Thursday, January 03, 2013

The Other Bradley Manning: Jeremy Hammond Faces Life Term for WikiLeaks and Hacked Stratfor Emails

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A federal judge has refused to recuse herself from the closely watched trial of jailed computer hacker Jeremy Hammond, an alleged member of the group "Anonymous" charged with hacking into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor and turning over some five million emails to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Hammond’s lawyers had asked Federal Judge Loretta Preska to recuse herself because her husband worked for a client of Stratfor, and himself had his email hacked. Hammond’s supporters say the Stratfor documents shed light on how the private intelligence firm monitors activists and spies for corporate clients. He has been held without bail or trial for more than nine months. We speak with Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, about Hammond’s case. [includes rush transcript]
Filed under Wikileaks, Hacking, Hacktivism, Michael Ratner
Guest:
Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A federal judge has refused to recuse herself from the closely watched trial of jailed computer hacker Jeremy Hammond. Hammond is accused of being a member of the hacker group Anonymous. He’s been charged with hacking into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor and turning over five million emails to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Hammond’s lawyers had asked Federal Judge Loretta Preska to recuse herself because her husband worked for a client of Stratfor.
Hammond’s supporters say the Stratfor documents shed light on how the private intelligence firm monitors activists and spies for corporate clients. Jeremy Hammond has been held without bail or trial for more than nine months.
Last week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange mentioned Jeremy Hammond in a rare address from the Ecuadorean embassy in London where he has sought asylum.
JULIAN ASSANGE: I have been sustained by your solidarity, and I’m grateful for the efforts of people all around the world supporting the work of WikiLeaks, supporting freedom of speech, freedom of the press—essential elements in any democracy. While my freedom is limited, at least I am still able to communicate this Christmas, unlike the 232 journalists who are in jail tonight; unlike Gottfrid Svartholm in Sweden tonight; unlike Jeremy Hammond in New York tonight; unlike Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain tonight; and unlike Bradley Manning, who turned 25 this week, a young man who has maintained his dignity after spending more than 10 percent of his life in jail without trial, some of that time in a cage naked and without his glasses; and unlike so many others whose plights are linked to my own. I salute these brave men and women.
AMY GOODMAN: That was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking at the window of the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has taken refuge for the past six months. He has sought and gotten political asylum in Ecuador, but he cannot leave the Ecuadorean embassy to get to Ecuador because Britain threatens to arrest him if he steps foot on British soil. Well, I recently spoke with Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and asked about the Jeremy Hammond case here in New York.
MICHAEL RATNER: The Center for Constitutional Rights and myself are the lawyers in the United States for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has two very big sources of documents. One of them are the documents allegedly that Bradley Manning uploaded, which include of course the Iraq war logs, Afghan war logs, the videos, etc., and that’s Bradley Manning, allegedly. The others are the Stratfor documents, which is the private intelligence company, which are some five million documents, that again were uploaded to WikiLeaks. So, if we talk about our client, Julian Assange, two of the alleged sources are Jeremy Hammond, Anonymous and Bradley Manning. So we’re very concerned. WikiLeaks, I know, is very concerned that its sources get protected in all the support they can get.
So, as part of that, I have been monitoring and going to various hearings with Jeremy Hammond, and I went into the prison and I met Jeremy Hammond. And I was at his recent bail hearing in federal court, where even though he’s been in prison some nine months and needs to prepare for his upcoming criminal case on his alleged hack into the Stratfor emails, the judge, Judge Loretta Preska, denied him bail. It was a one-and-a-half-hour hearing. There were a number of supporters in the courtroom who came from all over the country, with Jeremy Hammond — "Free Jeremy Hammond" shirts on. And it was, in my view, a very hostile hearing to Jeremy Hammond.
There are two, really, criteria in bail. One is: Are you going to be a flight risk? And the second is: Are you a danger to the community? And the government has the burden of proving that you’re a flight risk or a danger to the community. Now, I have to say, the judge had probably decided this case before the arguments went on, because she essentially read an opinion after an hour and a half into the record, denying bail to Jeremy Hammond. And it was really disappointing, because you do have a right to bail under our Constitution. With regard to his being a danger to the community, I mean, they must think Jeremy Hammond is God, because he’s not allowed to use a computer that’s connected to the Internet, but he’s not allowed really to—when he gets to use any computer, because they somehow think—or very limited access to any computer, because they somehow think that even though it’s not connected to the Internet, that this guy is so smart, he’ll figure out how to get onto the—into documents. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who Jeremy is and what happened to him, how he ended up being arrested.
MICHAEL RATNER: OK, Jeremy is a political activist who has been active his—he’s only 28 years old now, but he has been a political activist for a number of years. He went after everybody, from Holocaust denier David Irving. He was—the group, apparently—I don’t know whether he was part of that—was involved in hacking into Scientology. He did some time in jail for a prior hack of a very conservative group. I think he did a year and a half or two years on that. And now he has—he has been arrested for really being, as you said, allegedly part of the group Anonymous.
There was an informant in Anonymous, apparently, named Sabu, who is somewhat well known, who actually set up this crime for Stratfor. The FBI gave him the computer that the Stratfor documents were actually uploaded to. There’s a pretty clear case of entrapment, in terms of trying to get Jeremy Hammond. And they may have even been trying to get our client, WikiLeaks, to do something with those documents that [inaudible] make into something else.
AMY GOODMAN: So the government made the Stratfor documents available?
MICHAEL RATNER: Right. That’s a very good way to say it, Amy. Yes. The answer is—
AMY GOODMAN: Was Stratfor aware of this?
MICHAEL RATNER: That’s a good question. The government knew at some point—and we don’t understand this, or I don’t understand this—that there was access to the Stratfor emails and five million documents. They then gave Sabu a computer that all of those could be uploaded to. They’re put on that. And then, the FBI is in on this, and then they somehow allow them to go out to WikiLeaks, allegedly. So the government had to be following this—and was—every step of the way. So, in some way, it’s like—I would hesitate to say typical entrapment cases we’re reading all the time about Muslims, but it is that. It seems to me that this is a government-made crime.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s as if they let the bomb blow up.
MICHAEL RATNER: Right, exactly. This is a government-made crime. That’s correct. And Jeremy Hammond was considered one of the geniuses involved in—generally, in hacking, but in the Anonymous movement, and in particularly in the Stratfor emails.
AMY GOODMAN: So where was he picked up?
MICHAEL RATNER: He was picked up—they raided his house in Chicago, and they brought him here, where the indictment is pending against him, some other people from London and—from England or Ireland, a number of other people, for various Anonymous allegations.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip of Julian Assange talking about the leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor. Julian Assange, we spoke to in the—in London. He is in the embassy in Ecuador [Ecuadorean embassy in London], where he has been granted political asylum.

