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Dear Friend of Veterans For Peace, The media says the "fiscal cliff" has been avoided, but we'd be better off if Congress and the President had avoided this week's deal. While unemployment compensation, Social Security, and Medicare survived for the moment, the deal raised taxes more on working people than on the wealthy, gave giant gifts to corporations, and left war preparations spending unsustainably high. And the stage has been set for a bipartisan push to cut useful spending in the coming months. There has been a lot of talk about “shared sacrifice” in finding the money to reduce the deficit, but Veterans For Peace believes that the average American has already sacrificed plenty. There is no reason that there should be any cuts to health care, education, the environment or housing, when half of discretionary spending goes into the military machine. The time to raise our voices is now! We need to overwhelm Congress with our message: End the wars—bring our tax dollars home! Take Action Now! Click here to contact your Congressional representatives. Tell them not to approve any deal that cuts the programs that the American people need and use like education, health care or Social Security. Tell them to slash the bloated Pentagon's budget instead. Call your Senators and Representative! HERE IS A TOLL-FREE PHONE LINE TO THE CAPITOL: 866-426-2631. Write Letters to the Editor. Second to the front page, the opinion page of any newspaper is the most read. Take it to the streets and lobby at your district offices. This is a great time for veterans to be seen and heard. According to VFP Board member Matt Southworth, a staffer for Friends Committee on National Legislation, “It doesn't take tens of thousands of calls, but literally just dozens to make a difference-- especially calls from vets about cutting the Pentagon budget. You all may be surprised, pleasantly even, by how easy it is to do.” The Military Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us of 52 years ago this month is more dominant than ever. We have to work extra hard to make our voices heard. Veterans For Peace

Union Supporters Protest Illinois Minimum Wage

CHICAGO (CBS) — Union supporters took to the streets today to demand an increase in the state’s minimum wage. WBBM’s John Waelti was with them on North Michigan Avenue.

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• Union Supporters Protest Illinois Minimum Wage
• WBBM Newsradio's John Waelti

The so-called “fight for 15” includes supporters like Darius Smith.

“We’re struggling to make ends meet, we are struggling to pay bills and we are just asking for a livable wage of $15 an hour so that we can be able to support our families,” said Smith.
Illinois’ minimum wage is among the highest in the nation, but retired Chicago Police Officer Charles Brown says companies can afford to pay more.
“Companies have made millions of dollars but have refused to recognize the people that have been making the money for them, the lowly workers,” said Brown.

Scenes In Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night, Take Three

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.

[A dream song of pre-natal longing for the sound of that wild ravine, hills and hollows included , music embedded riding mother womb in some father’s borrowed beat-up Packard as he, the father, showed his bride, his yankee bride if you can believe it in those southern-drenched hills, his place in the sun, his faded no account place, kicking the dirt, the muck, the coal dust, the slag, the cabin fever, unrequited, from his shoeless feet, and at the first sign of deliverance (those war clouds that haunted his generation) bought himself a one-way, one-way did you hear, for the wide world, no looking back. And so from that one-way ticket his son, like ten thousand ten thousand other restless mid-century (20th, okay) sons, forced himself to wander aimlessly searching for some mythic unpainted red barn (desperately in need of paints, black trim might be nice in contrast) hidden in some unnamed wind-swept valley, complete with Saturday night fiddlers, mandolin players, guitar-pickers, maybe a bass, fortified with Billy Jack’s white lightning, to quell that mountain wind-song longing.]

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.

[Some great Sandburg hog butcher to the world, great grain elevator to the paying world, great machine monster devouring the earth, building, building steel, building tractors, building buildings, building automobiles in the fugitive night. “Howdy do, what’s yours, brother,” no from hunger brother, get lost, but step right up, that lost age America, lost about the time the Northwest Territories closed up and divided themselves up. And of that waitress in Muncie, or was she from Muncie, and found in Steubenville down on some American river, on some Ohio River fugitive night (yah, fugitive, fugitive everything then in that great jail-break), and she, the waitress she, no threadbare, seen it all, heard it all waitress, but just a wanderlust angel young woman (not all wanderlust leads to New Jack City, ‘Frisco town, Hollywood dreams, come on) feeling her legs on that first shot away from home trip decided, decided do you hear me , that she needed to try a “hippie” gentleman, and she did, and he was, for as long as they could travel that hitchhike blue-pink American West night-seeking highway before the whole thing ebbed but that was another story.]

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.

