Markin comment on this series:
One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.
There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.
The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.
Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:
"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."
This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
*******
Trotsky's Relevance Today-The Most Modern Ideas – Peter Taaffe
Sixty years ago this August, Stalin's hit man, Raymond Mercader, murdered the greatest living revolutionary of that time, Leon Trotsky. It was not just the Trotskyists who felt the terrible blow of his death but the working class and labour movement of the whole world. This brain - in a sense, the brain of the working class at that stage - would no longer illuminate and clarify the problems confronting working class movements internationally.
Just to list Trotsky's 'practical achievements' would in itself justify commemorating this anniversary. He was the chairman of the first ever soviet - committee of workers' representatives - in the first Russian revolution between 1905-1906. In 1917 he was the organiser of the October Russian revolution, the greatest single event in human history. He then created and led the Red Army which defeated the twenty-one counter-revolutionary armies of imperialism that attempted to crush the revolution.
But above all, Leon Trotsky was one of the greatest theoreticians of the workers' movement. If Karl Marx was the man of the millennium, then Leon Trotsky was undoubtedly, with Lenin, Friedrich Engels and Rosa Luxemburg, also one of the greatest figures of the millennium, and certainly of the 20th century. His ideas, his method of analysis, and the conclusions drawn from this, are as relevant today as in the past.
The Permanent Revolution
Take Trotsky's famous theory of the permanent revolution, which brilliantly anticipated the class forces involved in the outcome of the Russian revolution. Russia prior to 1917 was a feudal or semi-feudal system which meant virtual slavery for the population. Like India today, the majority of the population were peasants who eked out an existence on narrow parcels of land while the urban working class had no rights and were ruthlessly exploited in rapidly developing industry. Russia had not completed the capitalist democratic revolution as had England, for instance, in the 16th century, and France in the 18th century. The main tasks of this revolution were the elimination of feudal and semi-feudal relations in the land, unification of the country, and the solution of the national question.
It also involved the introduction of democracy, the right to vote, the election of a democratic parliament, a free press, and trade union rights for the working class. Last but not least, the completion of this revolution would free the economy from the domination of imperialism, particularly of Anglo-French imperialism which saw Russia as a virtual colony.
All trends of opinion within the Russian workers' movement saw as the main task the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. However, Lenin and Trotsky differed from the Mensheviks (minority members of the Russian Social Democratic Labour movement) who believed that the task of the working class was to play second fiddle to the so-called liberal capitalists. The Mensheviks considered that the latter were the main agents of the capitalist democratic revolution. Socialism for them was the music of the distant future.
At the same time, the Mensheviks saw the Russian revolution as a purely national event with a limited echo internationally. Yet the late development of the capitalists as a class in Russia, and with it a delay in the capitalist democratic revolution, meant that the weak and feeble Russian capitalists were no longer capable of completing this historic task. As we see in the neo-colonial world today, the capitalists invested in land and the landlords invested in industry. Therefore, any serious attempt at a thoroughgoing land reform challenging the power of the landlords would also come up against the opposition of the capitalists and their political representatives, the liberal capitalist parties. This has been shown not just in Russia but in Germany in the 19th century and very graphically in our time in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
A newly-arisen force in Russia, not present in the English and French revolutions, was the working class, which had developed into a powerful force and, at that time, in a unique fashion. Trotsky pointed out that the liberal bourgeoisie were terrified, quite correctly as events demonstrated, that a struggle against Tsarism and the social foundations upon which it rested, would open the floodgates through which the working class would pour, together with the peasantry, and place on the agenda its own demands. Both Trotsky and Lenin, therefore, argued that it was an alliance of the working class and peasantry which alone could carry through the capitalist democratic revolution.
Lenin expressed this in his formula of the 'democratic dictatorship of the working class and peasantry'. Trotsky, however, in his theory of the permanent revolution, pointed out that the peasantry historically had never played an independent role. It must be led by one or other of the two great classes in society, the bourgeoisie or the working class. Lenin and Trotsky agreed that the capitalists could not carry through their own revolution. Therefore, Trotsky argued, the working class must assume the leadership of the revolution, drawing behind it the masses in the countryside. Lenin, on the other hand, left open the exact relationship between the peasantry and the working class, in his 'algebraic formula'.
Trotsky argued that because history had shown that the peasantry can never play an independent role the alliance, therefore, must be led by the working class. The combined movement of the working class in the cities, and a mass peasant uprising in the countryside, was envisaged by Trotsky in his theory of permanent revolution as the way the revolution was likely to develop in Russia.
This was confirmed in October 1917. Moreover, there was a complete agreement in the approach of Lenin and Trotsky between February and October 1917 as to how the revolution would be successful. Despite all the attempts of latter day 'Leninists' to dispute this - from the remnants of Stalinised 'Communist' parties in the neo-colonial world to ex-Trotskyists - Lenin himself in 1917 pointed out that his previous formula of the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' had been filled with a 'negative content'. With Trotsky he indicated that the task was now for the proletariat to seize power, supported by the peasantry.
Once having come to power, argued Trotsky, and carried through the main tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the revolutionary power would proceed to the socialist tasks within Russia and also act as a spark to the world revolution itself. And this is how events actually worked out with a mass revolutionary wave in Western Europe - in Germany in 1918-19, Hungary 1919, Italy in the sit-down strikes and occupations of 1920, etc. These revolutions were only defeated because of the perfidious role of the leaders of the mass social democratic organisations at the time.
Marxists do not idolise 'ancient texts' no matter how brilliant they might be. However, if a theory is very 'old' and yet it correctly foresees events and processes, it is the most modern of theories. And Trotsky's ideas are as applicable today for most of Africa, and for huge parts of Asia and Latin America, as they were for Russia more than 80 years ago. The capitalist democratic revolution has not been completed in big parts of the neo-colonial world. The landlords and capitalists are incapable of solving the even greater accumulation of problems which exist today compared with 1917.
Earlier we drew a comparison between India today and the pre-1917 position in Russia. Despite significant growth in industry in the urban areas, the great majority of the population find their lives blighted by the maintenance of feudal and semi-feudal land relations and the monstrous regime which goes with this.
Take another example, the Congo, a former colony of Belgium. After the murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 this 'country' was ruled by the gangster capitalist regime of Sese Seko Mobutu. A complete disintegration ensued with the reinforcement of tribalism, and the monumental corruption of Mobutu and his coterie, which stole most of the assets of the country. The hopes of the impoverished masses were raised, however, with the triumph of Laurent Kabila in 1997. He was a former collaborator of Che Guevara when the latter participated in a guerrilla insurgency in 1965.
Yet Kabila has accepted, in the context of the world-wide triumph of the 'market', the perpetuation of all the diseases of Mobutuism which went before. Tribalism and corruption not only still exist but have been reinforced. There is now the prospect of a terrible Rwanda-type genocide developing from the internecine tribalism in the next period. Sierra Leone also indicates that where no class exists or possesses the necessary consciousness to take society forward, a terrible relapse and regression can follow.
Yet, as Lenin pointed out, Africa, on the basis of communism, could move within a generation from tribalism to communism. Only the African working class, however, linked to the world workers' movement, can achieve this. Once having come to power the working class will complete the bourgeois democratic revolution and carry through the socialist regeneration of Africa through a continent-wide socialist federation.
The Struggle Against Neo-Colonialism
Even during the world boom of 1950-75 the permanent revolution operated, but not in a classical form. In a whole series of countries, China, Vietnam and Cuba, society faced an impasse on the basis of landlordism and capitalism. On the other hand, the working class was weak or restricted by false leadership, usually the Stalinists. When for instance the Red Army of Mao Zedong entered the cities, they found a vacuum. There was no way forward on the basis of landlordism and capitalism. This had been underlined by the situation following the defeat of the Chinese revolution of 1925-27, which had resulted in the complete dismemberment of China, its division amongst various warlords, and the intervention of imperialism.
Mao Zedong balanced between different sections of society, the peasantry, the working class, and sections of the capitalists, and gradually expropriated landlordism and capitalism. The land was nationalised and most of industry was taken over. But workers' democracy as in 1917 in Russia did not exist. Instead from the beginning a deformed workers' state was established.
Thus the main lines of Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution were vindicated here, although in a caricatured form. It is true that the conscious role of the working class as the leader of the revolution was a vital ingredient of Trotsky's theory and this was absent in China and in the Cuban revolution. Nevertheless, a social revolution had been carried through, the elimination of landlordism and capitalism had taken place, but without the working class playing the directly leading role. This was only possible because of the peculiar relationship of world forces both within China and internationally. A bonapartist elite resting on a peasant army was able to balance between the classes and preside over a social revolution. However, what emerged was a deformed workers' state rather than a state in which the working class and poor peasantry exercised direct control on management of industry and society through democratically elected soviets or councils.
In Cuba the revolution developed in a somewhat different form with mass popular support for the government of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. However, even here there was not the workers' democracy of the Russian revolution and, therefore, inevitably, almost from the beginning, a bureaucratic layer began to crystallise which concentrated power in its own hands.
A similar situation followed the victory of the Vietnamese revolution, whose main motive force was not the organised urban working class but the peasantry, the majority of the population. The guerrilla war conducted by the National Liberation Front was able to defeat the mightiest military power on the globe, which represented a victory for the peoples not only of Vietnam but of the neo-colonial world. But, because of the class forces involved, the regime which ushered from the Vietnamese revolution, based upon the peasantry and with nationalist limitations, could not be a healthy workers' state.
Without an understanding of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, of his method of analysis, present-day Marxists would be completely at a loss to understand how events have developed in the post-1945 situation in the underdeveloped world. But it is not sufficient merely to repeat the formulas of Trotsky, applied to the Russian revolution. We also need to recognise the changes in the objective situation which have developed since. A new situation has now opened up following the collapse of Stalinism. It is now possible for the classical ideas of permanent revolution, with the working class playing the main role, to materialise. The catastrophic situation in the neo-colonial world is shown, for instance, by the situation in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia in Latin America. In Venezuela a middle-class army officer, Hugo Chávez, has been pushed into introducing radical measures and even more radical phraseology. How far Chávez will go depends upon a number of factors, not least the world economic situation and the social effects in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.
Could Chývez take to the road trod by Castro 41 years ago and break with landlordism and capitalism? This is an open question with the absence of a mighty Stalinist regime in Russia, which acted both as a reservoir of support and as a model for the deformed workers' states which developed in the neo-colonial world. On the other hand, the working class is held back by an insufficient consciousness of the objective reality of societies like Venezuela, or is in a straitjacket provided by ex-workers' parties which have gone over to the 'market'. It will take time and experience for the working class to reassemble its forces and reach a full understanding of the situation which it faces. But it is clear that Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution offers a vital tool for understanding the situation and politically rearming the working class in these societies.
The Revolution Betrayed
Trotsky's analysis of the rise of the bureaucracy and the victory of the Stalinist counter-revolution is one of the treasures of humankind. Without this Marxists would have been groping in the dark to find a way forward. In his Diary In Exile, Trotsky summed up his contribution in the following fashion:
"The work in which I am engaged now, despite its extremely insufficient and fragmentary nature, is the most important work of my life - more important than 1917, more important than the period of the civil war or any other.
"For the sake of clarity I would put it this way. Had I not been present in 1917 in Petersburg, the October revolution would still have taken place - on the condition that Lenin was present and in command. If neither Lenin nor I had been present in Petersburg, there would have been no October revolution: the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would have prevented it from occurring - of this I have not the slightest doubt! If Lenin had not been in Petersburg, I doubt whether I could have managed to conquer the resistance of the Bolshevik leaders. The struggle with 'Trotskyism' (ie with the proletarian revolution) would have commenced in May 1917, and the outcome of the revolution would have been in question. But I repeat, granted the presence of Lenin, the October revolution would have been victorious anyway. The same could by and large be said of the civil war, although in its first period, especially at the time of the fall of Simbirsk and Kazan, Lenin wavered and was beset by doubts. But this was undoubtedly a passing mood which he probably never even admitted to anyone but me.
"Thus I cannot speak of the 'indispensability' of my work, even about the period from 1917 to 1921. But now my work is 'indispensable' in the full sense of the word. There is no arrogance in this claim at all. The collapse of the two Internationals has posed a problem which none of the leaders of these Internationals is at all equipped to solve. The vicissitudes of my personal fate have confronted me with this problem and armed me with important experience in dealing with it. There is now no one except me to carry out the mission of arming a new generation with the revolutionary method over the heads of the leaders of the Second and Third International". (Diary in Exile, pp53-54)
There is not an atom of personal arrogance let alone 'pessimism' in these lines. Trotsky was the first real dissident, together with the rest of the Left Opposition, to oppose Stalinism. They were the staunch defenders of workers' democracy against the Stalinist counter-revolution.
The struggle between Trotsky and Stalin was not at all 'personal'. In 1937, before the Dewey Commission inquiry into the Moscow Trials, Trotsky explained his and Stalin's role: "Neither Stalin nor I find ourselves in our present position by accident. We did not create these positions. Each of us is drawn into this drama as a representative of definite ideas and principles. In their turn, the ideas and principles did not fall from the sky but have profound social roots. That is why one must take, not the psychological abstraction of Stalin as a 'man', but his concrete historical personality as leader of the Soviet bureaucracy. One can understand the acts of Stalin only by starting from the conditions of existence of the new privileged stratum, greedy for material comforts, apprehensive for its position, fearing the masses, and mortally hating all opposition". (From Trotsky's incomplete biography of Stalin.)
The rise of Stalin to power was not at all due to any superior personal qualities but was with "the aid of an impersonal machine. And it was not he who created the machine, but the machine that created him".
The Russian revolution was seen by the Bolsheviks as a prelude to the world revolution. The international defeats and setbacks, however, resulted in its isolation. In isolation Russia was never ready for socialism. Karl Marx emphasised that the beginning of socialism involves a higher technique than the highest level reached by capitalism (in the modern era that means higher than the US today).
The isolation of the revolution led to the beginning of a crystallisation of a bureaucratic elite. This isolation, in the first instance, arose from the role of the social democracy in betraying the revolution in Western Europe. But following Lenin's death, Stalin, Zinoviev and Bukharin, in opposition to Trotsky, replaced reliance on the independent movement of the working class and a patient building of strong independent communist parties and leaders, with a policy of diplomatic pressure and the courting of left leaders. This resulted in defeats which in turn reinforced the position of the bureaucracy, which gradually elbowed the working class aside.
This was a process and not one act. There was a dialectical interrelationship between the rise of the conservative strata in the USSR, which acted as a brake on the workers' movement internationally and led to defeats, and the ever-tightening grip of the privileged officialdom within the Soviet Union itself. Initially, Stalin wished the success of the revolution. However, his own conservative bureaucratic methods, both politically and the organisationally within the communist parties outside Russia, promoted the defeats of the working class.
'Isolated' and vilified by the enormous resources of the Stalinised Comintern, Trotsky nevertheless provided brilliant and timely advice which, if followed, would have avoided in Germany, for instance, the catastrophic victory of the Nazis in 1933. Trotsky's writings on fascism, particularly his advocacy of the united front of the workers' organisations to stop the rise of Hitler, is one of his greatest contributions. The study of his writings of this period provides the key to an understanding of the phenomenon of Haiderism and neo-fascism, including the dangers and its weaknesses at the present time.
But with the victory of Hitler, the consolidation of the bureaucracy as a conservative strata (with interests separate and apart from the mass of the working class in the USSR and internationally) developed apace. From a wish to see the revolution succeed internationally, by the time of the Spanish revolution of 1936 the ruling strata had developed an obsessive and mortal fear of the triumph of revolution anywhere.
The bureaucracy understood that the victory of the social revolution in the West would trigger an uprising of the masses in the Soviet Union, not against the gains of the revolution, the planned economy, but against the usurping privileged elite represented by Stalin. Therefore, a one-sided civil war was carried out in the form of the purge trials. This has been graphically described in the books of the late Vadim Rogovin, particularly in 1937, Stalin's Year of Terror.
The main defendant in the Moscow Trials was the absent Leon Trotsky. Yet to read the books of the 'experts' of this period of history, you would have no inkling of this. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for instance, in his so-called 'history' of the 'gulag', only grudgingly mentions the Trotskyists and never indicates that it was Trotsky and his ideas that were feared by Stalin and the bureaucracy. It was these ideas which were on trial in Moscow.
Trotsky and those close to him suffered the most ferocious persecution at the hands of the Stalin murder machine. Yet in the teeth of all this, Trotsky produced his brilliant analysis of Stalinism which, better than anything else, foretold the future of the 'USSR' under this totalitarian system. In 1936 he foreshadowed two possibilities for the USSR: "A successful uprising of the Russian working class, a political revolution and the restoration of democracy, or the return of capitalism with calamitous consequences for the mass of the population".
