Click on the headline to link to the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace website.
JOIN US In BOSTON
Friday, November llth
To participate in pre-parade actions at the State House and military recruiters, meet at 10:00AM at the corner of Beacon and Charles across from the Starbucks. Bring signs.
The American Legion parade starts 1PM. We will assemble at noon on the corner of Beacon and Charles and march immediately after them.
Participate in a pre-parade picket of the military recruiting offices on 141 Tremont Street as well as the State House
March with us behind the "official" parade
Join us for a post-parade rally at Faneuil Hall with speakers and live music
Meet us at 10:OOAM on Boston Commons at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles Street across from the Starbucks.
Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Veterans For Peace
Contact us at: info@massvfp.org Facebook: Smedley D. Butler Brigade
http://smedleyvfp.org of Veterans for Peace
Phone: 617-942-0328
Twitter: Smedley Butler VFP
VETERANS' DAY 2011
*********
Markin comment 2011:
I am re-posting this entry from last year's Veterans' Day anti-war march as it hits all the main points I want to make on this year's march. Be there!
******
Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists, and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstools”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Smedley Butler Brigagde of the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Nineteen-One Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And The All The Occupiers!–Occupy San Francisco Police Raid-Drop All The Charges Against The Protesters In 'Frisco!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
Markin comment October 18, 2011:
This one is a no-brainer-stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in 'Frisco-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And The All The Occupiers!–The Occupy San Francisco Police Raid-Drop All The Charges Against The Protesters In 'Frisco!
class struggle defense, Defend Occupy Boston, Defend Occupy Boston, Defend Occupy San Francisco, an injury to one is an injury to all,
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
Markin comment October 18, 2011:
This one is a no-brainer-stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in 'Frisco-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And The All The Occupiers!–The Occupy San Francisco Police Raid-Drop All The Charges Against The Protesters In 'Frisco!
class struggle defense, Defend Occupy Boston, Defend Occupy Boston, Defend Occupy San Francisco, an injury to one is an injury to all,
The Latest From The “Further Left Forum” Blog
Markin comment:
I am not that familiar with this blog but it always has many videos from important events on the left so I like to check it out every once in a while. And you should too.
I am not that familiar with this blog but it always has many videos from important events on the left so I like to check it out every once in a while. And you should too.
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Nineteen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! – Hands Off #Occupy Boston!- We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and one that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***********
Markin comment October 16, 2011:
On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
***********
Markin comment October 17, 2011:
As mentioned before in this space I am happy, very happy, that the Occupy Boston movement has occurred. As a long-time veteran of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, anti-capitalist actions I had been previously somewhat worried that we, the remaining remnants of the struggles that started in the 1960s, would have no one to pass the torch to. The Occupy movement has seen that we need not worry about that. I am, however, getting a bit worried about where this movement is going, if anyplace. I say this as one who has visited Occupy Boston almost daily since September 30th, participated in the defend of Occupy Boston in the early hours of Tuesday October 11th, and has been at virtually every rally, march, shout-out, and a good number of General Assemblies.
It has struck me hard over past few days since the early morning police raid that endless encampments and endless marches are not, in the end, the answer to the points on the social agenda that need immediate attention. I would assume that most sisters and brothers who support Occupy Boston know deep in their political gut that this is true. Moreover, using the exemplary example of the community formed at the Occupy Boston
as a model for what a future, more equitable, society would look like, while worthwhile, is not the kind of thing that will give us the power, the political power, to create lasting social change.
While many, just now, may recoil from the notion of power, of taking political power, because of some desire to be “nice” in the world that will just not do. The corporations, the banks, the mass media, the police, the military, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, and the myriad other institutions and personalities that defend capitalist society every day in every way will permit many things. But give up the real power to reorder society for human needs. No way. More later. For now though-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and one that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***********
Markin comment October 16, 2011:
On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
***********
Markin comment October 17, 2011:
As mentioned before in this space I am happy, very happy, that the Occupy Boston movement has occurred. As a long-time veteran of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, anti-capitalist actions I had been previously somewhat worried that we, the remaining remnants of the struggles that started in the 1960s, would have no one to pass the torch to. The Occupy movement has seen that we need not worry about that. I am, however, getting a bit worried about where this movement is going, if anyplace. I say this as one who has visited Occupy Boston almost daily since September 30th, participated in the defend of Occupy Boston in the early hours of Tuesday October 11th, and has been at virtually every rally, march, shout-out, and a good number of General Assemblies.
It has struck me hard over past few days since the early morning police raid that endless encampments and endless marches are not, in the end, the answer to the points on the social agenda that need immediate attention. I would assume that most sisters and brothers who support Occupy Boston know deep in their political gut that this is true. Moreover, using the exemplary example of the community formed at the Occupy Boston
as a model for what a future, more equitable, society would look like, while worthwhile, is not the kind of thing that will give us the power, the political power, to create lasting social change.
While many, just now, may recoil from the notion of power, of taking political power, because of some desire to be “nice” in the world that will just not do. The corporations, the banks, the mass media, the police, the military, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, and the myriad other institutions and personalities that defend capitalist society every day in every way will permit many things. But give up the real power to reorder society for human needs. No way. More later. For now though-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Eighteen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! – Hands Off #Occupy Boston!-We Must Move From Protest To Power If We Are To Reorder Society!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and one that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***********
Markin comment October 16, 2011:
On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
***********
Markin comment October 17, 2011:
As mentioned before in this space I am happy, very happy, that the Occupy Boston movement has occurred. As a long-time veteran of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, anti-capitalist actions I had been previously somewhat worried that we, the remaining remnants of the struggles that started in the 1960s, would have no one to pass the torch to. The Occupy movement has seen that we need not worry about that. I am, however, getting a bit worried about where this movement is going, if anyplace. I say this as one who has visited Occupy Boston almost daily since September 30th, participated in the defend of Occupy Boston in the early hours of Tuesday October 11th, and has been at virtually every rally, march, shout-out, and a good number of General Assemblies.
It has struck me hard over past few days since the early morning police raid that endless encampments and endless marches are not, in the end, the answer to the points on the social agenda that need immediate attention. I would assume that most sisters and brothers who support Occupy Boston know deep in their political gut that this is true. Moreover, using the exemplary example of the community formed at the Occupy Boston
as a model for what a future, more equitable, society would look like, while worthwhile, is not the kind of thing that will give us the power, the political power, to create lasting social change.
