes misleading, sense of the pulse of the populace at any given time. That is a given, but this short note is motivated by more than that concern. I want to make my point on this not by some high theoretical, high Marxist, high Trotskyist formulation but by a small piece of anecdotal evidence.
In the aftermath of 9/11 tensions, angers, and hatreds were running high, some of it natural under the circumstances some of it not. In any case at that time I was on the listen for any hint that cooler voices might appear that would , frankly, make it easier for we of the anti-war left to get a hearing for our anti-imperialist message. As I have mentioned before previously in this space that period was one of the few time in my long political street career that I feared being on the American protest streets, day or night. Along that line I started listening to a local call-in radio talk show. Now this was not some flaming, fire-red Fox Network/Rush Limbaugh operation but the very soul of discretion, a National Public Radio-like (NPR) talk show. Such shows if you are at all familiar with their format are noted more for long-windedness among the irate than venomous "red meat" statements, and tempers rarely flare up if at all.
On this particular day, this post 9/11, post-Afghan invasion, pre-Iraq invasion day the subject of the program turned on the question of individual callers' "peace strategies" for the Middle East (and, maybe, world peace as well although the focus was on the Middle East). The general tenor of the responses, for the most part, as was to be expected were long on the brotherhood of man (or some such hood) and short of breaking the back of Islamic fundamentalism in a way that would serve our interests (the interest of the anti-war left). Mainly the strategies were drive by proposals from policy wonks who submitted their plans in a manner befitting those who see themselves as policy-makers in exile (remember this was in Boston and and during the Bush administration when such types were around by the bushel full).
The call that drew my attention, however, and has made me even more skeptical and wary of these vaunted opinion polls was one woman caller, a mother of two, a worried distraught mother of two, a self-proclaimed pacifist along Quaker lines (and who articulated the Quaker "inner light" line very well), who solely in the interest of well-being of those two children you understand, proposed that perhaps a couple of surgical tactical nuclear strikes in the heart of the Middle East wouldn't make those two winsome children's future just a bit more secure.
Now I will not get into the little, the tiny little problem of those other mothers, those Middle Eastern mothers with their own two little winsome children and their fates under this program. I will merely speculate here, that, assuming this concerned mother did not personally have a couple of extra tactical nuclear weapons around the house (for the safety of those kids, remember) that this job, practically speaking would, of necessity, have to be detailed to the American imperial state.
But here is the kicker- when asked if she supported the furious rush to war by the Bush Administration in Iraq she quickly and unequivocally said no. I assume those quick strike nukes on behalf of Johnny and Jimmy were enough for her. So the next time you get really hung up and all excited about increased opposition to Obama's Afghan fiasco remember this little tale, this little cautionary tale, about the vagaries of peace-the peace of the graveyard. And organize, organize like crazy to get those troops out of Afghanistan before that 'concerned' mother steps into the breach.
***From The Amercian Left History Archives (2010) As We Drag Out The 12th Year O f The Afghan War -No, No Damn It- Not Obama's Twenty Months But Nine (Oops! Ten)Long Years In Afghanistan -Troops Out Now!
Markin comment:
Apparently I can just keep reposting the entry from a couple of years back as long as Obama is in charge. And if someone else takes over in 2013 well then we will just delete and change the name. Except I have a better idea. Let's end this thing our way- Immediate Uncondtional Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Period!
*****
October 7, 2010
No, No Damn It- Not Obama's Twenty Months But Nine Long Years In Afghanistan -Troops Out Now!
Markin comment:
No, old Markin has not gotten lazy, at least not too lazy, in his old age and just casually reposted last year's commentary on this the anniversary (9th) of the American occupation of Afghanistan. When I went to read it over, in the main, it seemed a perfect fit, again. Except, of course, do the math-add 12 months to the eight and add an additional year. It will however take more than a calculator to get Obama out of Afghanistan! Let's get moving- I don't want to have to add another twelve to that twenty and a one to that nine. For the rest read below (except for General McChrytsal, that's old news now).
