This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Monday, February 11, 2013
Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- “I, Too, Sing America”
…he, black warrior prince proud, sage of the darkened night, spoke, spoke curse and celebration just to keep the record, the historical record straight. He spoke of ancient Spanish conquistador enslavement down in Saint Augustine prison houses. Of ancient Dutchman and Anglo-Saxon slave markets down in fetid Jamestown. Of Middle Passage ocean dumps of human flesh, sold, sold cheap, sold as the overhead price from sweated labors. Of great bustling Atlantic world ports and hectic triangular trade, sugar, rum, slaves, or was it slaves, sugar, and rum, he was not sure of the exact combination but those were the three elements.
He spoke of Cripsus Attucks and Valley Forge fights, black soldierly fights for white freedom all parchment etched, all false, all third-fifths of a man false embedded deep in that founding document. Of compromises, great and small, Missouri 1820, that damn Mex bracero land- eating war against the ghost of those long ago conquistadores, of 1850 compromises, of fugitive slave laws, enforced, enforced and incited. Of Kansas, Kansas for chrissakes, out on the plains all bleeding, and bloody, and no end in sight.
He spoke of righteous push back, of the brothers (and maybe sisters too but they got short shrift in the account books) who made old Mister scream, made him swear in his concubine bed, night. Of brave hard-scrabble Nat Turner, come and gone, old Captain Brown and his brave integrated band (one kin to a future poet) at Harpers Ferry fight, and above all of heroic stand-up Massachusetts 54th before Fort Wagner fight. Of Father Abraham and those coming 200, 000 strong what were they, contraband, or men. Of fighting back against the old rascal Mister down in Mississippi goddam, Alabama goddam and the other goddams.
He spoke of rascally push back against the democratic night. Of Mister James Crow and nigra sit here, not there, of get on the back of the bus, or better walk, it’s good for you, eat here, not there, drink here, not there, jesus, breath here, not there. Of race riots and other tumults in northern ghetto cities teeming with those who tired of eat heres, drink theres, stand over theres, and charted breathes.
He spoke of that good night, that push back against black stolen dignity. Of struggle, hard struggle against the 1930s Great Depression Mister night. Of no more backing down the minute Mister said, no, thought to say, get back. Of riding with the king, of the simple act of saying no, no more. Of great heroic figures risen from the squatter farms, the share-cropped farms, the janitor and maid cities, the prisons, above all the prisons. Of Malcolm and the“new negro” and the bust up of that old fogey “talented tenth” white man fetch. Of brothers (again sisters short-shrifted from the account book) from North Carolina, from Louisiana, from Oakland who said defend yourselves-by any means necessary -if you want to hold your head up high.
He spoke of ebb and flow, of hope, and of no hope in benighted the black America land …
Protest Bradley Manning's 1000th
day imprisoned without trial!
Please join other members of the Bradley Manning Support Network on
February 23rd in organizing a teach-in or protest to mark Bradley Manning's
1000th day imprisoned without trial. Please
register events here, and contact our Campaign Organizer at emma@bradleymanning.org
for assistance.
Whistle-blowers
are heroes, and deserve our support. Act now before it's too
late!
A Bradley Manning supporter is someone who
believes in exposing war crimes, in international justice, in people's right to
know what the government does in their name. (See what WikiLeaks revealed.) Bradley Manning supporters come from all
over the United States and the world. They come from small towns, big cities,
and everything in-between. And throughout the history of the world, it has
taken people such as these to hold the government and the military
accountable.
The military's denial of Bradley Manning's rights to due process is
thoroughly unAmerican. Outrageously, Bradley was subjected to 11 months of
solitary confinement, 1000 days of prison without trial, and is now
effectively being denied the ability to make a whistle-blower defense during the
guilt phase of his trial.
Thanks to protests organized by Bradley Manning's supporters, he was removed
from solitary isolation at the Quantico marine brig in February of 2011. Bradley
Manning, as well as his attorney David Coombs, has thanked supporters for these
efforts. It's now up to us to organize ourselves again against military
authorities who would sentence Bradley to life behind bars.
Don't forget Bradley Manning this Valentine's
Day!
A little known fact about Valentine's Day is that it originated not as a
romantic holiday, but as a way to honor a crusader for social equality. On this
Valentine's day consider writing Bradley Manning a letter of support!
Protests
are being organized for February 23rd. Bradley Manning has the right to a speedy
trial!