JULIAN ASSANGE: There are some 3,000 emails in the Stratfor collection about me personally and many more thousands about WikiLeaks. The latest on the grand jury front is that the U.S. Department of Justice admits, as of about two weeks ago, that the investigation is ongoing. On September 28th this year, the Pentagon renewed its formal threats against us in relation to ongoing publishing but also, extremely seriously, in relation to ongoing, what they call, solicitation. So, that is asking sources publicly, you know, "Send us important material, and we will publish it." They say that that itself is a crime. So this is not simply a case about—that we received some information back in 2010 and have been publishing it and they say that that was the crime; the Pentagon is maintaining a line that WikiLeaks inherently, as an institution that tells military and government whistleblowers to step forward with information, is a crime, that we are—they allege we are criminal, moving forward.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk more—talk more, Michael Ratner, about the emails of Stratfor.
MICHAEL RATNER: Well, Stratfor, as you’ve covered on the show before, had a lot of really important information about surveillance of everybody from PETA to the Yes Men, to other activists, to working for, you know, U.S. government agencies. It puts out a regular intelligence newsletter, presumably online. It does work for private clients, like, you know, big major corporations, etc. One of the things that came out in the Stratfor emails are a list of people who apparently are subscribers to the—to the newsletter, the intelligence newsletter, if you want to call it intelligence, and there’s thousands of those emails and subscribers. And there’s an interesting thing that—an interesting occurrence. The judge who tried—who’s trying the case so far, the Jeremy Hammond case in federal district court here in New York—
AMY GOODMAN: Her name is?
MICHAEL RATNER: Her name is Loretta Preska. She is the chief judge of the federal district court. She’s the one who denied bail to Jeremy Hammond, in what I consider to be a very, very hostile interview—I mean, very hostile opinion, and really had errors in it that I think should be remedied in his entitlement to bail.
But what came out since that time, only in a week ago, and it came as an email from somebody on the Internet—what came out is that her husband, who’s a lawyer, I think at Cahill Gordon—his name is Thomas Kavaler, I think, Kavaler—that his email also was part of the Stratfor releases. So you’re going through the Stratfor documents, and there you see a number, you see the email for this lawyer at Cahill Gordon, or Cahill whatever it’s called, a big law firm in New York, and that is the husband of Judge Preska. And even worse, from what I understand, is they actually put up a password that you could get into this lawyer’s email account and see what his emails were.
So, here, look at this situation. You have the judge; her husband has been hacked. Her husband’s email is accessible. And she is sitting on the case of the very person who they allege hacked into that email account. Well, the rules seem to me very clear in federal court, that if there’s any appearance of impropriety, appearance of—you know, of a closeness to the case, that basically you have to recuse yourself from being a judge in the case. You have to do it automatically, even if the—even if the defendant doesn’t make a motion. Think about it. Your spouse’s email is hacked. I mean—
AMY GOODMAN: You’re pretty angry.
MICHAEL RATNER: You’re pretty angry about that. And even—and even if you’re not, the appearance of—the appearance of injustice or the appearance of an impropriety really is enough, it would seem to me. And that’s what’s allowed. It’s not just the actual conflict; it’s the appearance of a conflict. And so, I think that this judge ought to be off this case.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is very interesting, because then it’s not only his emails that can be read, but presumably they have written to each other, and so the judge herself is exposed.
MICHAEL RATNER: Right, I—we don’t know that, but this may be. I think someone told me there may not be his—it’s maybe his business account; maybe she hasn’t written to him. But the point is, other people’s emails—the point is, this is her spouse, who was hacked by the very guy she is denying bail to. I mean, think about that. Think about what that means for the system of justice.
AMY GOODMAN: So you have the Jeremy Hammond case, and you also were in the courtroom when Private Bradley Manning, for the first time after two years’ imprisonment, a lot of that time in solitary confinement, testified for the first time about his conditions. First, we know very little—most people haven’t even heard about the Jeremy Hammond case. Why do you think there is that kind of difference?
MICHAEL RATNER: You know, it’s a good question, Amy. I mean—I mean, the earliest stuff, of course, was Bradley Manning and—you know, and WikiLeaks. That was two years ago yesterday, actually. Two years ago, we had the anniversary of the Cablegate releases, which is the State Department releases. And, of course, they were huge. And they were government documents. Jeremy Hammond was a private security company, and so maybe that’s part of it. Part of it is that it came later. Part of it, he wasn’t in the military. And so, they really—I mean, they want to make—right now, the government is going to—trying to make an example out of all three of these people. I mean, look what they’ve done. They’ve got Jeremy Hammond, no bail, in a federal detention facility.
AMY GOODMAN: In Metropolitan Detention Center.
MICHAEL RATNER: In Metropolitan Detention Center.
AMY GOODMAN: Which is?
MICHAEL RATNER: Which is in Manhattan at Foley Square. You’ve got Bradley Manning finally moved to Leavenworth, where his conditions are better than they were at Quantico, for sure, but in prison. And you’ve got Julian Assange—
AMY GOODMAN: Your client.
MICHAEL RATNER: —living in an embassy. So what the government is trying to do is destroy the idea that the government’s secrets and its corruption and its crimes ought to be known, and get at the whistleblowers and the publishers who are doing it. And so, we’re seeing that across the board. These three, really, are the three that they’re obviously focused on putting away for as long as they can.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a lawyer for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, recently returned from attending part of the pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we get back, what’s happening within FreedomWorks and Dick Armey? What was that $8 million payout? Stay with us.
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Congress Extends Warrantless Spying

Congress Extends Warrantless Spying

by Stephen Lendman

America's political process is lawless, corrupt and dysfunctional. Fiscal cliff hype, noise and theater continue. Destroying fundamental civil society social protections aren't mentioned.

Rushed through legislation targeted Iran's growing Latin American influence. On December 28, Obama signed the Countering Iran in Western Hemisphere Act.

It requires the State Department to "address Iran's growing hostile presence and activity." Washington wants the Islamic Republic shut out of the region entirely. It wants it isolated globally.