This is what he wrote in The Revolution Betrayed: "A collapse of the Soviet regime would lead immediately to the collapse of the planned economy, and thus to the abolition of state property. The bond of compulsion between the trusts and the factories would then fall away. The more successful enterprises would succeed in coming out on the road of independence. They might convert themselves into stock companies, or they might find some other transitional form of property - one, for example, in which the workers would participate in the profits. The collective farms would disintegrate at the same time, and far more easily".
He then writes: "The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship, if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture". Forty-four years later, in an almost chemically pure form, is this not what happened as a result of the collapse of Stalinism?
Because of this analysis it was the Trotskyists alone - particularly the adherents to the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) - who fully understood the consequences of the collapse of Stalinism, not only for the former Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, but for world relations as well. When the capitalists were projecting living standards for the masses of these countries comparable to Germany or the USA, we pointed out they would be lucky to enjoy Latin American living standards. In truth, even this perspective was proved to be optimistic as the living standards of the masses have plunged to that on a par with the worst parts of the neo-colonial world. The expected life span of the average male in Russia is just about higher than Nigeria but lower than the Philippines and on the level of India.
Marxism in Our Time
A vital ingredient for the return to capitalism in the former USSR and Eastern Europe was the world 'boom' of the 1980s. This was a very lopsided economic process with the development of the productive forces, science, technique and the organisation of labour not assuming the forms that it did in the 'long boom' of 1950-75. It was accompanied by a huge polarisation of wealth and the stubborn maintenance of unemployment which signified the incapacity of capitalism to fully utilise the productive forces, particularly the labour of the working class, the most important productive force.
Nevertheless, the capitalist ideologists were mesmerised by the combination of the collapse in Eastern Europe and the economic 'fireworks' which followed the recession in the early 1990s. A new 'paradigm', a 'new economy', a new and lasting era of prosperity which would overcome all the problems of their system: this was the watchword of the majority of capitalist economists right up to the beginning of the new century.
It is not the first time that we have witnessed the spokespersons and strategists of capital demonstrating their empiricism and illusions about their system. Indeed, it is an inevitable feature of any boom or upswing in production. And we are not the first in history to have answered these arguments by relating the basic propositions of Marx's analysis of the functioning of the capitalist system to the new features and new developments which exist under capitalism. Marx himself pointed out that capitalism is incapable of harnessing the full potential because of the limitations of private ownership of the means of production and the narrow limits of the nation state. It was and is a system of booms and slumps.
Trotsky, in a period that has some parallels to the situation that we will be facing in the next era, defended Marx's basic economic analysis in the context of the 1930s. This was summed up in his brilliant little pamphlet, Marxism In Our Time. Originally conceived as an introduction to Otto Ruhle's abridgement of the first volume of Capital, The Living Thoughts of Karl Marx, it provides a most modern understanding of the processes developing in world capitalism today and, particularly, those processes which will develop following the coming world recession or slump.
Trotsky points out that the basic contradiction of capitalism is that the working class cannot buy back the full product of their labour, because they only receive a portion of this in the form of wages. However, capitalism overcomes this contradiction by ploughing the surplus back into industry. But this, in turn, leads to an even greater production of goods which the working class at a certain stage is incapable of buying back. The capitalist economists dispute this even, as Trotsky pointed out, in short-lived booms, such as the 1924-29 boom in Germany, when Werner Sombat proclaimed that capitalism had overcome its contradictions (on the eve of the 1929 Wall Street Crash).
The modern Sombats are those like Hamish McCrae, the economics correspondent of The Independent. He oscillates between fear of the coming recession and whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits by proclaiming that capitalism's 'just-in-time' methods have eliminated stocks and, therefore, the problem of a future 'glut' of goods which we saw as recently as the crisis in South-East Asia. Even if McCrae is right, however, instead of massive overproduction, excess 'capacity' will grow. Thus capitalism is only able to continue functioning on the basis of leaving 10% or 20% of its production idle. It is a system based upon production for profit and not for social need. The growth cycle of the 1990s is the weakest since 1945.
Moreover, in this boom capitalism has not overcome class contradictions but has, in fact, intensified them, as daily reports in the capitalist press underline. There are at least one billion poor people on the planet who receive each year as much as 600 men and women who rule Western monopoly capitalist firms. The division between rich and poor has increased exponentially, not just between the advanced industrial world and the neo-colonial world but also within the so-called 'rich' countries themselves. Half-a-percent of the population of the USA own as much as the bottom 90%. In the US, the model of the new so-called 'economic paradigm', 50 million workers are worse off than 20 years ago while the living standards of 80% have stood still. Colossal wealth is being creamed off by the capitalists while, in cities like Minneapolis, there is the 'undying shame' (The Mirror) of 10,000 free meals a week being served on the streets.
But this boom is going to come juddering to a halt in the next period. And when it does the consequence of the parasitic role of modern capitalism will be laid bare. In anticipation of this Alan Kennedy, a capitalist management consultant, has issued a wake-up call to the US capitalists in a new book, The End of Shareholder Value. He points out that US companies "have mortgaged the future in pursuit of short-term financial gain for shareholders".
The use of stock options, huge management greed by top executives, is one of the scandals of the last decade. This has been accompanied by massive downsizing and restructuring and what is euphemistically called 'financial engineering'. When challenged about the long-term consequences of their financial gangsterism a representative of the new breed of capitalist executives declared to Kennedy: 'Why... should I care, I'll be long gone before anyone finds out'.
And this financial plundering is not restricted to executives but goes to the heart of the methods of modern monopoly capitalism. For instance, General Electric is one of the biggest manufacturing firms in the US. Yet $30bn has been used by this company in 'share buy-backs'. The parasitism of capitalism, Kennedy believes, is deep-rooted. What is his solution? "In an ideal world, we'd correct the abuses through regulation. Unfortunately, I don't think anything less than a major crash will make people step back and look clearly at where it's all gone wrong".
But it will be the working class of the US and world-wide who will pay for the crimes of modern capitalism. In the recession or slump that looms, all the myths about the role of modern 'technology' guaranteeing a world free from recession or slump will be revealed. Marxists, of course, have recognised that technology has played a role in certain industries. But its effect has been intensive in information technology and a few industries and not at all, as in previous periods, extensive in furthering a broad-based development of the productive forces.
Moreover, one of the paradoxes of this society, again analysed by Trotsky, is the greater the technological advance the greater the intensification of work for the working class, the bigger the exploitation, the greater the stress, suffering and depression, which is a world malady at the present time.
Tony Blair wants to impose the US 'Anglo-Saxon model' on Europe and the world. This will make the working class into helots (work slaves) whose sole raison d'?tre is to produce profit, surplus value, for the capitalists. However, like conditions will produce like results. The Observer newspaper, in commentating on the new millennium, warned the capitalists that the conditions which exist today are similar to those in the late 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century. It is no accident that the powerful socialist and communist movements arose in this period.
So also the working class will reawaken and move into action in the next period. But they will confront not just capitalism and its parties but the leaders of organisations, the trade unions and ex-workers parties which, in the past, purported to represent them. Now we are confronted with massive pressure from below for action amongst teachers in Britain, France and Spain, which is thwarted by a self-satisfied and cosseted trade union leadership. This has resulted in teachers in Spain marching in anger against sell-outs by the leaders of the Workers' Commissions (ex-Communist Party) trade union, shouting in anger: 'We want our own unions'.
The capitalists pretend that the working class is powerless against globalisation. But as the anti-World Trade Organisation demonstrations, the so-called 'riot' in London in June 1999, and the new protests this year show, this is not the case. At this stage, these demonstrations involve new layers of youth as well as sections of the working class. Up to now the heavy battalions of the proletariat have not moved. But events, and mighty events, impend and will move them into action. A serious recession or slump will result in furious defensive battles of the working class.
Preparing for a New Era
The most important effect of a new recession or slump will be political. A new ferocious outbreak of the class struggle will mean leaps in consciousness. One consequence of the collapse of Stalinism and the massive ideological offensive which followed in its wake, was the disheartening and falling away of the more developed layers of the working class. However, one of the consequences of the coming economic convulsions which faces world capitalism will be the emergence of a new generation, particularly of this more developed layer, which will not be satisfied with a diet of agitation or propaganda alone. They will be seeking an explanation, historical generalisations, and the summing up of the experience of the working class, to forge new weapons for the coming struggle. They will find enormous help in this task in the writings and speeches of Leon Trotsky.
Of course, Trotsky wrote and worked in a different historical era to ourselves. Some of the issues he was compelled to deal with are no longer as burning for the working class. You will find in his writings this or that antiquated expression or an idea which does not appear immediately relevant to our world today. However, an amazing amount of what Trotsky wrote is extremely pertinent, a thousand times more relevant to serious workers looking for an explanation of economic, political and even historical phenomena, than anything else on offer.
His book, Where Is Britain Going?, has not been equalled for its broad historical analysis and of its description of the labour movement of the time. The characters have changed, the strength and weaknesses of the labour movement have also changed. But in one line or paragraph of this book is more truth about the realities of Britain today than the millions of words which have come from the mouths of Labour leaders, historians and so-called 'experts' in the labour movement. Take, for instance, the chapter dealing with the English civil war. Contained here in this kernel is virtually a complete outline of the processes of the English civil war and their connections to modern Britain.
The marvellous lines of Trotsky on Chartism also say virtually everything that needs to be said, and would provide a rich vein upon which serious socialist and Marxist scholars could write a worthy history of our revolutionary forebears which would prepare us for the struggles to come. After all, in the experience of roughly ten years of Chartism were all the elements, from peaceful petitions to the revolutionary general strike, which have been discussed in the last 50 years in the British labour movement. Moreover, these are themes that will be returned to in the convulsive events that loom.
Trotsky never had any fetish about organisational forms. He also opposed both ultra-leftism and opportunism. His ideas were never for the meeting room alone but were preparation to intervene wherever the working class is and win them to socialist and Marxist ideas. Following Trotsky's advice, members and supporters of Militant (now the Socialist Party) patiently worked within the Labour Party in Britain. The Labour Party, as with its cousins internationally, had a dual character. Sectarians of all stripes disputed this. They took the phrase of Lenin that the Labour Party was a 'bourgeois workers' party' and turned their backs on the Labour Party and the support it then enjoyed at bottom from the working class. There was not an atom of dialectical analysis in their approach. Right from the outset, the Labour Party had 'bourgeois' leaders in the sense that even those who claimed to be 'socialist' ultimately were not prepared to go beyond the framework of capitalism. Nevertheless, at its base the Labour Party was perceived by workers as 'their' party and its creation was a step forward from a class point of view of the proletariat in Britain. Moreover, it possessed democratic features which allowed Marxists to intervene, in the case of Militant, with great success. We were able to connect the ideas of Trotsky to youth and workers.
Militant was the most successful Trotskyist organisation since the Left Opposition in the whole of Western Europe. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of workers were introduced to the basic ideas of Trotsky through the work of our organisation (now the Socialist Party). In Liverpool between 1983-87 we created a mass movement which shook the ruling class. We initiated and led the mighty anti-poll tax battle, with 34 of our comrades jailed, which ended in the defeat of the tax and the consignment of Thatcher to the rubbish heap of history. No other Trotskyist party in the advanced industrial world could claim such a record.
But the test of all ideas, as with Trotsky himself in the 1930s, is not just how to take advantage of an upswing in the class struggle but how to preserve the ideas and the forces of Marxism in a period of stagnation and retreat. The CWI, with 34 sections under its banner world-wide, has managed to achieve this difficult task in the decade that followed the collapse of Stalinism. No other organisation can rival the analysis that we have made of the causes of the collapse of the planned economies of Eastern Europe, of Stalinism, and of the new relationship of world forces.
While tenaciously defending and developing the ideas of Trotsky, we also in this period initiated the mass movement around Youth against Racism in Europe, against fascism in the early 1990s right up to today. We successfully intervened and led the movement in Austria against Haider. In 1997 we also saw the election of Joe Higgins as a member of the Irish parliament (TD), following the mass struggle against water charges which we pioneered.
While others are, in reality, abandoning Trotsky as no longer relevant to 'the modern world', we perceive that his ideas and methods are as vital, indeed more vital, to the struggles that are opening up.
Trotsky himself once commented that in a new socialist world, the average intelligence would be of a 'Beethoven, a Van Gogh, a Marx or Lenin' and, beyond this, new peaks of human greatness would arise. We would have to say today that in the pantheon of the 'greats' of the world labour movement, Leon Trotsky stands alongside Marx, Engels and Lenin. A new generation of workers who will be moving into struggle will build a monument to Trotsky, not of stone but a mass socialist and revolutionary movement.
The new changed period will allow Marxism to reconnect to the working class, in the first instance, to its more developed layer, which will provide the backbone for the creation of new mass forces. The working class in Britain, for the first time in 100 years, in a mass sense has been politically beheaded by New Labour's move to a position analogous to that of the Democratic Party in the USA. This is why the Socialist Party in Britain calls for the creation of a new mass workers' party, while at the same time seeking to build its own forces within the working-class movement. We hail Trotsky as a great theoretician and leader of the working class but we do not merely acclaim past leaders. It is necessary for us, particularly the new generation of workers, to study the writings of Leon Trotsky alongside of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg but, above all, to seek to acquire his method which will allow us to create a mass Marxist force that will eradicate from the planet the scourge of capitalism and all that goes with it.
Socialism Today # 49, July 2000
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
In Honor Of The “Old Man”- On The 72nd Anniversary Of The Death Of Leon Trotsky-Lev Davidovich By Jean van Heijenoort
Click on the headline to link to a review of the early life of Leon Trotsky in his political memoir, My Life.
Markin comment:
Every year at this time we honor the memory of the great Russian revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky, a man who not only was able theoretically to articulate the arc of the Russian Revolution of 1917 (the theory of permanent revolution) but personally led the defend of that revolution against world imperialism and its internal Russian White Guard agents. Oh yes, and also wrote a million pro-communist articles, did a little turn at literary criticism, acted in various Soviet official capacities, led the Communist International, led the opposition first in Russia and then internationally to the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution, and created a new revolutionary international (the Fourth International) to rally the demoralized international working class movement in the face of Hitlerite reaction. To speak nothing of hunting, fishing, raising rabbits, collecting cactii and chasing Frida Kahlo around Mexico (oops, on that last one). In short, as I have characterized him before, the closest that this sorry old world has come to producing a complete communist man within the borders of bourgeois society (except that last thing, that skirt-chasing thing, although maybe not). All honor to his memory. Forward to new Octobers!
Usually on this anniversary I place a selection of Trotsky’s writings on various subjects in this space. This year, having found a site that has material related to his family life, the effect of his murder on that family, and other more personal details of his life I am placing that material here in his honor. The forward to new Octobers still goes, though.
*******
Markin comment:
As I never tire of saying even seventy-odd years later I would not want to be on the pen/sword edge of one of Leon Trotsky's polemics. I would still be bleeding profusely from every pore.
******
Jean van Heijenoort
Lev Davidovich
Published: Fourth International, Winter 1959
When Engels, revered patriarch of international social-democracy, passed away peacefully in London, burdened with years, the end of the century was approaching which separated the revolutions of the bourgeoisie from those of the proletariat, Jacobinism from Bolshevism. The transformation of the world, announced by Marx, was to become the immediate task, and revolutionists were to know unparallelled vicissitudes. And in fact the heads of the three greatest revolutionary leaders since Engels sustained the blows of reaction. The historian of the future will not fail to see in this one of the characteristic marks of our epoch. Nor should he fail to note the source of these blows. Lenin's head was pierced by a bullet from the "Socialist Revolutionary" Fanny Kaplan. Rosa Luxemburg's head was shattered by the butt-ends of the guns of the "Social Democrat" Noske's soldiery. Trotsky's head was laid open by the pick-axe of one of the "Communist" Stalin's mercenaries.
Our epoch of crisis, with its abrupt jumps and feverish tempo, devours men and parties more and more rapidly. Those who only yesterday represented the revolution become the Instruments of the darkest reaction. This struggle between the head of the historic process and its leaden, dragging rump assumed its most dramatic form in the duel between Trotsky and Stalin, precisely because this struggle unfolded against the background of a workers' state already established. Trotsky, borne to the summits of power by the revolutionary explosion of the masses, persecuted and harassed when the defeats of the proletariat succeeded each other, became the very incarnation of the revolution.
He was aided by an astonishing physique. What struck you first was his forehead--phenomenally lofty, vertical, and not heightened by baldness. After that his eyes, blue and deep, with a gaze powerful and sure of its power. During his stay in France Lev Davidovich very often had to travel incognito in order to simplify the problem of guarding him. Then he would shave off his goatee and brush his hair to one side dividing it by a part. But when it came to his leaving the house and mingling with the public I was always worried: "No it's really impossible ... the first one to pass by will recognize him, he can't change that gaze of his ... " Then, when Lev Davidovich began to speak, what attracted attention was his mouth. Whether he spoke in Russian or a foreign language his lips constrained themselves to shape words distinctly. He was irritated at hearing confused and precipitate speech from others, and always compelled himself to enunciate with complete distinctness. It was only in addressing Natalia Ivanovna in Russian that on occasion his enunciation became more hurried and less articulate, descending sometimes into a whisper. In conversations with visitors in his study his hands, resting on the edge of his work-table at first, would soon begin moving with large, firm gestures, as though aiding his lips in molding the expression of his thought. His face with its halo of hair, the set of his head, and the whole carriage of his body were always proud and stately. His stature was above medium, with a powerful chest and a broad, stalwart back, and in comparison his legs appeared somewhat slender. it is undoubtedly easier for someone who paid him one visit to say what he saw in Trotsky's face than for one who was at his side for many years in the most variegated circumstances.