Saint Valentine was imprisoned for
performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering
to Christians, who were a persecuted minority under the Roman Empire. As a gay
man in the military, Bradley Manning is a persecuted minority in our time. Yet,
22 year-old Bradley was big-hearted enough to look beyond his own
self-interests.
Bradley said that he wanted people to know the truth, "because without
information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public." He hoped to
promote "discussion, debates and reforms." During a public presentation made in
December, attorney David Coombs stated,
I hope that someday soon, Brad can go to college. I hope that
someday soon, he can, in fact, go into public service. But I am confident, as I
stand here today, that Brad doesn’t have to worry about making a difference in
this world– he has made a difference.
We think that Valentine's Day is a fitting time to send Bradley a message of
thanks directly. You can send cards and letters to the following
address:
You can also submit a picture of yourself with a message of support to http//iam.bradleymanning.org.
Bradley's attorney David Coombs has said, "the best evidence for me that I am
not standing alone when I stand for Brad is a website called 'I Am Bradley Manning'.
I personally have to tell you, I go to this site at least once a day. I go to
this site when I need to recharge my batteries after working a long day on the
case, and I just peruse the photographs – people with a simple statement in
front of their face, “I am Bradley Manning.” The power of those simple words is
amazing."
We agree. Thank you for supporting Bradley
Manning!
Help us continue to cover
100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today.
As Bradley Manning Support Network Campaign Organizer, I will have a call
this Saturday at 2pm PST/5pm EST for local activists who are putting
together events on February 23 for Bradley Manning's 1000th day in prison.
The call will be structured as follows:
Introductions (10 min)
Discussion of past and future court
proceedings (7 min)
Sharing ideas concerning February 23
events (18 min)
Discussion of other upcoming campaign actions
(10 min)
Additional Questions & Answers (15 min)
If you wish to join the call, you will need to dial-into 1 (605) 475-4000 at 2pm PST, following
which you'll be prompted to use pin number 767515. Please RSVP
to me if you plan to join the call.
“God knows
what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms… I want
people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed
decisions as a public.” -from Bradley's alleged chat with Adrian
Lamo
You're receiving this e-mail because you expressed interest in putting
together an event, either a teach-in or protest, to mark WikiLeaks
whistle-blower Bradley Manning's 1000th day in prison.
There are
currently 16 events scheduled to happen around the world on February 23rd. A
Bradley Manning supporter is someone who believes in international justice, and
the people's right to know how our government uses our tax dollars. It was only
because of similar protests that Bradley was removed from solitary confinement,
and further actions can help save him from a life sentence at trial. Thank you
for being part of this historic campaign!
I wanted to make sure you are aware of the following resources as you
plan your event:
If you want materials to use for your event, such as posters, petitions,
stickers, campaign cards, and banners, you should e-mail adminctr@couragetoresist.org
As soon as you can, please send a short paragraph summary of your
event to me at emma@bradleymanning.org that you would like publicized online
and shared via e-mail with other supporters in your area. You should take
photos and e-mail them to me after your event so that we can include it on the
bradleymanning.org blog.
I will have a call this Saturday for any organizers of February 23rd
solidarity events who would like the opportunity to speak with staff of the
Bradley Manning Support Network about the court proceedings or about ideas for
the 1000 days protest and other upcoming actions. This would be a great
opportunity to meet local organizers from other places and to have questions
addressed. If you're interested in joining this call, please RSVP to me with
what time(s) work best for you on Saturday.
“God knows
what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms… I want
people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed
decisions as a public.” -from Bradley's alleged chat with Adrian
Lamo
Welcome to 4sm, issue 21. We are very glad to finally get this issue out, in Fall 2012. I know a lot of readers, friends and activists have been wondering what happened to 4strugglemag? This is the first issue we are putting out in 2012. It is a combined Summer and Fall issue. Normally 4sm comes out three times a year (March, July/August, November). This is the first time we have had to combine two issues into one.
Some people may have been wondering about my ability to continue working on 4sm, after the death of my son last October. Without any doubt, the death of Rick was and continues to be the hardest reality in my life. This was not the reason for the delay in issue 21. We have had medical and personal problems with key outside people. A valued precious sister (Sara), who does so much to make 4sm a reality, seriously broke her arm in a bicycle accident earlier this year.