In 2005, Iran had five regional embassies. Today it has 11. Washington's influence is declining. Its traditional backyard grows more independent. Over time, imperial extremism makes more enemies than friends.

Police state harshness intensifies domestically. Presidential diktat authority overrides constitutional law. Secret kill lists mark targeted individuals for death.

US citizens and permanent residents are as vulnerable as others. Occupy Wall Street activists are called domestic terrorists. Indefinite detention is institutionalized.

Innocent US citizens and others can be held uncharged, denied due process and judicial fairness, and isolated in military dungeons forever.

America is unsafe to live in. It threatens humanity. Permanent war is policy. It rages abroad. It targets US citizens, permanent residents, and others domestically.

Those least advantaged are most harmed. So is anyone opposing US lawlessness. Dissent is an endangered species.

Democracy never existed and doesn't now. Rule of law principles are spurned. Wealth, power, privilege, and dominance alone matter. Official policy may destroy humanity to control it.

Congress plunged another spike into freedom. On September 12, the House passed HR 5949: FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2012. The measure carried 301 - 118. Seventy-four Democrats joined 227 Republicans.

Nancy Pelosi voted Yea. Do did Steny Hoyer, Howard Berman, Brad Sherman, Gary Ackerman, Nita Lowey, and Marcy Kaptur.

On December 28, the Senate followed suit. With little debate, it overwhelmingly renewed warrantless spying 73 - 23. Thirty Democrats and Independent Joe Lieberman joined 42 Republicans.

Congressional profiles in courage don't exist. America's Secretary of State designee, John Kerry, voted Yea. So did Democrats Reid, Levin, Conrad, Cardin, Mikulski, Feinstein, Stabenow, and Schumer.

Perhaps before yearend, Obama will sign it into law. He may have already done so quietly. He calls the measure a national security priority.

New Year's eve enactment would repeat last year's December 31 disgrace. Indefinite detention harshness became law. US citizens and permanent residents are as vulnerable as others.

Unpopular measures slip under the radar when few notice. Weekends and holiday breaks conceal blows to freedom.

Warrantless spying is extended another five years. Overseas phone calls, emails, and other communications of US citizens and permanent residents may be monitored without court authorization.

Probable cause isn't needed. Electronic eavesdropping will look for "foreign intelligence information." Virtually anything qualifies. Vague language is all-embracing.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked why is warrantless domestic spying important? Key FISA Amendments Act provisions were challenged before the Supreme Court (Clapper v. Amnesty International).

Months after 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans lawlessly. Sweeping surveillance followed without court-approved warrants. Doing so violates core constitutional protections. Conditions now are worse than then.

On October 29, High Court oral arguments were heard. Justices will decide if lawyers, journalists, labor, media, human rights organizations, and others may challenge the constitutionality of warrantless spying.

In March 2011, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled they and others the law affects have legal standing to challenge. ACLU spokeswoman Rachel Myers called it "a really big victory."

It means potentially affected parties "don't have to prove (they've) been spied on to challenge an unlawful spy act."

The Court overruled a district judge claiming otherwise. It said "plaintiffs have good reason to believe that their communications in particular, will fall within the scope of the broad surveillance that they can assume the government will conduct."

Their jobs entail overseas phone, email and other communications. Warrantless spying targets these activities. Government officials claim they may "be associated with terrorist activities." Corroborating evidence isn't needed.

"Political and human rights activists" opposed to governments Washington supports are vulnerable. So are individuals and groups targeted by US "counterterrorism or diplomatic efforts."

Plaintiff concerns are "reasonable." Government arguments don't wash.

At issue is fake national security concerns v. inviolable constitutional rights. The Supreme Court gets final say.

The Senate rejected proposed greater transparency/oversight amendments. Modest ones were dismissed out of hand. National security trumps rule of law inviolability.

Senators had months to consider the stakes and act responsibly. Instead, they waited until the 11th hour. Days before yearend expiration, they passed what demanded rejection.

Senator Ron Wyden's (D-OR) amendment eliminated no NSA powers. It would have forced intelligence agencies to report annually to Congress on how their surveillance affects ordinary Americans.

Senators dismissed it out of hand. They chose unconstitutional lawlessness.

Senator Jeff Merkley's (D-OR) amendment would have encouraged Attorney General declassification of some secret FISA court opinions. Summaries alone would suffice.

Obama promised to do it three years ago. Instead, he hardened Bush administration policies. He elevated rogue government to a higher level. He institutionalized massive national security spying. He wants victims denied their day in court.

Last July, the Wall Street Journal headlined "Spy Agency Activities Violated Fourth Amendment Rights, Letter Discloses," saying:

NSA spying violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. A "ruling by the US's secret national security court" admitted it.

Doing so "represented the first time the government has acknowledged US spy activities violated the constitution since the passage of a 2008 law that overhauled surveillance laws following the uproar over the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program in the (Bush) administration."

Obama officials provided no details about Fourth Amendment violations, when they occurred, or if anyone at NSA was held accountable.

The agency's spokesman, Michael Birminghan, said its director is committed to "transparency, compliance, and oversight."

He lied. Privacy experts say what's known is troubling. ACLU legal director, Jameel Jaffer said:

"If the government is engaged in surveillance that violated the Fourth Amendment, that is something that ought to be disturbing to not just legislators, but to the American public more generally."

Ahead of the vote, Wyden urged restraint, caution, and concern for constitutional protections.

"This is the last opportunity for the next five years for the Congress to exercise a modest measure of real oversight over this intelligence surveillance law," he stressed.

"It is not real oversight when the United States Congress cannot get a yes or no answer to the question of whether an estimate currently exists as to whether law abiding Americans have had their phone calls and emails swept up under the FISA law."

Senator Rand Paul's (R-KY) Fourth Amendment Protection Act would have protected personal emails from warrantless searches and seizures.

Privacy in America is threatened, he said. "Our independence and the Fourth Amendment go hand in hand."

"Somewhere along the way we became lazy and haphazard in our vigilance." Congress and US courts subvert constitutional protections.

Senators dismissed his measure 79 - 12. Eyes now await how Supreme Court justices will rule. EFF actively challenges lawless legislation in federal courts.

In mid-December, it targeted NSA's "dragnet warrantless surveillance program." The Supreme Court will rule on whether ACLU's FISA Amendments Act constitutional challenge will go forward.

It's involved in Clapper v. Amnesty International. It filed suit. It challenges FISA Amendments Act of 2008 constitutionality. As explained above, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals let plaintiffs' challenge the law.