The one thing I never saw was the faintest expression of vulgarity. Nor was there any greater likelihood of finding what is called bonhomie. But a certain sweetness was not lacking, which no doubt originated in the formidable intelligence of whose readiness to understand everything you were always aware. What you usually saw was a youthful enthusiasm which joyously undertook everything, and at the same time was strong enough to induce others to cooperate in the undertaking. When it was a question of cudgeling an opponent this sort of gaiety swiftly changed into irony, biting and malicious, alternating with an expression of contempt, and when the enemy was particularly swinish, you would, for a moment, almost find a hint of malevolence. But his vivacity returned quickly. "We'll fix 'em!" he would say then with animation. In the isolation of exile the most dramatic circumstances where I could see Lev Davidovich were his conflicts with the police, or incidents with adversaries of bad faith. At these times his face would harden, and his eyes would flash, as though in them had suddenly been concentrated that vast will-power which ordinarily could be measured only by the labors of his entire life. Then it was obvious to everyone that nothing, nothing in the world could make him budge an inch.
How Trotsky Worked
In daily life this will-power expended itself in strictly organized labor. Any unmotivated disturbance irritated him extremely: he hated pointless conversations, unannounced visits, disappointments or delays in keeping engagements. To be sure there was nothing pedantic in any of this. If an important question turned up he would not hesitate a moment in upsetting all his plans, but it had to be worth it. If it had the slightest interest for the movement he would heedlessly give his time and energy, but he showed himself all the more miserly of them when the carelessness, lightmindedness, or bad organization of others threatened to waste them. He bearded the smallest particles of time, the most precious material of which life is made. His whole personal life was rigidly organized by the quality called singleness of purpose. He set up a hierarchy of duties, and brought to a conclusion whatever he undertook.
As a rule he did not work less than twelve hours a day, and sometimes, when it was necessary, much more. He remained at table as briefly as possible, and after sharing his meals for many years I could not say that I ever noticed on his face any mark of enjoyment for what he ate or drank. 'Eating, dressing, all these miserable little things that have to be repeated every day ... " he once said to me.
He could find his only diversion in great physical activity. Merely walking was scarcely a relaxation. He walked actively and in silence, and you could see that his mind was always at work. Now and then he would ask a question: "When did you answer that letter?" "Can you find me that quotation?" Only violent exercise gave him repose. In Turkey this consisted of hunting, and especially fishing, deep-sea fishing, complicated and agitated, where the body had to spend itself recklessly. When the fishing had been good, that is, very fatiguing, he began work on his return with redoubled enthusiasm. In Mexico, where fishing was impossible, he invented the gathering of cacti, of enormous weight, under a blazing sun.
Of course the necessity for security created certain obligations. During the eleven and a half years of his third emigration it was only for a few months, at certain times during his stay in France and in Norway, that Lev Davidovich could walk about freely, that is, unguarded, in the countryside around his house. As a rule each one of his excursions constituted a minor military operation. It was necessary to make all arrangements in advance, and fix his route carefully. "You treat me as though I were an object," he sometimes said, jokingly dissimulating whatever impatience there might have been in this remark.
He demanded the same methodical spirit he observed in his own work from the comrades who assisted him. The closer they were to him, the more did he demand of them and the less did he trouble himself with formalities. He desired precision in everything: an undated letter, an unsigned document always irritated him, as did in general anything easygoing, slipshod, or happy-go-lucky. Do whatever you're doing well, and do it till you finish. And in this rule he made no distinction between petty day-to-day chores and intellectual work: conduct your thoughts to their conclusion, is an expression that often sprang from his pen. He always displayed great solicitude for the health of those around him. Health is revolutionary capital that must not be wasted. He grew angry at seeing someone read in a bad light. It's necessary to risk your life for the revolution without hesitating, but why ruin your eyes when you can read comfortably and intelligently?
Trotsky's Conversations
In conversations with Lev Davidovich what visitors were struck by chiefly was his capacity to find his bearings in a novel situation. He was able to integrate it in his general perspective, and at the same time always give immediate and concrete advice. During his third emigration he often had the opportunity of conversing with visitors from countries he was not acquainted with directly, perhaps from the Balkans or Latin America. He did not always know the language, did not follow their press and had never had any particular interest in their specific problems. First of all he would allow his interrogator to speak, occasionally jotting down a few brief notes on a sliP of paper in front of him, sometimes asking for a few details: "How many members has this party?" "Isn't this politician a lawyer?"
Then he would speak, and the mass of information that had been given him would be organized. Soon one could distinguish the movements of different classes and of different layers within these classes, and then, bound up with these movements, there would be revealed the play of parties, groups and organizations, and then the place and the activities of various political figures, down to their profession and personal traits, would be logically fitted into the picture. The French naturalist Cuvier used to boast of his ability to reconstruct an entire animal from a single bone. With his vast knowledge of social and political realities Trotsky could devote himself to a similar work. His interrogator was always astounded at seeing how deeply he had been able to penetrate the reality of the particular problem, and would leave Trotsky's study knowing his own country a little better.
At every moment you felt in Trotsky a huge fund of experience, not merely engraved in his memory but organized and reflected on lengthily and profoundly· You could also see that the organization of this experience had taken place around indestructible principles. Though Lev Davidovich hated routine, though he was always anxious to discover new trends, the least attempt at innovation in the realm of principles made him prick up his ears. "Trimming Marx's beard," was his expression for all these attempts to put Marxism in line with the current fashion, and he did not dissimulate his contempt for them.
Trotsky's Style and Writing Methods
Trotsky's style is universally admired. It is undoubtedly to be best compared with that of Marx. However, Trotsky's sentences are less spacious than those of Marx, in whom one is aware of a wealth of scholarly resources, especially in the youthful works. Trotsky's style achieves its effects by extremely simple means. His vocabulary, especially in his more properly political writings, is always rather limited. The sentences are short, with few subordinate clauses. Their power arises from a sturdy articulation, most often with strongly marked but always well balanced oppositions. This temperance of means gives his style a great freshness and, one might say, youthfulness. In his writing Trotsky is considerably more youthful than Marx.
Trotsky knew how to take advantage of that Russian syntax whose inflections permit the word-order within a sentence to be upset, giving the expression of the thought a force and emphasis difficult to attain with the limited means of modern western languages. And also difficult to translate. Lev Davidovich demanded a mathematical fidelity from his translators, and at the same time kicked against the rules of grammar in the foreign language which forbade a similarly concise and direct rendition of his thought. Compared to that of Lenin, Trotsky's style is superior, by a large margin, in its lucidity and elegance, without any loss of power. Lenin's sentences occasionally become cumbrous, too heavy, disorganized. It seems as though the thought sometimes cripples its expression. Trotsky once said that in Lenin you could discover a Russian mushik, but one raised to the level of genius. Even though Lenin's father was a provincial functionary and Trotsky's a farmer, it is Trotsky who is the city-dweller, as opposed to Lenin, doubtless because of his race. This may be seen at once in the difference of styles, without any attempt being made here to uncover this opposition in other aspects of these two giant personalities.
When Trotsky was deported to Turkey, the passport the Soviet authorities gave him put down his profession as writer. And in truth he was a great, an exceedingly great writer. If the bureaucrats's inscription causes a smile it is because Trotsky was so much more than a writer. He wrote with ease, being able to dictate several hours at a sitting. But then he would go over the manuscript and correct it carefully. For some of these great writings, such as the History of the Russian Revolution, there are two successive drafts behind the definitive text, but in the majority of cases there is only one. His enormous literary production, in which are to be found books, pamphlets, innumerable articles, letters, hurried statements to the press, and notes of all sorts is, needless to say, uneven. Some parts are more worked over than others, but not a sentence in any of them has been neglected. You can take any five lines in this ponderous accumulation of writing and you will always recognize the inimitable Trotsky.
Their volume is also impressive, and would alone bear testimony to a very rare will and capacity for labor. Thirty volumes of Lenin's complete works have been collected, in addition to thirty-five volumes of correspondence and odd notes. Trotsky lived seven years longer than Lenin, but his writings, from his long books to his brief personal notes, would undoubtedly come to triple that amount. In the eleven and a half years of his third emigration he amassed a labor which would honorably fill an entire lifetime. It may be said that the pen never abandoned his hand, and what a hand it was!
He Lives in His Books
Trotsky has put all of himself into his books. personal contact with the man himself did not modify the portrait that emerged from a reading of his works, but deepened it and made it more precise: passion and reason, intelligence and will, all carried to an extreme degree, but at the same time blending into one another. In everything Lev Davidovich did one had the feeling that he had given his whole being. He often repeated Hegel's words: Nothing great is done in this world without passion; and he had nothing but contempt for the philistines who object to the "fanaticism" of the revolutionaries. But intelligence was always present, in miraculous harmony with the fire. Nor could one dream of discovering a conflict: the will was indomitable because the mind saw very far. Hegel would have to be quoted once again: Der Wille ist eine besondere Weise des Denkens. Will is a specific function of thought.
Markin comment:
Every year at this time we honor the memory of the great Russian revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky, a man who not only was able theoretically to articulate the arc of the Russian Revolution of 1917 (the theory of permanent revolution) but personally led the defend of that revolution against world imperialism and its internal Russian White Guard agents. Oh yes, and also wrote a million pro-communist articles, did a little turn at literary criticism, acted in various Soviet official capacities, led the Communist International, led the opposition first in Russia and then internationally to the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution, and created a new revolutionary international (the Fourth International) to rally the demoralized international working class movement in the face of Hitlerite reaction. To speak nothing of hunting, fishing, raising rabbits, collecting cactii and chasing Frida Kahlo around Mexico (oops, on that last one). In short, as I have characterized him before, the closest that this sorry old world has come to producing a complete communist man within the borders of bourgeois society (except that last thing, that skirt-chasing thing, although maybe not). All honor to his memory. Forward to new Octobers!
Usually on this anniversary I place a selection of Trotsky’s writings on various subjects in this space. This year, having found a site that has material related to his family life, the effect of his murder on that family, and other more personal details of his life I am placing that material here in his honor. The forward to new Octobers still goes, though.
*******
Markin comment:
As I never tire of saying even seventy-odd years later I would not want to be on the pen/sword edge of one of Leon Trotsky's polemics. I would still be bleeding profusely from every pore.
******
Jean van Heijenoort
Lev Davidovich
Published: Fourth International, Winter 1959
When Engels, revered patriarch of international social-democracy, passed away peacefully in London, burdened with years, the end of the century was approaching which separated the revolutions of the bourgeoisie from those of the proletariat, Jacobinism from Bolshevism. The transformation of the world, announced by Marx, was to become the immediate task, and revolutionists were to know unparallelled vicissitudes. And in fact the heads of the three greatest revolutionary leaders since Engels sustained the blows of reaction. The historian of the future will not fail to see in this one of the characteristic marks of our epoch. Nor should he fail to note the source of these blows. Lenin's head was pierced by a bullet from the "Socialist Revolutionary" Fanny Kaplan. Rosa Luxemburg's head was shattered by the butt-ends of the guns of the "Social Democrat" Noske's soldiery. Trotsky's head was laid open by the pick-axe of one of the "Communist" Stalin's mercenaries.
Our epoch of crisis, with its abrupt jumps and feverish tempo, devours men and parties more and more rapidly. Those who only yesterday represented the revolution become the Instruments of the darkest reaction. This struggle between the head of the historic process and its leaden, dragging rump assumed its most dramatic form in the duel between Trotsky and Stalin, precisely because this struggle unfolded against the background of a workers' state already established. Trotsky, borne to the summits of power by the revolutionary explosion of the masses, persecuted and harassed when the defeats of the proletariat succeeded each other, became the very incarnation of the revolution.
He was aided by an astonishing physique. What struck you first was his forehead--phenomenally lofty, vertical, and not heightened by baldness. After that his eyes, blue and deep, with a gaze powerful and sure of its power. During his stay in France Lev Davidovich very often had to travel incognito in order to simplify the problem of guarding him. Then he would shave off his goatee and brush his hair to one side dividing it by a part. But when it came to his leaving the house and mingling with the public I was always worried: "No it's really impossible ... the first one to pass by will recognize him, he can't change that gaze of his ... " Then, when Lev Davidovich began to speak, what attracted attention was his mouth. Whether he spoke in Russian or a foreign language his lips constrained themselves to shape words distinctly. He was irritated at hearing confused and precipitate speech from others, and always compelled himself to enunciate with complete distinctness. It was only in addressing Natalia Ivanovna in Russian that on occasion his enunciation became more hurried and less articulate, descending sometimes into a whisper. In conversations with visitors in his study his hands, resting on the edge of his work-table at first, would soon begin moving with large, firm gestures, as though aiding his lips in molding the expression of his thought. His face with its halo of hair, the set of his head, and the whole carriage of his body were always proud and stately. His stature was above medium, with a powerful chest and a broad, stalwart back, and in comparison his legs appeared somewhat slender. it is undoubtedly easier for someone who paid him one visit to say what he saw in Trotsky's face than for one who was at his side for many years in the most variegated circumstances.
The one thing I never saw was the faintest expression of vulgarity. Nor was there any greater likelihood of finding what is called bonhomie. But a certain sweetness was not lacking, which no doubt originated in the formidable intelligence of whose readiness to understand everything you were always aware. What you usually saw was a youthful enthusiasm which joyously undertook everything, and at the same time was strong enough to induce others to cooperate in the undertaking. When it was a question of cudgeling an opponent this sort of gaiety swiftly changed into irony, biting and malicious, alternating with an expression of contempt, and when the enemy was particularly swinish, you would, for a moment, almost find a hint of malevolence. But his vivacity returned quickly. "We'll fix 'em!" he would say then with animation. In the isolation of exile the most dramatic circumstances where I could see Lev Davidovich were his conflicts with the police, or incidents with adversaries of bad faith. At these times his face would harden, and his eyes would flash, as though in them had suddenly been concentrated that vast will-power which ordinarily could be measured only by the labors of his entire life. Then it was obvious to everyone that nothing, nothing in the world could make him budge an inch.
How Trotsky Worked
In daily life this will-power expended itself in strictly organized labor. Any unmotivated disturbance irritated him extremely: he hated pointless conversations, unannounced visits, disappointments or delays in keeping engagements. To be sure there was nothing pedantic in any of this. If an important question turned up he would not hesitate a moment in upsetting all his plans, but it had to be worth it. If it had the slightest interest for the movement he would heedlessly give his time and energy, but he showed himself all the more miserly of them when the carelessness, lightmindedness, or bad organization of others threatened to waste them. He bearded the smallest particles of time, the most precious material of which life is made. His whole personal life was rigidly organized by the quality called singleness of purpose. He set up a hierarchy of duties, and brought to a conclusion whatever he undertook.
As a rule he did not work less than twelve hours a day, and sometimes, when it was necessary, much more. He remained at table as briefly as possible, and after sharing his meals for many years I could not say that I ever noticed on his face any mark of enjoyment for what he ate or drank. 'Eating, dressing, all these miserable little things that have to be repeated every day ... " he once said to me.
He could find his only diversion in great physical activity. Merely walking was scarcely a relaxation. He walked actively and in silence, and you could see that his mind was always at work. Now and then he would ask a question: "When did you answer that letter?" "Can you find me that quotation?" Only violent exercise gave him repose. In Turkey this consisted of hunting, and especially fishing, deep-sea fishing, complicated and agitated, where the body had to spend itself recklessly. When the fishing had been good, that is, very fatiguing, he began work on his return with redoubled enthusiasm. In Mexico, where fishing was impossible, he invented the gathering of cacti, of enormous weight, under a blazing sun.
Of course the necessity for security created certain obligations. During the eleven and a half years of his third emigration it was only for a few months, at certain times during his stay in France and in Norway, that Lev Davidovich could walk about freely, that is, unguarded, in the countryside around his house. As a rule each one of his excursions constituted a minor military operation. It was necessary to make all arrangements in advance, and fix his route carefully. "You treat me as though I were an object," he sometimes said, jokingly dissimulating whatever impatience there might have been in this remark.
