From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - On American Political Discourse –On Kronstadt-Again- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky

 

 

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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For the xth tiresome time I find it necessary to defend the Bolshevik policy of suppression of the Kronstadt uprising and the military defeat by Trotsky's Red Army of Nestor Mahkno's Green Army in the Ukraine against the the rantings of the anarchists. Leon Trotsky long ago took and continued to take up to the end of his life, political responsibility for the Kronstadt suppression as a defense of the embattled Soviet state against the threat of internal White Guard counterrevolution and imperialist encirclement.I need add nothing to that position. Nestor Mahkno, certainly a controversial figure in revolutionary history, can and must take political and military responsibility for the actions of his troops including the pogroms in the Jewish villages of the Ukraine.

What is really bothersome is that these two episodes act as a talisman for the anarchist position on the defense (or rather lack of defense) of the early Soviet state. Do anarchist really propose today to present the politically raw peasant soldiers of Kronstadt or Makno's kulaks as a model to the American and international working class? Moreover, for adherents of a political theory that abhors all states -workers or capitalist-It is remarkable how little emphasis is placed on the encirclement of the early Soviet state by real capitalist class enemies. This touching disregard for the differences in state formation works fine until the state comes up on them by the neck. If one is serious about politics and changing the world one should acknowledge thehistorical development of your beliefs. I find remarkably little is said about the anarchist mistakes in Spain in the 1930's when the FAI/CNT had the power in its hands and gave it away to representatives of the capitalist class. By all means let us honor the courage of the Friends of Durruti but also let us remember the treachery of the anarchist leaders who entered the capitalist government and who ordered the barricades down in the Mays of 1937 in Barcelona.
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Leon Trotsky

Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt

(January 1938)

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Written: January 15, 1938.
First Published: The New International, Vol.4 No.4, April 1938, pp.103-106.
Translated: By The New International.
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

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A “People’s Front” of Denouncers

The campaign around Kronstadt is being carried on with undiminished vigor in certain circles. One would think that the Kronstadt revolt occurred not seventeen years ago, but only yesterday. Participating in the campaign with equal zeal and under one and the same slogan are Anarchists, Russian Mensheviks, left Social Democrats of the London Bureau, individual blunderers, Miliukov’s paper, and, on occasion, the big capitalist press. A “People’s Front” of its own kind!