[Of that sweet Neola night, sleeping along some cow-mooed ravine, half dazed from too many days on back roads and too few miles west , and then they waking to some sullen hot, hot as blazes Neola sun, trucks, mainly pick-ups passing by that forlorn road loaded with farm stuff (jesus, don’t ask what, hoes, maybe, maybe rakes). Suddenly a pick-up stops and an ancient (ancient by silly young eyes) angel woman, later identified as Aunt Betty, no Saint Betty, stopped, back-up and asked, asked in that sweet lost Iowa nasal, whether they, the pair of them, him and her, needed anything, needed a corn-fed meal. Later at Aunt Betty’s Diner, fed, fed to high heaven, she sensing a kindred in the she, gave her view, her view that the grand-daughters, hell, great grand-daughters of those first trek pioneers were good for citified eastern boys, in short doses. And she saint aunt angel Betty had it down, down just like that earth perfect apple pie of hers. Bringing infinite sadnesses.]

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.

[Walking daddy walked down Larimer Street, thousand flavor western cowboy hats strewn on thousand cowboy heads against his eastern Jack Kennedy-flavored bare head, barrooms on every corner not seen since Southie drunks before the high tide swept drunks away and brought forth weed, sister, cousin, what did the poet call it, god peyote, no wines but whiskey straights, maybe a water chaser (or beer chaser if in the chips) also like old times, pool-halls, slender, lanky cowboys, one foot up against the wall yelling“shoot pools.” Betting dollars and drinks, and in walks the ghost of Neal Cassady, all golden- boy good looks, cowboy hatted, twirling a key chain with about sixteen car keys like he was some big time car dealer, or hot rod daddy. And she, some blond out of Lizabeth Scott Hollywood, all husky- voiced and soft contours hanging on his arm. She unhinged herself from golden cowboy, gave him sweet kisses good luck and headed walking daddy’s way. And with no eastern shynesses, no coynesses, she sidled up to walking daddy and said “Walking daddy, do you want to walk with me?” And far out in the Denver night the ghost of Neal Cassady, the ghost voice of Ms. Lizabeth Scott, and walking daddy took off in the frozen western night, friends, friends for wherever the road would take them.]

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.

[A god peyote vision- a starless night, camp fire flamed against the infinite colors of the canyon night barely seen, Jack and Mattie playing some ethereal music on flute and fiddle, the wind begins to howl, they pass pipes filled with dream dust, and hear ten thousand -year old sounds, sounds like ancient apache warriors, untamed, undefeated, spreading their rage as they moved, moved west, then the mystery sounds of tom-toms, warrior- ready beats, warriors ready to take what the earth has deemed theirs before the beggared white man came and killed time and land and whatever else he could use, Jack , Mattie, and walking daddy, now permanently named walking daddy, get up and begin a warrior dance, out of step, out of synch, out of beat with the wind and tom-toms until they get up to speed, then, warrior proud they are ready to avenge history, then suddenly the winds die down, the tom-toms fade and the trio fall in a heap, exhausted . An omen?]

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?

[And down on Bay Street, heading to some sleek Embarcadero rendezvous, maybe grab a room, a flop, or just head to the aquarium break-water jut, hunkered down against the fierce bay winds, the dead- celled Alcatraz beacon, endlessly shining on the innocent, against Bay mists and fogs, fog- horned tankers gliding unseen beneath rusted golden gates, or the look of rusted gates in daytime, and Japan currents, she, mary mack all dressed in black, or something like that, undergarments included, she and he try to follow that high white note heading out to some final bay funeral, try to follow that place where nirvana lived, where the jailbreak 1960s led them, and for a while they avidly pursued that be-bop night, maybe spending a little too much time at the doors of perception, maybe, hell. not maybe, ingesting just too many drugs to catch that sainted sax player’s note without complications and so they drifted apart, back, apart, back, nobody say that Alcatraz jail-break was going to easy and then after a while the music could not sustain that ragged night.]

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.

[Everybody took that ‘Frisco road, and took that ‘Frisco road out when the weirdness started, when the freak- outs came a mile a minute, when the bad ass cartel hermanos came norte, when the black brothers determined who was cool in the fogged night (and who was not) and poetry and posters and slogans and banners and, and whatever, lost their way and called for westward ho but there was no westward ho so they, he and she, headed out of cramped ‘Frisco, looked to the north, Eureka north, Roseburg north, Portland north, almost to Seattle north and then all bleeding and bruised Mount Rainier in front of them she heard her own high white note, heard some strange mountain wind of her own, some, what did she call it, some Jack London call of the wild, and he went with her, went with her for a while anyway, and then, city boy afraid of no city lights, afraid of the silence (no cars, jesus, no cars), and turned back … alone, and he never saw that black Madonna again.]