While many, just now, may recoil from the notion of power, of taking political power, because of some desire to be “nice” in the world that will just not do. The corporations, the banks, the mass media, the police, the military, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, and the myriad other institutions and personalities that defend capitalist society every day in every way will permit many things. But give up the real power to reorder society for human needs. No way. More later. For now though-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and one that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***********
Markin comment October 16, 2011:
On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
***********
Markin comment October 17, 2011:
As mentioned before in this space I am happy, very happy, that the Occupy Boston movement has occurred. As a long-time veteran of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, anti-capitalist actions I had been previously somewhat worried that we, the remaining remnants of the struggles that started in the 1960s, would have no one to pass the torch to. The Occupy movement has seen that we need not worry about that. I am, however, getting a bit worried about where this movement is going, if anyplace. I say this as one who has visited Occupy Boston almost daily since September 30th, participated in the defend of Occupy Boston in the early hours of Tuesday October 11th, and has been at virtually every rally, march, shout-out, and a good number of General Assemblies.
It has struck me hard over past few days since the early morning police raid that endless encampments and endless marches are not, in the end, the answer to the points on the social agenda that need immediate attention. I would assume that most sisters and brothers who support Occupy Boston know deep in their political gut that this is true. Moreover, using the exemplary example of the community formed at the Occupy Boston
as a model for what a future, more equitable, society would look like, while worthwhile, is not the kind of thing that will give us the power, the political power, to create lasting social change.
While many, just now, may recoil from the notion of power, of taking political power, because of some desire to be “nice” in the world that will just not do. The corporations, the banks, the mass media, the police, the military, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, and the myriad other institutions and personalities that defend capitalist society every day in every way will permit many things. But give up the real power to reorder society for human needs. No way. More later. For now though-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night-When Diana Nelson “Touched” The North Adamsville Night Away- With Peggy Lee In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Leslie Gore performing her classic teen dream theme That’s The Way Boys Are.
CD Review
The ‘60s: Jukebox Memories, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1992
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Leslie Gore’s 1960s classic teen dream theme (girl division) song, That’s The Way Boys Are.
I, Diana Nelson, am going to be a big singing star just watch out, watch out and don’t blink because then you will miss it. Hey, it is written in the stars, my stars. Proof? I have just this spring won the 1962 edition of the annual Adamsville Female Vocalist Contest. Hands down! There was no way that any of those other girls could match (and one guy who dressed up as a girl, weird right, although he did a good job on Mary Wells’ Two Lovers and I was a little worried until they found out he was a guy and gave him the boot.) Even Emma Johns and her smoky version of old hat Peggy Lee’s Fever got left behind when I went deep, deep down almost to my soul on Brenda Lee’s I’m Sorry. See that is what the judges were looking for, not smoldering sexy stuff but act of contrition stuff. And the girls who filled up the audience seats and gave their thumbs up and down only wanted to hear stuff that they can listen too when they cry on their pillows after their Johnny doesn’t call, goes cheap on some corny date, or cheats on them, cheats on them with their best friend, usually. I’ve got it all figured out.
Sure, like I was telling my good friend, Peter Paul Markin, the other day during class I was glad to get the one thousand scholarship money that was one of the prizes offered. I can use it if I decide to go to college after we graduate next year. But the big thing for me is to get to sing, sing featured, along with the guys from the Rockin’ Ramrods to back me up, at the Falling Leaves Dance held late in September. That dance is always sponsored by the senior class and it will give me a thrill to go out to please that crowd of fellow seniors, especially Peter Paul, who shares my love of music (although he is not a very good singer, sorry if you see this P.P.) and likes to talk about politics and stuff like I do. The big, big thing though, and I haven’t even told Peter Paul about this is that a recording agent, Jerry Rice, yes, that Jerry Rice, from Ducca Records, the one that signed Connie what’s-her name, has promised to be there and if he likes what he hears, well, like I say it in my stars. Don’t blink, okay.
By the way don’t get thrown off by that good friend Peter Paul thing, especially if you know my own true love boy friend Bobby Swann. There’s nothing to it (sorry again, Peter). Bobby couldn’t be at the contest because he was studying for his finals at State University. He is finishing up his freshman year and so he had to study hard. Peter Paul and I met in ninth grade and we have been good friends ever since. Oh, I suppose I can tell you now, now that I have my handsome blue-eyed Bobby, that if he wasn't such a “stup” P.P could have had his chances with me but all he ever did was stare at my ass in class, and in the corridors. If you don’t believe me ask Emma Johns, she’s the one that noticed him doing it first, although I had an idea. Better yet, ask P.P. he’ll tell you, maybe. The thing was that I couldn’t wait forever for him to get up the nerve to ask me out and then Bobby came along and swooped me up in tenth grade and then I didn’t care for younger guys anymore, except as good friends.
I guess I should tell you since I am telling you everything else that I had a dream when I was very young, maybe seven or eight, that I was going to be a singing star. Maybe it was my mother always playing women singers on the family record like that Peggy Lee when she was young and sprightly with Benny Goodman, Teresa Brewer, and Billie Holiday that got me going because I would sing along all day with the radio on. Later ma had me take singing lessons and I have been going strong ever since. Peter Paul said he went crazy when he first heard me do Brenda’s I Want To Be Wanted and Patsy Cline’s Crazy, although she, Patsy, seemed a little to ah, shucks, countrified when I first heard her. She has gotten less so since she has started turning to more a more popular style. I sure wish I could hit her high notes but Miss French, my vocals teacher, says I will get there soon enough and then I will have to, get this word, “husband” my valuable resource. See, I am a cinch.
Did I tell you that I told, no ordered (and I can do that to him, and he jumps like a puppy dog, sorry again P.P.) to be at the Falling Leaves Dance solo, so we can talk between sets. It looks like Bobby won’t be coming. According to him no big time State University sophomore would be caught dead at a high school dance and also his cross-country team is having a big meet in New York City that weekend. You know, and I hope you won’t tell Bobby, if you know him, because I do love him so, every once in a while I wish P. P. would have done more than just look at my ass in ninth grade.
CD Review
The ‘60s: Jukebox Memories, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1992
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Leslie Gore’s 1960s classic teen dream theme (girl division) song, That’s The Way Boys Are.
I, Diana Nelson, am going to be a big singing star just watch out, watch out and don’t blink because then you will miss it. Hey, it is written in the stars, my stars. Proof? I have just this spring won the 1962 edition of the annual Adamsville Female Vocalist Contest. Hands down! There was no way that any of those other girls could match (and one guy who dressed up as a girl, weird right, although he did a good job on Mary Wells’ Two Lovers and I was a little worried until they found out he was a guy and gave him the boot.) Even Emma Johns and her smoky version of old hat Peggy Lee’s Fever got left behind when I went deep, deep down almost to my soul on Brenda Lee’s I’m Sorry. See that is what the judges were looking for, not smoldering sexy stuff but act of contrition stuff. And the girls who filled up the audience seats and gave their thumbs up and down only wanted to hear stuff that they can listen too when they cry on their pillows after their Johnny doesn’t call, goes cheap on some corny date, or cheats on them, cheats on them with their best friend, usually. I’ve got it all figured out.
