From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The 1950s Doldrums-“Far From Heaven”-A Film Review

DVD Review

Far From Heaven, Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Focus Features, 2002

… she awoke with a start around two in the morning, with a realization that he, her husband and father of her two young elementary school-aged children, was for the fourth night running once again not home from work, from that damn project that his boss, his damn boss (although she would not, properly lady-like raised, properly educated at Sarah Lawrence, Class of 1948, to be the perfect mate for her up and coming man and mother to his adoring children, utter those damns in public, well, at least not outside the friendly confines of her Ladies’ Club luncheons). Somewhere deep in her restless sleep she sensed something was wrong, not some something articulable, not something she could present him with, but something gnawing at her.

She immediately ran through the list of possible wrongs and came up with only one conclusion-he was with another woman. She had failed, failed miserable to be that help mate, to be that confidant, to be that worthy homemaker that she read about in those women’s magazines she picked up occasionally from the check-out counter at the supermarket. She promised herself to do better, to read the articles more carefully, and to, carefully, ask her best friend Bev who had been through it all with her Ben, what to do. Bev said surprise him some night at work with a special dinner. She did.

Yes, he was having an affair, an affair with a man. He was doing an act which dare not speak its name. Her husband was nothing but a damn homo and she would say that in public, very loud in public if he didn’t stop, stop being, what was it the girls said at that art show they attended as that fairy art critic came in the door, oh yes, “light on his feet.” A damn homosexual, a damn queer like those guys she would see in New York in the Village when she went into the city to shop. She wished now, wished to high heaven, that he was having an affair with a woman. Damn.

And he, her husband he, all confused, all too much work, too much alcohol, too much hidden rage, too much all getting ahead in the rat race 1950s world, raising up that ancient itch, long suppressed. Long suppressed since college, New York University Class of 1947, maybe a little after when he had that affair with sweet Raymond, the funny abstract artist, who all the girls (if they only knew) and boys too (boys who knew) were crazy over, could not stop himself, could not stop partaking of the crime, the crime in his eyes, of the partaking of the act that dare not speak its name. Jesus, that was just above being negro in the contempt scale, his own self-contempt as well as that of his neighbors. Looking back he remembered that first time, that first time with his boyhood friend, Eddy, and how they explored each other on that Boy Scout camping trip when they were tent-mates. And how soon after Eddy“grew out” of his taste and went with girls, a million girls as if to mock him, Eddy, beloved Eddy, who later would fall in frozen Inchon.

He had tried, tried to be normal, tried to fit in the leafy suburban ranch house big lawn country club life, tried to be a good if distracted father, tried to bring home the bacon, really tried with her too, tried in bed (always with a few drinks in him and a picture of some pretty boy flame encountered on the streets in his head). But it was no good, no good at all when the itch came back. He was queer, and only queer love would make him whole in that red scare cold war good night. And so he left, left her, left the kids, left the snide leaf cocktail Saturday night country club dance life and went to search of himself, and who he was.

In the end, after her damn discovery and subsequent, divorce, she depended on the kindness of strangers to see her through. No just any ladies club kindness, all surface and glitter, but manly kindnesses, kindnesses out of mother Africa like the circumstances needed some primordial bond that held all humankind together from a son of Africa. A son of Africa displaced on American shores, on leafy suburban country club life streets. A“talented tenth” man, a “new negro,” not some frosty negro, some Harlem pimp daddy all flash clothes and pink Cadillac, a girl, some white as snow, on every arm, or some tom fetch it from hunger, yes sir, right away sir , throw the blur blackface a quarter, or a bone, negro but negro devoured by black, and proud. But come 1950s leafy northern suburb, come we shall overcome southern chants, come stand in the doorway to block progress backed by surly white mobs, come we want in at the master’s table, or not, those, what did the poet call them, those negro streets and that leafy lawn could not mesh, not mesh then, and maybe not mesh too smoothly now.

… and hence this film.