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.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out Of The Film Noir Night- “Impact”

DVD Review

Impact, starring Brain Donlevy, Ella Raines, United Artists, 1949

…some guys, some tough customer guys, who would think nothing, nothing at all of rearranging your face for you, or run an off-hand sword through your heart just to see you bleed in primitive times, or today, today in modern times, what with everything all civilized and sewed up in those more physical fields, maybe cut your throat in the global financial markets, something like that, and laugh, laugh hard, when you come to his door asking for a dollar, but who will melt like butter if some femme fatale dame just whistles, or maybe just thinks about whistling. Go all to putty and so much purr at their beck and call.

Take Walter, yah, let’s take Walter, a big captain of industry in ‘Frisco town, widgets or something, in the film under review, Impact, a guy who would run you out of business and not look back to keep business up, keep production up, and, incidentally, to keep his ever-loving wife Irene in trinkets and toys. So naturally if she was a little out of sorts on any given day (most days) old Walter was at the ready to chase away her blues. Yah, Mr. Softy (a little inside coo-coo between our pair like a lot of couples but read Mr. Sucker, okay) would drop the daily production schedule, or fly forthwith (nice) out of a board meeting if his femme had the vapors, or the hint of such troubles.

But our teddy bear Mr. Softy had a problem, a big problem, his ever-loving Irene was two-timing him with some be-bop Jimmy, all hip suited out, a guy who knew all the angles, at least all the angles on how to get out of cheap street by latching on to Irene. Of course, old Irene had Mr. Jimmy on a string too and will have him too jumping through hoops at her first sign of the vapors. Now two-timing women (men too but this is about a woman), two-timing women in film noir anyway, have two choices- grab a divorce Reno-style and slide down to cheap street with fancy Dan Mr. Jimmy or take dear hubby Walter out of the picture permanently, yes, the big sleep, and then just spend her days with Jimmy (or the next best thing) counting up the proceeds from his estate. Guess which option Irene took.

Now here is something anyone, even a rookie at film noir, can take as wisdom from the ages, murder, murder most foul, is nothing for amateurs to fool around with. Leave such doings to the pros. Naturally Irene’s hare- brain scheme (hare –brain for openers for expecting hep cat Jimmy, maybe high on some goof balls, to stay calm enough to commit a capital crime and survive) breaks down in the execution. This caper was to involve Jimmy, posing as an Irene cousin needing a ride from ‘Frisco town east, to meet Walter in front of a Rexall drugstore in Sausalito, go from there to some convenient isolated spot along the highway after feigning car trouble and bop old Walter over the head hard, real hard. Done, well almost done, except two important factors, Jimmy didn’t hit Walter hard enough and Jimmy, damn those goof balls, wound up dead after colliding with an oil tanker truck during his get-away.

After Walter woke up (literally and figuratively) he finally figured out the score with Irene and it didn’t work in his favor so he drifted off east, east to Podunk Idaho where he, if you can believe this, started a new life as a lowly but very efficient auto mechanic for a good simple country woman boss, Marsha, and war widow (World War II if you are asking) who also became his new love interest. And Irene? Oh yah she was sitting a little peevishly in pre-trial confinement for the murder of her husband, her Walter. Ironic right, and served her right. Well almost. See Walter (and his country honey, after he tells her the skinny) cannot let even evil Irene step off for the big one since he is very much alive. So he returned to ‘Frisco town to face the music.

And here is the real beauty of all those evil femme fatales from Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon) to Jane Greer (Out Of The Past) and their film sisterhood Irene in a fit of hubris (or maybe vapors) switched up on Walter and set him up for Jimmy’s death, Jimmy’s murder in her book. Beautiful. So Walter, as he must as a gallant, had to defend himself against a murder rap. And it really did look like he was going to take the fall. Not to worry though Irene will get hers, will get her just desserts. And what do you bet old Marsha will have tough guy Walter (or whatever little inside coo-coo name our pair like a lot of couples work out) jumping through hoops for her before things go too far…

Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesdays, 5:00 PM

 

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM

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The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a late - winter trial now scheduled for March 2013. The recent news on his case has centered on the many (since last April) pre-trial motions hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial (Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at 900 plus days), dismissal as a matter of freedom of speech and minimal effect on alleged national security issues (issues for us to know what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs) and dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command while Private Manning was detained in Kuwait and at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011. In December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses.

Some more important recent news from the November 2012 pre-trail sessions is the offer by the defense to plead guilty to lesser charges (wrongful, unauthorized use of the Internet, etc.) in order to clear the deck and have the major (with a possibility of a life sentence) espionage /aiding the enemy issue solely before the court-martial judge (a single military judge, the one who has been hearing the pre-trial motions, not a lifer-stacked panel). Other news includes the increased media attention by mainstream outletsaround the case, as well as an important statement by three Nobel Peace Laureates(including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails.