Sure, like I was telling my good friend, Peter Paul Markin, the other day during class I was glad to get the one thousand scholarship money that was one of the prizes offered. I can use it if I decide to go to college after we graduate next year. But the big thing for me is to get to sing, sing featured, along with the guys from the Rockin’ Ramrods to back me up, at the Falling Leaves Dance held late in September. That dance is always sponsored by the senior class and it will give me a thrill to go out to please that crowd of fellow seniors, especially Peter Paul, who shares my love of music (although he is not a very good singer, sorry if you see this P.P.) and likes to talk about politics and stuff like I do. The big, big thing though, and I haven’t even told Peter Paul about this is that a recording agent, Jerry Rice, yes, that Jerry Rice, from Ducca Records, the one that signed Connie what’s-her name, has promised to be there and if he likes what he hears, well, like I say it in my stars. Don’t blink, okay.
By the way don’t get thrown off by that good friend Peter Paul thing, especially if you know my own true love boy friend Bobby Swann. There’s nothing to it (sorry again, Peter). Bobby couldn’t be at the contest because he was studying for his finals at State University. He is finishing up his freshman year and so he had to study hard. Peter Paul and I met in ninth grade and we have been good friends ever since. Oh, I suppose I can tell you now, now that I have my handsome blue-eyed Bobby, that if he wasn't such a “stup” P.P could have had his chances with me but all he ever did was stare at my ass in class, and in the corridors. If you don’t believe me ask Emma Johns, she’s the one that noticed him doing it first, although I had an idea. Better yet, ask P.P. he’ll tell you, maybe. The thing was that I couldn’t wait forever for him to get up the nerve to ask me out and then Bobby came along and swooped me up in tenth grade and then I didn’t care for younger guys anymore, except as good friends.
I guess I should tell you since I am telling you everything else that I had a dream when I was very young, maybe seven or eight, that I was going to be a singing star. Maybe it was my mother always playing women singers on the family record like that Peggy Lee when she was young and sprightly with Benny Goodman, Teresa Brewer, and Billie Holiday that got me going because I would sing along all day with the radio on. Later ma had me take singing lessons and I have been going strong ever since. Peter Paul said he went crazy when he first heard me do Brenda’s I Want To Be Wanted and Patsy Cline’s Crazy, although she, Patsy, seemed a little to ah, shucks, countrified when I first heard her. She has gotten less so since she has started turning to more a more popular style. I sure wish I could hit her high notes but Miss French, my vocals teacher, says I will get there soon enough and then I will have to, get this word, “husband” my valuable resource. See, I am a cinch.
Did I tell you that I told, no ordered (and I can do that to him, and he jumps like a puppy dog, sorry again P.P.) to be at the Falling Leaves Dance solo, so we can talk between sets. It looks like Bobby won’t be coming. According to him no big time State University sophomore would be caught dead at a high school dance and also his cross-country team is having a big meet in New York City that weekend. You know, and I hope you won’t tell Bobby, if you know him, because I do love him so, every once in a while I wish P. P. would have done more than just look at my ass in ninth grade.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Seventeen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!–Stop the Machine Occupies Washington (October 6, 2011)
Click on the headline to link to post mentioned in that headline
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Seventeen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!–Occupy Boston Radio report #4 (October10-11, 2011)
Click on the headline to link to post mentioned in that headline
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Seventeen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!–Video/Photos-Verizon Workers Unite With Occupy Boston
Click on the headline to link to post mentioned in that headline
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Seventeen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!–Anti-War Protest Fills Boston's Streets-video/photos-October 15, 2011
Click on the headline to link to post mentioned in that headline
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Seventeen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!–175 Arrests at Occupy Chicago-Defend Occupy Chicago- Drop All The Charges Against Chicago Protesters
Click on the headline to link to post mentioned in that headline.
The Latest From “The Rag Blog”
Click on the headline to link to The Rag Blog website.
Markin comment:
I find this The Rag Blog very useful to monitor for the latest in what is happening with past tense radical activists and activities. Anybody, with some kind of name, who is still around from the 1960s has found a home here. So the remembrances and recollections are helpful for today’s activists. Strangely the politics are almost non-existent, as least ones that would help today, except to kind of retroactively “bless” those old-time left politics that did nothing (well, almost nothing) but get us on the losing end of the class (and cultural) wars of the last forty plus years. Still this is a must read blog for today’s left militants.
Markin comment:
I find this The Rag Blog very useful to monitor for the latest in what is happening with past tense radical activists and activities. Anybody, with some kind of name, who is still around from the 1960s has found a home here. So the remembrances and recollections are helpful for today’s activists. Strangely the politics are almost non-existent, as least ones that would help today, except to kind of retroactively “bless” those old-time left politics that did nothing (well, almost nothing) but get us on the losing end of the class (and cultural) wars of the last forty plus years. Still this is a must read blog for today’s left militants.
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "#Occupy Boston"-Day Seventeen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!– Light The Spark-Honor John Brown And His Heroic Forces On The Anniversary Of Harpers Ferry (1859)
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***********
Markin comment October 16, 2011:
On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***********
Markin comment October 16, 2011:
On a day when we honor the heroic efforts of Captain John Brown and his heroic band of anti-slavery fighters in 1859 at Harpers Ferry it is worthwhile noting that that seemingly utopian event galvanized the broader anti-slavery forces in the North for the titanic struggle of the American Civil War. All Honor To Their Memory.
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick Learns His Trade-“Killer’s Kiss”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the early Stanley Kubrick crime noir, Killer’s Kiss.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
Saturday, October 15, 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 (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "Occupy Boston"-Day Sixteen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! – The Spark Is Lit- Labor And The Left Unite To Fight!- All Out Today In Solidarity With Occupy Wall Street!- End The Endless Wars!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 Bostona 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 naiveté 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 11, 2011:
Around two o’clock in the morning Boston Police swooped in on a second occupation site established to handle the growing number of people who waned to camp out. The city, Mayor Menino, decided to draw the line at that second site. The Occupy Boston movement decided, after meeting in a democratic General Assembly, to defend the right to use that new space. As a result the police came and arrested about one hundred defenders. Today’s headline in this space says it all. Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders!
*******
Markin comment October 12, 2011:
Someone commented to me yesterday on my calling Boston Mayor Menino, after he had unleashed his Cossacks on peaceful demonstrators in the dead of night, a Czar. Well, what else do you call one who decides when and where we can exercise our free expression rights and otherwise acts in an arbitrary and capricious manner in curtailing them. The distance from the actions of the Czar on the Ninth of January (the date of the event which started the Russian revolution of 1905) and the mayor is, after all, not that far. An Injury To One Is An Injury To All! Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston!
************
Markin comment October 13, 2011:
Apparently, for now, after early Tuesday morning’s police raid of a second Occupy Boston site, cooler heads in Mayor Menino’s office have prevailed and the Mayor has backed off on naming a time when the Dewey Square Occupy Boston site must be vacated. Still Tuesday’s, uncalled for and unnecessary, actions by the city should be etched in our brains for future reference. And certainly our slogans remain the same in this blog space. An Injury To One Is An Injury To All! Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston!