He demanded the same methodical spirit he observed in his own work from the comrades who assisted him. The closer they were to him, the more did he demand of them and the less did he trouble himself with formalities. He desired precision in everything: an undated letter, an unsigned document always irritated him, as did in general anything easygoing, slipshod, or happy-go-lucky. Do whatever you're doing well, and do it till you finish. And in this rule he made no distinction between petty day-to-day chores and intellectual work: conduct your thoughts to their conclusion, is an expression that often sprang from his pen. He always displayed great solicitude for the health of those around him. Health is revolutionary capital that must not be wasted. He grew angry at seeing someone read in a bad light. It's necessary to risk your life for the revolution without hesitating, but why ruin your eyes when you can read comfortably and intelligently?
Trotsky's Conversations
In conversations with Lev Davidovich what visitors were struck by chiefly was his capacity to find his bearings in a novel situation. He was able to integrate it in his general perspective, and at the same time always give immediate and concrete advice. During his third emigration he often had the opportunity of conversing with visitors from countries he was not acquainted with directly, perhaps from the Balkans or Latin America. He did not always know the language, did not follow their press and had never had any particular interest in their specific problems. First of all he would allow his interrogator to speak, occasionally jotting down a few brief notes on a sliP of paper in front of him, sometimes asking for a few details: "How many members has this party?" "Isn't this politician a lawyer?"
Then he would speak, and the mass of information that had been given him would be organized. Soon one could distinguish the movements of different classes and of different layers within these classes, and then, bound up with these movements, there would be revealed the play of parties, groups and organizations, and then the place and the activities of various political figures, down to their profession and personal traits, would be logically fitted into the picture. The French naturalist Cuvier used to boast of his ability to reconstruct an entire animal from a single bone. With his vast knowledge of social and political realities Trotsky could devote himself to a similar work. His interrogator was always astounded at seeing how deeply he had been able to penetrate the reality of the particular problem, and would leave Trotsky's study knowing his own country a little better.
At every moment you felt in Trotsky a huge fund of experience, not merely engraved in his memory but organized and reflected on lengthily and profoundly· You could also see that the organization of this experience had taken place around indestructible principles. Though Lev Davidovich hated routine, though he was always anxious to discover new trends, the least attempt at innovation in the realm of principles made him prick up his ears. "Trimming Marx's beard," was his expression for all these attempts to put Marxism in line with the current fashion, and he did not dissimulate his contempt for them.
Trotsky's Style and Writing Methods
Trotsky's style is universally admired. It is undoubtedly to be best compared with that of Marx. However, Trotsky's sentences are less spacious than those of Marx, in whom one is aware of a wealth of scholarly resources, especially in the youthful works. Trotsky's style achieves its effects by extremely simple means. His vocabulary, especially in his more properly political writings, is always rather limited. The sentences are short, with few subordinate clauses. Their power arises from a sturdy articulation, most often with strongly marked but always well balanced oppositions. This temperance of means gives his style a great freshness and, one might say, youthfulness. In his writing Trotsky is considerably more youthful than Marx.
Trotsky knew how to take advantage of that Russian syntax whose inflections permit the word-order within a sentence to be upset, giving the expression of the thought a force and emphasis difficult to attain with the limited means of modern western languages. And also difficult to translate. Lev Davidovich demanded a mathematical fidelity from his translators, and at the same time kicked against the rules of grammar in the foreign language which forbade a similarly concise and direct rendition of his thought. Compared to that of Lenin, Trotsky's style is superior, by a large margin, in its lucidity and elegance, without any loss of power. Lenin's sentences occasionally become cumbrous, too heavy, disorganized. It seems as though the thought sometimes cripples its expression. Trotsky once said that in Lenin you could discover a Russian mushik, but one raised to the level of genius. Even though Lenin's father was a provincial functionary and Trotsky's a farmer, it is Trotsky who is the city-dweller, as opposed to Lenin, doubtless because of his race. This may be seen at once in the difference of styles, without any attempt being made here to uncover this opposition in other aspects of these two giant personalities.
When Trotsky was deported to Turkey, the passport the Soviet authorities gave him put down his profession as writer. And in truth he was a great, an exceedingly great writer. If the bureaucrats's inscription causes a smile it is because Trotsky was so much more than a writer. He wrote with ease, being able to dictate several hours at a sitting. But then he would go over the manuscript and correct it carefully. For some of these great writings, such as the History of the Russian Revolution, there are two successive drafts behind the definitive text, but in the majority of cases there is only one. His enormous literary production, in which are to be found books, pamphlets, innumerable articles, letters, hurried statements to the press, and notes of all sorts is, needless to say, uneven. Some parts are more worked over than others, but not a sentence in any of them has been neglected. You can take any five lines in this ponderous accumulation of writing and you will always recognize the inimitable Trotsky.
Their volume is also impressive, and would alone bear testimony to a very rare will and capacity for labor. Thirty volumes of Lenin's complete works have been collected, in addition to thirty-five volumes of correspondence and odd notes. Trotsky lived seven years longer than Lenin, but his writings, from his long books to his brief personal notes, would undoubtedly come to triple that amount. In the eleven and a half years of his third emigration he amassed a labor which would honorably fill an entire lifetime. It may be said that the pen never abandoned his hand, and what a hand it was!
He Lives in His Books
Trotsky has put all of himself into his books. personal contact with the man himself did not modify the portrait that emerged from a reading of his works, but deepened it and made it more precise: passion and reason, intelligence and will, all carried to an extreme degree, but at the same time blending into one another. In everything Lev Davidovich did one had the feeling that he had given his whole being. He often repeated Hegel's words: Nothing great is done in this world without passion; and he had nothing but contempt for the philistines who object to the "fanaticism" of the revolutionaries. But intelligence was always present, in miraculous harmony with the fire. Nor could one dream of discovering a conflict: the will was indomitable because the mind saw very far. Hegel would have to be quoted once again: Der Wille ist eine besondere Weise des Denkens. Will is a specific function of thought.
From QuebecThe Strike is Ending, But the Movement Will Continue
The Strike is Ending, But the Movement Will Continue
Ethan Cox August 20, 20120
This originally appeared over at rabble.ca.
Over the past few days students at eight of fourteen CEGEPs (junior colleges which provide both pre-university and professional degrees) have voted in general assemblies to end their strike and return to class. Students at the two CEGEPs who did vote to continue the strike, Vieux-Montreal and St. Laurent, will reconvene general assemblies on Friday morning to reconsider their decision.
It appears as if the strike is winding down, or at least going dormant, with many schools promising to revisit the issue after the election. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that the resumption of classes means an end to the broader social movement born out of the longest student strike in Quebec history.
Anecdotal evidence from students voting this week seems to show that while most continue to support the aims of the strike, and remain committed to the goal of broad social change, they fear the power of Quebec’s Bill 78, now known as Law 12, to erase their semester and impose hefty fines on individuals and student associations who support the strike.
In fact, in the mother of all poison pills, Bill 78 allows the government to prevent a student union from collecting dues from its members if it supports a strike which impedes the return to classes, at a rate of one semester for each day that the strike continues.
This controversial clause, one of many in a law condemned as a violation of basic human rights by everyone from the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights to the Quebec Bar Association, would allow Jean Charest’s Liberal government to simply eliminate pesky student unions who continue to strike, and leave students at affected schools without representation for a decade or longer.
Bill 78 also mandated the early return to classes, with striking schools set to complete the interrupted spring semester over the next few weeks. The threat that a continued strike could simply eradicate that semester, and leave students as much as a year behind in their education, was also clearly a factor as students voted this week.
Add to these concerns the oft-repeated, but only somewhat accurate, idea that a continued strike would play into Jean Charest’s hands as he seeks another mandate in the provincial election set for September 4th, and it’s not hard to understand why students chose to put at least a temporary end to their strike.
In lieu of a continued strike, many student associations are focusing on ramping up their political presence in the election campaign, and in the streets. Many schools will hold a one day strike on August 22nd, the latest in a series of monthly demonstrations on that date which have attracted hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers. Organizers have called for a half million people to take to the streets in defiance of Premier Charest and his Liberal government, a number they last flirted with on May 22nd, when an estimated three to four hundred thousand took to the streets.
The three main student groups are also targeting vulnerable Liberal ridings, where student volunteers will use traditional electoral tactics like door knocking to convince voters to turn their back on the government. FEUQ President Martine Desjardins told rabble.ca that an appeal for election volunteers posted on their website received over a thousand sign-ups in its first twenty-four hours. In a close race like this one, a strong student campaign could tip the balance in enough ridings to determine the victor.
On this note, it will be fascinating to see the campaign unfold in Sherbrooke, the home riding of embattled Premier Charest, and a riding the student federations have confirmed they will target. A rare riding level poll was released over the weekend showing Charest trailing his Parti Quebecois challenger by fifteen points. It would be foolhardy to write off an experienced campaigner like Charest, but his seeming vulnerability has already forced him to take a break from the provincial campaign to pound the pavement in his own riding. The question of what happens if voters return his government to power, but he is defeated, will no doubt continue to hang over him as this campaign progresses.
In addition to a targeted riding level campaign, student federations will be pushing their members to vote, and increase an abysmal youth participation rate in Quebec elections. While many students rightly point out that replacing Charest with PQ leader Pauline Marois will not bring about the type of broad social change they are seeking, and that democracy does not mean simply voting every four years, students would be foolhardy not to exercise their power to bring down a government which has essentially accused them of being terrorists for exercising their right to strike and demonstrate.
So as the strike hits the pause button, and students focus on defeating the Liberals and mobilizing their supporters for a series of demonstrations which will culminate on the 22nd, don’t be fooled into thinking the broader movement they represent has been defeated.
The issue of governmental priorities, and how a government which has reduced its revenue by over ten billion dollars in the past decade, mostly in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, can claim poverty when it comes to funding social priorities like education and healthcare, has never been more prominent on the political scene.
The students put it there. They moved close to forty percent of Quebeckers to support the cause of accessible education, and forced many more to question why we can’t follow the European model of free, or nearly free, post-secondary education.
They have already taken down two education ministers, and seem likely to be able to claim credit for taking down a premier, and perhaps even his entire government. As the strike winds down students have much to feel proud about, not least their ability to mobilize global sentiment around the now universally relevant issue of austerity and neo-liberalism.
In Egypt they have a saying I find particularly appropriate now. “The people know the way back to the square”.
If the next government, regardless of political stripe, continues Charest’s contemptuous and dismissive treatment of our society’s youth, the students will return to the streets with a vengeance.
Ethan Cox August 20, 20120
This originally appeared over at rabble.ca.
Over the past few days students at eight of fourteen CEGEPs (junior colleges which provide both pre-university and professional degrees) have voted in general assemblies to end their strike and return to class. Students at the two CEGEPs who did vote to continue the strike, Vieux-Montreal and St. Laurent, will reconvene general assemblies on Friday morning to reconsider their decision.
It appears as if the strike is winding down, or at least going dormant, with many schools promising to revisit the issue after the election. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that the resumption of classes means an end to the broader social movement born out of the longest student strike in Quebec history.
Anecdotal evidence from students voting this week seems to show that while most continue to support the aims of the strike, and remain committed to the goal of broad social change, they fear the power of Quebec’s Bill 78, now known as Law 12, to erase their semester and impose hefty fines on individuals and student associations who support the strike.
In fact, in the mother of all poison pills, Bill 78 allows the government to prevent a student union from collecting dues from its members if it supports a strike which impedes the return to classes, at a rate of one semester for each day that the strike continues.
This controversial clause, one of many in a law condemned as a violation of basic human rights by everyone from the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights to the Quebec Bar Association, would allow Jean Charest’s Liberal government to simply eliminate pesky student unions who continue to strike, and leave students at affected schools without representation for a decade or longer.
Bill 78 also mandated the early return to classes, with striking schools set to complete the interrupted spring semester over the next few weeks. The threat that a continued strike could simply eradicate that semester, and leave students as much as a year behind in their education, was also clearly a factor as students voted this week.
Add to these concerns the oft-repeated, but only somewhat accurate, idea that a continued strike would play into Jean Charest’s hands as he seeks another mandate in the provincial election set for September 4th, and it’s not hard to understand why students chose to put at least a temporary end to their strike.
In lieu of a continued strike, many student associations are focusing on ramping up their political presence in the election campaign, and in the streets. Many schools will hold a one day strike on August 22nd, the latest in a series of monthly demonstrations on that date which have attracted hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers. Organizers have called for a half million people to take to the streets in defiance of Premier Charest and his Liberal government, a number they last flirted with on May 22nd, when an estimated three to four hundred thousand took to the streets.
The three main student groups are also targeting vulnerable Liberal ridings, where student volunteers will use traditional electoral tactics like door knocking to convince voters to turn their back on the government. FEUQ President Martine Desjardins told rabble.ca that an appeal for election volunteers posted on their website received over a thousand sign-ups in its first twenty-four hours. In a close race like this one, a strong student campaign could tip the balance in enough ridings to determine the victor.
On this note, it will be fascinating to see the campaign unfold in Sherbrooke, the home riding of embattled Premier Charest, and a riding the student federations have confirmed they will target. A rare riding level poll was released over the weekend showing Charest trailing his Parti Quebecois challenger by fifteen points. It would be foolhardy to write off an experienced campaigner like Charest, but his seeming vulnerability has already forced him to take a break from the provincial campaign to pound the pavement in his own riding. The question of what happens if voters return his government to power, but he is defeated, will no doubt continue to hang over him as this campaign progresses.
In addition to a targeted riding level campaign, student federations will be pushing their members to vote, and increase an abysmal youth participation rate in Quebec elections. While many students rightly point out that replacing Charest with PQ leader Pauline Marois will not bring about the type of broad social change they are seeking, and that democracy does not mean simply voting every four years, students would be foolhardy not to exercise their power to bring down a government which has essentially accused them of being terrorists for exercising their right to strike and demonstrate.
So as the strike hits the pause button, and students focus on defeating the Liberals and mobilizing their supporters for a series of demonstrations which will culminate on the 22nd, don’t be fooled into thinking the broader movement they represent has been defeated.
The issue of governmental priorities, and how a government which has reduced its revenue by over ten billion dollars in the past decade, mostly in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, can claim poverty when it comes to funding social priorities like education and healthcare, has never been more prominent on the political scene.
The students put it there. They moved close to forty percent of Quebeckers to support the cause of accessible education, and forced many more to question why we can’t follow the European model of free, or nearly free, post-secondary education.
They have already taken down two education ministers, and seem likely to be able to claim credit for taking down a premier, and perhaps even his entire government. As the strike winds down students have much to feel proud about, not least their ability to mobilize global sentiment around the now universally relevant issue of austerity and neo-liberalism.
In Egypt they have a saying I find particularly appropriate now. “The people know the way back to the square”.
If the next government, regardless of political stripe, continues Charest’s contemptuous and dismissive treatment of our society’s youth, the students will return to the streets with a vengeance.
The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC
Click on the headline to link to the Private Bradley Manning Support Network for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .
*********
We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.
*********
The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.
Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.
I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death. However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.
These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.
I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.
Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Private Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Private Manning!
************
Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC
The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!
Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”
After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,
“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”
On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:
As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.
The letter went on to list the following demands:
That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.
That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.
The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.
Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.
Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.
*********
We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.
*********
The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.
Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.
I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death. However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.
These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.
I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.
Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Private Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Private Manning!
************
Call for action at Obama 2012 offices nationwide Sept. 6th during DNC
The Bradley Manning Support Network, Afghans For Peace and SF Bay Iraq Veterans Against the War Call for Nationwide Actions at local Obama Campaign Offices September 6th 2012 during the Democratic National Convention! Free Bradley Manning!
Since Army PFC Bradley Manning’s arrest in May 2010 for allegedly sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and other evidence of war crimes and government corruption with the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, progressives and human rights activists have been asking, “Why isn’t President Obama stepping in to help Bradley?”
After all, it was President Obama who in May 2011 declared with regards to protests in the Middle East,
“In the 21st Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”
On Thursday, August 16, US military veterans in Portland OR, Oakland CA, and Los Angeles CA, occupied Obama 2012 campaign offices and faxed a letter of demands to the Obama campaign’s central office. Those letters began:
As those who have spent years serving our country, we have faith that as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama will do the right thing in answering our request.
The letter went on to list the following demands:
That President Obama retract and apologize for remarks made in April 2011, in which he said Bradley Manning “broke the law.” Because President Obama is commander-in-chief, this constitutes unlawful command influence, violating Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and prevents Bradley from receiving a fair trial.
That President Obama pardon the accused whistle-blower, taking into consideration his 800 days of pretrial confinement. UN torture chief Juan Mendez called Manning’s treatment “cruel and inhuman,” as it included nine months of solitary confinement at Quantico despite Brig psychiatrists recommending relaxed conditions.
The Bradley Manning Support Network maintains hope that justice will prevail and that President Obama can be the vehicle of change on this issue, but first he needs to hear loud and clear from veterans and civilians across the country that the American people want amends for the unlawful torture of Bradley Manning, and believe he should be freed.
Organizers of the August 16 West Coast actions are now urging others to join them in a nationwide effort to hold actions at many more local Obama campaign offices on September 6th, the day of candidate’s nomination acceptance speech. We want to share messages of support for Bradley with Obama campaign offices from coast to coast.