From “The Lonesome Hobo” Series -Scenes In Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night, Take Two

These old time lonesome hobo flash scenes from the time before hoboing became my way of life, my Charles River Blackie’s on the bum moniker please to meet you way of life, told around hobo, bum, tramp camp fires along railroad sidings, along ravines, or under bridges when lies were being swapped to keep the chill off (and scratch pad note written down) well after I left the road (although not the life, I just stopped my nomadic roaming and bumming and settler-ed in as stationary flop house denizen), were originally conceived (born in some drift-less night, virginally born, hah, nights really, memory high, blasted on sixteen old time highs, benny, miff, sister, brother, boy, girl, jesus, sweet jesus, weed, and mary jane bless her heated heart was the least of it), as separate entries, as separate dream thoughts, and they can be read as such. They can also be read, collectively in sequence, as part of a greater experience and thus I have gathered them together here in one place.

The genesis of these bump in the night scenes, or sketches if you insist, initially came together, as will be noted further below, as a result of a question, no, not a question really but a sense of bewilderment, a “what the hell are you trying to tell us, why, and what for,” that a young friend of mine, a cosmic traveler in his own right from what I have gleaned from the times that I have had occasion to speak to him, speak in his dream words neo-hobo want-to-be vocabulary and thus comprehend a little, had about my use of the term “in search of the blue-pink great American West night” in many of the sketches that I was camp fire swapping some time back. That point blank query lead to some necessary introspection on my part about the great 1960s hitchhike highway, physical, mental and spiritual of my youth and I belted out a scratch pad short reply. But that was hardly the end of it. The reply triggered further remembrances and, as such things do, triggered some more after that and led to this stream of be-bop road scenes.

Of course that young friend’s spark only tells part of the story. No question that I had already been thinking a lot, sitting up in my room, my spartan bed, bureau, small table, single chair room where I have of late been stationary roaming and bumming, about those 1960s days, and the influence of re-re-reading Jack Kerouac’s “beat” travelogues, especially On The Road during that period is, or should be, obvious as well. I made many trips across the country in those days, mostly through use of the hitchhike thumb, for lack of cash if no other reason, but the choice of the mainly 1969 sweet youth, sweet youth love, sweet Angelica-laced company trip scenes here are calculated to give the best sense of those trips, and the closest I every came to finding out some truth on that damn blue –pink quest. And if all those reasons individually, or collectively, do not tell the story behind the scenes then let’s just leave it as this-the restlessness that drove that youthful quest is still in my bones, still driving my old bones enough to keep me restless forty years later. Hey there is still some of that lonesome hobo wandering left, left unresolved, left thumb-less in the gentle rain good night. Enough said.

***********

There is no question that over the past year or so I have been deep in remembrances of the influences, great and small, of the 1950s“beats” on my own sorry teen-aged alienation and teen-aged angst (sometimes they were separate anguishes, sometimes tied together like inseparable twins, mostly the later) and the struggle to find my place in the sun, to write in bright lights my own beat plainsong. Of course, that "beat" influence was blown over me second-hand as I was just a little too young, or a little too wide-world unconscious, to be there at the creation, on those first roads west, those first fitfully car-driven, gas-fuelled, thumb hanging-out, sore-footed, free exploration west roads, in body and mind that exploded in the immediate post-World War II walking daddy walk world. And of that first great rush of the adrenal in trying to discover, eternally discover as it has turned out, the search for the meaning of the great blue-pink American West night. Ah, pioneer-boys, thanks.

I just got a whiff, a passing whiff of that electric-charged air, the sweet “be-bop”, bop-bop, real gone daddy, cooled-out, pipe-filled with whatever (hash, the O , sweet jesus weed, blessed mary jane), jazz-sexed (Charley, Dizzy, Miles, and Lester blowing that big fat sexy sad-eyed sax at the end) , high white note-blown (blown out the first heard time on some warm, drink sweaty, weather sweaty, sweet jimson in the incense-filled North Beach ‘Frisco sweaty air night, blown out in honor of , come on now, in lure of, that blonde twist sitting alone in the alabaster white skin, ruby red lips, black beret, black eye-liner eyes, black bump out sweater, black form-fitting skirt, black stockings, black shoes, and wonder, I then Be-Bop Benny monikered in the 1967 summer of love night wonder, woman mystery wonder I would bet six-two and even black undergarments too ), howling in the wind plainsong afterglow.