************
Markin comment October 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that
while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naivete about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement led mainly by leftist workers drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule.
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 Bostona 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 naiveté 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 11, 2011:
Around two o’clock in the morning Boston Police swooped in on a second occupation site established to handle the growing number of people who waned to camp out. The city, Mayor Menino, decided to draw the line at that second site. The Occupy Boston movement decided, after meeting in a democratic General Assembly, to defend the right to use that new space. As a result the police came and arrested about one hundred defenders. Today’s headline in this space says it all. Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders!
*******
Markin comment October 12, 2011:
Someone commented to me yesterday on my calling Boston Mayor Menino, after he had unleashed his Cossacks on peaceful demonstrators in the dead of night, a Czar. Well, what else do you call one who decides when and where we can exercise our free expression rights and otherwise acts in an arbitrary and capricious manner in curtailing them. The distance from the actions of the Czar on the Ninth of January (the date of the event which started the Russian revolution of 1905) and the mayor is, after all, not that far. An Injury To One Is An Injury To All! Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston!
************
Markin comment October 13, 2011:
Apparently, for now, after early Tuesday morning’s police raid of a second Occupy Boston site, cooler heads in Mayor Menino’s office have prevailed and the Mayor has backed off on naming a time when the Dewey Square Occupy Boston site must be vacated. Still Tuesday’s, uncalled for and unnecessary, actions by the city should be etched in our brains for future reference. And certainly our slogans remain the same in this blog space. An Injury To One Is An Injury To All! Defend The Occupation Sites And The Occupiers! Drop The Charges Against The Occupation Defenders! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston!
************
Markin comment October 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that
while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naivete about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement led mainly by leftist workers drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule.
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
***Out In The Be-Bop, Be-Bop 1960s Night- The World Turned Upside Down-The Great Teenage Triangle
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1962-1963, take two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece.
Nobody said being a teenager was going to be easy now, in 1860 or whenever they invented teenagers, 1960 the time period of this piece, or, hell, 2360. Teen angst, short term or long, comes with the territory. However sometimes something, in this case a song, will sum up just exactly how hard teen life really is. I admit this one had me a little weepy for a while over the fate, a common fate, of one of the characters. That is until I realized, wait a minute this is teen stuff, next week the configuration will have totally changed, or the boys (or girl) in this teen triangle will have sworn off girls (or boys, for the girl). Ya, right.
Rather than leave the reader in any more suspense let me give the details of the heart-rending dilemma. It seems that Robert, well let’s call him Robert because Roberts always seem to be the kind of guys who draw the short end of the stick in teen life, was head over heels in love with Sherry, and had been ever since they met a couple of summers back down at the far end, the teen far end, of Olde Saco Beach up in cold climate Maine so it must have been July, no later. Needless to say they were both “enjoying” the rite of passage teen bored-to-death vacation with their ever-loving families (dogs, optional, although included here since they met while walking the respective family dogs) when the dogs met, and presto Robert and Sherry met. Things went fine for a while, as such summer romances go, and they wrote during the winter with all kinds of expectations of another high school teen romance summer, with maybe a little more than just kissing this time.
As luck would have it though Robert, studious, shoulder to the wheel if smitten Robert, had an opportunity to work at Ben’s Market in Olde Saco that next summer in order to help with his soon to be impeding college tuition. Naturally he had to “jump” at the opportunity (with a very big “friendly” push from his parents). And that is when things started to fall apart.
Nature, and teen nature is a pure scientific example of that law, abhors a vacuum. Especially a foxy Sherry on the beach alone, no Robert alone, (and no dog along for introductions this time) when Eddie, let’s call him Eddie, not Edward, not, Ed, not Eduardo, just Eddie because it is always Eddies who scoop up the foxes in teen life came swaggering up the beach, sat right beside Sherry and started, well, started in his version of fast eddie love talk. Just like that. And Sherry, well, Sherry was just in the mood to hear such talk, if not from "shoulder the wheel" Robert then Eddie, kind of hunky Eddie, would do just fine. After all a girl has to look out for herself in this wicked old world. The long and short of it was that Sherry made a date with Eddie, a happy date when she found out that Eddie had a “boss” ’57 Chevy for that date. Robert’s was working at his silly old market job anyway so he would be none the wiser. That night, it might have been the stars, it might have been the moon, it might have been Sherry mad at Robert, or it just might have been the time of her time, but Sherry let Eddie have his way with her down at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco beach. The place where only teenagers with something on their minds other than throwing pebbles in the surf go, no one else not even the cops.
So far still nothing remarkable, right. A million teens lost in the moon-beam night learning about the ways of the world, the adult sex world that they keep hush-hush about but which every teen since Socrates, maybe before, gets hip to, one way or another. But here is where it gets dicey. See Eddie already had a foxy girlfriend back home, Lula Belle, who outfoxes Sherry six ways to Sunday. And is rather possessive of her man. Switchblade-like possessive if it came to it. And Eddie, frankly, while he enjoyed Sherry was in it for kicks, for just doing it when the opportunity arose, and moving on. So that is exactly what he did. Sherry though, after the short summer tryst was over, started writing Eddie asking when he was coming back and all that kind of stuff, girl crush stuff.
Still not that remarkable though. What was though was that Eddie and Robert attended the same regional high school, Arundel High over the other side of Sanford (although they do not live in the same town) together and were both on the football team. (Robert the steady plebeian pulling guard, Fast Eddie, well, the fleet-footed halfback, natch) So one afternoon Eddie, Eddie acting as peacock, showed Robert, in the presence of his best friend, Josh Breslin and so that is how this situation became public, well, school knowledge, one of Sherry’s letters. Eddie went on a little about what he and Sherry did and what a cluck she was for writing a breeze guy like Eddie such stuff. And Eddie said right then and there that he bet Robert five dollars, five serious dollars, that he could write a couple of lines to Sherry about not having enough dough for postage stamps to write her before, or something, as his reason for not writing and he could be right back down there at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco Beach with Sherry anytime he wanted. Well, maybe not anytime because on hearing that Robert reared back and gave Eddie a punch that dropped him to the ground in nothing flat. So floor-fast Eddie and his jaw were on the bench for a while if Sherry wanted to know his whereabouts just then.
***********
Letter From Sherry lyrics-Dale War
A letter from Sherry
Oh boy, what a girl
But to the boy who really loves her
Its the end of the world.
A letter from Sherry
Brings teardrops to my eyes
A letter from Sherry
Oh why, Sherry, why?