Only yesterday I happened across the following lines in a Mexican weekly which is both reactionary Catholic and “democratic”: “Trotsky ordered the shooting of 1,500 (?) Kronstadt sailors, these purest of the pure. His policy when in power differed in no way from the present policy of Stalin.” As is known, the left Anarchists draw the same conclusion. When for the first time in the press I briefly answered the questions of Wendelin Thomas, member of the New York Commission of Inquiry, the Russian Mensheviks’ paper immediately came to the defense of the Kronstadt sailors and ... of Wendelin Thomas. Miliukov’s paper came forward in the same spirit. The Anarchists attacked me with still greater vigor. All these authorities claim that my answer was completely worthless. This unanimity is all the more remarkable since the Anarchists defend, in the symbol of Kronstadt, genuine anti-state communism; the Mensheviks, at the time of the Kronstadt uprising, stood openly for the restoration of capitalism; and Miliukov stands for capitalism even now.
How can the Kronstadt uprising cause such heartburn to Anarchists, Mensheviks, and “liberal” counter-revolutionists, all at the same time? The answer is simple: all these groupings are interested in compromising the only genuinely revolutionary current, which has never repudiated its banner, has not compromised with its enemies, and alone represents the future. It is because of this that among the belated denouncers of my Kronstadt “crime” there are so many former revolutionists or semi-revolutionists, people who have lost their program and their principles and who find it necessary to divert attention from the degradation of the Second International or the perfidy of the Spanish Anarchists. As yet, the Stalinists cannot openly join this campaign around Kronstadt but even they, of course, rub their hands with pleasure; for the blows are directed against “Trotskyism,” against revolutionary Marxism, against the Fourth International!
Why in particular has this variegated fraternity seized precisely upon Kronstadt? During the years of the revolution we clashed not a few times with the Cossacks, the peasants, even with certain layers of workers (certain groups of workers from the Urals organized a volunteer regiment in the army of Kolchak!). The antagonism between the workers as consumers and the peasants as producers and sellers of bread lay, in the main, at the root of these conflicts. Under the pressure of need and deprivation, the workers themselves were episodically divided into hostile camps, depending upon stronger or weaker ties with the village. The Red Army also found itself under the influence of the countryside. During the years of the civil war it was necessary more than once to disarm discontented regiments. The introduction of the “New Economic Policy” (NEP) attenuated the friction but far from eliminated it. On the contrary, it paved the way for the rebirth of kulaks [wealthy peasants] and led, at the beginning of this decade, to the renewal of civil war in the village. The Kronstadt uprising was only an episode in the history of the relations between the proletarian city and the petty-bourgeois village. It is possible to understand this episode only in connection with the general course of the development of the class struggle during the revolution.
Kronstadt differed from a long series of other petty-bourgeois movements and uprisings only by its greater external effect. The problem here involved a maritime fortress under Petrograd itself. During the uprising proclamations were issued and radio broadcasts were made. The Social Revolutionaries and the Anarchists, hurrying from Petrograd, adorned the uprising with “noble” phrases and gestures. All this left traces in print. With the aid of these “documentary” materials (i.e., false labels), it is not hard to construct a legend about Kronstadt, all the more exalted since in 1917 the name Kronstadt was surrounded by a revolutionary halo. Not idly does the Mexican magazine quoted above ironically call the Kronstadt sailors the “purest of the pure.”
The play upon the revolutionary authority of Kronstadt is one of the distinguishing features of this truly charlatan campaign. Anarchists, Mensheviks, liberals, reactionaries try to present the matter as if at the beginning of 1921 the Bolsheviks turned their, weapons on those very Kronstadt sailors who guaranteed the victory of the October insurrection. Here is the point of departure for all the subsequent falsehoods. Whoever wishes to unravel these lies should first of all read the article by Comrade J.G. Wright in the New International (February 1938). My problem is another one: I wish to describe the character of the Kronstadt uprising from a more general point of view.

Social and Political Groupings in Kronstadt

A revolution is “made” directly by a minority. The success of a revolution is possible, however, only where this minority finds more or less support, or at least friendly neutrality, on the part of the majority. The shift in different stages of the revolution, like the transition from revolution to counterrevolution, is directly determined by changing political relations between the minority and the majority, between the vanguard and the class.

Among the Kronstadt sailors there were three political layers: the proletarian revolutionists, some with a serious past and training; the intermediate majority, mainly peasant in origin; and finally, the reactionaries, sons of kulaks, shopkeepers, and priests. In czarist times, order on battleships and in the fortress could be maintained only so long as the officers, acting through the reactionary sections of the petty officers and sailors, subjected the broad intermediate layer to their influence or terror, thus isolating the revolutionists, mainly the machinists, the gunners, and the electricians, i.e., predominantly the city workers.
The course of the uprising on the battleship Potemkin in 1905 was based entirely on the relations among these three layers, i.e., on the struggle between proletarian and petty-bourgeois reactionary extremes for influence upon the more numerous middle peasant layer. Whoever has not understood this problem, which runs through the whole revolutionary movement in the fleet, had best be silent about the problems of the Russian revolution in general. For it was entirely, and to a great degree still is, a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for influence upon the peasantry. During the Soviet period the bourgeoisie has appeared principally in the guise of kulaks (i.e., the top stratum of the petty bourgeoisie), the “socialist” intelligentsia, and now in the form of the “Communist” bureaucracy. Such is the basic mechanism of the revolution in all its stages. In the fleet it assumed a more centralized, and therefore more dramatic expression.
The political composition of the Kronstadt Soviet reflected the composition of the garrison and the crews. The leadership of the soviets as early as the summer of 1917 belonged to the Bolshevik Party, which rested on the better sections of the sailors and included in its ranks many revolutionists from the underground movement who had been liberated from the hard-labor prisons. But I seem to recall that even in the days of the October insurrection the Bolsheviks constituted less than one-half of the Kronstadt Soviet. The majority consisted of SRs and Anarchists. There were no Mensheviks at all in Kronstadt. The Menshevik Party hated Kronstadt. The official SRs, incidentally, had no better attitude toward it. The Kronstadt SRs quickly went over into opposition to Kerensky and formed one of the shock brigades of the so-called “left” SRs. They based themselves on the peasant part of the fleet and of the shore garrison. As for the Anarchists, they were the most motley group. Among them were real revolutionists, like Zhuk and Zhelezniakov, but these were the elements most closely linked to the Bolsheviks. Most of the Kronstadt “Anarchists” represented the city petty bourgeoisie and stood upon a lower revolutionary level than the SRs. The president of the soviet was a non-party man, “sympathetic to the Anarchists,” and in essence a peaceful petty clerk who had been formerly subservient to the czarist authorities and was now subservient ... to the revolution. The complete absence of Mensheviks, the “left” character of the SRs, and the Anarchist hue of the petty bourgeois were due to the sharpness of the revolutionary struggle in the fleet and the dominating influence of the proletarian sections of the sailors.