Moreover that whiff was somewhat tarnished, a little sullen and withdrawn, and media-used up by my time. (Christ, every television show, every mainstream media outlet it seemed had it mock-“beat” as counter-point to the sober real world, Ike’s sober real world of bombs and psychic beatings.) More than one faux black chino-wearing, black beret’d, stringy-bearded; nightshade sun-glassed, pseudo-poetic-pounding, television-derived fakir crossed my path in Harvard Square in those high stakes early 1960s high school days. A few real ones as well. (A couple, whom I still pass occasionally, pan-handling occasionally, giving a quick nod to, have never given up the ghost and still haunt the old square looking for the long-gone, storied 1962 Hayes-Bickford, a place where the serious and the fakirs gathered in the late night before dawn hour to pour out their souls, via mouth or on paper. Good luck in your search, men.). More to the point, I came too late to be able to settle comfortably into that anti-political world that the “beats”thrived in. Great political and social events were unfolding and I wanted in, feverishly wanted in, with both hands (and, maybe, feet too).

You know some of the beat leaders, the real ones, don’t you? Remembered, seemingly profusely remembered now, by every passing acquaintance with some rough-hewn writing specimen or faded photograph to present. Hell people who after giving the best summer of their lives to the Village (or North Beach) and to beat life and then after that minute graduating to stockbroker Wall Street are glutting the market with their minute pictures with Jack, Allen, or mad monk Corso, steamy affairs (all sexes), and take on that lost minute. (Just check E-bay or Amazon if you think I am kidding.) Worse. Now merely photo-plastered, book wrote, college english department deconstruction’d , academic journal-debated. Ah, but then in full glory plaid shirt, white shirt, tee shirt, dungarees, chinos, sturdy foot-sore cosmic traveler shoes, visuals of heaven’s own angel bums, if there was a heaven and there were angels and if that locale needed bums.

Jack, million hungry word man-child sanctified, Lowell mills-etched and trapped and mother-fed, Jack Kerouac. Allen, om-om-om, bop, bop, mantra-man, mad Paterson-trapped, modern plainsong-poet-in-chief, Allen Ginsberg. William, sweet opium dream (or, maybe, not so sweet when the supply ran out and the sickness came on), needle-driven, sardonic, ironic, chronic, Tangiers-trapped, Harvard man (finally, a useful one, oops, sorry), Williams S. Burroughs. Neal, wild word, wild gesture, golden boy- dropped out of ashcan all-America dream man, tire-kicking, oil-checking, gas-filling, zen master wheelman gluing the enterprise together, Neal Cassady. And a whirling crowd of others, including mad, street-wise, saint-gunsel, Gregory Corso. I am a little fuzzy these days on the genesis of my relationship to this crowd (although a reading of Ginsberg’s Howl was probably first in those frantic, high school, Harvard Square-hopping, poetry-pounding, guitar-strummed, existential word space, coffee, no sugar, I’ll have a refill, please, fugitive dream’d, coffeehouse-anchored days). This I know. I qualified, in triplicate, teen angst, teen alienation, teen luddite as a card-carrying member in those days.

More recently that old time angst, that old time alienation and a smidgen of that old time luddite has cast its spell on me. I have been held hostage to, been hypnotized by, been ocean-sized swept away by, been word ping-pong bounced off of and collided into by, head over heels language-loved by, word-curled around and caressed by the ancient black night into the drowsy dawn 1950s child view vision Kerouac/Ginsberg/Burroughs/Corso-led “beats” homage to the great American West night. (Beat: life beat-up, fellaheen and fellaheena beat-down, beat around, be-bop jazz beat, beatified church beat, howl poem beat, beat okay, anyway you can get a handle on it, beat.). The great American West “beat” breakout from the day weary, boxed-in, shoulder-to-the-wheel, eyes forward, hands to the keyboard, work-a-day-world, dream-fleshed-out night. Of leaving behind on the slow-fast, two-lane, no passing, broken-lined old Route 6, or 66, or 666, or whatever route, whatever dream route, whatever dream hitchhike gas station/diner highway beyond the Eastern shores night, of the get away from the machine, the machine-making machines, the “little boxes” machine night, and also of the reckless breakout of mannered, cramped, parlor-fit language night. Whoa!