My best friend named Eddie
Came by just yesterday
With a letter from Sherry
Heres what she had to say
Dear Eddie Dear Eddie, I love you I love you
With all my heart with all my heart
Vacation last summer
Was grand
And though you
You never write
I pray I pray
Each day and night
For Im yours
And yours alone
And dear Sherry, shes comin home
A letter from Sherry
Oh boy, what a girl
But to the boy who really loves her
Out In The Be-Bop, Be-Bop 1960s Night- The World Turned Upside Down-The Great Teenage Triangle
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 19621963, take two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece.
Nobody said being a teenager was going to be easy now, in 1860 or whenever they invented teenagers, 1960 the time of this piece, or, hell, 2360. Angst, short term or long, comes with the territory. However sometimes something, in this case a song, will sum up just exactly how hard teen life really is. I admit this one had me a little weepy for a while over the fate, a common fate, of one of the characters. That is until I realized, wait a minute this is teen stuff, next week the configuration will have totally changed, or the boys (or girl) in this teen triangle will have sworn off girls (or boys for the girl). Ya, right.
Rather than leave the reader in any more suspense let me give the details of the heart-rending dilemma. It seems that Robert, well let’s cal him Robert because Roberts always seem to be the kind of guys who draw the short end of the stick in teen life, is head over heels in love with Sherry, and has been ever since they met a couple of summers back down at the far end, the teen far end, of Olde Saco Beach up in cold climate Maine so it must have been July, no later. Needless to say they were both “enjoying” the rite of passage teen bored-to- death vacation with their ever-loving families (dogs, optional, although included here since they met while walking the respective family dogs) when the dogs met, and presto Robert and Sherry met. Things went fine for a while, as such summer romances go, and they wrote during the winter with all kinds of expectations of another high school teen romance summer, with maybe a little more than just kissing this time. As luck would have it Robert, studious, shoulder to the wheel if smitten Robert, had an opportunity to work at Ben’s Market in Olde Saco last summer in order o help with his soon to be impeding college tuition. Naturally he had to “jump” at the opportunity (with a very big “friendly” push from his parents. And that is when things started to fall apart.
Nature, and teen nature is a pure scientific example of that law, abhors a vacuum. Especially a foxy Sherry on the beach alone, no Robert alone, (and no dog along for introductions this time) when Eddie, let’s call him Eddie, not Edward, not, Ed, not Eduardo, just Eddie because it is always Eddies who scoop up the foxes in teen life comes swaggering up the beach, sits right beside Sherry and starts, well, starts in his version of love talk. Just like that. And Sherry, well, Sherry is just in the mood to hear such talk, if not from shoulder the wheel Robert then Eddie, kind of hunky Eddie will do just fine. After all a girl has to look out for herself in this wicked old world. The long and short of it is Sherry makes a date with Eddie, a happy date when she finds out that Eddie has a “boss” ’57 Chevy for that night. Robert’s working at his silly old market job anyway so he will be none the wiser. That night, t might have been the stars, it might have been the moon, it might have been Sherry mad at Robert, or it just might have been the time of her time but Sherry let Eddie have his way with her down at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco beach. The places where only teenagers with something on their minds other than throwing pebbles in the surf go, no one else not even the cops.
So far still nothing remarkable, right. A million teens lost in the moon-beam night learning about the ways of the world. But here is where it gets dicey. See Eddie already has a foxy girlfriend back home, Lula Belle, who outfoxes Sherry six way to Sunday. And is rather
Possessive of her man. Switchblade possessive if it came to it. And Eddie, frankly, while he enjoyed Sherry was in it for kicks, for just doing it when the opportunity arose and moving on. Sherry though started writing Eddie asking when he was coming back and al that kind of stuff, girl crush stuff. Still not that remarkable though. What is though is that Eddie and Robert attend the same regional high school (although they do not live in the same town) together and are both on the football time. So one afternoon Eddie, Eddie acting as peacock, shows Robert one of Sherry’s letters and goes on a little about what he and Sherry did and what a cluck she was for writing a breeze guy like Eddie. And Eddie said right then and there that he bet Robert five dollars, five serious dollars that he could write a couple of lines to Sherry about not having enough dough for postage stamps, or something, as his reason for not writing and he could be right back down there at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco Beach with Sherry anytime he wanted. Well, maybe not anytime because on hearing that Robert reared back and gave Eddie a punch that dropped him to the ground in nothing flat. So Eddie and his jaw are on the bench for a while if Sherry wants to know his whereabouts just now.
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1962-1963, take two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece.
Nobody said being a teenager was going to be easy now, in 1860 or whenever they invented teenagers, 1960 the time period of this piece, or, hell, 2360. Teen angst, short term or long, comes with the territory. However sometimes something, in this case a song, will sum up just exactly how hard teen life really is. I admit this one had me a little weepy for a while over the fate, a common fate, of one of the characters. That is until I realized, wait a minute this is teen stuff, next week the configuration will have totally changed, or the boys (or girl) in this teen triangle will have sworn off girls (or boys, for the girl). Ya, right.
Rather than leave the reader in any more suspense let me give the details of the heart-rending dilemma. It seems that Robert, well let’s call him Robert because Roberts always seem to be the kind of guys who draw the short end of the stick in teen life, was head over heels in love with Sherry, and had been ever since they met a couple of summers back down at the far end, the teen far end, of Olde Saco Beach up in cold climate Maine so it must have been July, no later. Needless to say they were both “enjoying” the rite of passage teen bored-to-death vacation with their ever-loving families (dogs, optional, although included here since they met while walking the respective family dogs) when the dogs met, and presto Robert and Sherry met. Things went fine for a while, as such summer romances go, and they wrote during the winter with all kinds of expectations of another high school teen romance summer, with maybe a little more than just kissing this time.
As luck would have it though Robert, studious, shoulder to the wheel if smitten Robert, had an opportunity to work at Ben’s Market in Olde Saco that next summer in order to help with his soon to be impeding college tuition. Naturally he had to “jump” at the opportunity (with a very big “friendly” push from his parents). And that is when things started to fall apart.
Nature, and teen nature is a pure scientific example of that law, abhors a vacuum. Especially a foxy Sherry on the beach alone, no Robert alone, (and no dog along for introductions this time) when Eddie, let’s call him Eddie, not Edward, not, Ed, not Eduardo, just Eddie because it is always Eddies who scoop up the foxes in teen life came swaggering up the beach, sat right beside Sherry and started, well, started in his version of fast eddie love talk. Just like that. And Sherry, well, Sherry was just in the mood to hear such talk, if not from "shoulder the wheel" Robert then Eddie, kind of hunky Eddie, would do just fine. After all a girl has to look out for herself in this wicked old world. The long and short of it was that Sherry made a date with Eddie, a happy date when she found out that Eddie had a “boss” ’57 Chevy for that date. Robert’s was working at his silly old market job anyway so he would be none the wiser. That night, it might have been the stars, it might have been the moon, it might have been Sherry mad at Robert, or it just might have been the time of her time, but Sherry let Eddie have his way with her down at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco beach. The place where only teenagers with something on their minds other than throwing pebbles in the surf go, no one else not even the cops.