It rejected the Obama administration's catch-22 argument. It claimed no need to identify whose communications are monitored. Only those targeted may do so, it said. Secrecy, of course, prevents disclosure.

Moments after George Bush signed the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, ACLU filed suit. Doing so challenged the law's constitutionality.

Ahead of Friday's vote, ACLU "call(ed) on Congress to Fix FISA by prohibiting dragnet surveillance, mandating more transparency about the government's surveillance activities, and strengthening safeguards for privacy."

Tell your senators to fix FISA, it stressed.

On December 28, an ACLU press release headlined "Senate Reauthorizes Warrantless Wiretapping," saying:

Unconstitutional spying was extended another five years. Dragnet surveillance is institutionalized. Legislative counsel Michelle Richardson said:

"It’s a tragic irony that FISA, once passed to protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance, has mutated into its polar opposite due to the FISA Amendments Act."

"The Bush administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping, once considered a radical threat to the Fourth Amendment, has become institutionalized for another five years."

Congress abdicated its responsibility. It's become habitual. Carte blanche spying is policy.

Amendments to soften unaccountability were dismissed out of hand. Freedom took another body blow. It hangs by a thread. Perhaps the new year will eliminate it altogether.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.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

http://www.dailycensored.com/congress-extends-warrantless-spying/

posted by Steve Lendman @ 11:37 PM
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From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Those Old John Garfield Blues-“They Made Me a Criminal”- A Film Review



DVD Review

They Made Me A Criminal, starring John Garfield, Warner Brothers, 1939
…some guys, yah, some guys are just born palookas, accumulating woes, travails, trials and tribulations, flotsam and jetsam (if that can happen, cling to happen, to a guy) without working up a sweat just while breathing. You know beat angel guys from the wrong side of the tracks, trying, rolling the rock uphill trying, and having the damn thing coming rolling right back on them. Take Johnny in They Made Me A Criminal (played by John Garfield and his blues), Johnny the boxer, the world champ boxer, a guy who was sitting on top of the world, but who couldn’t leave the booze, the dames, or the con alone. The con (hell, maybe the booze and frails too) is what got him on top but when you play with the big boys, the big boy fellow con artists there is only so much room at the top. And thus the rolling of that damn rock uphill again.

Let me tell you about old Johnny just so you know, know if you go on the con, what you are up against. Yah, Johnny could fight, fight like a whirling dervish, could fight, did I tell you, as a south paw, a leftie, so that maybe should have been a tip off the guy was screwy and a prime guy for a frame. Well Johnny bopped out the beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday champ and took the throne, for a minute. Like I said Johnny liked his booze, liked his women, and so he decided to celebrate his big win with a honey, some scotch, and his manager among others.

Problem was that one of the invitees turned out to be a newspaper guy and Johnny unaware, although never very discreet anyway, blabbed about his conned public image as Sunday choir boy. The newspaper guy sensing a Pulitzer or something wouldn’t play ball to keep things hushed though. Johnny tried some drunken rough stuff usually good enough to quiet the fourth estate types and got knocked out for his troubles, and our press angel scribe wound up, via a hefty bottle hit from the manager, dead, very dead, on the floor. The left-over honey and the manager dragged Johnny out of that scene and then later panicked fleeing in Johnny’s car after taking Johnny’s dough and personal effects. That panic led to a police chase in which the pair wound up dead, very dead. The problem though was the coppers thought the guy in the flamed- out car was Johnny, Johnny DOA. Murder solved, case solved. End of story.

Well not quite, see as we already know, old champ chump Johnny was hazily very much alive but also very much front and center for the big step off, the big Ossining step off, for the scribe’s death. On the advice of counsel, very expensive advice of counsel as it turned out, he was told to scram, get lost, vamoose, make himself scare, and, jesus, whatever he did, keep away from the boxing racket and especially don’t use that screwy south paw (leftie, okay) stance of his. So our chump scrammed, scrammed good all the way to Arizona and some desert rendezvous with destiny.

Now Johnny was from hunger and never having been anything but a pug-ugly was not trained for the heavy lifting or nine to five life. One day walking, endless walking he came to a farm, not just any farm but a farm filled with wayward boys (who just so happen to be The Dead End Gang transpose en masse and in total to Arizona from the East End if you can believe this) trying, well, maybe half trying, to avoid the big house back in New Jack City. To make a long story short here Johnny, after some badgering and goofing around, took these lads under his wings and that change of heart changed up the story line. See this farm was run by some good-hearted tough old bird of a granny (and don’t, don’t under any circumstances mess with her, or any tough old bird granny because I will bet six-two and-even you could up short) who was however facing hard times it being the 1930s and all so she needed a new revenue stream to keep the farm and her beat angel granny mercy work with JDs alive. So to get a gas station, which would provide that revenue stream, Johnny agreed, agreed with all his hands, to fight some travelling boxer at the country fair who would give cash money, moola, kale, dough, to anybody who could stay in the ring with him for enough rounds. Yah, I know, we know, Johnny is supposed to lay off the boxing bit but, well you know.

You know too, or maybe you don’t, that a certain New York City detective, a guy who is a little off-center himself (played by Claude Rains) never believed Johnny was dead and so when publicity (a big photo of flash Johnny in the ring) about the fight hit New Jack City he decided to help revive his career, head west, and make a serious collar. Well Johnny finally fought the big lug, changing his stance to not give himself away too much to the detective sitting dead-ass ringside. Yah, like I said Johnny attracted stuff, attracted bad stuff every time he thought too much, hell, thought. Bad career move. The detective was not fooled and so he put the collar on Johnny and it looked like old Johnny would take the big gaff after all. Then in an act of unmitigated hubris the New York dick let Johnny off, let him flee in the night. Go figure. Nice touch though. End of story.

Hey, wait a minute, weren’t there any dames in this thing, any live dames beside beat angel granny to help lady’s man Johnny while away the desert time. Of course there was, sorry I didn’t mention it before. See this farm thing, this get the troubled youth out of the nasty cities and into that dry orange western sun, was really being run by this blonde twist (yes blonde, not Lana Turner steamy 1946 ThePostman Always Rings Twice and nothing but trouble from the minute she came through the diner door blond, but blond enough while John Garfield worked his way up the star ladder) who was guiding those troubled youth (including her brother) to be regular productive citizens. Johnny, skirt-crazy, falls for her, falls for her big (what else would put dopey boxing thoughts in his head to make some dough when he was strictly on the lam) and so that twist factor went a long way to explaining he actions( and the actions of the detective). Oh yah, and why he had those old John Garfield blues. Like I said a palooka.