Please contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information about attending and/or organizing an event.
From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-Auguste Blanqui 1848-For the Red Flag
Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*********
Auguste Blanqui 1848-For the Red Flag
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Ecrits sur la révolution.Presenté et annoté par A. Munster. Ed. Galilee, Paris 1977;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are no longer in ’93! We are in 1848!
The tricolor flag is no longer the flag of the Republic. It’s that of Louis-Philippe and of the monarchy.
It’s the tricolor flag that presided over the massacres of the rue Transnonain, of faubourg de Vaise, of Saint-Etienne. It has been twenty times bathed in the blood of the workers.
The people raised the red colors on the barricades of ’48, just as they raised them on those of June 1832, April 1834[1], and May 1839. They have received the double consecration of defeat and victory. From this day on, these colors are theirs.
Just yesterday they gloriously floated from the fronts of our buildings.
Today reaction ignominiously casts them in the mud and dares stain them with its calumnies.
It is said it is a flag of blood. It is only red with the blood of the martyrs who made it the standard of the republic.
Its fall is an insult to the people, a profanation of the dead. The flag of the National Guard will shade their graves.
Reaction has already been unleashed. It can be recognized by its violence. The men of the royalist faction roam the streets, insults and threats in their mouths, tearing the red colors from the boutonnieres of citizens.
Workers! It’s your flag that is falling. Heed well! The Republic will not delay in following it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Reference to the bloody repression of the popular revolts of April 13 and 14 1834 against the regime of Louis-Philippe.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*********
Auguste Blanqui 1848-For the Red Flag
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Ecrits sur la révolution.Presenté et annoté par A. Munster. Ed. Galilee, Paris 1977;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.
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We are no longer in ’93! We are in 1848!
The tricolor flag is no longer the flag of the Republic. It’s that of Louis-Philippe and of the monarchy.
It’s the tricolor flag that presided over the massacres of the rue Transnonain, of faubourg de Vaise, of Saint-Etienne. It has been twenty times bathed in the blood of the workers.
The people raised the red colors on the barricades of ’48, just as they raised them on those of June 1832, April 1834[1], and May 1839. They have received the double consecration of defeat and victory. From this day on, these colors are theirs.
Just yesterday they gloriously floated from the fronts of our buildings.
Today reaction ignominiously casts them in the mud and dares stain them with its calumnies.
It is said it is a flag of blood. It is only red with the blood of the martyrs who made it the standard of the republic.
Its fall is an insult to the people, a profanation of the dead. The flag of the National Guard will shade their graves.
Reaction has already been unleashed. It can be recognized by its violence. The men of the royalist faction roam the streets, insults and threats in their mouths, tearing the red colors from the boutonnieres of citizens.
Workers! It’s your flag that is falling. Heed well! The Republic will not delay in following it.
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1. Reference to the bloody repression of the popular revolts of April 13 and 14 1834 against the regime of Louis-Philippe.
Monday, August 20, 2012
From Occupy Homes MA-Boston-Attention people facing foreclosure or in foreclosure: Don't let the Bank push you out!
Important information
If you are the former owner or a tenant in a foreclosed building, you can fight for your home after foreclosure. If you have received an eviction notice from the Bank, DO NOT MOVE! Do not accept "cash for keys" payments without consulting with Occupy Homes MA or an attorney.
To all residents: If you live in a building that has already been foreclosed or where a foreclosure seems likely, call us at Occupy Homes at 617-524-3541 or come to any meeting of the City Life every Tuesday night, 6:15 pm, at 284 Amory St. in JP (near Stonybrook Station on Orange Line). You can fight the eviction.
Don't panic. Don't move. Organize! Join Occupy Homes MA
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Tufts Library - Canoe Room
46 Broad Street, Weymouth
6:00 PM
Mortgage companies have been unwilling to do meaningful loan modifications for homeowners in trouble. To owners: If you financed your home during the real estate bubble, chances are the value of your home is much less than the value of the mortgage. In that case, a "meaningful loan modification" is one that reduces principal owed.
To owners and tenants: After foreclosure, lenders evicted about 2400 households in Boston in 2008. About 77% of these households were tenants. AM these evictions were "no fault," because foreclosing lenders refuse to accept rent. They sit on vacant property after foreclosure and our neighborhoods decline.
Occupy Homes MA is dedicated to uniting tenants and former owners in foreclosed buildings in order to protect our homes and neighborhoods against giant mortgage companies and banks.
For more information, call Occupy Homes MA: 617-249-4359 - Email: SouthShoreOccupy@gmail.com
If you are the former owner or a tenant in a foreclosed building, you can fight for your home after foreclosure. If you have received an eviction notice from the Bank, DO NOT MOVE! Do not accept "cash for keys" payments without consulting with Occupy Homes MA or an attorney.
To all residents: If you live in a building that has already been foreclosed or where a foreclosure seems likely, call us at Occupy Homes at 617-524-3541 or come to any meeting of the City Life every Tuesday night, 6:15 pm, at 284 Amory St. in JP (near Stonybrook Station on Orange Line). You can fight the eviction.
Don't panic. Don't move. Organize! Join Occupy Homes MA
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Tufts Library - Canoe Room
46 Broad Street, Weymouth
6:00 PM
Mortgage companies have been unwilling to do meaningful loan modifications for homeowners in trouble. To owners: If you financed your home during the real estate bubble, chances are the value of your home is much less than the value of the mortgage. In that case, a "meaningful loan modification" is one that reduces principal owed.
To owners and tenants: After foreclosure, lenders evicted about 2400 households in Boston in 2008. About 77% of these households were tenants. AM these evictions were "no fault," because foreclosing lenders refuse to accept rent. They sit on vacant property after foreclosure and our neighborhoods decline.
Occupy Homes MA is dedicated to uniting tenants and former owners in foreclosed buildings in order to protect our homes and neighborhoods against giant mortgage companies and banks.
For more information, call Occupy Homes MA: 617-249-4359 - Email: SouthShoreOccupy@gmail.com
From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- Joshua Lawrence Breslin’s Father’s Day
Peter Paul Markin comment:
My old friend from the merry prankster yellow brick road 1960s day Josh Breslin, Olde Saco High School Class of 1967, having a few years ago transcribed some stories that his late father told him and his sister Lissette on April 16th 1983 while he recovering from a heart attack, had as a result some things, some Father’s Day things that he wanted to get off his chest. (See Prescott Breslin’s Stardust Memories War. Josh was, frankly having a hard time doing the task (as had I several years before) so he asked me to help him write this belated tribute to his late father, Prescott Lee Breslin. The words may have been jointly written and edited but, believe me, the sentiments and emotions expressed are strictly those of Joshua Lawrence Breslin. I do know that it took a lot of work, sweat and tears for him to transfer them into written form.
******
In honor of Prescott Lee Breslin, 1917-1985, Lance Corporal, United States Marine Corps, World War II, Pacific Theater , and perhaps, other Olde Saco fathers too.
Josh turned red, turned bluster, fluster, embarrassed, internal red, red with shame, red as he always did this time of the year, this Father’s Day time of the year, when he thought about his own father, the late Prescott Lee Breslin. And through those shades of red he thought, sometimes hard, sometimes just a flicker thought passing, too close, too red close to continue on, he thought about the things that he never said to his father, about what never could be said to him, and above all, because when it came right down to it because they might have been on different planets, what could not be comprehended said. But although death now separated them by over twenty years he still turned red, more internal red these days, when he thought about the slivers of talk that could have been said, usefully said. And he would go to his own grave having that hang over his own Father’s Day thoughts.
But just that minute, just that pre-Father’s Day minute, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, Joshua Lawrence, for those Olde Saco brethren who insisted on calling him Joshua Lawrence when he preferred plain old Josh in those old-time 1960s high school days, wanted to call a truce to his red-faced shame, internal or otherwise, and pay public tribute, pay belated public tribute to Prescott Breslin, and maybe it would rub off on others too. And just maybe cut the pain of the thought of having those unsaid things hang over him until the grave.
See, here’s the funny part, the funny part now, about speaking, publicly or privately, about his father, at least when Josh thought about the millions of children around who were, warm-heartedly, preparing to put some little gift together for the “greatest dad in the world.” And of other millions, who were preparing, or better, fortifying themselves in preparation for that same task for dear old dad, although with their teeth grinding. Josh could not remember, or refused to remember, a time for eons when he, warm-heartedly or grinding his teeth, prepared anything for his father’s Father’s Day, except occasional grief that might have coincided with that day’s celebration. No preparation was necessary for that. That was all in a Josh’s day’s work, his hellish corner boy day’s work or, rather, night’s work, the sneak thief in the night work, later turned into more serious criminal enterprises. But the really funny part, ironic maybe, is grief-giving, hellish corner boy sneak thief, or not, one Prescott Breslin , deserved honor, no, required honor that day because by some mysterious process, by some mysterious transference Josh, in the end, was deeply formed, formed for the better by that man.
And you see, and it will perhaps come as no surprise that Josh, hell everybody called him Joshua Lawrence in the old days so just so nobody will be confused we will use that name here, was estranged from his family for many years, many teenage to adult years and so that his father’s influence, the “better angel of his nature,” influence had to have come very early on. Joshua Lawrence , even now, maybe especially now, since he had climbed a few mountains of pain, of hard-wall time served, and addictions to get here, did not want to go into the details of that fact, just call them ugly, as this memorial was not about his trials and tribulations in the world, but Prescott’s.
Here is what needs to be told though because something in that mix, that Breslin gene mix, is where the earth’s salts mingled to spine Joshua Lawrence against his own follies when things turned ugly later in his life. Prescott Lee Breslin, that middle name almost declaring that here was a southern man, as Joshua Lawrence name was a declaration that he was a son of a southern man, came out of the foothills of Kentucky, Appalachian Kentucky. The hills and hollows of Hazard, Kentucky to be exact, in the next county over from famed, bloody coal wars, class struggle, which-side-are-you-on Harlan County, but all still hard-scrabble coal-mining country famous in story and song- the poorest of the poor of white Appalachia-the “hillbillies.”
And the poorest of the poor there, or very close to it, was Prescott Breslin’s family, his seven brothers and four sisters, his elderly father and his too young step-mother. Needless to say, but needing to be said anyway, Prescott went to the mines early, after a couple of break-out years as a singer, had little formal schooling and was slated, like generations of Breslins before him, to live a short, brutish, and nasty life, scrabbling hard, hard for the coal, hard for the table food, hard for the roof over his head, hard to keep the black lung away, and harder still to keep the company wolves away from his shack door. And then the Great Depression came full force and thing got harder still, harder than younger ears could understand today, or need to hear just now.
At the start of World War II Prescott jumped, jumped with both feet running once he landed, at the opportunity to join the Marines in the wake of Pearl Harbor, fought his fair share of battles in the Pacific Theater, including Guadalcanal, although he, like many men of his generation, was extremely reticent to talk about his war experiences. By the vagaries of fate in those up-ending times Prescott eventually was stationed at the huge Portsmouth Naval Depot before being discharged, a busy base about thirty miles from Olde Saco.
[Joshua Lawrence , interrupted his train of thought as chuckled to himself when he thought about his father’s military service, thought about one of the few times when he and Prescott had had a laugh together. Prescott often recounted that things were so tough in Hazard, in the mines of Hazard, in the slag heap existence of Hazard, that in a “choice” between continuing in the mines and daily facing death at Japanese hands he picked the latter, gladly, and never looked back. Part of that never looking back, of course, was the attraction of Delores LeBlanc (Olde Saco High School Class of 1937), Joshua Lawrence’s mother whom Prescott met while stationed at Portsmouth where she worked in the civilian section of the base of an insurance company based in Olde Saco. They married shortly thereafter, had three sons, his late oldest brother, Larry , killed many years ago while engaged in an attempted armed robbery, Danny who just kind of wandered off one day and had not been heard from since, and Joshua Lawrence, ex-sneak thief, ex-merry prankster, ex-dope-dealer, ex-addict, ex-, well, enough of ex’s, and a younger sister, Lissette, now in a private mental health facility after years of alcohol and drug abuse, and the rest is history. Well, not quite, whatever Prescott might have later thought about his decision to leave the hellhole of the Appalachian hills. He was also a man, as that just mentioned family resume hints at, who never drew a break, not at work, not through his sons and daughter (although it was the sons that counted, mainly), not in anything.]
Joshua Lawrence , not quite sure how to put it in words that were anything but spilled ashes since it would be put differently, much differently in 2011 than in, let’s say, 1971, or 1961 thought of it this way:
“My father was a good man, he was a hard- working man when he had work, and he was a devoted family man. But go back to that paragraph about where he was from. He was also an uneducated man with no skills for the changing Olde Saco labor market. There was no call for a coal miner's skills in Olde Saco after World War II so he was reduced to unskilled, last hired, first fired jobs. This was, and is, not a pretty fate for a man with hungry mouths to feed. And stuck in the damn Olde Saco Housing Authority apartments, come on now let’s call a thing by its real name, real recognizable name, “the projects,” the place for the poorest of the poor, Olde Saco version, to boot.
To get out from under a little and to share in the dream, the high heaven dream, working poor post-World War II dream, of a little house, no matter how little, of one’s own if only to keep the neighbor’s loud business from one’s door Delores, proud, stiffly French-Canadian 1930s Depression stable working class proud Delores, worked. Delores worked mother’s night shifts at one of the Jimmy Jack’s Homemade Diners filling up coffee cups and fixings for hungry travelers and tourists in order to scrap a few pennies together to buy an old, small, rundown house, on the wrong side of the tracks, on Maple Street for those from Olde Saco who remember that locale, literally right next to the old Bay Lines railroad tracks. So the circle turned and the Breslin family returned back to the Atlantic section of town of Maude’s youth.”
Joshua Lawrence grew pensive when he thought, or rather re-thought, about the toll that the inability to be the sole breadwinner (no big deal now with an almost mandatory two working-parents existence- but important for a man of his generation) took on the man's pride. A wife filling damn coffee cups, jesus.
He continued:
“And it never really got better for Prescott from there as his three boys grew to manhood (Lissette’s troubles began much later, much later), got into more trouble, got involved with more shady deals, acquired more addictions, and showered more shame on the Prescott Breslin name than needs to be detailed here. Let’s just say it had to have caused him more than his fair share of heartache. He never said much about it though, in the days when Joshua Lawrence and he were still in touch. Never much about why three boys who had more food, more shelter, more education, more prospects, more everything that a Hazard po’ boy couldn’t see straight if their lives depended on it, who led the corner boy life for all it was worth and in the end had nothing but ashes, and a father’s broken heart to show for it. No, he never said much, and Joshua Lawrence hadn’t heard from other sources that he ever said much (Delores was a different story, but this is Prescott’s story so enough of that). Why? Damn, they were his boys and although they broke his heart they were his boys. That is all that mattered to him and so that, in the end, is how Joshua Lawrence, whatever he would carry to his own grave, that Prescott must have forgiven him.”
Joshua Lawrence, getting internal red again, decided that it was time to close this tribute. To go on in this vein would be rather maudlin. The old man was a Marine, and he was closer to the old Marine Corps slogan than Joshua Lawrence could ever understand - Semper Fi- "always faithful." Yes, Joshua Lawrence thought, as if some historic justice had finally been done, that is a good way to end this. Except to say something that should have been shouted from the Olde Saco rooftops long ago- “Thanks Dad, you did the best you could.”
My old friend from the merry prankster yellow brick road 1960s day Josh Breslin, Olde Saco High School Class of 1967, having a few years ago transcribed some stories that his late father told him and his sister Lissette on April 16th 1983 while he recovering from a heart attack, had as a result some things, some Father’s Day things that he wanted to get off his chest. (See Prescott Breslin’s Stardust Memories War. Josh was, frankly having a hard time doing the task (as had I several years before) so he asked me to help him write this belated tribute to his late father, Prescott Lee Breslin. The words may have been jointly written and edited but, believe me, the sentiments and emotions expressed are strictly those of Joshua Lawrence Breslin. I do know that it took a lot of work, sweat and tears for him to transfer them into written form.
******
In honor of Prescott Lee Breslin, 1917-1985, Lance Corporal, United States Marine Corps, World War II, Pacific Theater , and perhaps, other Olde Saco fathers too.
Josh turned red, turned bluster, fluster, embarrassed, internal red, red with shame, red as he always did this time of the year, this Father’s Day time of the year, when he thought about his own father, the late Prescott Lee Breslin. And through those shades of red he thought, sometimes hard, sometimes just a flicker thought passing, too close, too red close to continue on, he thought about the things that he never said to his father, about what never could be said to him, and above all, because when it came right down to it because they might have been on different planets, what could not be comprehended said. But although death now separated them by over twenty years he still turned red, more internal red these days, when he thought about the slivers of talk that could have been said, usefully said. And he would go to his own grave having that hang over his own Father’s Day thoughts.