*********
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
* No, No Damn It- Not Obama's Eight Months But Eight Long Years In Afghanistan
Click on title to link to my September 4, 2009 blog entry of National Public Radio's report on September 1, 2009 of the musings of Afghan top commander, General Stanley "Search and Destroy first and let god sort it out)" McChrystal, about (another) future troop escalation in Afghanistan. Well,boys and girls, the time for Obamian illusions is over. It is time to settle up. The streets are not for dreaming now. Get the poster boards, the old bed sheets, magic markers, paint and cell phones ready. Obama-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan ((And Iraq And Pakistan Too!)
Markin comment:
I really am, after a long political life, usually non-plussed by bizarre remarks from liberals and from those even further to the right, who I do not even bother rebutting these days, but a recent remark from one such liberal specimen after I made a comment about Obama’s Afghan war policy and troop escalations has got “my dander” up. It seems the rules of war, or at least of calculating the lengths of such wars, have changed in the “Age of Obama”. Apparently this person has been steeped in the educational philosophy of John Locke and his theory of tabula rasa. The logic of this position in terms of Obama’s innate Afghan War policy is that we should not count the war times under former President George W. Bush against newly-minted current President Obama.
A follow up discussion on that logic indicated that this person believed that one could, and should, draw a sharp distinction between Bush’ s “war of choice” and Obama’s “war of necessity” and give the President a break. No, no a thousand times no. But just to prove I do not remain forever with my “dander” up here is what I will do. Prior to 12 o’clock noon on January 20, 2009 Bush- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan! After 12 o’clock noon on January 20, 2009 Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan! There, now let’s do the math starting from the bombing of Afghanistan- eight long ……years. Enough.
******
Every once in a while (more frequently than I would like but today seems like a very appropriate time) old Pete Seeger's song about his World War II adventures that served as a parable for President Lyndon Johnson and his constant Vietnam escalations, Waist Deep In The Big Muddy just seems appropriate. This is one of those occasions. Just switch "Big Poppy" for "Big Muddy" and you will have it just about right.
Waist Deep In The Big Muddy-Pete Seeger
It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.
We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.
Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!
Apparently I can just keep reposting the entry from a couple of years back as long as Obama is in charge. And if someone else takes over in 2013 well then we will just delete and change the name. Except I have a better idea. Let's end this thing our way- Immediate Uncondtional Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Period!
*****
October 7, 2010
No, No Damn It- Not Obama's Twenty Months But Nine Long Years In Afghanistan -Troops Out Now!
Markin comment:
No, old Markin has not gotten lazy, at least not too lazy, in his old age and just casually reposted last year's commentary on this the anniversary (9th) of the American occupation of Afghanistan. When I went to read it over, in the main, it seemed a perfect fit, again. Except, of course, do the math-add 12 months to the eight and add an additional year. It will however take more than a calculator to get Obama out of Afghanistan! Let's get moving- I don't want to have to add another twelve to that twenty and a one to that nine. For the rest read below (except for General McChrytsal, that's old news now).
*********
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
* No, No Damn It- Not Obama's Eight Months But Eight Long Years In Afghanistan
Click on title to link to my September 4, 2009 blog entry of National Public Radio's report on September 1, 2009 of the musings of Afghan top commander, General Stanley "Search and Destroy first and let god sort it out)" McChrystal, about (another) future troop escalation in Afghanistan. Well,boys and girls, the time for Obamian illusions is over. It is time to settle up. The streets are not for dreaming now. Get the poster boards, the old bed sheets, magic markers, paint and cell phones ready. Obama-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan ((And Iraq And Pakistan Too!)
Markin comment:
I really am, after a long political life, usually non-plussed by bizarre remarks from liberals and from those even further to the right, who I do not even bother rebutting these days, but a recent remark from one such liberal specimen after I made a comment about Obama’s Afghan war policy and troop escalations has got “my dander” up. It seems the rules of war, or at least of calculating the lengths of such wars, have changed in the “Age of Obama”. Apparently this person has been steeped in the educational philosophy of John Locke and his theory of tabula rasa. The logic of this position in terms of Obama’s innate Afghan War policy is that we should not count the war times under former President George W. Bush against newly-minted current President Obama.