So far still nothing remarkable, right. A million teens lost in the moon-beam night learning about the ways of the world, the adult sex world that they keep hush-hush about but which every teen since Socrates, maybe before, gets hip to, one way or another. But here is where it gets dicey. See Eddie already had a foxy girlfriend back home, Lula Belle, who outfoxes Sherry six ways to Sunday. And is rather possessive of her man. Switchblade-like possessive if it came to it. And Eddie, frankly, while he enjoyed Sherry was in it for kicks, for just doing it when the opportunity arose, and moving on. So that is exactly what he did. Sherry though, after the short summer tryst was over, started writing Eddie asking when he was coming back and all that kind of stuff, girl crush stuff.
Still not that remarkable though. What was though was that Eddie and Robert attended the same regional high school, Arundel High over the other side of Sanford (although they do not live in the same town) together and were both on the football team. (Robert the steady plebeian pulling guard, Fast Eddie, well, the fleet-footed halfback, natch) So one afternoon Eddie, Eddie acting as peacock, showed Robert, in the presence of his best friend, Josh Breslin and so that is how this situation became public, well, school knowledge, one of Sherry’s letters. Eddie went on a little about what he and Sherry did and what a cluck she was for writing a breeze guy like Eddie such stuff. And Eddie said right then and there that he bet Robert five dollars, five serious dollars, that he could write a couple of lines to Sherry about not having enough dough for postage stamps to write her before, or something, as his reason for not writing and he could be right back down there at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco Beach with Sherry anytime he wanted. Well, maybe not anytime because on hearing that Robert reared back and gave Eddie a punch that dropped him to the ground in nothing flat. So floor-fast Eddie and his jaw were on the bench for a while if Sherry wanted to know his whereabouts just then.
***********
Letter From Sherry lyrics-Dale War
A letter from Sherry
Oh boy, what a girl
But to the boy who really loves her
Its the end of the world.
A letter from Sherry
Brings teardrops to my eyes
A letter from Sherry
Oh why, Sherry, why?
My best friend named Eddie
Came by just yesterday
With a letter from Sherry
Heres what she had to say
Dear Eddie Dear Eddie, I love you I love you
With all my heart with all my heart
Vacation last summer
Was grand
And though you
You never write
I pray I pray
Each day and night
For Im yours
And yours alone
And dear Sherry, shes comin home
A letter from Sherry
Oh boy, what a girl
But to the boy who really loves her
Out In The Be-Bop, Be-Bop 1960s Night- The World Turned Upside Down-The Great Teenage Triangle
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 19621963, take two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece.
Nobody said being a teenager was going to be easy now, in 1860 or whenever they invented teenagers, 1960 the time of this piece, or, hell, 2360. Angst, short term or long, comes with the territory. However sometimes something, in this case a song, will sum up just exactly how hard teen life really is. I admit this one had me a little weepy for a while over the fate, a common fate, of one of the characters. That is until I realized, wait a minute this is teen stuff, next week the configuration will have totally changed, or the boys (or girl) in this teen triangle will have sworn off girls (or boys for the girl). Ya, right.
Rather than leave the reader in any more suspense let me give the details of the heart-rending dilemma. It seems that Robert, well let’s cal him Robert because Roberts always seem to be the kind of guys who draw the short end of the stick in teen life, is head over heels in love with Sherry, and has been ever since they met a couple of summers back down at the far end, the teen far end, of Olde Saco Beach up in cold climate Maine so it must have been July, no later. Needless to say they were both “enjoying” the rite of passage teen bored-to- death vacation with their ever-loving families (dogs, optional, although included here since they met while walking the respective family dogs) when the dogs met, and presto Robert and Sherry met. Things went fine for a while, as such summer romances go, and they wrote during the winter with all kinds of expectations of another high school teen romance summer, with maybe a little more than just kissing this time. As luck would have it Robert, studious, shoulder to the wheel if smitten Robert, had an opportunity to work at Ben’s Market in Olde Saco last summer in order o help with his soon to be impeding college tuition. Naturally he had to “jump” at the opportunity (with a very big “friendly” push from his parents. And that is when things started to fall apart.
Nature, and teen nature is a pure scientific example of that law, abhors a vacuum. Especially a foxy Sherry on the beach alone, no Robert alone, (and no dog along for introductions this time) when Eddie, let’s call him Eddie, not Edward, not, Ed, not Eduardo, just Eddie because it is always Eddies who scoop up the foxes in teen life comes swaggering up the beach, sits right beside Sherry and starts, well, starts in his version of love talk. Just like that. And Sherry, well, Sherry is just in the mood to hear such talk, if not from shoulder the wheel Robert then Eddie, kind of hunky Eddie will do just fine. After all a girl has to look out for herself in this wicked old world. The long and short of it is Sherry makes a date with Eddie, a happy date when she finds out that Eddie has a “boss” ’57 Chevy for that night. Robert’s working at his silly old market job anyway so he will be none the wiser. That night, t might have been the stars, it might have been the moon, it might have been Sherry mad at Robert, or it just might have been the time of her time but Sherry let Eddie have his way with her down at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco beach. The places where only teenagers with something on their minds other than throwing pebbles in the surf go, no one else not even the cops.
So far still nothing remarkable, right. A million teens lost in the moon-beam night learning about the ways of the world. But here is where it gets dicey. See Eddie already has a foxy girlfriend back home, Lula Belle, who outfoxes Sherry six way to Sunday. And is rather
Possessive of her man. Switchblade possessive if it came to it. And Eddie, frankly, while he enjoyed Sherry was in it for kicks, for just doing it when the opportunity arose and moving on. Sherry though started writing Eddie asking when he was coming back and al that kind of stuff, girl crush stuff. Still not that remarkable though. What is though is that Eddie and Robert attend the same regional high school (although they do not live in the same town) together and are both on the football time. So one afternoon Eddie, Eddie acting as peacock, shows Robert one of Sherry’s letters and goes on a little about what he and Sherry did and what a cluck she was for writing a breeze guy like Eddie. And Eddie said right then and there that he bet Robert five dollars, five serious dollars that he could write a couple of lines to Sherry about not having enough dough for postage stamps, or something, as his reason for not writing and he could be right back down there at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco Beach with Sherry anytime he wanted. Well, maybe not anytime because on hearing that Robert reared back and gave Eddie a punch that dropped him to the ground in nothing flat. So Eddie and his jaw are on the bench for a while if Sherry wants to know his whereabouts just now.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Greetings From Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-The Latest From "Occupy Boston"-Day Fifteen Round-Up- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! – The Spark Is Lit- Labor And The Left Unite To Fight!-Victory To The Verizon Workers!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#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 naiveté 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 naiveté, 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 14, 2011:
Over the past two weeks of the Occupy Boston struggle most of my comments have centered on the need to defend the site and the movement. Especially so over the past few days when the struggle intensified with the police raid on the second site early Tuesday morning and the possibility that the city, under Czar Menino’s direction, was ready to close the whole encampment down. For the moment, and we should treat it as such, we are holding out under an “armed truce” declared by the mayor himself and so I have some time to reflect on the past period.