Since September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’ case, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Pardon Bradley Manning Square for the stand-out’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held on each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM in order to continue to broaden our outreach at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, also renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out). Join us. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Gothic Modern Noir- Robert Young’s “The Second Woman”

The Second Woman, starring Robert Young, Betty Drake, Warner Brothers, 1950

…funny, not comic laugh funny, not joke on the street funny, but maybe just plain old ordinary human nature funny, the strangest kind, how lust for revenge, hell, let’s call it by its right name, bloodlust for revenge, will twist a man or woman up inside so much they, well, they will not hesitate at the crime of crimes, murder. Take Ben Sheppard, successful California real estate developer, whose family had been in California since practically before those stinking bracero conquistador Aztec days and he had the land grants to prove it. He had been successful beyond his wildest dreams as he hit the post-war (post- World War II to not confuse anyone on which war) California real estate god gold rush before most people could even identify that august state on a map (and given three chanced to boot).

Yes, he was selling dream, California-blessed fading orange sun-sized dream of cozy little sea-side inlet bungalows and other prime new world a-borning valley housing tracts to those eager G.I.s back from the Pacific war and then welded to the California coast that they had noticed when they embarked on those leaky troop transports headed on to ancient island battlefields. To those who had prospered, war prospered, in the great okie/arkie dust bowl migration and eager to shake the dust off, the sod off, and the from hunger off with some little California modern to replace the trailer park digs. And Ben could look forward to selling, once they settled down from the boom-boom pacific coast highway chicken runs and the late night abandoned sex in their hot rods, those very sons and daughters of that eastern migration.(Ben, realistic to the core when it came to real estate, if not in other matters, knew that he would never capture the serious white trash market, the guys and their mamas who were burning up the highways and scaring the bejesus out of honest citizens on their boom-boom-boom Harleys and Indians. He would leave that market to the stinking braceros. ) So Ben Sheppard, well respected, well- connected Ben Sheppard was on easy street.

Oh sure he had had some problems like we all do. A wife, a wife who came from good old Spanish land grant family, and knew senor this and senora that, going back to Cortez and Balboa, who had run off one night with his gabacho stinking building site foreman, some low mex bato loco as it turned out when he tried to trace them later. Run off in one of his brand new Hudson coupes, she waving some silky mex-colored scarf trailing in the wind as she, half- drunk as usual, kissed him off as he watched them in the driveway of his hacienda, yelling “Adios, gusano, adios,”leaving him with his young daughter. His private detectives never did find her (or him) although he had them search the whole west coast and right down into fellaheen Mexico.

Of course, as one would expect as that daughter, Vivian, came of age, he had his problems with her, her and the boys, those hot rod boys who were thrilling all the young coast girls with their dare-devil antics, their golden boy good-looks and their ,ah, bedroom eyes. One incident at a LaJolla road house had cost him plenty to hush up, hush up about her age (under age for drinking) , hush up about what she was caught doing in some tar paper back lot joy shack and with whom, and hush up those guys involved too. She certainly had some of her mother’s spitfire whorish ways in her, for a while anyway, until he sent her away to school in the east. And until Jeff (played by Robert Young), his main dream house and dream California architect, caught her fancy when she came back from the east cured of her wildness. And so things stood until the war came, and Jeff was off to the Pacific.

After Jeff got back from the Pacific wars they were to be married. Ben, who had treated Jeff like a son and had pushed hard for his projects before the banks and other interested parties, was the happiest he had been had been since that whorish wife left him. Then the very night before the wedding, Jeff, Jeff drunk as a skunk had taken one of Ben’s Hudson coupes, and taken his Vivian for a coast ride, a fatal, fatal to Vivian, high speed coast ride. Jeff had murdered, there was no other word for it in his mind, none, his only daughter. The cops said accident, everybody else just said it was tragic and moved on. Even Jeff was eaten up by what he done, eaten up to the core and consumed himself in work. But when a man murders, and the more Ben thought about it the more that word really was the only word for it, a man, a father if he was really a father must avenge that death, and avenge it anyway he could. And that is when he began to hatch his nefarious plots.

Meanwhile Jeff, starting to have the fog lift a little from his traumatic involvement in Vivian’s dead, began to have a very odd string of bad luck. A favored horse came up lame and had to be put away. A favorite dog died under mysterious circumstances, a favored rose bush too. Things, very strange things kept happening and as they did those around him began to sense that Jeff’s wheels were coming off. When his house (a very Frank Lloyd Wright-ish house) nettled atop an inlet rock cove burned to the ground he almost went over the edge. And those around him looked twice when he approached them.