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Wednesday, January 02, 2013

From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Political Profiles

Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg

(1919)

Rosa LuxemburgWE HAVE suffered two heavy losses at once which merge into one enormous bereavement. There have been struck down from our ranks two leaders whose names will be for ever entered in the great book of the proletarian revolution: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. They have perished. They have been killed. They are no longer with us!
Karl Liebknecht’s name, though already known, immediately gained world-wide significance from the first months of the ghastly European slaughter. It rang out like the name of revolutionary honour, like a pledge of the victory to come. In those first weeks when German militarism celebrated its first orgies and feted its first demonic triumphs; in those weeks when the German forces stormed through Belgium brushing aside the Belgian forts like cardboard houses; when the German 420mm cannon seemed to threaten to enslave and bend all Europe to Wilhelm; in those days and weeks when official German social-democracy headed by its Scheidemann and its Ebert bent its patriotic knee before German militarism to which everything, at least it seemed, would submit—both the outside world (trampled Belgium and France with its northern part seized by the Germans) and the domestic world (not only the German junkerdom, not only the German bourgeoisie, not only the chauvinist middle-class but last and not least the officially recognized party of the German working class); in those black, terrible and foul days there broke out in Germany a rebellious voice of protest, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburgof anger and imprecation; this was the voice of Karl Liebknecht. And it resounded throughout the whole world!
In France where the mood of the broad masses then found itself under the heel of the German onslaught; where the ruling party of French social-patriots declared to the proletariat the necessity to fight not for life but until death (and how else when the ‘whole people’ of Germany is craving to seize Paris!); even in France Liebknecht’s voice rang out warning and sobering, exploding the barricades of lies, slander and panic. It could be sensed that Liebknecht alone reflected the stifled masses.
In fact however even then he was not alone as there came forward hand in hand with him from the first day of the war the courageous, unswerving and heroic Rosa Luxemburg. The lawlessness of German bourgeois parliamentarism did not give her the possibility of launching her protest from the tribune of parliament as Liebknecht did and thus she was less heard. But her part in the awakening of the best elements of the German working class was in no way less than that of her comrade in struggle and in death, Karl Liebknecht. These two fighters so different in nature and yet so close, complemented each other, unbending marched towards a common goal, met death together and enter history side by side.
Karl Liebknecht represented the genuine and finished embodiment of an intransigent revolutionary. In the last days and months of his life there have been created around his name innumerable legends: senselessly vicious ones in the bourgeois Press, heroic ones on the lips of the working masses.
In his private life Karl Liebknecht was—alas!—already he merely was the epitomy of goodness, simplicity and brotherhood. I first met him more than 15 years ago. He was a charming man, attentive and sympathetic. It could be said that an almost feminine tenderness, in the best sense of this word, was typical of his character. And side by side with this feminine tenderness he was distinguished by the exceptional heart of a revolutionary will able to fight to the last drop of blood in the name of what he considered to be right and true. His spiritual independence appeared already in his youth when he ventured more than once to defend his opinion against the incontestable authority of Bebel. His work amongst the youth and his struggle against the Hohenzollern military machine was marked by great courage. Finally he discovered his full measure when he raised his voice against the serried warmongering bourgeoisie and the treacherous social-democracy in the German Reichstag where the whole atmosphere was saturated with miasmas of chauvinism. He discovered the full measure of his personality when as a soldier he raised the banner of open insurrection against the bourgeoisie and its militarism on Berlin’s Potsdam Square. Liebknecht was arrested. Prison and hard labour did not break his spirit. He waited in his cell and predicted with certainty. Freed by the revolution in November last year, Liebknecht at once stood at the head of the best and most determined elements of the German working class. Spartacus found himself in the ranks of the Spartacists and perished with their banner in his hands.
Rosa Luxemburg’s name is less well-known in other countries than it is to us in Russia. But one can say with all certainty that she was in no way a lesser figure than Karl Liebknecht. Short in height, frail, sick, with a streak of nobility in her face, beautiful eyes and a radiant mind she struck one with the bravery of her thought. She had mastered the Marxist method like the organs of her body. One could say that Marxism ran in her blood stream.
I have said that these two leaders, so different in nature, complemented each other. I would like to emphasize and explain this. If the intransigent revolutionary Liebknecht was characterized by a feminine tenderness in his personal ways then this frail woman was characterized by a masculine strength of thought. Ferdinand Lassalle once spoke of the physical strength of thought, of the commanding power of its tension when it seemingly overcomes material obstacles in its path. That is just the impression you received talking to Rosa, reading her articles or listening to her when she spoke from the tribune against her enemies. And she had many enemies! I remember how, at a congress at Jena I think, her high voice, taut like a wire, cut through the wild protestations of opportunists from Bavaria, Baden and elsewhere. How they hated her! And how she despised them! Small and fragilely built she mounted the platform of the congress as the personification of the proletarian revolution. By the force of her logic and the power of her sarcasm she silenced her most avowed opponents. Rosa knew how to hate the enemies of the proletariat and just because of this she knew how to arouse their hatred for her. She had been identified by them early on.
From the first day, or rather from the first hour of the war, Rosa Luxemburg launched a campaign against chauvinism, against patriotic lechery, against the wavering of Kautsky and Haase and against the centrists’ formlessness; for the revolutionary independence of the proletariat, for internationalism and for the proletarian revolution.
Yes, they complemented one another!
By the force of the strength of her theoretical thought and her ability to generalize Rosa Luxemburg was a whole head above not only her opponents but also her comrades. She was a woman of genius. Her style, tense, precise, brilliant and merciless, will remain for ever a true mirror of her thought.
Liebknecht was not a theoretician. He was a man of direct action. Impulsive and passionate by nature, he possessed an exceptional political intuition, a fine awareness of the masses and of the situation and finally an unrivalled courage of revolutionary initiative.
An analysis of the internal and international situation in which Germany found herself after November 9, 1918, as well as a revolutionary prognosis could and had to be expected first of all from Rosa Luxemburg. A summons to immediate action and, at a given moment, to armed uprising would most probably come from Liebknecht. They, these two fighters, could not have complemented each other better.
Scarcely had Luxemburg and Liebknecht left prison when they took each other hand in hand, this inexhaustible revolutionary man and this intransigent revolutionary woman and set out together at the head of the best elements of the German working class to meet the new battles and trials of the proletarian revolution. And on the first steps along this road a treacherous blow has on one day, struck both of them down.
To be sure reaction could not have chosen more illustrious victims. What a sure blow! And small wonder! Reaction and revolution knew each other well as in this case reaction was personified in the guise of the former leaders of the former party of the working class, Scheidemann and Ebert whose names will be for ever inscribed in the black book of history as the shameful names of the chief organizers of this treacherous murder.
It is true that we have received the official German report which depicts the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg as a street “misunderstanding” occasioned possibly by a watchman’s insufficient vigilance in the face of a frenzied crowd. A judicial investigation has been arranged to this end. But you and I know too well how reaction lays on this sort of spontaneous outrage against revolutionary leaders; we well remember the July days that we lived through here within the walls of Petrograd, we remember too well how the Black Hundred bands, summoned by Kerensky and Tsereteli to the fight against the Bolsheviks, systematically terrorized the workers, massacred their leaders and set upon individual workers in the streets. The name of the worker Voinov, killed in the course of a “misunderstanding” will be remembered by the majority of you. If we had saved Lenin at that time then it was only because he did not fall into the hands of frenzied Black Hundred bands. At that time there were well-meaning people amongst the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries who were disturbed by the fact that Lenin and Zinoviev, who were accused of being German spies, did not appear in court to refute the slander. They were blamed for this especially. But at what court? At that court along the road to which Lenin would be forced to “flee”, as Liebknecht was, and if Lenin was shot or stabbed, the official report by Kerensky and Tsereteli would state that the leader of the Bolsheviks was killed by the guard while attempting to escape. No, after the terrible experience in Berlin we have ten times more reason to be satisfied that Lenin did not present himself to the phoney trial and yet more to violence without trial.