But just that minute, just that pre-Father’s Day minute, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, Joshua Lawrence, for those Olde Saco brethren who insisted on calling him Joshua Lawrence when he preferred plain old Josh in those old-time 1960s high school days, wanted to call a truce to his red-faced shame, internal or otherwise, and pay public tribute, pay belated public tribute to Prescott Breslin, and maybe it would rub off on others too. And just maybe cut the pain of the thought of having those unsaid things hang over him until the grave.
See, here’s the funny part, the funny part now, about speaking, publicly or privately, about his father, at least when Josh thought about the millions of children around who were, warm-heartedly, preparing to put some little gift together for the “greatest dad in the world.” And of other millions, who were preparing, or better, fortifying themselves in preparation for that same task for dear old dad, although with their teeth grinding. Josh could not remember, or refused to remember, a time for eons when he, warm-heartedly or grinding his teeth, prepared anything for his father’s Father’s Day, except occasional grief that might have coincided with that day’s celebration. No preparation was necessary for that. That was all in a Josh’s day’s work, his hellish corner boy day’s work or, rather, night’s work, the sneak thief in the night work, later turned into more serious criminal enterprises. But the really funny part, ironic maybe, is grief-giving, hellish corner boy sneak thief, or not, one Prescott Breslin , deserved honor, no, required honor that day because by some mysterious process, by some mysterious transference Josh, in the end, was deeply formed, formed for the better by that man.
And you see, and it will perhaps come as no surprise that Josh, hell everybody called him Joshua Lawrence in the old days so just so nobody will be confused we will use that name here, was estranged from his family for many years, many teenage to adult years and so that his father’s influence, the “better angel of his nature,” influence had to have come very early on. Joshua Lawrence , even now, maybe especially now, since he had climbed a few mountains of pain, of hard-wall time served, and addictions to get here, did not want to go into the details of that fact, just call them ugly, as this memorial was not about his trials and tribulations in the world, but Prescott’s.
Here is what needs to be told though because something in that mix, that Breslin gene mix, is where the earth’s salts mingled to spine Joshua Lawrence against his own follies when things turned ugly later in his life. Prescott Lee Breslin, that middle name almost declaring that here was a southern man, as Joshua Lawrence name was a declaration that he was a son of a southern man, came out of the foothills of Kentucky, Appalachian Kentucky. The hills and hollows of Hazard, Kentucky to be exact, in the next county over from famed, bloody coal wars, class struggle, which-side-are-you-on Harlan County, but all still hard-scrabble coal-mining country famous in story and song- the poorest of the poor of white Appalachia-the “hillbillies.”
And the poorest of the poor there, or very close to it, was Prescott Breslin’s family, his seven brothers and four sisters, his elderly father and his too young step-mother. Needless to say, but needing to be said anyway, Prescott went to the mines early, after a couple of break-out years as a singer, had little formal schooling and was slated, like generations of Breslins before him, to live a short, brutish, and nasty life, scrabbling hard, hard for the coal, hard for the table food, hard for the roof over his head, hard to keep the black lung away, and harder still to keep the company wolves away from his shack door. And then the Great Depression came full force and thing got harder still, harder than younger ears could understand today, or need to hear just now.
At the start of World War II Prescott jumped, jumped with both feet running once he landed, at the opportunity to join the Marines in the wake of Pearl Harbor, fought his fair share of battles in the Pacific Theater, including Guadalcanal, although he, like many men of his generation, was extremely reticent to talk about his war experiences. By the vagaries of fate in those up-ending times Prescott eventually was stationed at the huge Portsmouth Naval Depot before being discharged, a busy base about thirty miles from Olde Saco.
[Joshua Lawrence , interrupted his train of thought as chuckled to himself when he thought about his father’s military service, thought about one of the few times when he and Prescott had had a laugh together. Prescott often recounted that things were so tough in Hazard, in the mines of Hazard, in the slag heap existence of Hazard, that in a “choice” between continuing in the mines and daily facing death at Japanese hands he picked the latter, gladly, and never looked back. Part of that never looking back, of course, was the attraction of Delores LeBlanc (Olde Saco High School Class of 1937), Joshua Lawrence’s mother whom Prescott met while stationed at Portsmouth where she worked in the civilian section of the base of an insurance company based in Olde Saco. They married shortly thereafter, had three sons, his late oldest brother, Larry , killed many years ago while engaged in an attempted armed robbery, Danny who just kind of wandered off one day and had not been heard from since, and Joshua Lawrence, ex-sneak thief, ex-merry prankster, ex-dope-dealer, ex-addict, ex-, well, enough of ex’s, and a younger sister, Lissette, now in a private mental health facility after years of alcohol and drug abuse, and the rest is history. Well, not quite, whatever Prescott might have later thought about his decision to leave the hellhole of the Appalachian hills. He was also a man, as that just mentioned family resume hints at, who never drew a break, not at work, not through his sons and daughter (although it was the sons that counted, mainly), not in anything.]
Joshua Lawrence , not quite sure how to put it in words that were anything but spilled ashes since it would be put differently, much differently in 2011 than in, let’s say, 1971, or 1961 thought of it this way:
“My father was a good man, he was a hard- working man when he had work, and he was a devoted family man. But go back to that paragraph about where he was from. He was also an uneducated man with no skills for the changing Olde Saco labor market. There was no call for a coal miner's skills in Olde Saco after World War II so he was reduced to unskilled, last hired, first fired jobs. This was, and is, not a pretty fate for a man with hungry mouths to feed. And stuck in the damn Olde Saco Housing Authority apartments, come on now let’s call a thing by its real name, real recognizable name, “the projects,” the place for the poorest of the poor, Olde Saco version, to boot.
To get out from under a little and to share in the dream, the high heaven dream, working poor post-World War II dream, of a little house, no matter how little, of one’s own if only to keep the neighbor’s loud business from one’s door Delores, proud, stiffly French-Canadian 1930s Depression stable working class proud Delores, worked. Delores worked mother’s night shifts at one of the Jimmy Jack’s Homemade Diners filling up coffee cups and fixings for hungry travelers and tourists in order to scrap a few pennies together to buy an old, small, rundown house, on the wrong side of the tracks, on Maple Street for those from Olde Saco who remember that locale, literally right next to the old Bay Lines railroad tracks. So the circle turned and the Breslin family returned back to the Atlantic section of town of Maude’s youth.”
Joshua Lawrence grew pensive when he thought, or rather re-thought, about the toll that the inability to be the sole breadwinner (no big deal now with an almost mandatory two working-parents existence- but important for a man of his generation) took on the man's pride. A wife filling damn coffee cups, jesus.
He continued:
“And it never really got better for Prescott from there as his three boys grew to manhood (Lissette’s troubles began much later, much later), got into more trouble, got involved with more shady deals, acquired more addictions, and showered more shame on the Prescott Breslin name than needs to be detailed here. Let’s just say it had to have caused him more than his fair share of heartache. He never said much about it though, in the days when Joshua Lawrence and he were still in touch. Never much about why three boys who had more food, more shelter, more education, more prospects, more everything that a Hazard po’ boy couldn’t see straight if their lives depended on it, who led the corner boy life for all it was worth and in the end had nothing but ashes, and a father’s broken heart to show for it. No, he never said much, and Joshua Lawrence hadn’t heard from other sources that he ever said much (Delores was a different story, but this is Prescott’s story so enough of that). Why? Damn, they were his boys and although they broke his heart they were his boys. That is all that mattered to him and so that, in the end, is how Joshua Lawrence, whatever he would carry to his own grave, that Prescott must have forgiven him.”
Joshua Lawrence, getting internal red again, decided that it was time to close this tribute. To go on in this vein would be rather maudlin. The old man was a Marine, and he was closer to the old Marine Corps slogan than Joshua Lawrence could ever understand - Semper Fi- "always faithful." Yes, Joshua Lawrence thought, as if some historic justice had finally been done, that is a good way to end this. Except to say something that should have been shouted from the Olde Saco rooftops long ago- “Thanks Dad, you did the best you could.”
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Cinema Memories-Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for martin Scorsese’s film, Hugo.
Hugo, starring Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, Jude Law. Directed by Martin Scorsese, Paramount Pictures, 2011
A film about film-making, or about a slice of life of the history of film-making and filmmakers, must always be an appealing subject for any director, and especially for a quirky and historically-immersed director like Martin Scorsese. We are all children of the film age (including Hugo and the other children who pop up in this film) and thus it was interesting to see as the “plot” unfolded how film began to be used the movies as a modern metaphor for humankind’s imaginations, of its dreams and of the process of going from disbelief to the suspension of disbelief that is part of any film experience, including this film.
As for the film itself, based on an adaptation of novelistic treatment of the wonder of discovery, of invention, and of pure fantasy inherent in trying to make dreams come to life it works pretty well. And to place that challenge in the hands of a child just adds to the effect. One might argue, and should, that the length of the film including its little redundancies (the constant background shots of the railroad station and it inhabitants) could reasonably have been shorter by about fifteen minutes. And, perhaps with tongue in cheek, that it really does take film’s magical suspension of disbelief techniques to take a plot that is centered in Paris while the cast speaks the Queen’s English making one think that we could have been in the center of London just as easily. Other than those minor points this film was entertaining. And isn’t that what film should be all about. That is what its founders thought anyway.
Hugo, starring Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, Jude Law. Directed by Martin Scorsese, Paramount Pictures, 2011
A film about film-making, or about a slice of life of the history of film-making and filmmakers, must always be an appealing subject for any director, and especially for a quirky and historically-immersed director like Martin Scorsese. We are all children of the film age (including Hugo and the other children who pop up in this film) and thus it was interesting to see as the “plot” unfolded how film began to be used the movies as a modern metaphor for humankind’s imaginations, of its dreams and of the process of going from disbelief to the suspension of disbelief that is part of any film experience, including this film.
As for the film itself, based on an adaptation of novelistic treatment of the wonder of discovery, of invention, and of pure fantasy inherent in trying to make dreams come to life it works pretty well. And to place that challenge in the hands of a child just adds to the effect. One might argue, and should, that the length of the film including its little redundancies (the constant background shots of the railroad station and it inhabitants) could reasonably have been shorter by about fifteen minutes. And, perhaps with tongue in cheek, that it really does take film’s magical suspension of disbelief techniques to take a plot that is centered in Paris while the cast speaks the Queen’s English making one think that we could have been in the center of London just as easily. Other than those minor points this film was entertaining. And isn’t that what film should be all about. That is what its founders thought anyway.
From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Frankie Out In The Adventure Car Hop Night
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Dubs performing the classic Could This Be Magic? to set the mood for this piece.
Okay, you know the routine by now, or at least the drift of these 1950s days of classic rock and roll sketches, those king hell king corner boy-in chief Frankie Riley-induced sketches that I have been forced to do, forced by pressed memory to do if you are asking for a reason. Or maybe, as a reason anyway, just to unwind after raging against the awry-struck world we live in, or the coming big sleep night. And if you don’t know the routine here is a quick primer. Start out with a tip of the hat to the fact that each generation, each teenage generation that is, makes its own tribal customs, mores and language. Then move on to the part that is befuddled (my befuddled) by today’s teenage-hood and its tribal customs, mores, and language. And then I go, presto, scampering back to my own “safe” teenage-hood, the teenage coming of age of the generation of ‘68 that came of age in the early 1960s and start on some cultural “nugget” from that seemingly pre-historic period. Well this sketch is no different from the established pattern, except, today we decipher the 1950s golden age of the drive-in restaurant, although really it is the car hops (waitresses), the essential ingredient in that scene, that drive this one.
See, this sketch is driven , almost subconsciously driven, by the Edward Hopper Nighthawk-like illustrations on the The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era CDs that I have been checking out lately in search of that 1950s good night. In this case it is the drive-in restaurant of blessed teenage memory that caught my eye. For the younger set, or those oldsters who “forgot,” that was a restaurant idea driven by car culture, especially the car culture from the golden era of teenage car-dom, the 1950s. Put together cars, cars all flash-painted and fully-chromed, “boss” cars we called them in my working class neighborhood, young restless males, food, and a little off-hand sex, or rather the promise or mist of a promise of it, and you have the real backdrop to the drive-in restaurant. If one really thought about it why else would somebody, anybody who was assumed to be functioning, sit in their cars eating food, and at best ugly food at that, off a tray strapped to the door while seated in their cherry, “boss," 1959 Chevy.
Beside the food, of course, there was the off-hand girl watching (in the other cars with trays hanging off their doors), the car hop ogling (and propositioning, if you had the nerve, and if your intelligence was good and there was not some 250 pound fullback back-breaker waiting to take her home a few cars over), and above all there was the steady sound of music, rock music, natch, coming from those boomerang speakers in those, need I say it, “boss” automobiles. And that is where this entire sketch gets mixed together.
Of course, just like another time when I was discussing teenage soda fountain life, the mere mention, no, the mere thought of the term “car hop” made me think of a Frankie story. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, Frankie from the old hell-fire shipbuilding sunk and gone and it-ain’t-coming-back-again seen better days working class neighborhood where we grew up, or tried to. Frankie who I have already told you I have a thousand stories about, or hope I do. Frankie the most treacherous little bastard that you could ever meet on one day, and the kindest man (better man/child), and not just cheap jack, dime store kindness either, alive the next day. Ya, that Frankie, my best middle school and high school friend Frankie.
Did I tell you about Joanne, Frankie’s “divine” (his term, without quotation marks) Joanne because she entered, she always in the end entered into these things? Yes, I see, looking back at my notes that I did back when I was telling you about her little Roy “The Boy” Orbison trick. The one where she kept playing Roy’s Running Scared endlessly to get Frankie’s dander up. But see while Frankie had really no serious other eyes for the dames except his “divine” Joanne (I insist on putting that divine in quotation marks when telling of Joanne, at least for the first few times I mention her name, even now. Needless to say I questioned, and questioned hard, that designation on more than one occasion to no avail) he was nothing but a high blood-pressured, high-strung shirt-chaser, first class. And the girls liked him, although not so much for his looks as they were just kind of Steve McQueen okay. What made them they go for him was his line of patter, first class. Patter, arcane, obscure patter that made me, most of the time, think of fingernails scratching on a blackboard (except when I was hot on his trail trying to imitate him) and his faux “beat” pose , midnight sunglasses, flannel shirt, black chinos, and funky work boots (ditto on the imitation here as well). And it was not just “beat’ girls that liked to be around him either as you will find out.
Well, the long and short of it was that Frankie, late 1963 Frankie, and the... (Oh, forget the divine, quotation marks or not) Joanne had had their 207th (that number, or close, since 8th grade lovebirds) break-up and Frankie was a "free” man. To celebrate this freedom Frankie, Frankie, who was almost as poor as I was but who has a father with a car that he was not too cheap or crazy about to not let Frankie use on occasion, had wheels. Okay, Studebaker wheels but wheels anyway. And he was going to treat me to a drive-in meal as we went cruising the night, the Saturday night, the Saturday be-bop night looking for some frails (read: girls, Frankie had about seven thousand names for them)
Tired (or bored) from cruising the Saturday be-bop night away (meaning girl-less) we hit the local drive-in hot spot, Arnie’s Adventure Car Hop for one last, desperate attempt at happiness (Yah, things were put, Frank and me put anyway, just that melodramatically for every little thing). What I didn’t know was that Frankie, king hell skirt-chaser, had his off-hand eye on one of the car hops, Sandy, and as it turned out she was one of those girls who was enamored of his patter (or so I heard later). So he pulled into her station and started to chat her up as we ordered the haute cuisine. And here was the funny thing, now that I saw her up close I could see that she was nothing but a fox (read: “hot” girl) and Frankie once again had hit pay dirt. The not so funny thing was that she was so enamored of Frankie’s patter that he was going to take her home after work. No problem you say. No way, big problem. I was to be left there to catch a ride home anyway I could while they set sail into that good night. Thanks, Frankie.
Well, I was pretty burned up about it for a while but as always with “charma” Frankie we hooked up again a few days later. And here is where I got a little sweet revenge (although don’t tell him that).
Frankie sat me down at the old town pizza parlor and told me the whole story and even now, as I recount it, I can’t believe it. Sandy was a fox, no question, but a married fox, a very married fox, who said when Frankie first met her that she was about twenty-two and had a kid. Her husband was in the service and she was “lonely” and succumbed to Frankie’s charms. Fair enough, it is a lonely world at times. But wait a minute, I bet you thought that Frankie’s getting mixed up with a married honey with a probably killer husband was the big deal. No way, no way at all. You know, or you can figure out, old Frankie spent the night with Sandy. Again, it's a lonely world sometimes.
The real problem, the real Frankie problem, was once they started to compare biographies and who they knew around town, and didn’t know, it turned out that Sandy, old fox, old married fox with brute husband, old Arnie’s car hop Sandy was some kind of cousin to Joanne, a second cousin maybe. And she was no cradle-robber twenty-two (as if you could rob the cradle with Frankie) but nineteen, almost twenty and had lied about her age because she had been embarrassed about having a baby in high school and having to go to her "aunt's" to have the child. (More “aunts” than you would have suspected got unexpected visits from errant nieces than you could shake a stick at in those days when bastardry had a greater social stigma.)