Some material in this issue covers events from earlier in the year, but all of it remains important and pertinent. Regular readers know that 4sm always runs a section on Black August in our summer issue. Because 21 is coming out so late this summer, there is no usual Black August section. We are running some significant insight and analysis, by Mumia Abu Jamal, George Jackson and his nephew Jonathan Jackson Jr., about the events of August 7, 1970 (the Marin Courthouse Raid and the deaths of Jonathan Jackson and others on that day).
Also, because of the late arrival of this issue, we are not helping to announce and organize this year’s Running Down the Walls, which takes place on September 2. We do want people who participated in RDTW, both inside prisons and out in cities across the country, to send us words and photos of your run. We will use some of this material in the next issue.
There are many other important and informative articles in this issue. Definitely check out the reports on Occupy. Also check out the lengthy section on prisons. Finally take time to read David Gilbert’s letter, calling for discussion and action around the issue of sexist and male chauvinist attitudes and behavior in activist and radical communities. This is a serious and ongoing problem and 4sm hopes many readers will respond and begin a discussion on this.
We welcome our readers’ thoughts and responses to everything in 4sm. Send us your thoughts and best writing. Issue 22 will be out in the winter. And yes, there is another election coming up in the United States in November. The Republicans seem to be more reactionary and backwards than ever. Certainly Mitt Romney is a shameless member and advocate for the corporate imperialist 1% elite. He also would be a horror for prisoners. I was in Walpole state prison in Massachusetts when he was Governor, and I can tell you from personal experience, the Mass DOC got even worse under his rule. As for Obama and the Democrats, more war, more secrecy, more drone attacks and little real help for all the rest of us – unemployed, underemployed, still losing homes, mounting college loans and other bills, and well over 2 million people in prison. One thing is for sure, no Washington politician will secure a better future for the vast majority of the people. Both imperialist parties – Republicans and Democrats – have no plan or intention to change the inherently unequal, unjust, racist and warlike USA capitalist imperialist system. It is time for more activism on all levels – more unity and more direct action and participation of the people. Some time tested slogans seem appropriate and called for now:
Black and white, unite and fight…Less talk, more action…
All Power to the People!
On that thought, we’ll see you in issue 22.
Jaan Laaman, editor
Jaan Karl Laaman #10372-016 USP Tucson P.O. Box 24550 Tucson, AZ USA 85734
“As I lay in a coma for two months in early 2007, I could hear the voices around me.... All I knew was that I wanted to live. I did not want to die, not like this. There’s a lot I want to do and say and have wanted to say for years.”
Veronica Jones did live for another three years, and before she died in 2009 at the age of 48, finally got her say in an autobiography as told to her sister Valerie, which was posthumously published earlier this year. Veronica and the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is the riveting story of a 20-year-old mother of three and part-time prostitute who was an eyewitness at the scene of the 9 December 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. This was the killing for which Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a MOVE supporter and acclaimed journalist, was falsely accused and sentenced to death.
Jones’ personal story cuts a large chunk out of the heart of the racist frame-up and decades-long conspiracy to legally lynch Mumia, an innocent man, or to keep this fighter for the oppressed locked in prison hell for the rest of his life. Several days after Faulkner’s killing, Jones told police she saw two black men run from the scene. Neither of these could have been Mumia, who was found slumped on the sidewalk profusely bleeding from a shot from a policeman’s gun. Jones’ report of two men running away would have been devastating to the prosecution scenario, which is that Mumia “must have” been the one who shot Faulkner because no one else but Mumia and his brother William Cook were on the street corner with Faulkner. But under intense intimidation from the Philly cops, at Mumia’s 1982 trial Jones recanted her account, dealing a blow to his defense. Although several witnesses saw one or more black men flee the scene, almost all of these witnesses’ accounts were kept from Mumia’s jury.
However, 14 years later, Jones came forward at a post-conviction hearing and stood up to the prosecutors, cops and “hanging judge” Albert Sabo to explain how the cops had pressured her to lie at the 1982 trial. In retaliation, Sabo and the prosecutors had her arrested on the witness stand and dragged off to jail on the basis of a New Jersey bench warrant (for supposedly trying to pass a bad check!) that had been issued more than two years earlier. Jones defiantly told Sabo’s court: “You think that’s going to make me change my story. It’s not!” Returning to the hearing after being released from jail, Jones demonstratively sat with Mumia’s supporters.