But Rosa and Karl did not go into hiding. The enemy’s hand grasped them firmly. And this hand choked them. What a blow! What grief! And what treachery! The best leaders of the German Communist Party are no more—our great comrades are no longer amongst the living. And their murderers stand under the banner of the Social-Democratic party having the brazenness to claim their birthright from no other than Karl Marx! “What a perversion! What a mockery!&#rdquo; Just think, comrades, that “Marxist” German Social-Democracy, mother of the working class from the first days of the war, which supported the unbridled German militarism in the days of the rout of Belgium and the seizure of the northern provinces of France; that party which betrayed the October Revolution to German militarism during the Brest peace; that is the party whose leaders, Scheidemann and Ebert, now organize black bands to murder the heroes of the International, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg!
What a monstrous historical perversion! Glancing back through the ages you can find a certain parallel with the historical destiny of Christianity. The evangelical teaching of the slaves, fishermen, toilers, the oppressed and all those crushed to the ground by slave society, this poor people’s doctrine which had arisen historically was then seized upon by the monopolists of wealth, the kings, aristocrats, archbishops, usurers, patriarchs, bankers and the Pope of Rome, and it became a cover for their crimes. No, there is no doubt however, that between the teaching of primitive Christianity as it emerged from the consciousness of the plebeians and the official catholicism or orthodoxy, there still does not exist that gulf as there is between Marx’s teaching which is the nub of revolutionary thinking and revolutionary will and those contemptible left-overs of bourgeois ideas which the Scheidemanns and Eberts of all countries live by and peddle. Through the intermediary of the leaders of social-democracy the bourgeoisie has made an attempt to plunder the spiritual possessions of the proletariat and to cover up its banditry with the banner of Marxism. But it must be hoped, comrades, that this foul crime will be the last to be charged to the Scheidemanns and the Eberts. The proletariat of Germany has suffered a great deal at the hands of those who have been placed at its head; but this fact will not pass without trace. The blood of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg cries out. This blood will force the pavements of Berlin and the stones of that very Potsdam Square on which Liebknecht first raised the banner of insurrection against war and capital to speak up. And one day sooner or later barricades will be erected out of these stones on the streets of Berlin against the servile grovellers and running dogs of bourgeois society, against the Scheidemanns and the Eberts!
In Berlin the butchers have now crushed the Spartacists’ movement: the German communists. They have killed the two finest inspirers of this movement and today they are maybe celebrating a victory. But there is no real victory here because there has not been yet a straight, open and full fight; there has not yet been an uprising of the German proletariat in the name of the conquest of political power. There has been only a mighty reconnoitering, a deep intelligence mission into the camp of the enemy’s dispositions. The scouting precedes the conflict but it is still not the conflict. This thorough scouting has been necessary for the German proletariat as it was necessary for us in the July days.
The misfortune is that two of the best commanders have fallen in the scouting expedition. This is a cruel loss but it is not a defeat. The battle is still ahead.
The meaning of what is happening in Germany will be better understood if we look back at our own yesterday. You remember the course of events and their internal logic. At the end of February, the popular masses threw out the Tsarist throne. In the first weeks the feeling was as if the main task had been already accomplished. New men who came forward from the opposition parties and who had never held power here took advantage at first of the trust or half-trust of the popular masses. But this trust soon began to break to splinters. Petrograd found itself in the second stage of the resolution at its head as indeed it had to be. In July as in February it was the vanguard of the revolution which had gone out far in front. But this vanguard which had summoned the popular masses to open struggle against the bourgeoisie and the compromisers, paid a heavy price for the deep reconnaissance it carried out.
In the July Days the Petrograd vanguard broke from Kerensky’s government. This was not yet an insurrection as we carried through in October. This was a vanguard clash whose historical meaning the broad masses in the provinces still did not appreciate. In this collision the workers of Petrograd revealed before the popular masses not only of Russia but of all countries that behind Kerensky there was no independent army, and that those forces which stood behind him were the forces of the bourgeoisie, the white guard, the counter-revolution.
Then in July we suffered a defeat. Comrade Lenin had to go into hiding. Some of us landed in prison. Our papers were suppressed. The Petrograd Soviet was clamped down. The party and Soviet printshops were wrecked, everywhere the revelry of the Black Hundreds reigned. In other words there took place the same as what is taking place now in the streets of Berlin. Nevertheless none of the genuine revolutionaries had at that time any shadow of doubt that the July Days were merely the prelude to our triumph.
A similar situation has developed in recent days in Germany too. As Petrograd had with us, Berlin has gone out ahead of the rest of the masses; as with us, all the enemies of the German proletariat howled: “we cannot remain under the dictatorship of Berlin; Spartacist Berlin is isolated; we must call a constituent assembly and move it from red Berlin—depraved by the propaganda of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg—to a healthier provincial city in Germany.” Everything that our enemies did to us, all that malicious agitation and all that vile slander which we heard here, all this translated into German was fabricated and spread round Germany directed against the Berlin proletariat and its leaders, Liebknecht and Luxemburg. To be sure the Berlin proletariat’s intelligence mission developed more broadly and deeply than it did with us in July, and that the victims and the losses are more considerable there is true. But this can be explained by the fact that the Germans were making history which we had made once already; their bourgeoisie and military machine had absorbed our July and October experience. And most important, class relations over there are incomparably more defined than here; the possessing classes incomparably more solid, more clever, more active and that means more merciless too.
Comrades, here there passed four months between the February revolution and the July days; the Petrograd proletariat needed a quarter of a year in order to feel the irresistible necessity to come out on the street and attempt to shake the columns on which Kerensky’s and Tsereteli’s temple of state rested. After the defeat of the July days, four months again passed during which the heavy reserve forces from the provinces drew themselves up behind Petrograd and we were able, with the certainty of victory, to declare a direct offensive against the bastions of private property in October 1917.
In Germany, where the first revolution which toppled the monarchy was played out only at the beginning of November, our July Days are already taking place at the beginning of January. Does this not signify that the German proletariat is living in its revolution according to a shortened calendar? Where we needed four months it needs two. And let us hope that this schedule will be kept up. Perhaps from the German July Days to the German October not four months will pass as with us, but less—possibly two months will turn out sufficient or even less. But however event proceed, one thing alone is beyond doubt: those shots which were sent into Karl Liebknecht’s back have resounded with a mighty echo throughout Germany. And this echo has rung a funeral note in the ears of the Scheidemanns and the Eberts, both in Germany and elsewhere.