Moreover, somewhere along the line Sandy and her cousin Joanne had had a parting of the ways, a nasty parting of the ways. So sweet as a honey bun Arnie's car hop Sandy, sweet teen-age mother Sandy, had been looking for a way to take revenge on Joanne and Frankie, old king of the night Frankie, was the meat. She had him sized up pretty well, as he admitted to me. An ironic slight smile, a little response to some off-hand patter, and maybe a little sway and he fell, fell easy. So for a long time Frankie was sweating this one out like crazy, and swearing everyone within a hundred miles who might have seen him with Sandy to secrecy.
Here is the best part though. One night I was walking into Skip’s Record Shop looking for some new record as Sandy was walking out. She stopped me to inquire about whether Frankie and Joanne were back together. I answered yes with a shrug. Then she told me her version of that Saturday night saga I have just related. It matched up pretty well with what Frankie had told me so I asked her whether she was going to do anything to break up our lovebirds. She laughed and told me (in confidence) that she had no intention in the world of doing anything about that. She had, after all that brute of a husband, who might take out Frankie, and her. Besides and here is where women, married or single, are something else. All she really wanted out of Frankie was the knowledge that she could take him away from Joanne any time she wanted to. And, added in, to make Frankie sweat about Joanne finding out. I’m telling you this one in strictest confidence even now. Don’t tell Joanne or Frankie. Ever.
Okay, you know the routine by now, or at least the drift of these 1950s days of classic rock and roll sketches, those king hell king corner boy-in chief Frankie Riley-induced sketches that I have been forced to do, forced by pressed memory to do if you are asking for a reason. Or maybe, as a reason anyway, just to unwind after raging against the awry-struck world we live in, or the coming big sleep night. And if you don’t know the routine here is a quick primer. Start out with a tip of the hat to the fact that each generation, each teenage generation that is, makes its own tribal customs, mores and language. Then move on to the part that is befuddled (my befuddled) by today’s teenage-hood and its tribal customs, mores, and language. And then I go, presto, scampering back to my own “safe” teenage-hood, the teenage coming of age of the generation of ‘68 that came of age in the early 1960s and start on some cultural “nugget” from that seemingly pre-historic period. Well this sketch is no different from the established pattern, except, today we decipher the 1950s golden age of the drive-in restaurant, although really it is the car hops (waitresses), the essential ingredient in that scene, that drive this one.
See, this sketch is driven , almost subconsciously driven, by the Edward Hopper Nighthawk-like illustrations on the The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era CDs that I have been checking out lately in search of that 1950s good night. In this case it is the drive-in restaurant of blessed teenage memory that caught my eye. For the younger set, or those oldsters who “forgot,” that was a restaurant idea driven by car culture, especially the car culture from the golden era of teenage car-dom, the 1950s. Put together cars, cars all flash-painted and fully-chromed, “boss” cars we called them in my working class neighborhood, young restless males, food, and a little off-hand sex, or rather the promise or mist of a promise of it, and you have the real backdrop to the drive-in restaurant. If one really thought about it why else would somebody, anybody who was assumed to be functioning, sit in their cars eating food, and at best ugly food at that, off a tray strapped to the door while seated in their cherry, “boss," 1959 Chevy.
Beside the food, of course, there was the off-hand girl watching (in the other cars with trays hanging off their doors), the car hop ogling (and propositioning, if you had the nerve, and if your intelligence was good and there was not some 250 pound fullback back-breaker waiting to take her home a few cars over), and above all there was the steady sound of music, rock music, natch, coming from those boomerang speakers in those, need I say it, “boss” automobiles. And that is where this entire sketch gets mixed together.
Of course, just like another time when I was discussing teenage soda fountain life, the mere mention, no, the mere thought of the term “car hop” made me think of a Frankie story. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, Frankie from the old hell-fire shipbuilding sunk and gone and it-ain’t-coming-back-again seen better days working class neighborhood where we grew up, or tried to. Frankie who I have already told you I have a thousand stories about, or hope I do. Frankie the most treacherous little bastard that you could ever meet on one day, and the kindest man (better man/child), and not just cheap jack, dime store kindness either, alive the next day. Ya, that Frankie, my best middle school and high school friend Frankie.
Did I tell you about Joanne, Frankie’s “divine” (his term, without quotation marks) Joanne because she entered, she always in the end entered into these things? Yes, I see, looking back at my notes that I did back when I was telling you about her little Roy “The Boy” Orbison trick. The one where she kept playing Roy’s Running Scared endlessly to get Frankie’s dander up. But see while Frankie had really no serious other eyes for the dames except his “divine” Joanne (I insist on putting that divine in quotation marks when telling of Joanne, at least for the first few times I mention her name, even now. Needless to say I questioned, and questioned hard, that designation on more than one occasion to no avail) he was nothing but a high blood-pressured, high-strung shirt-chaser, first class. And the girls liked him, although not so much for his looks as they were just kind of Steve McQueen okay. What made them they go for him was his line of patter, first class. Patter, arcane, obscure patter that made me, most of the time, think of fingernails scratching on a blackboard (except when I was hot on his trail trying to imitate him) and his faux “beat” pose , midnight sunglasses, flannel shirt, black chinos, and funky work boots (ditto on the imitation here as well). And it was not just “beat’ girls that liked to be around him either as you will find out.
Well, the long and short of it was that Frankie, late 1963 Frankie, and the... (Oh, forget the divine, quotation marks or not) Joanne had had their 207th (that number, or close, since 8th grade lovebirds) break-up and Frankie was a "free” man. To celebrate this freedom Frankie, Frankie, who was almost as poor as I was but who has a father with a car that he was not too cheap or crazy about to not let Frankie use on occasion, had wheels. Okay, Studebaker wheels but wheels anyway. And he was going to treat me to a drive-in meal as we went cruising the night, the Saturday night, the Saturday be-bop night looking for some frails (read: girls, Frankie had about seven thousand names for them)
Tired (or bored) from cruising the Saturday be-bop night away (meaning girl-less) we hit the local drive-in hot spot, Arnie’s Adventure Car Hop for one last, desperate attempt at happiness (Yah, things were put, Frank and me put anyway, just that melodramatically for every little thing). What I didn’t know was that Frankie, king hell skirt-chaser, had his off-hand eye on one of the car hops, Sandy, and as it turned out she was one of those girls who was enamored of his patter (or so I heard later). So he pulled into her station and started to chat her up as we ordered the haute cuisine. And here was the funny thing, now that I saw her up close I could see that she was nothing but a fox (read: “hot” girl) and Frankie once again had hit pay dirt. The not so funny thing was that she was so enamored of Frankie’s patter that he was going to take her home after work. No problem you say. No way, big problem. I was to be left there to catch a ride home anyway I could while they set sail into that good night. Thanks, Frankie.
Well, I was pretty burned up about it for a while but as always with “charma” Frankie we hooked up again a few days later. And here is where I got a little sweet revenge (although don’t tell him that).
Frankie sat me down at the old town pizza parlor and told me the whole story and even now, as I recount it, I can’t believe it. Sandy was a fox, no question, but a married fox, a very married fox, who said when Frankie first met her that she was about twenty-two and had a kid. Her husband was in the service and she was “lonely” and succumbed to Frankie’s charms. Fair enough, it is a lonely world at times. But wait a minute, I bet you thought that Frankie’s getting mixed up with a married honey with a probably killer husband was the big deal. No way, no way at all. You know, or you can figure out, old Frankie spent the night with Sandy. Again, it's a lonely world sometimes.
The real problem, the real Frankie problem, was once they started to compare biographies and who they knew around town, and didn’t know, it turned out that Sandy, old fox, old married fox with brute husband, old Arnie’s car hop Sandy was some kind of cousin to Joanne, a second cousin maybe. And she was no cradle-robber twenty-two (as if you could rob the cradle with Frankie) but nineteen, almost twenty and had lied about her age because she had been embarrassed about having a baby in high school and having to go to her "aunt's" to have the child. (More “aunts” than you would have suspected got unexpected visits from errant nieces than you could shake a stick at in those days when bastardry had a greater social stigma.)
Moreover, somewhere along the line Sandy and her cousin Joanne had had a parting of the ways, a nasty parting of the ways. So sweet as a honey bun Arnie's car hop Sandy, sweet teen-age mother Sandy, had been looking for a way to take revenge on Joanne and Frankie, old king of the night Frankie, was the meat. She had him sized up pretty well, as he admitted to me. An ironic slight smile, a little response to some off-hand patter, and maybe a little sway and he fell, fell easy. So for a long time Frankie was sweating this one out like crazy, and swearing everyone within a hundred miles who might have seen him with Sandy to secrecy.
Here is the best part though. One night I was walking into Skip’s Record Shop looking for some new record as Sandy was walking out. She stopped me to inquire about whether Frankie and Joanne were back together. I answered yes with a shrug. Then she told me her version of that Saturday night saga I have just related. It matched up pretty well with what Frankie had told me so I asked her whether she was going to do anything to break up our lovebirds. She laughed and told me (in confidence) that she had no intention in the world of doing anything about that. She had, after all that brute of a husband, who might take out Frankie, and her. Besides and here is where women, married or single, are something else. All she really wanted out of Frankie was the knowledge that she could take him away from Joanne any time she wanted to. And, added in, to make Frankie sweat about Joanne finding out. I’m telling you this one in strictest confidence even now. Don’t tell Joanne or Frankie. Ever.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
From "OCCUPY HOMES MASSACHUSETTS"- No Homeowner Need Stand Alone!-Organize Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Quincy website for more information about Occupy Homes MA.
Stand Together-Occupy Homes Ma-Stop 'the banksters' Foreclosures and Evictions
OCCUPY HOMES MA
Next Meeting Scheduled For Tufts Library, Broad Street, Weymouth, August 21 2012-6:00 PM- Check out directions and details on our Facebook page-Occupy Homes MA.
WANT ASSISTANCE OR MORE INFORMATION?
OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com
617-249-4359
*********
Are you facing FORECLOSURE?- YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Stand up with other homeowners who are fighting with us.
Want more information?
Contact us by email at OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com
or call us at 617-249-4359
The homeowner's meeting is intended to be a support group
specifically for those in the foreclosure process.
ATTEND A HOMEOWNERS MEETING TO
Develop Solidarity and Support:
We urge people to leave their shame at the door. We work to end the stigma and isolation of individual foreclosure and eviction cases by uniting homeowners.
Learn Your Rights:
You don't have to move just because the bank says so. We empower people to know their rights and advocate for themselves.
Organize with Occupy Homes MA:
Community members and activists are ready to stand with you. Let’s build mass resistance to defend your home and break the stranglehold the big banks have on our neighborhoods.
************
Want to get involved?
Participate!
Fight back! A movement working for the 99% must be shaped and formed by all those who participate. All decisions on the direction and scope of the struggle are democratic.
Organize!
Build powerful communities! Identify issues affecting our neighborhoods, and work together on solutions.
Mobilize!
The best tool of the 99% is our numbers, and our ability to work together. Plan public actions, protests, and home defense.
Educate!
Become educated and teach others about the nature of the foreclosure crisis, and ways empowered communities can begin to solve it.
************
Excerpt from...
Keeping House: Local Organizations Collaborate to Help Boston Residents Stay in Their Home Post-Foreclosure
Noelle Swan Spare Change News
When Jeril Richardson checked out of the hospital after he was hit by a car in 2009, he returned home to find that his landlord had not been keeping up with mortgage payments and the bank was foreclosing on his Hyde Park home.
Canvassers knocking on his door told him about City Life Vida Urbana, a community organization that would help him to fight to stay in his home. Nearly three years later, Richardson still lives in the house, pays rent to the bank, and is saving to purchase the property.
Every weekend, students and community volunteers from Project No One Leaves hit the streets in an effort to reach tenants and homeowners facing foreclosure to inform them of their rights during and after the foreclosure.
"We try to get there before eviction agents come knocking and telling them to leave immediately," said Chris Larson, senior at Tufts University who helped to coordinate a chapter of No One Leaves at Tufts.
In recent years, keeping up with new foreclosures has become a daunting task, said Chas Hamilton, a third-year law student and current president of the board for Project No One Leaves at Harvard Law School. "In a given week, there might be 30 new foreclosures listed in Boston proper."
"Then there are properties that they did not get to in weeks past because canvassers ran out of time, people weren't home, or their just weren't enough cars to get to all of the neighborhoods." Volunteers for No One Leaves chart foreclosure postings listed in local newspapers and real estate publications.
Listings are grouped into geographic zones of the city and mapped out. Each week, a dozen or so volunteers gather at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau in Cambridge, split up into groups of two to five depending on the number of cars available, and try to get out to as many properties as they can in three hours.
"The real message that we try to deliver is that foreclosure is not the end. It's the beginning of this very long battle," Larson said.
http://sparechangenews.net/news/keeping-house-
local-organizations-collaborate-help-boston-residents-
stay-their-home-post-forecl
********
WHY Occupy Homes MA?
OCCUPY OUR HOMES
Far too many homeowners are facing foreclosure. The need is greater than the capacity to help. City Life along with a team from Harvard Law is mentoring Occupy Homes MA as we create this new chapter to help homeowners on the South Shore. We are here to:
STOP FORECLOSURES
This is a people's movement that is building across Massachusetts. Homeowners did not create the crisis we are in, and homeowners are no longer going to face the shame of foreclosure and eviction alone. We are here to:
STOP EVICTIONS
The police should serve and protect the 99%, not assist the big banks with eviction. We will organize the community and resist eviction. Knowledge is power; they cannot easily put you out on the street - we want to help you, we won't let them!
HOUSING IS A HUMAN
There are 18 million empty homes in the U.S.
Help us, to help you by saying: "NOT MY HOME!"
Stand Together-Occupy Homes Ma-Stop 'the banksters' Foreclosures and Evictions
OCCUPY HOMES MA
Next Meeting Scheduled For Tufts Library, Broad Street, Weymouth, August 21 2012-6:00 PM- Check out directions and details on our Facebook page-Occupy Homes MA.
WANT ASSISTANCE OR MORE INFORMATION?
OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com
617-249-4359
*********
Are you facing FORECLOSURE?- YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Stand up with other homeowners who are fighting with us.
Want more information?
Contact us by email at OccupyHomesMA@gmail.com
or call us at 617-249-4359
The homeowner's meeting is intended to be a support group
specifically for those in the foreclosure process.
ATTEND A HOMEOWNERS MEETING TO
Develop Solidarity and Support:
We urge people to leave their shame at the door. We work to end the stigma and isolation of individual foreclosure and eviction cases by uniting homeowners.
Learn Your Rights:
You don't have to move just because the bank says so. We empower people to know their rights and advocate for themselves.
Organize with Occupy Homes MA:
Community members and activists are ready to stand with you. Let’s build mass resistance to defend your home and break the stranglehold the big banks have on our neighborhoods.
************
Want to get involved?
Participate!
Fight back! A movement working for the 99% must be shaped and formed by all those who participate. All decisions on the direction and scope of the struggle are democratic.
Organize!
Build powerful communities! Identify issues affecting our neighborhoods, and work together on solutions.
Mobilize!
The best tool of the 99% is our numbers, and our ability to work together. Plan public actions, protests, and home defense.
Educate!
Become educated and teach others about the nature of the foreclosure crisis, and ways empowered communities can begin to solve it.
************
Excerpt from...
Keeping House: Local Organizations Collaborate to Help Boston Residents Stay in Their Home Post-Foreclosure
Noelle Swan Spare Change News
When Jeril Richardson checked out of the hospital after he was hit by a car in 2009, he returned home to find that his landlord had not been keeping up with mortgage payments and the bank was foreclosing on his Hyde Park home.
Canvassers knocking on his door told him about City Life Vida Urbana, a community organization that would help him to fight to stay in his home. Nearly three years later, Richardson still lives in the house, pays rent to the bank, and is saving to purchase the property.
Every weekend, students and community volunteers from Project No One Leaves hit the streets in an effort to reach tenants and homeowners facing foreclosure to inform them of their rights during and after the foreclosure.
"We try to get there before eviction agents come knocking and telling them to leave immediately," said Chris Larson, senior at Tufts University who helped to coordinate a chapter of No One Leaves at Tufts.
In recent years, keeping up with new foreclosures has become a daunting task, said Chas Hamilton, a third-year law student and current president of the board for Project No One Leaves at Harvard Law School. "In a given week, there might be 30 new foreclosures listed in Boston proper."
"Then there are properties that they did not get to in weeks past because canvassers ran out of time, people weren't home, or their just weren't enough cars to get to all of the neighborhoods." Volunteers for No One Leaves chart foreclosure postings listed in local newspapers and real estate publications.