A follow up discussion on that logic indicated that this person believed that one could, and should, draw a sharp distinction between Bush’ s “war of choice” and Obama’s “war of necessity” and give the President a break. No, no a thousand times no. But just to prove I do not remain forever with my “dander” up here is what I will do. Prior to 12 o’clock noon on January 20, 2009 Bush- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan! After 12 o’clock noon on January 20, 2009 Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan! There, now let’s do the math starting from the bombing of Afghanistan- eight long ……years. Enough.
******
Every once in a while (more frequently than I would like but today seems like a very appropriate time) old Pete Seeger's song about his World War II adventures that served as a parable for President Lyndon Johnson and his constant Vietnam escalations, Waist Deep In The Big Muddy just seems appropriate. This is one of those occasions. Just switch "Big Poppy" for "Big Muddy" and you will have it just about right.
Waist Deep In The Big Muddy-Pete Seeger
It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.
We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.
Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Robert Mitchum Watch Out For Fetching Femme Fatales, Will You- His Kind Of Woman- A Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the comedic crime noir,His Kind Of Woman.
DVD Review
His Kind Of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr, Vincent Price, produced by Howard Hughes, RKO Pictures, 1951
Just when you think a guy, in this case a Robert Mitchum 1950s crime noir movie actor guy, hasn’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain when some vampish femme fatale displays her charms he finally gets some sense, a little anyway. Previously I had the following to say about Brother Mitchum in a review of Angel Face (co-starring young femme fatale Jean Simmons):
Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, let’s just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners than Ms. Greer. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we guys (and maybe gals too) know, we know, nature.”
And a summary of the plot in the comedic crime noir under review here, His Kind Of Woman, will tell the tale of why I qualified that wising up a little part. Mitchum plays a profession gambler a little off his game, about six aces up the sleeve worth, and so, as anybody is that situation might do, he listens to any proposition that will get him out from under. In this case a proposition about changing his identity for a wad of dough from a deported gangster (played by a non-lawyerly, a very non-lawyerly, Raymond Burr), looking to get back in the old U.S. of A. so he can get his usual infusion of illegal dough. Now this is something that Mitchum might have passed on in sunnier times. But times are hard and suckers are not as plentiful to rope in when you don’t have dough, or a way to get it.
Of course the action here, due to Burr’s, ah, immigration problems, has to take place in, well, sunny Mexico (this is stage-door Mexico before the ax fell down there and crime, and criminals got nastier, very much nastier than that of the criminal skills displayed here) at a tropical seaside resort (naturally). And here is where the dame comes in, also naturally. A sweet-singing down-on-her-heels night club singer (maybe) posing as an heiress, played by Jane Russell (producer Howard Hughes’ paramour at the time), is working her own angles for dough in the person of a vacationing ham, strictly B-movie actor, played by Vincent Price. But when broad-shouldered, bedroom eyes, world-wary Mitchum shows up she is, he is, well, they are smitten (after a little cat and mouse game, as expected). When Mitchum, after putting together some acute observations (putting two and two together, okay) about the set-up, fully realized that he is to be the fall guy and may not get to spend that promised wad of dough everything goes awry. But get this- when things get hairy Ms. Russell, instead of throwing him to the wolves like some of his past companions, actually tries to help him (trying to provide a gat in the bargain). A lot.
Now Robert this is a woman to hang onto, and she looks, well, fetching in a bathing suit in the bargain. Speaking of which, while he is trying to bring a little justice in this old wicked old world Mitchum shows plenty of beefcake for the ladies, the 1950s ladies I would guess. Plenty of comic moments here, some corny some clever but the main thing is that Brother Mitchum does not have to keep looking over his shoulder every time he kisses Ms. Russell like with some of that earlier female company he kept. Whee!
Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. Sorry, in this one heart-of- gold faux gold-digger Russell has him slated as exclusive property. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, for once to stay in that orbit, unlike in the past, where he let those maddened femme fatale eyes and ruby red lips that speak to some dark adventure get the best of him. Progress, definitely progress, Brother Mitchum.