So here then we have sung a requiem to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The leaders have perished. We shall never again see them alive. But, comrades, how many of you have at any time seen them alive? A tiny minority. And yet during these last months and years Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg have lived constantly among us. At meetings and at congresses you have elected Karl Liebknecht honorary president. He himself has not been here—he did not manage to get to Russia—and all the same he was present in your midst, he sat at your table like an honoured guest, like your own kith and kin—for his name had become more than the mere title of a particular man, it had become for us the designation of all that is best, courageous and noble in the working class. When any one of us has to imagine a man selflessly devoted to the oppressed, tempered from head to foot, a man who never lowered his banner before the enemy, we at once name Karl Liebknecht. He has entered the consciousness and memory of the peoples as the heroism of action. In our enemies’ frenzied camp when militarism triumphant had trampled down and crushed everything, when everyone whose duty it was to protest fell silent, when it seemed there was nowhere a breathing-space, he, Karl Liebknecht, raised his fighter’s voice. He said “You, ruling tyrants, military butchers, plunderers, you, toadying lackies, compromisers, you trample on Belgium, you terrorize France, you want to crush the whole world, and you think that you cannot be called to justice, but I declare to you: we, the few, are not afraid of you, we are declaring war on you and having aroused the masses we shall carry through this war to the end!” Here is that valour of determination, here is that heroism of action which makes the figure of Liebknecht unforgettable to the world proletariat.
And at his side stands Rosa, a warrior of the world proletariat equal to him in spirit. Their tragic death at their combat positions couples their names with a special, eternally unbreakable link. Henceforth they will be always named together: Karl and Rosa, Liebknecht and Luxemburg!
Do you know what the legends about saints and their eternal lives are based upon? On the need of the people to preserve the memory of those who stood at their head and who guided them in one way or another; on the striving to immortalize the personality of the leaders with the halo of sanctity. We, comrades, have no need of legends, nor do we need to transform our heroes into saints. The reality in which we are living now is sufficient for us, because this reality is in itself legendary. It is awakening miraculous forces in the spirit of the masses and their leaders, it is creating magnificent figures who tower over all humanity.
Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are such eternal figures. We are aware of their presence amongst us with a striking, almost physical immediacy. At this tragic hour we are joined in spirit with the best workers of Germany and the whole world who have received this news with sorrow and mourning. Here we experience the sharpness and bitterness of the blow equally with our German brothers. We are internationalists in our sorrow and mourning just as much as we are in all our struggles.
For us Liebknecht was not just a German leader. For us Rosa Luxemburg was not just a Polish socialist who stood at the head of the German workers. No, they are both kindred of the world proletariat and we are all tied to them with an indissoluble spiritual link. Till their last breath they belonged not to a nation but to the International!
For the information of Russian working men and women it must be said that Liebknecht and Luxemburg stood especially close to the Russian revolutionary proletariat and in its most difficult times at that. Liebknecht’s flat was the headquarters of the Russian exiles in Berlin. When we had to raise the voice of protest in the German parliament or the German press against those services which the German rulers were affording Russian reaction we above all turned to Karl Liebknecht and he knocked at all the doors and on all the skulls, including the skulls of Scheidemann and Ebert to force them to protest against the crimes of the German government. And we constantly turned to Liebknecht when any of our comrades needed material support. Liebknecht was tireless as the Red Cross of the Russian revolution.
At the congress of German Social-Democrats at Jena which I have already referred to, where I was present as a visitor, I was invited by the presidium on Liebknecht’s intiative to speak on the resolution moved by the same Liebknecht condemning the violence and the brutality of the Tsarist government in Finland. With the greatest diligence Liebknecht prepared his own speech collecting facts and figures and questioning me in detail on the customs relations between Tsarist Russia and Finland. But before the matter reached the platform (I was to speak after Liebknecht) a telegram report on the assassination of Stolypin in Kiev had been received. This telegram produced a great impression at the congress. The first question which arose amongst the leadership was: would it be appropriate for a Russian revolutionary to address a German congress at the same time as some other Russian revolutionary had carried out the assassination of the Russian Prime Minister? This thought seized even Bebel: the old man who stood three heads above the other Central Committee members, did not like any “needless” complications. He at once sought me out and subjected me to questions: “What does the assassination signify? Which party could be responsible for it? Didn’t I think that in these conditions that by speaking I would attract the attention of the German police?” “Are you afraid that my speech will create certain difficulties?” I asked the old man cautiously. “Yes”, answered Bebel, “I admit I would prefer it if you did not speak.” “Of course,” I answered, “in that case there can be no question of my speaking.” And on that we parted.
A minute later, Liebknecht literally came running up to me. He was agitated beyond measure. “Is it true that they have proposed you do not speak?” he asked me. “Yes,” I replied, “I have just settled this matter with Bebel.” “And you agreed?” “How could I not agree,” I answered justifying myself, “seeing that I am not master here but a visitor.” “This is an outrageous act by our presidium, disgusting, an unheard-of scandal, miserable cowardice!” etc., etc. Liebknecht gave vent to his indignation in his speech where he mercilessly attacked the Tsarist government in defiance of backstage warnings by the presidium who had urged him not to create “needless” complications in the form of offending his Tsarist majesty.
From the years of her youth Rosa Luxemburg stood at the head of those Polish Social-Democrats who now together with the so-called “Lewica” i.e. the revolutionary Section of the Polish Socialist Party have joined to form the Communist Party. Rosa Luxemburg could speak Russian beautifully, knew Russian literature profoundly, followed Russian political life day by day, was joined by close ties to the Russian revolutionaries and painstakingly elucidated the revolutionary steps of the Russian proletariat in the German press. In her second homeland, Germany, Rosa Luxemburg with her characteristic talent, mastered to perfection not only the German language but also a total understanding of German political life and occupied one of the most prominent places in the old Bebelite Social-Democratic party. There she constantly remained on the extreme left wing.
In 1905 Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in the most genuine sense of the word lived through the events of the Russian revolution. In 1905 Rosa Luxemburg left Berlin for Warsaw, not as a Pole but as a revolutionary. Released from the citadel of Warsaw on bail she arrived illegally in Petrograd in 1906, where, under an assumed name, she visited several of her friends in prison. Returning to Berlin she redoubled the struggle against opportunism opposing it with the path and methods of the Russian revolution.
Together with Rosa we have lived through the greatest misfortune which has broken on the working class. I am speaking of the shameful bankruptcy of the Second International in August 1914. Together with her we raised the banner of the Third International. And now, comrades, in the work which we are carrying out day in and day out we remain true to the behests of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. If we build here in the still cold and hungry Petrograd the edifice of the socialist state, we are acting in the spirit of Liebknecht and Luxemburg; if our army advances on the front, it is defending with blood the behests of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. How bitter it is that it could not defend them too!
In Germany there is no Red Army as the power there is still in enemy hands. We now have an army and it is growing and becoming stronger. And in anticipation of when the army of the German proletariat will close its ranks under the banner of Karl and Rosa, each of us will consider it his duty to draw to the attention of our Red Army, who Liebknecht and Luxemburg were, what they died for and why their memory must remain sacred for every Red soldier and for every worker and peasant.
The blow inflicted on us is unbearably heavy. Yet we look ahead not only with hope but also with certainty. Despite the fact that in Germany today there flows a tide of reaction we do not for a minute lose our confidence that there, red October is nigh. The great fighters have not perished in vain. Their death will be avenged. Their shades will receive their due. In addressing their dear shades we can say: “Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, you are no longer in the circle of the living but you are present amongst us; we sense your mighty spirit; we will fight under your banner; our fighting ranks shall be covered by your moral grandeur! And each of us swears if the hour comes, and if the revolution demands, to perish without trembling under the same banner as under which you perished, friends and comrades-in-arms, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht!”
Archives, 1919
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Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Girls Doo-Wopped In The Be-Bop 1960s Night, Take Three-The Shirelles’ "I Met Him On A Sunday"