Changes During the Years of Civil War

This social and political characterization of Kronstadt which, if desired, could be substantiated and illustrated by many facts and documents, is already sufficient to illuminate the upheavals which occurred in Kronstadt during the years of the civil war and as a result of which its physiognomy changed beyond recognition. Precisely about this important aspect of the question, the belated accusers say not one word, partly out of ignorance, partly out of malevolence.

Yes, Kronstadt wrote a heroic page in the history of the revolution. But the civil war began a systematic depopulation of Kronstadt and of the whole Baltic fleet. As early as the days of the October uprising, detachments of Kronstadt sailors were being sent to help Moscow. Other detachments were then sent to the Don, to the Ukraine, to requisition bread and organize the local power. It seemed at first as if Kronstadt were inexhaustible. From different fronts I sent dozens of telegrams about the mobilization of new “reliable” detachments from among the Petersburg workers and the Baltic sailors. But beginning as early as 1918, and in any case not later than 1919, the fronts began to complain that the new contingents of “Kronstadters” were unsatisfactory, exacting, undisciplined, unreliable in battle, and doing more harm than good. After the liquidation of Yudenich (in the winter of 1919), the Baltic fleet and the Kronstadt garrison were denuded of all revolutionary forces. All the elements among them that were of any use at all were thrown against Denikin in the south. If in 1917-18 the Kronstadt sailor stood considerably higher than the average level of the Red Army and formed the framework of its first detachments as well as the framework of the Soviet regime in many districts, those sailors who remained in “peaceful” Kronstadt until the beginning of 1921, not fitting in on any of the fronts of the civil war, stood by this time on a level considerably lower, in general, than the average level of the Red Army, and included a great percentage of completely demoralized elements, wearing showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts.
Demoralization based on hunger and speculation had in general greatly increased by the end of the civil war. The so-called “sack-carriers” (petty speculators) had become a social blight, threatening to stifle the revolution. Precisely in Kronstadt where the garrison did nothing and had everything it needed, the demoralization assumed particularly great dimensions. When conditions became very critical in hungry Petrograd the Political Bureau more than once discussed the possibility of securing an “internal loan” from Kronstadt, where a quantity of old provisions still remained. But delegates of the Petrograd workers answered: “You will get nothing from them by kindness. They speculate in cloth, coal, and bread. At present in Kronstadt every kind of riffraff has raised its head.” That was the real situation. It was not like the sugar-sweet idealizations after the event.
It must further be added that former sailors from Latvia and Estonia who feared they would be sent to the front and were preparing to cross into their new bourgeois fatherlands, Latvia and Estonia, had joined the Baltic fleet as “volunteers.” These elements were in essence hostile to the Soviet authority and displayed this hostility fully in the days of the Kronstadt uprising ... Besides these there were many thousands of Latvian workers, mainly former farm laborers, who showed unexampled heroism on all fronts of the civil war. We must not, therefore, tar the Latvian workers and the “Kronstadters” with the same brush. We must recognize social and political differences.