This Kerouacian wordplay on-the-road’d, dharma-bummed, big sur’d, desolation angel’d night, this Ginsberg-ite trumpet howl, cry-out to the high heavens against the death machine night, this Burroughs-ish languid, sweet opium-dreamed, laid-back night, this Neal Cassady-driven, foot-clutched, brake-pedaled, wagon-master of the to and fro of the post-World War II American West night, was not my night but close enough so that I could touch it, and have it touch me even half a century later. So blame Jack and the gang, okay and I will give you his current Lowell, Massachusetts home address upon request so that you can direct your inquiries there.

Blame Jack, as well, for the busting out beyond the factory lakes, corn-fed plains, get the hell out of Kansas flats, on up into the rockiesmountainhigh (or is it just high) and then straight, no time for dinosaur lament Ogden or tumbleweed Winnemucca, to the coast, come hell or high water. Yah, busting out and free. Kid dream great American West night, car-driven (hell, old pick-up truck-driven, English racer bicycle-driven, hitchhike thumbed, flat-bed train-ridden, sore-footed, shoe-beaten walked, if need be), two dollar tank-filled, oil-checked, tires-kicked, money pocket’d, surf’s up, surf’s crashing up against the high shoulder ancient seawalls, cruising down the coast highway, Pacific Coast Highway One, the endlessly twisting jalopy-driven pin-turned coast highway, down by the shore, sand swirling, bingo, bango, bongo with your baby everything’s alright, go some place after the bango, some great American West drive-in place. Can you blame me?

So as for that hobo angel comrade, that well-respected young cosmic traveler, what would he know, really, of the great blue-pink American West night that I, and not I alone, were searching for back in those halcyon days of my youth in the early 1960s. What would he know, for example, except in story book or oral tradition from parents or, oh no, maybe, grandparents, of the old time parched, dusty, shoe-leather-beating, foot-sore, sore-shouldered, backpacked, bed-rolled, going-my-way?, watch out for the cops over there (especially in Connecticut and Arizona), hitchhike white-lined road. The thirsty, blistered, backpacked, bed-rolled, thumb-stuck-out, eternally thumb-stuck-out, waiting for some great savior kindred-laden Volkswagen home/collective/ magical mystery tour bus or the commandeered rainbow-marked, life-marked, soul-marked yellow school bus, yellow brick road school bus. Hell, even of old farmer-going-to-market, fruit and vegetable-laden Ford truck, benny-popping, eyes-wide, metal-to-the-petal, transcontinental teamster-driving goods to some westward market or kid Saturday love nest, buddy-racing cool jalopy road. Yah, what would he know of that.

Of the road out, out anywhere, anywhere west, from the stuffy confines of worn-out, hard-scrabble, uptight, ocean-at-you-back, close-quartered, neighbor on top of neighbor, keep your private business private, used-up New England granite-grey death-chanting night. Of the struggle, really, for color, to change the contour of the natural palette to other colors brighter than the New England leafy greens and browns of the trees and the blues, or better blue-greens, or even better yet of white-flecked, white- foamed, blue-greens of the Eastern oceans. (Yah, I know, I know, before you even start on me about it, all about the million tree flaming yellow-red-orange autumn leaf minute and the thousand icicle-dropped, road strewn dead tree branch, white winter snow drift eternity, on land or ocean but those don’t count, at least here, and not now)