DVD Review
His Kind Of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr, Vincent Price, produced by Howard Hughes, RKO Pictures, 1951
Just when you think a guy, in this case a Robert Mitchum 1950s crime noir movie actor guy, hasn’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain when some vampish femme fatale displays her charms he finally gets some sense, a little anyway. Previously I had the following to say about Brother Mitchum in a review of Angel Face (co-starring young femme fatale Jean Simmons):
Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, let’s just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners than Ms. Greer. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we guys (and maybe gals too) know, we know, nature.”
And a summary of the plot in the comedic crime noir under review here, His Kind Of Woman, will tell the tale of why I qualified that wising up a little part. Mitchum plays a profession gambler a little off his game, about six aces up the sleeve worth, and so, as anybody is that situation might do, he listens to any proposition that will get him out from under. In this case a proposition about changing his identity for a wad of dough from a deported gangster (played by a non-lawyerly, a very non-lawyerly, Raymond Burr), looking to get back in the old U.S. of A. so he can get his usual infusion of illegal dough. Now this is something that Mitchum might have passed on in sunnier times. But times are hard and suckers are not as plentiful to rope in when you don’t have dough, or a way to get it.
Of course the action here, due to Burr’s, ah, immigration problems, has to take place in, well, sunny Mexico (this is stage-door Mexico before the ax fell down there and crime, and criminals got nastier, very much nastier than that of the criminal skills displayed here) at a tropical seaside resort (naturally). And here is where the dame comes in, also naturally. A sweet-singing down-on-her-heels night club singer (maybe) posing as an heiress, played by Jane Russell (producer Howard Hughes’ paramour at the time), is working her own angles for dough in the person of a vacationing ham, strictly B-movie actor, played by Vincent Price. But when broad-shouldered, bedroom eyes, world-wary Mitchum shows up she is, he is, well, they are smitten (after a little cat and mouse game, as expected). When Mitchum, after putting together some acute observations (putting two and two together, okay) about the set-up, fully realized that he is to be the fall guy and may not get to spend that promised wad of dough everything goes awry. But get this- when things get hairy Ms. Russell, instead of throwing him to the wolves like some of his past companions, actually tries to help him (trying to provide a gat in the bargain). A lot.
Now Robert this is a woman to hang onto, and she looks, well, fetching in a bathing suit in the bargain. Speaking of which, while he is trying to bring a little justice in this old wicked old world Mitchum shows plenty of beefcake for the ladies, the 1950s ladies I would guess. Plenty of comic moments here, some corny some clever but the main thing is that Brother Mitchum does not have to keep looking over his shoulder every time he kisses Ms. Russell like with some of that earlier female company he kept. Whee!
Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. Sorry, in this one heart-of- gold faux gold-digger Russell has him slated as exclusive property. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, for once to stay in that orbit, unlike in the past, where he let those maddened femme fatale eyes and ruby red lips that speak to some dark adventure get the best of him. Progress, definitely progress, Brother Mitchum.
*Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Bloody Harlan"
Clip on title to link to my entry for a YouTube film clip of the classic coal country song,"Bloody Harlan".
This commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.
This commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
*Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Bloody Harlan" In Song
Click on title to link to my entry for "Bloody Harlan In Song".
This commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.
This commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.
Via The "Occupy Boston" Website-The Latest From "Occupy Boston"-Day Seven Round-Up-Teachers, Nurses And Student Support
Click on the headline to link to a Occupy Boston entry from the Occupy Boston website an occupation that started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post updates as they appear on this site.
Markin comment:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back!
Labor and the oppressed must rule!
Markin comment:
There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
Markin comment:
Hands Off The Wall Street Occupiers And The Occupation Site- Drop All Charges Against The Protesters.
Markin comment, October 6, 2011:
Very good to see the labor movement (MTA, nurses, Greater Boston Labor Council)coming to support these actions-It is the same struggle, same fight. We created the wealth, let's take it back!
Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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