The Social Roots of the Uprising

The problem of a serious student consists in defining, on the basis of the objective circumstances, the social and political character of the Kronstadt mutiny and its place in the development of the revolution. Without this, “criticism” is reduced to sentimental lamentation of the pacifist kind in the spirit of Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and their latest imitators. These gentlefolk do not have the slightest understanding of the criteria and methods of scientific research. They quote the proclamations of the insurgents like pious preachers quoting Holy Scriptures. They complain, moreover, that I do not take into consideration the “documents,” i.e., the gospel of Makhno and the other apostles. To take documents “into consideration” does not mean to take them at their face value. Marx has said that it is impossible to judge either parties or peoples by what they say about themselves. The characteristics of a party are determined considerably more by its social composition, its past, its relation to different classes and strata, than by its oral and written declarations, especially during a critical moment of civil war. If, for example, we began to take as pure gold the innumerable proclamations of Negrin, Companys, Garcia Oliver, and Company, we would have to recognize these gentlemen as fervent friends of socialism. But in reality they are its perfidious enemies.

In 1917-18 the revolutionary workers led the peasant masses, not only of the fleet but of the entire country. The peasants seized and divided the land most often under the leadership of the soldiers and sailors arriving in their home districts. Requisitions of bread had only begun and were mainly from the landlords and kulaks at that. The peasants reconciled themselves to requisitions as a temporary evil. But the civil war dragged on for three years. The city gave practically nothing to the village and took almost everything from it, chiefly for the needs of war. The peasants approved of the “Bolsheviks” but became increasingly hostile to the “Communists.” If in the preceding period the workers had led the peasants forward, the peasants now dragged the workers back. Only because of this change in mood could the Whites partially attract the peasants, and even the half-peasants-half-workers, of the Urals to their side. This mood, i.e., hostility to the city, nourished the movement of Makhno, who seized and looted trains marked for the factories, the plants, and the Red Army, tore up railroad tracks, shot Communists, etc. Of course, Makhno called this the Anarchist struggle with the “state.” In reality, this was a struggle of the infuriated petty property owner against the proletarian dictatorship. A similar movement arose in a number of other districts, especially in Tambovsky, under the banner of “Social Revolutionaries.” Finally, in different parts of the country so-called “Green” peasant detachments were active. They did not want to recognize either the Reds or the Whites and shunned the city parties. The “Greens” sometimes met the Whites and received severe blows from them, but they did not, of course, get any mercy from the Reds. Just as the petty bourgeoisie is ground economically between the millstones of big capital and the proletariat, so the peasant partisan detachments were pulverized between the Red Army and the White.
Only an entirely superficial person can see in Makhno’s bands or in the Kronstadt revolt a struggle between the abstract principles of Anarchism and “state socialism.” Actually these movements were convulsions of the peasant petty bourgeoisie which desired, of course, to liberate itself from capital but which at the same time did not consent to subordinate itself to the dictatorship of the proletariat. The petty bourgeoisie does not know concretely what it wants, and by virtue of its position cannot know. That is why it so readily covered the confusion of its demands and hopes, now with the Anarchist banner, now with the populist, now simply with the “Green.” Counterposing itself to the proletariat, it tried, flying all these banners, to turn the wheel of the revolution backwards.

The Counter-revolutionary Character of the Kronstadt Mutiny

There were, of course, no impassable bulkheads dividing the different social and political layers of Kronstadt. There were still at Kronstadt a certain number of qualified workers and technicians to take care of the machinery. But even they were identified by a method of negative selection as politically unreliable and of little use for the civil war. Some “leaders” of the uprising came from among these elements. However, this completely natural and inevitable circumstance, to which some accusers triumphantly point, does not change by one iota the anti-proletarian character of the revolt. Unless we are to deceive ourselves with pretentious slogans, false labels, etc., we shall see that the Kronstadt uprising was nothing but an armed reaction of the petty bourgeoisie against the hardships of social revolution and the severity of the proletarian dictatorship.