On the first full day of the occupation, October 1, 2011, I commented (see above) that while I was very happy to see the occupation, particularly the participation of young people who had been absent from many of the local actions of the past few years, there was an inordinate amount of goodwill toward the police and a fuzzy attitude toward capitalism. Tuesday morning’s police raid has quieted some of the naiveté about the police, although not all of it, and their role in enforcing the rule of the one per cent. The question of what to do about capitalism- tweak it by reform, or throw the bums out, still seems fuzzy. But we will learn, learn before long about that.
The most important development though for our side, and that has occurred in the other Occupy movements throughout the country and world as well, is that the spark has been lit to reunite the labor movement and the left that had been broken, broken really since about the 1950s with the “red scare” of my parents’ generation. The struggles of the 1930s that created the modern organized labor movement, led mainly by socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist workers, drew in many progressives and other allies. This time the spark came from the other direction, and labor has begun to see the Occupy movement as their ally. This new fact was demonstrated visible on several occasions over the past two weeks, most recently yesterday, October 13, 2011, when several hundred unionists and leftists marched together in support of the Verizon workers struggle for a decent contract. Many people are beginning to realize that black, white, brown or red, native born or immigrant, skilled or unskilled, we are all in the same boat. Capitalism has had its day and failed-move over and let us reorder society. This is our time-labor and the oppressed must rule!
Oh yes, and just to make sure that everybody knows we are not wide-eyed rubes and believe everything the city says just because we have a momentary truce-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers! Czar Menino Hands Off Occupy Boston !
From The AP- The Latest From The Occupy Wall Street Front-"Park cleanup postponed, heartening NYC protesters"- A Small Victory, But A Victory- The Struggle Continues
Markin comment:
The most important sentences in this report for our purposes are those that describe the fact that many supporters, including union members, were streaming to the Occupy Wall Street to defend the encampment. That is what held New York authorities off. A valuable lesson in solidarity. Meanwhile-Defend Occupy New York! An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!
******
Park cleanup postponed, heartening NYC protesters
By KAREN MATTHEWS and COLLEEN LONG, AP
NEW YORK — The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from demonstrators who had scrambled to scrub the park on their own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.
Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said the owners of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning. Supporters of the protesters, including union members, had started streaming into the plaza in the early morning darkness in a show of solidarity.
There was still skepticism even after the protesters, who call their demonstration Occupy Wall Street, were told they could stay on.
"I'll believe it when we're able to stay here," said protester Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. "One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials."
The "mother" protest in New York that began a month ago has spawned similar encampments in cities across the U.S. and world, and in places beyond New York it was clear that officials' patience was wearing thin.
Near the Colorado state Capitol in Denver, hundreds of protesters were told to clear out of a park or risk arrest, and dozens of police in riot gear moved in and declared the area closed. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment near a war memorial.
Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowd in New York as the announcement of the cleaning postponement circulated, and a small group soon marched away with brooms, saying they were going to clean up Wall Street, a few blocks away.
There were reports of a handful of arrests. In one case, a police scooter hit a protester, who fell to the ground and screamed before kicking the scooter over to free his foot; he was then arrested.
Brookfield, a publicly traded real estate firm, had planned to power-wash the New York plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back — but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there. The company called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.
The company's rules, which haven't been enforced, have been this all along: No tarps, no sleeping bags, no storing personal property on the ground. The park is privately owned but is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken. But the deputy mayor's statement indicated that "for the time being" Brookfield was withdrawing its request for police assistance in cleaning the park.
The company believes it can work out an arrangement with the protesters that "will ensure the park remains clean, safe, available for public use," the statement said.
A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been feared. Many protesters had said the only way they would leave was by force, and organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."
A few blocks south of the park Friday morning, about two dozen demonstrators screamed "Pigs!" and hurled obscenities at a dozen officers in riot gear, who showed no visible reaction. The officers then left the area, trailed by protesters with cameras.
A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is a member of Brookfield's board of directors, had confirmed Thursday that Brookfield had requested the city's assistance in maintaining the park.
"We will continue to defend and guarantee their free speech rights, but those rights do not include the ability to infringe on the rights of others," Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna said, "which is why the rules governing the park will be enforced."
Protesters have had some run-ins with police, but mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed seemed to energize their movement.
Even before the protesters learned they were allowed to stay Friday, they were busy cleaning.
After the announcement filtered through the crowd, some scrubbed the park's marble and pavement with brooms and soapy water and picked up trash as others unfurled tarps on the rain-dampened concrete and ate potluck breakfast off paper plates. One man practiced his yoga sun salutation despite the dark clouds.
Liane Nikitovich, 44, fitness instructor, said she was buoyed by the news but also concerned that it was a postponement — not a cancellation.
"It's really a victory for freedom of speech and for democracy," Nikitovich said. "This is one moment. It shows that our support is growing worldwide."
The protesters are pleased that the city and Brookfield "saw fit to allow the protest and dialogue to continue," said Doug Forand, a spokesman for 99 New York, a coalition of community groups that support the protest.
The demand that protesters clear out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
The protesters' demands are wide-ranging, but they are united in blaming Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — wrote a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatened "fundamental constitutional rights."
The nationwide movement also includes groups called Occupy Boston, Occupy Cincinnati, Occupy Houston, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Providence and Occupy Salt Lake.
Several protests are planned this weekend across the U.S. and Canada, and European activists are also organizing.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister, Tom McElroy, Cara Anna, Deepti Hajela, Cristian Salazar, Verena Dobnik, and Meghan Barr, and photographer Mary Altaffer in New York; and Thomas Peipert in Denver.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
The most important sentences in this report for our purposes are those that describe the fact that many supporters, including union members, were streaming to the Occupy Wall Street to defend the encampment. That is what held New York authorities off. A valuable lesson in solidarity. Meanwhile-Defend Occupy New York! An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Site And The Occupiers!
******
Park cleanup postponed, heartening NYC protesters
By KAREN MATTHEWS and COLLEEN LONG, AP
NEW YORK — The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from demonstrators who had scrambled to scrub the park on their own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.
Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said the owners of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning. Supporters of the protesters, including union members, had started streaming into the plaza in the early morning darkness in a show of solidarity.
There was still skepticism even after the protesters, who call their demonstration Occupy Wall Street, were told they could stay on.
"I'll believe it when we're able to stay here," said protester Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. "One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials."
The "mother" protest in New York that began a month ago has spawned similar encampments in cities across the U.S. and world, and in places beyond New York it was clear that officials' patience was wearing thin.