But see not all Jeff’s luck was bad, not by any means, because during this time a niece house guest of a neighbor, Ellen (played by Betty Drake), came his way, they fell for each other big, and she, a trained CPA (Certified Public Accountant, no other meaning for those in steeped in cyberspace lingo) while not cooing with Jeff, stood by her man, big time as well, and helped to find out why Jeff was having some very bad days against all the laws of probability, luck- wise that is. Needless to say no CPA (remember what that means) would fall for a murderer so she/he/they began to unravel the details that led up to those pieces of bad luck. Guess who they zeroed in on. Yes, Ben. And guess what Ben found out to his misfortunate. Well I will leave that to your viewing. But here is a hint. Vivian had a little more of her mother’s laughing brown eyes whore still left in her that old Ben realized. Still that revenge thing, that bloodlust revenge thing, well it was pretty strong. And has been part of the human condition for a while.

Greece: The menace of Golden Dawn Printer-Friendly E-Mail This Dec 30, 2012 By Amalia Ioizidou Greece has a proud anti-fascist history and yet, in 2012, a neo-fascist party, Golden Dawn, won 7% of the vote (over 400,000 votes), and 18 members of parliament. Amalia Loizidou, first published in "Socialism Today", magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales) Even in villages that had been wiped out by the Nazis in the second world war, such as Distomo and Kalavryta, Golden Dawn averaged 6%. Why is this happening? Can it be stopped, and how? Below are extracts from articles by Xekinima (CWI in Greece), collated and translated for "Socialism Today" by AMALIA IOIZIDOU. GOLDEN DAWN IS a neo-fascist party, a gang of thugs and criminals. Their leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, has a criminal record, most notably for planting bombs in cinemas that showed left-wing films. Recently, it was revealed that he is the co-owner of a hotel that operates as a brothel. Other members of Golden Dawn’s leadership have also been convicted for criminal offenses. Currently, there are court cases on-going against four of its MPs. Many commentators expected Golden Dawn to moderate its public violence upon entering parliament. In fact, its hooligan behavior has increased, with 63 attacks within two months. It followed up its electoral success with a near-fatal arson attack on an abandoned factory used as a refuge for immigrants in Patras. There are daily reports of attacks against immigrants and anti-fascist activists. In parliamentary speeches, Golden Dawn MPs have threatened school student occupations. Its members have leafleted gay bars with the sinister threat ‘you are next’. Even the international media were forced to take notice when Golden Dawn members attacked a theater cast and audience of a play it judged to be blasphemous. In an echo of the 1930s they have injured members of left parties and organisations during activities to build for the last 48-hour strike (6/7 November). This follows on from the infamous scenes of Golden Dawn spokesman, Elias Kasidiaris, physically attacking Rena Dourou, a woman candidate for the Syriza radical left coalition party, and Liana Kanelli, a female MP for the KKE (Communist Party), live on TV. Turning point THE TURNING POINT for Golden Dawn, however, was not the most recent general elections in May and June. It was the municipal elections in Athens in 2010. Its leader, Michaloliakos, was elected as a councilor with 5.27% of the vote – in contrast to the 0.51% it got in the 2009 national elections. This gave Golden Dawn a certain legitimacy in the eyes of some Greeks by changing the image they had of being merely a marginalized group of extremist thugs. Undoubtedly, the desperate social and economic situation in Greece has fueled the rise of Golden Dawn. But the crisis alone does not entirely explain its sudden growth. It is also necessary to understand the tactics that Golden Dawn has used and the failings of mainstream and left parties to offer a way out of the crisis. As long as there are absolutely deprived areas with massive poverty and unemployment then problems will arise in relation to criminality and general social breakdown. In these conditions, Golden Dawn and fascism in general have a golden opportunity to rise. Golden Dawn’s electoral success in 2010 was the result of consistent local campaigns it had launched in the deprived neighborhoods. Whose fault is it, they endlessly asked, that these areas are deprived? Whose fault is it that there is such extreme poverty, unemployment, criminality, and no hope for the future? Its answer, of course, is to blame immigrants and foreigners, not the big-business bosses or capitalists. On the basis of this propaganda, Golden Dawn intervened in schools. It went petitioning. It went door to door and organised demonstrations. This was the way it built its electoral profile and recruited supporters. Anti-austerity rhetoric GOLDEN DAWN HAS also been aided in its rise by the use of anti-austerity rhetoric. In Greece, support for the far-right over the past few years was expressed in a party called LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally). But LAOS voted in favor of the first memorandum of cut-backs dictated by the troika – the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. It also participated in the coalition government of the appointed technocrat prime minister, Lucas Papademos (in office from November 2011 to May 2012). Following this, LAOS was seen as an ally of the troika and on the side of the memorandum. As a result, it plunged into crisis and lost out to Golden Dawn. The more traditional far-right currents moved towards Golden Dawn as the ‘most authentic’ version of Greek nationalism. Golden Dawn clearly understood that allowing the left to monopolize the anti-austerity movement would give it a huge advantage in the battles for hearts and minds. Positioning itself against the memorandum meant being on the side of the massive anti-austerity current that is developing within Greek society. This is how the Golden Dawn had the chance to have, according to its own website, its “most militant