In her 1996 post-conviction testimony, Jones revealed how only days before Mumia’s trial, two detectives visited her in jail where she was held facing robbery charges. In her book, she describes how the sadistic cops laughed at her pleas to go to the bathroom, forcing her to urinate on herself. The cops threatened Jones with a long prison sentence on gun possession charges if she didn’t play ball, adding that her three daughters would be taken and placed in foster care. She recalled that one “detective stepped over to me only inches from my face, the whole while staring me directly in the eyes, never taking his eyes away from mine and with a straight face said, ‘We want you to tell the court that Mumia Abu-Jamal is the person that shot Officer Faulkner and we will make those five to fifteen years disappear’.”
At trial Jones refused to finger Mumia but denied her initial report that she had seen two men flee the shooting. What she did say, though, was that the cops had offered her the same deal they gave prostitute Cynthia White—to work the streets without cop harassment in exchange for saying that Mumia shot Faulkner. This had the potential to blow the frame-up apart, and for that reason was suppressed by Judge Sabo as “not relevant.”
The pressure put on Jones to echo White’s false account underscores the fragility of the prosecution’s case. Cops and prosecutors disappeared evidence exonerating Mumia and manufactured such fake “evidence” as a confession purportedly uttered by Mumia as he lay near death shortly after the shooting—a tale that was concocted by prosecutors and cops two months after Faulkner’s killing. White, the prosecution’s star witness, was the only one to testify seeing Mumia with gun in hand. No other witness even recalled seeing her in the area at the time. In the months leading up to Mumia’s trial, White repeatedly changed her account of what she saw. One reason the cops put intense pressure on Jones was that they feared that White couldn’t keep her fabricated story straight at trial. (For a fuller account and documentation of Mumia’s frame-up, see the 2006 Partisan Defense Committee pamphlet, The Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal—Mumia Is Innocent!)
The most dramatic new revelation in Jones’ book is that she was having sex with Faulkner over a period of time before the shooting. In previous testimony, Jones had made clear that she knew Faulkner and that he had helped her. Jones’ book recounts how Faulkner assisted her one night after two other Philly cops viciously raped and robbed her, recalling, “He didn’t seem surprised by my story of what happened that night.” According to her memoirs, they had sex the night of Faulkner’s shooting, when he was in a strange mood as if “something really confidential” was “going to go down out there.”
Jones’ account of Faulkner’s frame of mind accords with the situation detailed in the subsequent confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner. Beverly’s 1999 sworn affidavit (one of the documents in the PDC pamphlet) tells how he and another man were hired for the job because Faulkner “was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity” such as prostitution, gambling and drugs.
Veronica Jones remained a visible supporter of the fight to free Mumia until her death, and for that she paid a great price. “She was determined to tell the whole story,” Valerie Jones writes in the book’s introduction, “for herself, for her family and above all, for an innocent man on death row. She believed, as I do, that Mumia Abu-Jamal is guilty of nothing except surviving that night and her own experience points to a deliberate police frame-up.” The book concludes, “The state’s determination to execute Mumia impacted the entirety of Veronica’s adult life.” The book includes a foreword by Mumia and a legal afterword by Rachel Wolkenstein, formerly a PDC counsel who was part of Mumia’s legal team in the late 1990s and continues to provide him legal assistance.
In 2011, ten years after a ruling by a federal judge overturning Mumia’s death sentence, the Philly district attorney’s office announced that it would not seek to reinstate the death penalty. Mumia, who never should have spent one day in jail, now faces the living death of life in prison without parole. There is no justice in the capitalist courts! Since first taking up Mumia’s defense in 1987, the Spartacist League and the PDC have favored every possible legal action against the frame-up while at the same time stressing that fighters for Mumia’s freedom must place their reliance on the power of mass, labor-centered protest. It will take a workers revolution to smash the greater prison house that is racist American capitalism, opening the road to an egalitarian socialist society. The future American workers state will honor the memory of Veronica Jones for her brave defiance of the executioners in black robes.
* * *
(reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1014, 7 December 2012)
Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.
7 December 2012
Accused of Lifting Veil on U.S. War Machine
Bradley Manning Pretrial Hearing: Drop All Charges!
DECEMBER 4—Army private Bradley Manning spoke publicly last week for the first time since he was detained in May 2010 for allegedly handing over a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks that exposed U.S. imperialism’s schemes and wartime atrocities. Charging Manning with 22 offenses including espionage and “aiding the enemy,” military prosecutors are threatening him with life imprisonment, having decided not to pursue the death penalty. Taking the stand at a hearing on a defense motion to dismiss all charges on the grounds of unlawful pretrial punishment, Manning recounted the torturous conditions of his confinement, which one prison psychologist described as worse than at Guantánamo or on death row. The hearing is continuing as we go to press.