Near the Colorado state Capitol in Denver, hundreds of protesters were told to clear out of a park or risk arrest, and dozens of police in riot gear moved in and declared the area closed. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment near a war memorial.
Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowd in New York as the announcement of the cleaning postponement circulated, and a small group soon marched away with brooms, saying they were going to clean up Wall Street, a few blocks away.
There were reports of a handful of arrests. In one case, a police scooter hit a protester, who fell to the ground and screamed before kicking the scooter over to free his foot; he was then arrested.
Brookfield, a publicly traded real estate firm, had planned to power-wash the New York plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back — but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there. The company called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.
The company's rules, which haven't been enforced, have been this all along: No tarps, no sleeping bags, no storing personal property on the ground. The park is privately owned but is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken. But the deputy mayor's statement indicated that "for the time being" Brookfield was withdrawing its request for police assistance in cleaning the park.
The company believes it can work out an arrangement with the protesters that "will ensure the park remains clean, safe, available for public use," the statement said.
A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been feared. Many protesters had said the only way they would leave was by force, and organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."
A few blocks south of the park Friday morning, about two dozen demonstrators screamed "Pigs!" and hurled obscenities at a dozen officers in riot gear, who showed no visible reaction. The officers then left the area, trailed by protesters with cameras.
A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is a member of Brookfield's board of directors, had confirmed Thursday that Brookfield had requested the city's assistance in maintaining the park.
"We will continue to defend and guarantee their free speech rights, but those rights do not include the ability to infringe on the rights of others," Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna said, "which is why the rules governing the park will be enforced."
Protesters have had some run-ins with police, but mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed seemed to energize their movement.
Even before the protesters learned they were allowed to stay Friday, they were busy cleaning.
After the announcement filtered through the crowd, some scrubbed the park's marble and pavement with brooms and soapy water and picked up trash as others unfurled tarps on the rain-dampened concrete and ate potluck breakfast off paper plates. One man practiced his yoga sun salutation despite the dark clouds.
Liane Nikitovich, 44, fitness instructor, said she was buoyed by the news but also concerned that it was a postponement — not a cancellation.
"It's really a victory for freedom of speech and for democracy," Nikitovich said. "This is one moment. It shows that our support is growing worldwide."
The protesters are pleased that the city and Brookfield "saw fit to allow the protest and dialogue to continue," said Doug Forand, a spokesman for 99 New York, a coalition of community groups that support the protest.
The demand that protesters clear out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
The protesters' demands are wide-ranging, but they are united in blaming Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — wrote a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatened "fundamental constitutional rights."
The nationwide movement also includes groups called Occupy Boston, Occupy Cincinnati, Occupy Houston, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Providence and Occupy Salt Lake.
Several protests are planned this weekend across the U.S. and Canada, and European activists are also organizing.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister, Tom McElroy, Cara Anna, Deepti Hajela, Cristian Salazar, Verena Dobnik, and Meghan Barr, and photographer Mary Altaffer in New York; and Thomas Peipert in Denver.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
First Let’s Kill All The Lawyers-Not- Part Two- George Clooney’ “Michael Clayton”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Michael Clayton.
DVD Review
Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney, Sidney Pollack, Tilda Swinton, Warner Brothers, 2007
Everybody, everybody probably ever since if not earlier that Richard III in Shakespeares’ play, I think, uttered the notion that lawyers should be done away with first to cleanse the kingdom of evil spirits has hated lawyers. Well every lawyer except your own lawyer, of course. Not the one who got you out of that DUI jam that time you had a little too much, or out from under that drug bust where you were just sitting in that living room, nothing more. Maybe, moving up the chain, when that nasty accident happened and you bailed out with some friendly legal help. And even further up the chain when you, big-time impersonal corporation you, got out from under that very nasty and costly class-action suit stemming from the very real hazardous (cancerous chemical) to somebody, many somebodys, health that you injured, grievously. And the difference between the low-end save your ass from jail example and the high-end keep your company solvent? Well the fixer man, of course. The fixer lawyer man here at the high end which drives this story line. You under no circumstances, no circumstances at all, want to tick off ( I am being nice here) the fixer man. And especially not a very vengeful and a street smart Michael Clayton, as played by hard-guy George Clooney. Wrong, always wrong.
Up in the rarefied air of the legal counsel's office of a large corporation (U-North) they (or rather she, Karen Crowder, played by Tilda Swinton) didn’t get that little nugget of wisdom straight (she must have missed that class in law school) and well, frankly, panicked once it became clear that the ace litigator of the company had gone off the deep-end and was ready to “spill the beans” in favor of the other side-the plaintiffs. Michael Clayton, brought in for just such “fixing,” got his hind legs up in the air when his services were not appreciated (and said ace litigator got killed). But here is where it all breaks down. See a fixer man is just that, he fixes things. He gets mucho dough for doing these kinds of things. He can be “bought off,” or neutralized. But not when you panic and try to kill him. Not Michael Clayton, hell, not a guy or gal two days out of law school. So let this be a cautionary tale. Please.
DVD Review
Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney, Sidney Pollack, Tilda Swinton, Warner Brothers, 2007
Everybody, everybody probably ever since if not earlier that Richard III in Shakespeares’ play, I think, uttered the notion that lawyers should be done away with first to cleanse the kingdom of evil spirits has hated lawyers. Well every lawyer except your own lawyer, of course. Not the one who got you out of that DUI jam that time you had a little too much, or out from under that drug bust where you were just sitting in that living room, nothing more. Maybe, moving up the chain, when that nasty accident happened and you bailed out with some friendly legal help. And even further up the chain when you, big-time impersonal corporation you, got out from under that very nasty and costly class-action suit stemming from the very real hazardous (cancerous chemical) to somebody, many somebodys, health that you injured, grievously. And the difference between the low-end save your ass from jail example and the high-end keep your company solvent? Well the fixer man, of course. The fixer lawyer man here at the high end which drives this story line. You under no circumstances, no circumstances at all, want to tick off ( I am being nice here) the fixer man. And especially not a very vengeful and a street smart Michael Clayton, as played by hard-guy George Clooney. Wrong, always wrong.
Up in the rarefied air of the legal counsel's office of a large corporation (U-North) they (or rather she, Karen Crowder, played by Tilda Swinton) didn’t get that little nugget of wisdom straight (she must have missed that class in law school) and well, frankly, panicked once it became clear that the ace litigator of the company had gone off the deep-end and was ready to “spill the beans” in favor of the other side-the plaintiffs. Michael Clayton, brought in for just such “fixing,” got his hind legs up in the air when his services were not appreciated (and said ace litigator got killed). But here is where it all breaks down. See a fixer man is just that, he fixes things. He gets mucho dough for doing these kinds of things. He can be “bought off,” or neutralized. But not when you panic and try to kill him. Not Michael Clayton, hell, not a guy or gal two days out of law school. So let this be a cautionary tale. Please.
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