sections acting in the, until now, ‘red areas’.” Most of its supporters are young people who have nothing left to hope for. Over half of the youth in Greece are currently unemployed. Those in employment mostly work in horrible conditions, in precarious jobs and on extremely low wages. Golden Dawn had its best results among students and youth (9.5%), farmers (9.3%) and unemployed (9.1%). It is seen as providing easy answers to their problems – blaming immigrants – and as a party that is against corrupt politicians. Yet, despite its boasts, Golden Dawn has not even touched a hair of any government politician, bankers, etc. The only ones its members threaten, and have physically attacked, are politicians of the left parties. Alarmingly, one out of every two police officers voted for Golden Dawn. It is widely known that the Greek police, especially the riot police (MAT), have close relationships with Golden Dawn. Recently published documents prove this. This is illustrated by the fact that when Golden Dawn members are on the streets they do not get attacked by the police like other demonstrators. On the contrary, they are being protected by the MAT. Golden Dawn’s obvious slogans are ‘foreigners out’ and ‘Greece for the Greeks’. It also proclaims ‘Golden Dawn against everyone’. That slogan should really be ‘Golden Dawn against anyone that fights back’. The rest – ship-owners, big business, and capitalism in general – have nothing to fear. In parliament, Golden Dawn has backed increased tax relief for the ship-owners while, in Athens, it allocated publicly-owned municipal parking for use by private companies. Many other similar examples could be listed. Last spring, Golden Dawn members provoked media workers by circling their demonstration on scooters, insulting the workers, giving Nazi salutes, and making obscene gestures. On 7 November in Volos, they were waiting outside of their offices for the participants of the general strike demo, holding clubs in their hands. On this occasion the demo was too big for them to be able to attack it. They also threatened teachers’ union officials because of their support for anti-fascist action. This also has a theoretical expression. In a number of Golden Dawn website articles it is made clear that it is against strikes on the grounds that strikes create “hatred among fellow Greeks”. It has declared publicly that it opposes specific strikes in specific workplaces, factories, etc. Its dominant theme is that all Greeks are of the same nation, blood and race – not that there are poor and rich, workers and bosses, oppressed and oppressors. According to Golden Dawn, therefore, Greeks must sit tight because, when they strike or demonstrate, they “serve the division that the system wants”. This position is not at all different from the government’s and the bosses’, of the system and the establishment. The clearest proof for all of the above is the consistent absence of the Golden Dawn from the mobilizations of the workers’ and youth over the past two-and-a-half years, in all the general strikes, massive demonstrations, occupations of the squares, etc. Refugees, immigrants and ultra-nationalism GOLDEN DAWN’S ultra-nationalism finds its expression in a virulent and xenophobic campaign against refugees and immigrants, demanding their complete removal from Greece. It claims that this is the only way to solve unemployment, poverty and criminality. Golden Dawn tries to present itself as a solution to these problems in an utterly racist fashion. For example, it accompanies old ladies to cashpoints and to the banks to collect their pensions offering them ‘protection’ against so-called ‘foreign thugs’. Yet, over the last two years, unemployment has tripled without a respective increase in the number of immigrants and refugees. In fact, many have sought a better life elsewhere. Golden Dawn says: “Big problems demand extreme solutions. A revolutionary vanguard is necessary to destroy the rotten political establishment. This vanguard, after the disappearance of the so-called ‘revolutionary left’, can only be nationalist”. Its demagogy is full of nationalism, with scenarios denouncing ‘traitors’ and ‘conspiracies against the nation’. The irony is that Greek capitalism (the ruling class) has already compromised with the neo-colonialism of the troika and its lenders. This is not unique to Greek capitalism, as it is a central characteristic of the way global capitalism functions. The weaker bourgeois classes historically survived by choosing more powerful bourgeois classes as their ‘protectors’. Golden Dawn’s ‘revolution’, and its view of the ‘destruction’ of the establishment, sees no role for the millions of workers, oppressed and young people. It sees it as the work of the ‘nationalist vanguard’, which will impose the model of Mussolini, Hitler and the junta of the colonels, which ruled Greece from 1967-74. In reality, the role of Golden Dawn in the event of counter-revolution, would be as a deadly auxiliary to the military and other reactionary state forces. In relation to the central question of the Greek crisis and austerity, Golden Dawn’s position really is for a renegotiation of the memorandum. It does not call for a repudiation of the debt because it does not want to clash with Greek capital, which it considers as the locomotive of the economy. Greek capital, for its part, does not want to and cannot clash with its bosses in Germany, the EU, the USA, etc. Failure of the left THE RISE OF Golden Dawn – and, generally, of the rise of racism, nationalism, the far-right and neo-fascism throughout Europe and elsewhere – is also the result of the failure of the left to respond to the urgent needs of the workers in the worst crisis of capitalism in a generation and the consequent defeats of the movement. In Greece there was an underestimation of Golden Dawn and the dangers it represented. The left often merely denounced violent attacks, pointing at the historic experience of fascism, or limited itself to a narrow ‘humanitarian’ and not at all class-based and internationalist understanding of immigration. Additionally, the left’s political absence in the deprived neighborhoods left a vacuum to be filled by Golden Dawn, which