… Jenny Lee was frantic, well, maybe more than frantic, as she prepared herself for the big number that she was to sing at the State U senior class dance coming up in a couple of weeks in early December just before the semester break. This would be the last time that she would be able to impress a certain young man, a fellow classmate, a fellow Class of 1964 classmate, as well. Impress him enough in her scheme of things, her methodically thought out plan, that he and she would be walking arm and arm around the dance floor come May and the senior prom. Of such plans kingdoms have been made, and broken.

Now the reason that Miss Jennifer Lee was frantic was that her singing sisters, not biological but musical sisters, The Velvetones, and members of her graduating class as well had not learned the song that Jenny thought was sure to set that certain young man’s heart aflame, their cover of the Shirelles’ I Met Him On A Sunday. Among the reasons for that delay was Betty Barnard’s little problem, her little two months pregnant problem (a story worthy of its’ own sketch but this is about Jenny so we will move on) a hard fact that Jenny only found out about a couple of days before, Sarah Kelly’s fear that she would not pass her biology class (taken for the second time after not being passed freshman year) and not graduate with her class in June (and more importantly not marry Arch Devlin as planned that month since he had insisted, pretty please insisted, that they both be graduated before walking down the aisle), and Susie Ricco was having boy trouble, voice trouble, car trouble, parent trouble, boy trouble again, term paper trouble, applying for graduate school trouble, and just plain ordinary vanilla trouble depending on the day, hell, hour, hell, minute, you posed the question. Jesus.

Normally Jenny would not worry about the girls being behind in their song preparations since they had been doing a local (college dance and local bar scene) girl doo wop act that had been a great hit (although slowing a little lately she noted) since the spring of freshman year. They had wooed audiences with their covers of He’s So Fine, Leader of The Pack, My Boyfriend’s Back and the myriad other songs that were like catnip to budding love boys and girls alike just then. But this was different; this one had to be perfect, Johnny Price perfect (the now named object of her desire). No mistakes, especially as she was planning (via Johnny’s co-operating friend Trig Smith) to be singing her parts directly in his direction. See she had met him on a Sunday, that glorious Sunday in late October of this year and they had been off and on flirting, dating, flirting since then. This was to be the icing on the cake.
As the big dance day approached things were a little better with a couple of days to go (although Betty was perfectly sick most of the time and Susie was having boy trouble number three for the year), but not exactly the way she wanted them. She was ready to cry when she scheduled two intense sessions for the day before the dance. Things did not look good. Then the earth fell in. Trig called to say Johnny had been called away and would not be attending the dance. She collapsed. About an hour later though the world turned a big sun red bright again when Johnny called. Called to say (1) he was sorry that he would miss the dance and her doo wop (he repeatedly said he was really crazy about her group’s singing), (2) Trig had filled him in about what she had intended to do at the dance, and (3) oh yah, would she go to the senior prom with him in May. Of such acts kingdoms are made, made indeed.

… hence I Met Him On A Sunday.
 
 

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