That was exactly the significance of the Kronstadt slogan, “Soviets without Communists,” which was immediately seized upon, not only by the SRs but by the bourgeois liberals as well. As a rather far-sighted representative of capital, Professor Miliukov understood that to free the soviets from the leadership of the Bolsheviks would have meant within a short time to demolish the soviets themselves. The experience of the Russian soviets during the period of Menshevik and SR domination and, even more clearly, the experience of the German and Austrian soviets under the domination of the Social Democrats, proved this. Social Revolutionary-Anarchist soviets could serve only as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship to capitalist restoration. They could play no other role, regardless of the “ideas” of their participants. The Kronstadt uprising thus had a counter-revolutionary character.
From the class point of view, which – without offense to the honorable eclectics – remains the basic criterion not only for politics but for history, it is extremely important to contrast the behavior of Kronstadt to that of Petrograd in those critical days. The whole leading stratum of the workers had also been drawn out of Petrograd. Hunger and cold reigned in the deserted capital, perhaps even more fiercely than in Moscow. A heroic and tragic period! All were hungry and irritable. All were dissatisfied. In the factories there was dull discontent. Underground organizers sent by the SRs and the White officers tried to link the military uprising with the movement of the discontented workers.
The Kronstadt paper wrote about barricades in Petrograd, about thousands being killed. The press of the whole world proclaimed the same thing. Actually the precise opposite occurred. The Kronstadt uprising did not attract the Petrograd workers. It repelled them. The stratification proceeded along class lines. The workers immediately felt that the Kronstadt mutineers stood on the opposite side of the barricades – and they supported the Soviet power. The political isolation of Kronstadt was the cause of its internal uncertainty and its military defeat.

The NEP and the Kronstadt Uprising

Victor Serge, who, it would seem, is trying to manufacture a sort of synthesis of anarchism, POUMism, and Marxism, has intervened very unfortunately in the polemic about Kronstadt. In his opinion, the introduction of the NEP one year earlier could have averted the Kronstadt uprising. Let us admit that. But advice like this is very easy to give after the event. It is true, as Victor Serge remembers, that I had proposed the transition to the NEP as early as 1920. But I was not at all sure in advance of its success. It was no secret to me that the remedy could prove to be more dangerous than the malady itself. When I met opposition from the leaders of the party, I did not appeal to the ranks, in order to avoid mobilizing the petty bourgeoisie against the workers. The experience of the ensuing twelve months was required to convince the party of the need for the new course. But the remarkable thing is that it was precisely the Anarchists all over the world who looked upon the NEP as ... a betrayal of communism. But now the advocates of the Anarchists denounce us for not having introduced the NEP a year earlier.

In 1921 Lenin more than once openly acknowledged that the party’s obstinate defense of the methods of Military Communism had become a great mistake. But does this change matters? Whatever the immediate or remote causes of the Kronstadt rebellion, it was in its very essence a mortal danger to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Simply because it had been guilty of a political error, should the proletarian revolution really have committed suicide to punish itself?
Or perhaps it would have been sufficient to inform the Kronstadt sailors of the NEP decrees to pacify them? Illusion! The insurgents did not have a conscious program and they could not have had one because of the very nature of the petty bourgeoisie. They themselves did not clearly understand that what their fathers and brothers needed first of all was free trade. They were discontented and confused but they saw no way out. The more conscious, i.e., the rightist elements, acting behind the scenes, wanted the restoration of the bourgeois regime. But they did not say so out loud. The “left” wing wanted the liquidation of discipline, “free soviets,” and better rations. The regime of the NEP could only gradually pacify the peasant, and, after him, the discontented sections of the army and the fleet. But for this time and experience were needed.
Most puerile of all is the argument that there was no uprising, that the sailors had made no threats, that they “only” seized the fortress and the battleships. It would seem that the Bolsheviks marched with bared chests across the ice against the fortress only because of their evil characters, their inclination to provoke conflicts artificially, their hatred of the Kronstadt sailors, or their hatred of the Anarchist doctrine (about which absolutely no one, we may say in passing, bothered in those days). Is this not childish prattle? Bound neither to time nor place, the dilettante critics try (seventeen years later!) to suggest that everything would have ended in general satisfaction if only the revolution had left the insurgent sailors alone. Unfortunately, the world counterrevolution would in no case have left them alone. The logic of the struggle would have given predominance in the fortress to the extremists, that is, to the most counterrevolutionary elements. The need for supplies would have made the fortress directly dependent upon the foreign bourgeoisie and their agents, the White emigres. All the necessary preparations toward this end were already being made. Under similar circumstances only people like the Spanish Anarchists or POUMists would have waited passively, hoping for a happy outcome. The Bolsheviks, fortunately, belonged to a different school. They considered it their duty to extinguish the fire as soon as it started, thereby reducing to a minimum the number of victims.