The suffering and deprivation inflicted on Manning is meant as a message: the U.S. imperialists will not tolerate any light shed on their workings. This vendetta was also designed to break him so that he would implicate WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, who remains holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to the U.S., via Sweden (see “Hands Off Julian Assange!” WV No. 1010, 12 October). In the past week, protests demanding Manning’s freedom have taken place from the court site, Fort Meade near Baltimore, to Berlin and other cities.
Last month, Manning offered to accept responsibility for providing, as an act of conscience, at least some of the 250,000 diplomatic cables, 500,000 Army reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and video from Baghdad that WikiLeaks made public. Shortly before Manning testified last week, the presiding military judge accepted the framework that would allow him to plead guilty to some lesser charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 16 years. Manning has not yet filed a formal plea. Even if the plea were to be accepted, Manning still faces trial on the maximum charges unless the case is dismissed and could receive a life sentence if found guilty of only one of them. The court martial is now slated to begin in March.
If Manning did make available the material attributed to him in the tentative plea, he provided a major service to working people and the oppressed the world over. In seeking to galvanize proletarian opposition to the capitalist order, we welcome even a slight lifting of the veil on the imperialists’ war machine. The video Manning is accused of leaking shows an Apache helicopter gunning down and killing at least 12 people in Baghdad in 2007, including a Reuters journalist and his driver, while the pilots laugh and gloat. The war logs document 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. The cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen.
With over 20 supporters attending the court hearing, Manning detailed the depravity of his enraged military jailers. His first two months in custody were spent in what Manning described as an “animal cage” in Kuwait, where he was kept isolated and disoriented. “I just thought I was going to die in that cage,” he told the court. Returned to the U.S., he was thrown into what he called “a shark-attack environment” at the Quantico Marine brig in Virginia, where he was kept for nine months. He spent at least 23 hours a day alone in a six-by-eight-foot cell with no window or natural light, forbidden to exercise, lie down or even lean against a wall if not sleeping. Even when he was allowed to sleep, he was periodically awakened by guards who also subjected him to daily strip searches and forced nudity.
Quantico commanders justified their handling of Manning by classifying him first as a “suicide risk” and then putting him on “prevention of injury” status. While Manning had been driven to despair by the unrelenting abuse he suffered in Kuwait, at least 16 official reports from brig psychiatrists at Quantico concluded that Manning was not a threat to himself or others. Nevertheless, his status did not change until he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth in April 2011 amid international condemnation of his treatment. By the admission of the colonel in charge of Quantico at the time, a blind eye was turned to these reports because a staff dentist made assessments more to the liking of the brass!
Court documents show that one base commander instructed staff to “do whatever we want” to Manning. The parameters of the torture regime were run up the chain of command to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the handprint of the White House is all over the case. With a push from the Obama administration, Manning was charged under the 1917 Espionage Act, with the Commander-in-Chief himself declaring last year that Manning “broke the law.”
The government is intent on painting a portrait of Manning as a traitor who aided and abetted Al Qaeda, with the judge even giving the go-ahead to prosecutors to introduce the contents of Osama bin Laden’s hard drives. The prosecution does not feel compelled to present evidence that any tangible aid was provided to an “enemy.” Rather, it argues that it is sufficient to establish that Manning knew that U.S. adversaries could access the information that was now in the public domain. Thus Washington equates disclosure of classified information by “whistleblowers,” journalists or anyone else with treason. And by the lights of the “war on terror,” an “enemy” could mean virtually any opponent of the U.S. government.
It is the norm for the imperialists to accompany their depredations around the world with official silence and secret dealings. In 2011 alone, U.S. officials classified more than 92 million documents. Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky observed in November 1917: “Imperialism, with its dark plans of conquest and its robber alliances and deals, developed the system of secret diplomacy to the highest level.” Opponents of imperialist occupations and war must be won to the understanding that it will require a series of socialist revolutions around the world to put an end to the capitalist order, which maintains itself through systematic violence and lies.
* * *
(reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1014, 7 December 2012)
Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.
***Those Oldies But Goodies- Folk Branch- Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues”-With Juana In Mind
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues Lyrics
When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you.
Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won't even say what it is I've got.
Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you're so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon.
Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you're lookin' to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you
And man they expect the same.
Now all the authorities
They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms
Into leaving his post
And picking up Angel who
Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first
But left looking just like a ghost.
I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough.