Listings are grouped into geographic zones of the city and mapped out. Each week, a dozen or so volunteers gather at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau in Cambridge, split up into groups of two to five depending on the number of cars available, and try to get out to as many properties as they can in three hours.
"The real message that we try to deliver is that foreclosure is not the end. It's the beginning of this very long battle," Larson said.
http://sparechangenews.net/news/keeping-house-
local-organizations-collaborate-help-boston-residents-
stay-their-home-post-forecl
********
WHY Occupy Homes MA?
OCCUPY OUR HOMES
Far too many homeowners are facing foreclosure. The need is greater than the capacity to help. City Life along with a team from Harvard Law is mentoring Occupy Homes MA as we create this new chapter to help homeowners on the South Shore. We are here to:
STOP FORECLOSURES
This is a people's movement that is building across Massachusetts. Homeowners did not create the crisis we are in, and homeowners are no longer going to face the shame of foreclosure and eviction alone. We are here to:
STOP EVICTIONS
The police should serve and protect the 99%, not assist the big banks with eviction. We will organize the community and resist eviction. Knowledge is power; they cannot easily put you out on the street - we want to help you, we won't let them!
HOUSING IS A HUMAN
There are 18 million empty homes in the U.S.
Help us, to help you by saying: "NOT MY HOME!"
Silencing Dissent in America-by Stephen Lendman
Silencing Dissent in America-by Stephen Lendman
18 Aug 2012
Freedom in America is endangered. Bipartisan complicity plans destroying it altogether.
America is on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin. Police state laws threaten everyone.
Increasingly dissent is marginalized. It's not tolerated. Resistance is called dangerous to national security.
Federal authorities target activists. So do militarized local police. No holds barred tactics are employed.
In October 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights said:
"The growing threat to the right to dissent has been demonstrated in the U.S. government's efforts to silence speech, and criminalize and target peaceful movements."
"These efforts are becoming more aggressive, emboldened further by the Supreme Court's increasingly conservative decisions, for instance regarding material support in the form of humanitarian aid to so-called terrorist organizations."
Howard Zinn called dissent "the highest form of patriotism." Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler's book "Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in Twenty First Century America" discusses what everyone needs to know.
It explores how activism and dissent are targeted. Demonstrations are attacked and disrupted. Protesters are called terrorists. They're arrested and jailed for expressing constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment and other rights.
Authorities claim they give "material support" to perceived enemies. "Hell No" provides advice on dealing with a menu of police state practices.
American's First Amendment guarantees free expression, a free press, the right to peacefully assemble, free exercise of religion, and right to petition government for redress of grievances.
Without these rights, all others are at risk. They've been fast eroding in America for years en route to eliminating them altogether. Forgotten are numerous Supreme Court decisions upholding free expression and assembly rights.
In Edwards v. South Carolina (1963), the Court ruled against state authorities for prohibiting protesters from marching for civil rights.
In Cox v. Louisiana (1965), the Court held that state government cannot employ "breach of the peace" statutes against protesters engaging in peaceful demonstrations by claiming they may incite violence.
In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Court ruled government can't punish inflammatory speech unless it's "directed" to incite lawless action.
In Texas v. Johnson (1989), Justice William Brennan wrote the majority opinion, saying:
In Wooley v. Maynard (1977), the Court upheld "the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority" with respect to "idea(s) they find morally objectionable."
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Post-9/11, dissent has been increasingly marginalized.
In October 2008, so-called (Attorney General Michael) Mukasey/(FBI Director Robert) Mueller Guidelines gave federal authorities "flexibility (to) protect the Nation from terrorist threats."
Consolidated new rules include criminal and national security issues. Surveillance restrictions were eased. Domestic spying became institutionalized. Constitutional rights are ignored.
"War on terror" authority escalated FBI abuses. Intrusive surveillance tools used against alleged spies now target ordinary Americans. Mukasey/Mueller Guidelines underwent four separate changes. Each one increased FBI surveillance powers.
Tactics include intrusive spying, commercial database data retrieval, paid informants infiltrating groups or targeting individuals on false pretenses, and letting covert unidentified agents conduct "pretext" interviews for information.
Mukasey/Mueller Guidelines left ordinary Americans increasingly vulnerable to abuse. Anyone may be investigated for any reason or none at all.
Authorization permits surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and other social justice groups. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists are targeted. Any organization or individual is vulnerable. Anything goes is now policy. Obama is more repressive than Bush.
Data mining collects vast amounts of information on ordinary Americans. How it's used, who knows. Against targeted individuals and groups, it's used abusively.
Everything is fair game. Personal records of all kinds are obtained. Activities are closely monitored. So-called "suspicious activity reports" allege possible criminal activity.
The USA Patriot Act authorized so-called National Security Letters (NSLs). They expanded the FBI's authority to obtain personal customer records from ISPs, financial institutions, credit companies, and other sources without prior court approval.
Innocent people are targeted. Virtually anything in public or private records can be gotten. "Gag" orders prevent targeted individuals or groups from revealing the information demanded. NSL use continues increasing exponentially.
Lawful rights are violated in numerous ways. Classic police state tactics are used. No one's safe when authorities act this way. Freedom is perilously close to vanishing. Mueller has virtual carte blanche authority.
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters have been targeted and criminalized. Constitutional rights are violated. Beatings and other forms of excessive force are used. Nonviolent protests are called terrorism.
Patriot Act provisions criminalized dissent. Innocent people are arrested, indicted and imprisoned. "Terrorist profiles" let FBI and local police investigate anyone for any reason. Obama and congressional allies sold out constituents for Wall Street and other monied interests.
Obama escalated repressive Bush practices. The Oregorian newspaper reported that heavily armed FBI units raided homes of OWS protesters in Seattle and Olympia, WA and Portland, OR over the last month.
Actions have been ongoing since early July. Authorities claim violent crimes are being investigated. Eyewitnesses report dozens of FBI agents in body armor and military fatigues armed with assault rifles involved.
One witness said:
In fact, nonviolent activists were targeted, terrorized, and criminalized. At issue is engaging in constitutionally protected protests. Militarized FBI agents used stun grenades and battering rams. Victims were pulled out of bed at gunpoint.
Personal possessions were seized. They included computers, suspect literature and other materials in written or electronic form, cell phones, thumb drives, and clothing with political slogans.
False charges remain sealed. Fundamental rights are criminalized. Post-9/11, similar raids were conducted. At issue is political dissent as well as America's ongoing war on Islam.
Disproportionate force is used. Victims were handcuffed while homes were searched. Arrests weren't made, but about six protesters were subpoenaed to appear before grand juries.
On August 1, Dennison Williams and Leah Plante read a statement outside a Portland, OR courthouse, saying:
Williams and Plante said they'll invoke the Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to answer grand jury questions.
America's Grand Jury System
They're convened to determine possible probable cause to return indictments. Critics say they rubber stamp aggressive prosecutions.
Federally, they have extraordinary investigative powers. Prosecutors abuse them to manipulate proceedings for outcomes they wish. Victims are vulnerable to bogus indictments. The Fifth Amendment requires grand jury indictments for federal criminal charges.
Prosecutors have extraordinary discretion. They choose witnesses, grant selective immunity, and do nearly all questioning.
Proceedings are conducted in secret. No one may disclose what goes on unless ordered to do so judicially. Anyone may be subpoenaed. Answering questions is mandated unless special privilege is granted. For example: lawyer/client confidentiality or self-incrimination.
Lawyers can't intervene to help clients while testifying. Double jeopardy doesn't apply to grand juries, but without indictments, prosecutors need Criminal Division Attorney General permission to try again. Victims have no protections against false witness testimonies perhaps gotten for leniency on existing or threatened charges.
Prosecutors routinely want grand jury indictments. The system is rigged to get them. Targeted victims are defenseless. Many innocent people languish wrongfully in prison. Justice is routinely denied.
Numerous past incidents occurred. In September 2010, administration ordered raids targeted Chicago and Minneapolis anti-war/pro-Palestinian activists. Arrests weren't made, but homes were ransacked. Computers, cell phones, books, photos, correspondence, papers, and other possessions were seized.
Twenty-three victims were subpoenaed to testify before grand juries. Activists were again targeted during NATO's May invasion. False terror plots were claimed. Activist homes were raided. Five victims faced terrorism-related charges.
Numerous other arrests were made. Everyone charged is innocent. Police brutality was reported. Most injuries were from baton head and body blows. Over two dozen were hospitalized for broken bones, concussions, knocked out teeth, and open wounds requiring stitches.
NATO arrives nowhere peacefully. Obama officials and local police wage war on dissent. Legal restraints don't apply for anyone charged with alleged terrorism or conspiracy to commit it. Abolition of constitutional rights shows what everyone faces.
It's the wrong time to be activist in America. Doing so means possible indictment, prosecution, and imprisonment for doing the right thing.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
18 Aug 2012
Freedom in America is endangered. Bipartisan complicity plans destroying it altogether.
America is on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin. Police state laws threaten everyone.
Increasingly dissent is marginalized. It's not tolerated. Resistance is called dangerous to national security.
Federal authorities target activists. So do militarized local police. No holds barred tactics are employed.
In October 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights said:
"The growing threat to the right to dissent has been demonstrated in the U.S. government's efforts to silence speech, and criminalize and target peaceful movements."
"These efforts are becoming more aggressive, emboldened further by the Supreme Court's increasingly conservative decisions, for instance regarding material support in the form of humanitarian aid to so-called terrorist organizations."
Howard Zinn called dissent "the highest form of patriotism." Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler's book "Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in Twenty First Century America" discusses what everyone needs to know.
It explores how activism and dissent are targeted. Demonstrations are attacked and disrupted. Protesters are called terrorists. They're arrested and jailed for expressing constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment and other rights.
Authorities claim they give "material support" to perceived enemies. "Hell No" provides advice on dealing with a menu of police state practices.
American's First Amendment guarantees free expression, a free press, the right to peacefully assemble, free exercise of religion, and right to petition government for redress of grievances.
Without these rights, all others are at risk. They've been fast eroding in America for years en route to eliminating them altogether. Forgotten are numerous Supreme Court decisions upholding free expression and assembly rights.
In Edwards v. South Carolina (1963), the Court ruled against state authorities for prohibiting protesters from marching for civil rights.
In Cox v. Louisiana (1965), the Court held that state government cannot employ "breach of the peace" statutes against protesters engaging in peaceful demonstrations by claiming they may incite violence.
In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Court ruled government can't punish inflammatory speech unless it's "directed" to incite lawless action.
In Texas v. Johnson (1989), Justice William Brennan wrote the majority opinion, saying:
"(I)f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable."
In Wooley v. Maynard (1977), the Court upheld "the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority" with respect to "idea(s) they find morally objectionable."
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Article 20(1) states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."
Article 29(2) states:
"In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."
Post-9/11, dissent has been increasingly marginalized.
In October 2008, so-called (Attorney General Michael) Mukasey/(FBI Director Robert) Mueller Guidelines gave federal authorities "flexibility (to) protect the Nation from terrorist threats."
Consolidated new rules include criminal and national security issues. Surveillance restrictions were eased. Domestic spying became institutionalized. Constitutional rights are ignored.
"War on terror" authority escalated FBI abuses. Intrusive surveillance tools used against alleged spies now target ordinary Americans. Mukasey/Mueller Guidelines underwent four separate changes. Each one increased FBI surveillance powers.
Tactics include intrusive spying, commercial database data retrieval, paid informants infiltrating groups or targeting individuals on false pretenses, and letting covert unidentified agents conduct "pretext" interviews for information.
Mukasey/Mueller Guidelines left ordinary Americans increasingly vulnerable to abuse. Anyone may be investigated for any reason or none at all.
Authorization permits surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and other social justice groups. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists are targeted. Any organization or individual is vulnerable. Anything goes is now policy. Obama is more repressive than Bush.
Data mining collects vast amounts of information on ordinary Americans. How it's used, who knows. Against targeted individuals and groups, it's used abusively.
Everything is fair game. Personal records of all kinds are obtained. Activities are closely monitored. So-called "suspicious activity reports" allege possible criminal activity.
The USA Patriot Act authorized so-called National Security Letters (NSLs). They expanded the FBI's authority to obtain personal customer records from ISPs, financial institutions, credit companies, and other sources without prior court approval.
Innocent people are targeted. Virtually anything in public or private records can be gotten. "Gag" orders prevent targeted individuals or groups from revealing the information demanded. NSL use continues increasing exponentially.
Lawful rights are violated in numerous ways. Classic police state tactics are used. No one's safe when authorities act this way. Freedom is perilously close to vanishing. Mueller has virtual carte blanche authority.
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters have been targeted and criminalized. Constitutional rights are violated. Beatings and other forms of excessive force are used. Nonviolent protests are called terrorism.
Patriot Act provisions criminalized dissent. Innocent people are arrested, indicted and imprisoned. "Terrorist profiles" let FBI and local police investigate anyone for any reason. Obama and congressional allies sold out constituents for Wall Street and other monied interests.
Obama escalated repressive Bush practices. The Oregorian newspaper reported that heavily armed FBI units raided homes of OWS protesters in Seattle and Olympia, WA and Portland, OR over the last month.
Actions have been ongoing since early July. Authorities claim violent crimes are being investigated. Eyewitnesses report dozens of FBI agents in body armor and military fatigues armed with assault rifles involved.
One witness said:
"I just heard lots of pounding at 6 o'clock, and I got up and I saw the whole thing. I saw them screaming to get in. They were using the battering ram, and then finally the door just opened."
FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele told the Oregonian"
"The warrants are sealed, and I anticipate they will remain sealed."
Authorities alleged searches were for "anti-government or anarchist literature or materials," as well as "documentation and communications related to the offenses, including but not limited to notes, diagrams, letters, diary and journal entries, address books, and other documentation in written or electronic form."
In fact, nonviolent activists were targeted, terrorized, and criminalized. At issue is engaging in constitutionally protected protests. Militarized FBI agents used stun grenades and battering rams. Victims were pulled out of bed at gunpoint.
Personal possessions were seized. They included computers, suspect literature and other materials in written or electronic form, cell phones, thumb drives, and clothing with political slogans.
False charges remain sealed. Fundamental rights are criminalized. Post-9/11, similar raids were conducted. At issue is political dissent as well as America's ongoing war on Islam.
Disproportionate force is used. Victims were handcuffed while homes were searched. Arrests weren't made, but about six protesters were subpoenaed to appear before grand juries.
On August 1, Dennison Williams and Leah Plante read a statement outside a Portland, OR courthouse, saying:
"This grand jury is a tool of political repression. It is attempting to turn individuals against each other by coercing those subpoenaed to testify against their communities."
"The secret nature of grand jury proceedings creates mistrust and can undermine solidarity. And imprisoning us takes us from our loved ones and our responsibilities."
Williams and Plante said they'll invoke the Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to answer grand jury questions.
America's Grand Jury System
They're convened to determine possible probable cause to return indictments. Critics say they rubber stamp aggressive prosecutions.
Federally, they have extraordinary investigative powers. Prosecutors abuse them to manipulate proceedings for outcomes they wish. Victims are vulnerable to bogus indictments. The Fifth Amendment requires grand jury indictments for federal criminal charges.
Prosecutors have extraordinary discretion. They choose witnesses, grant selective immunity, and do nearly all questioning.
Proceedings are conducted in secret. No one may disclose what goes on unless ordered to do so judicially. Anyone may be subpoenaed. Answering questions is mandated unless special privilege is granted. For example: lawyer/client confidentiality or self-incrimination.
Lawyers can't intervene to help clients while testifying. Double jeopardy doesn't apply to grand juries, but without indictments, prosecutors need Criminal Division Attorney General permission to try again. Victims have no protections against false witness testimonies perhaps gotten for leniency on existing or threatened charges.
Prosecutors routinely want grand jury indictments. The system is rigged to get them. Targeted victims are defenseless. Many innocent people languish wrongfully in prison. Justice is routinely denied.
Numerous past incidents occurred. In September 2010, administration ordered raids targeted Chicago and Minneapolis anti-war/pro-Palestinian activists. Arrests weren't made, but homes were ransacked. Computers, cell phones, books, photos, correspondence, papers, and other possessions were seized.
Twenty-three victims were subpoenaed to testify before grand juries. Activists were again targeted during NATO's May invasion. False terror plots were claimed. Activist homes were raided. Five victims faced terrorism-related charges.
Numerous other arrests were made. Everyone charged is innocent. Police brutality was reported. Most injuries were from baton head and body blows. Over two dozen were hospitalized for broken bones, concussions, knocked out teeth, and open wounds requiring stitches.
NATO arrives nowhere peacefully. Obama officials and local police wage war on dissent. Legal restraints don't apply for anyone charged with alleged terrorism or conspiracy to commit it. Abolition of constitutional rights shows what everyone faces.
It's the wrong time to be activist in America. Doing so means possible indictment, prosecution, and imprisonment for doing the right thing.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
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