had a consistent presence and daily activity in those areas. There was also a superficial belief that a demonstration through those neighborhoods would be enough to ‘exile’ Golden Dawn from the area. Most of all there was a refusal of the major forces of the left to unite and create common residents’ committees of both Greek and immigrants, which would develop a plan on how to face their common issues. The combined power of the different left parties and organisations was never used to develop initiatives and actions that would unite the workers and youth, including the refugees and immigrants, of these areas. How can the Golden Dawn be stopped? FOR MANY YEARS Xekinima (CWI in Greece) has been active around anti-racism and anti-fascism. It called for a united front of the left, the trade unions, and the movement against Golden Dawn even before it managed to establish itself as a party with elected representatives. The situation today is even more serious. What is needed is a new big anti-fascist effort. The united participation and common action of the left is crucial. Xekinima has repeatedly called for this with concrete proposals, before the last elections and the huge electoral rise of the Golden Dawn. After the elections, Xekinima put forward the following steps to make this a reality: the creation of anti-fascist committees in every neighborhood, workplace, school and university; the creation of self-defense groups in areas which have become dangerous for left and anti-fascist activists; for the campaign to be systematic to counteract the neo-fascists’ daily propaganda within the neighborhoods; and the need for Greeks and immigrants to unite in a common struggle in order to tackle their common problems. Xekinima also proposes a motion in the trade unions calling for members of neo-fascist organisations, especially Golden Dawn, to be barred from membership. This became a tradition after the fall of the junta in the 1970s, both in the workplaces and student unions. It is important that such decisions are taken in the union branches, in order to protect the workers’ struggles that are developing and that will inevitably rise in the future. A number of anti-fascist committees are being set up in different areas of Athens and other cities. Xekinima has taken the initiative for the creation of some of these committees. It is noticeable that local activists from different organisations are endorsing this effort. Additionally, the role that the teachers’ union has played in a number of areas is also significant, including taking the decision, officially, to take up the issue of anti-fascism in the schools and with students. Unfortunately, the main left parties (Syriza and the KKE) have not responded to this danger urgently enough. The KKE is tackling this issue with its usual sectarian approach. Syriza had mentioned the need for anti-fascist action but without any organised initiatives, apart from those taken by some of its components separately. However Syriza’s central secretariat has recently changed its stand and is now in favor of anti-fascist committees. In addition, there are other smaller left organisations that either do not comprehend the importance of anti-fascist struggle or, when they do participate, try to hijack them or function in such a way that they obstruct the movement instead of helping it (such as the Greek SWP). Historically, fascism has found fertile ground to grow in times of austerity, mass poverty and unemployment. This is why it is crucial to combine our programme and tactics in relation to anti-fascist action with a programme against cuts and austerity, and against the core of this problem which is systemic. The problem, in other words, is capitalism. Capitalism, as a last resort, will again turn to a dictatorial regime to preserve itself. The capitalists will not hand over power to fascistic forces like Golden Dawn, but they will use them as an auxiliary to the military, riot police, etc, as a lethal weapon against the workers’ organisations. The working class in Greece is far from being defeated, but political mistakes can lead to defeats, as in Germany in the past. That is why the above are very important developments. Firstly, the left in Greece must patiently explain the phenomenon of migration. Whose fault is it that there are deprived areas with poverty and homeless immigrants? It needs to explain why this phenomenon will not stop as long as there is poverty, hunger and wars. If done correctly, such an explanation can even attract sections of society that have been affected by Golden Dawn’s propaganda. Besides, Greece is a country whose population in the past had migrated in waves, and whose youth is again leaving (or trying to) to go abroad because of the crisis. However, it is also crucial to have a socialist programme in the agenda. It is necessary to explain persistently and patiently who is to be blamed for the crisis and austerity. The real positions of Golden Dawn have to be exposed consistently. It is not against the memorandum, as it tries to present itself, but against workers’ mobilizations and the movement of resistance. It is necessary also to oppose all cuts and austerity, to demand money for the needs of society and not for the bankers. A state needs to be organised in a way that drug and people trafficking networks are punished instead of the victims, a justice system that will also punish all police officers who collaborate in racist acts, as well as the neo-fascists. All of these must be linked with the need to develop a planned, democratically controlled economy on the basis of the needs of the big majority of the population and not a handful of families and big multinationals. Greeks should refuse to pay the debt. Then they should move to the nationalization of the banking system and all strategic units and big businesses, under democratic workers’ control with absolute transparency. Such a solution would act as an inspiration to other workers across Europe struggling against austerity. It would be a beginning to establishing a socialist confederation of Europe which will put an end to the nightmarish existence of a capitalist Europe united only by poverty and unemployment.