The “Kronstadters” without a Fortress

In essence, the venerable critics are opponents of the dictatorship of the proletariat and by that token are opponents of the revolution. In this lies the whole secret. It is true that some of them recognize the revolution and the dictatorship – in words. But this does not help matters. They wish for a revolution which will not lead to dictatorship or for a dictatorship which will get along without the use of force. Of course, this would be a very “pleasant” dictatorship. It requires, however, a few trifles: an equal and, moreover, an extremely high, development of the toiling masses. But in such conditions the dictatorship would in general be unnecessary. Some Anarchists, who are really liberal pedagogues, hope that in a hundred or a thousand years the toilers will have attained so high a level of development that coercion will prove unnecessary. Naturally, if capitalism could lead to such a development, there would be no reason for overthrowing capitalism. There would be no need either for violent revolution or for the dictatorship which is an inevitable consequence of revolutionary victory. However, the decaying capitalism of our day leaves little room for humanitarian-pacifist illusions.

The working class, not to speak of the semiproletarian masses, is not homogeneous, either socially or politically. The class struggle produces a vanguard that absorbs the best elements of the class. A revolution is possible when the vanguard is able to lead the majority of the proletariat. But this does not at all mean that the internal contradictions among the toilers disappear. At the moment of the highest peak of the revolution they are of course attenuated, but only to appear later at a new stage in all their sharpness. Such is the course of the revolution as a whole. Such was the course of Kronstadt. When parlor pinks try to mark out a different route for the October Revolution, after the event, we can only respectfully ask them to show us exactly where and when their great principles were confirmed in practice, at least partially, at least in tendency? Where are the signs that lead us to expect the triumph of these principles in the future? We shall of course never get an answer.
A revolution has its own laws. Long ago we formulated those “lessons of October” which have not only a Russian but an international significance. No one else has even tried to suggest any other “lessons.” The Spanish revolution is negative confirmation of the “lessons of October.” And the severe critics are silent or equivocal. The Spanish government of the “People’s Front” stifles the socialist revolution and shoots revolutionists. The Anarchists participate in this government, or, when they are driven out, continue to support the executioners. And their foreign allies and lawyers occupy themselves meanwhile with a defense ... of the Kronstadt mutiny against the harsh Bolsheviks. A shameful travesty!
The present disputes around Kronstadt revolve around the same class axis as the Kronstadt uprising itself, in which the reactionary sections of the sailors tried to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship. Conscious of their impotence on the arena of present-day revolutionary politics, the petty-bourgeois blunderers and eclectics try to use the old Kronstadt episode for the struggle against the Fourth International, that is, against the party of the proletarian revolution. These latter-day “Kronstadters” will also be crushed – true, without the use of arms since, fortunately, they do not have a fortress.

January 15, 1938

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From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007-08) - On American Political Discourse – MR GORBACHEV (OOPS!), MR. BUSH TEAR DOWN THAT WALL-FULL CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS FOR ALL IMMIGRANTS (2007)

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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MR GORBACHEV (OOPS!), MR. BUSH TEAR DOWN THAT WALL-FULL CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS FOR ALL IMMIGRANTS

SOME COMMENTARY ABOUT THE IMMIGRATION STRUGGLE AND A FOOLPROOF PLAN FOR SOLVING THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS.