Or of the infinite oil-stained, gas-fumed, rag-wiped, overall’d, gas-jockey, Esso, Texaco, Mobil, Shell stations named, the rest lost too lost in time to name, two dollar fill-up-check-the-oil, please, the-water-as-well, inflate the tires, hit the murky, fetid, lava soap-smelled bathrooms, maybe grab a Coke, hey, no Hires Root Beer on this road. This Route 66, or Route 50 or Route you-name-the route, route west, exit east dream route, rolling red barn-dotted (needing paints to this jaded eye), rocky field-plowed (crooked plowed to boot), occasionally cow-mooed, same for horses, sheep, some scrawny chickens, and children as well, scrawny too. The leavings of the westward trek, when the westward trek meant eternal fields, golden fields, and to hell with damned rocks, and silts, and worn-out soils absent-mindedly left behind for those who would have to, have to I tell you, stay put in the cabin'd hollows and lazily watered-creeks. On the endlessly sulky blues-greens, the sullen smoky grey-black of mist-foamed rolling hills that echo the slight sound of the mountain wind tunnel, of the creakily-fiddled wind-song Appalachian night.

Or of diner stops, little narrow-aisled, pop-up-stool’d, formica counter-topped, red (mostly) imitation leather booth seats, smoked-filled cabooses of diners. Of now anchored, abandoned train porter-serviced, off-silver, off-green, off-red, off any faded color “greasy spoon” diners. Of daily house special meat loaf, gravy-slurp, steam-soggy carrots, and buttered mashed potato-fill up, Saturday night pot roast special, turkey club sandwich potato chips on the side, breakfast all day, coffee-fill-up, free refill, please, diners. Granddaddies to today’s more spacious back road highway locales, styled family-friendly but that still reek of meat loaf-steamed carrots- creamed mashed tater-fill. Spots then that spoke of rarely employed, hungry men, of shifty-eyed, expense account-weary traveling men, of high-benny, eyes-wide, mortgaged to the hilt, wife ran off with boyfriend, kids hardly know him, teamsters hauling American product to and fro and of other men not at ease in more eloquent, table-mannered, women-touched places. Those landscape old state and county side of the highway diners, complete with authentic surly, know-it-all-been-through-it-all, pencil-eared, steam-sweated uniform, maybe, cigarette-hanging from tired ruby red lips, heavily made-up waitress along the endless slag-heap, rusting railroad bed, sulphur-aired, grey-black smoke-belching , fiery furnace-blasting, headache metal-pounding, steel-eyed, coal dust-breathe, hog-butcher to the world, sinewy-muscled green-grey, moonless, Great Lakes night.

Or of two-bit road intersection stops, some rutted, pot-holed country road intersecting some mud-spattered, creviced backwater farm road, practically dirt roads barely removed from old time prairie pioneer day times, west-crazy pioneer times, ghost-crazy-pioneer days. Of fields, vast, slightly rolling, actually very slightly rolling, endless yellow, yellow–glazed, yellow-tinged, yellow until you get sick of the sight of yellow, sick of the word yellow even, acres under cultivation to feed hungry cities, as if corn, or soy, or wheat, or manna itself could fill that empty-bellied feeling that is ablaze in the land. But we will deal with one hunger at a time. And dotted every so often with silos and barns and grain elevators for all to know the crops are in and ready to serve that physical hunger. Of half-sleep, half hungry-eye, city boy hungry eyes, unused to the dark, dangerous, sullen, unknown shadows, bed roll-unrolled, knapsack-pillowed, sleep by the side of the wheat, soy, corn road ravine, and every once in a blue moon midnight car passings, snaggly blanket-covered, knap-sack head rested, cold-frozed, out in the great day corn yellow field beneath the blue black, beyond city sky black, starless Iowa night.