Socialist Alternative, P.O. Box 45343, Seattle WA 98145 Phone: (206)526-7185 Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org

Rage against rape, India		Printer-Friendly E-Mail This
Jan 2, 2013 By New Socialist Alternative (CWI India)
"This system’s mind-set perpetuates hatred against women and disregards the fundamental right of women for freedom" Protests have broken out across India following the gang rape of a young women on a bus in Delhi which are now likely to continue following the victim’s tragic death. These protests, and the initial brutal attacks on protesters in Delhi, have brought to the fore the questions not just of women’s safety and rights but also of police and political corruption and oppression rooted in both India’s feudal legacy and modern capitalist development. Following this link you will find a statement which New Socialist Alternative, CWI supporters in India, has produced.

Egypt: Referendum vote shows fall in support for President Mursi		Printer-Friendly E-Mail This
Dec 20, 2012 By David Johnson, Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales)
Regime squeezed between workers’ opposition to austerity and ruling class President Mursi’s referendum on a new constitution for Egypt has not produced the strong vote in favor he hoped for. Ten out of 27 governorates (regions) voted on Saturday 15th December, with 4.6 million (56.5%) voting in favor and 3.5 million (43.5%) against. What was striking was that barely one in three turned out to vote. 52% voted in the second round of the presidential election in June when Mursi was elected. The numbers not voting were increased by new measures requiring residents to go to their registered district to vote. This is estimated to have deprived ten million of their right to vote, particularly those who have moved to cities to work who could not take time off to travel back to their original home. Clearly the regime’s aim is to strengthen the relative weight of the generally more conservative rural areas. The vote is being taken over two days (with the rest of the country voting on 22nd December) because the Judges’ Club refused to supervise polling stations in opposition to Mursi’s attempted power grab that made him unchallengeable in the courts. In the face of mass opposition on the streets, Mursi partly backed down, conceding that his extra powers would not continue beyond the referendum. Opposition parties have reported many cases of vote-rigging and absence of independent supervision at polling stations. Voting analysis of the first round shows major cities, where the concentration of the working class is highest, opposed the constitution. Cairo governorate voted 43.1% for the constitution, and 56.9% against. Gharbiya governorate in the Nile delta, including the industrial cities of Mahalla Al-Kubra and Tanta, voted 47.9% for and 52.1% against. A narrow majority voted against in Alexandria. Meanwhile, in more rural Assiut 76.1% voted for. The vote also shows a fall in support for Mursi and right-wing political Islam since the parliamentary elections twelve months ago, when over 70% voted for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party or the more conservative Salafist party, Nour. A full analysis of trends will need to wait until the whole country has voted. Little support for new constitution It seems the new constitution will be passed, but by little more than about one voter in five. That is a very weak position for Mursi and his government, who are being squeezed between growing opposition to his attempts to impose austerity from workers and the poor and pressure from the ruling class. The government attempted to introduce new taxes and raise existing ones, as part of a deal to get a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Within hours, the government reversed its announcement and postponed any tax rises until after the constitution referendum was out of the way and asked the IMF to postpone the loan. The most prominent opposition leaders in the newly-formed National Salvation Front are not talking about tax rises for the poor while big business continues to make huge profits. Limiting their campaign to constitutional issues means they will not build mass support among the workers and poor masses. The daily struggle to survive, as food and cooking gas prices rise, is a higher priority for the millions who did not vote. After two years of upheavals there are many who wish for a more stable life. The jobs situation remains desperate, especially as tourism will be hit again by the recent street battles, as well as continuing recession in Europe. The poor who did vote for the constitution can be won away from support for right wing political Islam if the growing independent trade unions organize together, building a political party based on the interests of the working class and campaigning for a clear socialist programme. That would refute attempts by Mursi to paint the opposition as supporters of the old Mubarak regime. Notwithstanding Mursi’s conflicts with some parts of the old elite, his government is defending the interests of big business, who continue to take profits from out of the pockets of the working class and poor, just as under Mubarak and SCAF. A second, socialist revolution is needed to end their rule.