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

Forgive the writer for taking a page from the late, unlamented Ronald Reagan’s playbook but with all this talk on Capitol Hill about walling in the Southwest I got carried away. The point however is that such a scheme as is currently proposed in the House version of the immigration bill is flat out crazy. And that, my friends, is a true political fact. No militant can support any of the immigration bills before Congress and if we had workers party representatives in Congress we would emphatically and loudly vote such measures down.

A few thoughts on the struggle for full citizenship rights for all immigrants.

As I write these lines there have been a couple of weeks of massive demonstrations for immigrant rights spearheaded by the Hispanic populations of the West and Southwest followed by a massive May Day boycott and further demonstrations. Noteworthy, in Chicago at least, were contingents of Polish, Irish and other nationalities. All these developments are steps in the right direction and points out the stark reality of immigration in America. In the final analysis all real victories for working people come from the streets not from the Congress.

Let’s face it, one way or another, in the near or remote past, almost all of us came here as immigrants from someplace else. I will confess that, as far as I know, my father’s forbearers were run out of England as horse thieves in the early 1800’s. My mother’s forbearers came over from Ireland on the ‘famine ships’ in the 1840’s. Thus, my family tree is a little shaky on what passed for green cards in those days. The point is that people generally do not leave their countries of origin without extremely good reasons to leave. Those who want to shut the door on immigrants here, unless their surnames are Chief Joseph, Red Cloud or Sitting Bull, should be very, very circumspect about their positions. In fact, let us check THEIR green card history. Sorry, even arrival on the Mayflower is not good enough.

It is particularly important that the last waves of immigration gain the same rights that those of us who have been here longer. This is especially true for working class people who have been victimized by the same divide and conquer strategy by the capitalists who run this government and the country. Let’s put the onus where it belongs, on the capitalist who do benefit from such policies. Immigrants do not threaten our livelihoods. Failure to struggle against the bosses does.

One aspect of the current bills is the ‘guest worker’ plan. Let us be clear- THIS IS INDENTURED SERVITUDE-and must be opposed by militants. It is noteworthy that the major labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Coalition as well as such an august figure as the National Chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean have expressed at least half-hearted opposition to this portion of the bills. They believe they are being progressive and pro-worker by such a stand. And such a position would be truly progressive- in the 1700’s. For militants today that is not nearly enough.

It is rather ironic that one of the most impoverished sections of the working class-Hispanics- is leading the struggle. This is not accidental, for many of the foreign born militants leading today’s struggles come from countries where they have participated in class struggles against their own boss class (and under less than democratic conditions, including loss of life). It is up to the American labor movement, especially the organized trade union movement, to lead the fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants in its own self-interest and self-defense. Even a cursory look at the history of social struggles in this country demonstrates that to win any demands sharp class struggle methods are needed. Yesterday’s labor struggles to win union recognition in the 1930’s were not gifts but fought for in the streets, by strikes, sit-downs and other militant methods. The lesson-If you do not fight you cannot win. This battle can be won. Let’s win it.

The writer has been asked what type of immigration bill he would support. Well, I have a simple one point plan. Give each immigrant a local map, and depending on individual economic circumstances, bus fare, train fare or money for a car rental and head him or her to the nearest federal courthouse to be swore in as a citizen. Enough said.

FULL CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS FOR ALL THOSE WHO MAKE IT HERE! NO REPRISALS AGAINST DEMONSTRATORS! DROP CHARGES AGAINST ANY ARRESTEES!

BRING MOTIONS TO SUPPORT THESE DEMANDS BEFORE YOUR UNION, STUDENT GOVERNMENT, POLITCAL ORGANIZATIONS OR RELGIOUS GROUPS. URGE A NO VOTE ON ALL CURRENT IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION BEFORE CONGRESS.

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.