Or of the hard-hilled climb, and climb and climb, breathe taken away magic climb, crevice-etched, rock-interface, sore-footed magic mountain that no Thomas Mann can capture. Half-walked-half-driven, bouncing back seat, back seat of over-filled truck-driven, still rising up, no passing on the left, facing sheer-cliff’d, famous free-fall spots, still rising, rising colder, rising frozen colder, fearful of the sudden summer squalls, white out summer squalls. Shocking, I confess, beyond shocking to New England-hardened winter boy, then sudden sunshine floral bursts and jacket against the cold comes tumbling off. And I confess again, majestic, did I say majestic and beats visions of old Atlantic Ocean swells at dawn crashing against harmless seawalls. Old pioneer-trekked, old pioneer-feared, old rutted-wheeled, two-hearted remembrances, two-hearted but no returning back (it would be too painful to do again) remembrances as you slide out of Denver into the icy-white black rockymountainhigh night.

Of foot-swollen pleasures in some arid back canyon arroyo, etched in time told by reading its face, layer after layer, red, red-mucked, beige, beige-mucked, copper, copper-mucked, like some Georgia O'Keeffe dream painting out in the red, beige, copper black-devouring desert night. Sounds, primal sounds, of old dinosaur laments and one hundred generations of shamanic Native American pounding, crying out for vengeance against the desecrations of the land. Against the cowboy badlands takeover, against the white rampages of the sacred soil. And of canyon-shadowed, flame-shadowed, wind- swept, canteen stews simmering and smoky from the jet blue, orange flickering campfire. Of quiet, desert quiet, high desert quiet, of tumbleweed running dreams out in the pure sandstone-edged, grey-black Nevada night.

And then....

the great Western shore, surf’s up, white, white wave-flecked, lapis-lazuli blue-flecked ocean, rust golden-gated, no return, no boat out, land’s end, this is it coast highway, heading down or up now, heading up or down gas stationed, named and unnamed, side road diners, still caboose’d, ravine-edged sleep and beach sleeped, blue-pink American West night.

Yes, but there is more. No child vision but now of full blossom American West night, the San Francisco great American West night, of the be-bop, bop-bop, narrow-stepped, downstairs overflowed music cellar, shared in my time, the time of my time, by “beat” jazz, “hippie’d folk”, and howled poem, but at this minute jazz, high white note-blown, sexed sax-playing godman, unnamed, but like Lester Young’s own child jazz. Smoke-filled, blended meshed smokes of ganja and tobacco (and, maybe, of meshed pipe smokes of hashish and tobacco), ordered whisky-straight up, soon be-sotted, cheap, face-reddened wines, clanking coffee cups that speak of not tonight promise. High sexual intensity under wraps, tightly under wraps, swirls inside its own mad desire, already spoken of black-dressed she (black dress, black sweater, black stockings, black shoes, black bag, black beret, black sunglasses, ah, sweet color scheme against white Madonna, white, secular Madonna alabaster skin. What do you want to bet black undergarments too, ah, but I am the soul of discretion, your imagination will have to do), promising shades of heat-glanced night. And later, later than night just before the darkest hour dawn, of poems poet’d, of freedom songs free-verse’d, of that sax-charged high white note following out the door, out into the street, out the eternity lights of the great golden-gated night. I say, can you blame me?

Of later roads, the north Oregon hitchhike roads, the Redwood-strewn road not a trace of black-dressed she, she now of blue serge denim pants, of brown plaid flannel long-sleeved shirt, of some golfer’s dream floppy-brimmed hat, and of sturdy, thick-heeled work boots (undergarments again left to your imagination) against the hazards of summer snow squall Crater Lake. And now of slightly sun-burned face against the ravages of the road, against the parched sun-devil road that no ointments can relieve. And beyond later to goose-down bundled, hunter-hatted, thick work glove-clad, snowshoe-shod against the tremors of the great big eternal bump of the great Alaska highway. Can she blame me? Guess.

Yah, put it that way and what does that young hobo angel, a dreamer of his own dreams, and rightly too, know of an old man’s fiercely-held, fiercely-defended, fiercely-dreamed beyond dreaming blue-pink dreams. Or of ancient blue-pink sorrows, sadnesses, angers, joys, longings and lovings, either.

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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Links

• Free Jeremy Hammond Facebook Page
• More Information on Jeremy Hammond’s Case
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• WikiLeaks

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Rush Transcript

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Transcript

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.

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/

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.