******
“United States," answered Fritz Taylor to the burly “la migra” U.S. border guard who was whip-lashing the question of nationality a mile a minute at the steady stream of border-entering people, and giving a cursory nod to all but the very most suspect looking characters, the most illegal Mexican- looking if you want to know. Yes, American, Fritz thought, Fritz John Taylor if they looked at his passport, his real passport, although he had other identification with names like John Fitzgerald, Taylor Fitzgerald, and John Tyler on them, as he passed the huge "la migra” U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint at El Paso on the American side across from old-time Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. Juarez, a city in passing that March, 1972 day that looked very much like something out of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, except the automobiles were smaller and less flashy and the graft now more expensive, and no longer guaranteed to grease the rails, the illegal rails; drugs, women, illegals, gambling, fenced goods, you name it. But just then he didn’t want to think about greasing any rails, or anything else illegal for that matter.
Fritz thought again, this time with easier breathing, whether "la migra” had looked at his passport or not, he was glad, glad as hell, to be saying his nationality, his American, gringo, Estados Unidos, call it what you will citizenship, something he never thought possible, not after Vietnam, not after all the shooting and killing of his thirteen month tour of hell (one month R&R included, a month where he thought he must have set the world record for boozing, dope-sniffing from opium to cocaine to brother and sister, reefer was the least of it, whoring, some paid some free what did it matter when a man had his wanting habits on, whoring running through the Kama Sutra and a couple of other tricks not listed in that volume that one of the girls, a white girl too from respectable parents back on the mainland who was looking for kicks, odd-ball kicks and found a partner, for a while, willing to indulge her, Angelica her name, ask her how she got that tattoo on her upper inner thigh and why, if you ever run across her in Lima, Ohio) except these last three weeks down south of the border had been almost as bad, and no more profitable, Fritz profitable. Now that he breathed gringo air, American air he could tell his story, or tell parts of it because he was not quite sure that parts might not still be inside the statute of limitations, for him or his former confederates. So some stuff was better left unsaid.
Yah, it started in ‘Nam really, Fritz thought, as he traced his life-sized movements back in time while he started for a bus, a gringo bright yellow and green El Paso Transit bus that would take him to a downtown hotel where he could wash the dust of Mexico, wash that clotting dust of the twenty hour bus ride from Cuernavaca off his body, if not his soul. Hell, he confessed to himself, a thing he would be very reluctant to mention to others, others impressed by his publicly impervious persona, if it hadn’t been 'Nam, it could have been any one of a thousand places, or hundred situation a few years back, back when he first caught the mary jane, ganga, herb, weed, call your name joy stick delight habit, tea was his favorite term of rite though. Or, maybe, it really started in dead-end Clintondale when he graduated from high school and with nothing particular to do, allowed himself, chuckling a little to hear him call it that way now, allowed himself to be drafted when his number came up. And drafted, 1960s drafted, meant nothing but 'Nam, nothing but 'Nam and grunt-hood, and that thirteen months of hell, minus one. And maybe, just maybe, it was even earlier than Clintondale high school days, and the hard fact that he grew up, grew up desperately poor, in the Clintondale back alley projects and so had spent those precious few years of his life hungry, hungry for something, something easy, something sweet, and something to take the pain away.
But mainly he was looking for something easy. And that something easy pushed him, pushed him like the hard fates of growing up poor, down Mexico way, down Sonora way, mostly, as his liked to hum from a vaguely remembered song on any one of his twenty or so trips down sur. Until, that is, this last Cuernavaca madness, this time there was no humming, no sing-song Mexican brass band marching humming. But stop right there, Fritz said to himself, if he was ever going to figure what went wrong, desperately wrong on this last, ill-fated trip, he had to come clean and coming clean meant, you know, not only was it about the get to easy street, not only was it to get some tea delight to chase the soul pain away, but it was about a woman, and as every guy, every women-loving guy, even honest women-loving guy, will tell you, in the end it is always about a woman.
Hard-hearted Irish Catholic Cecilias like he knew, backwards and forwards, from kid time or some other combinations foxed out later but a woman, no question. Although not always about a woman named Juana, his sweet Juana. Although, maybe the way she left him hanging by his thumbs in Mexico City before the fall, not knowing, or maybe caring, of his danger, he should be a little less forgiving. Yah, that’s easy to say, easy off the hellish now tongue, but this was Juana not just some hop-head floozy.
Jesus, he could still smell that sweetness, that exotic Spanish sweetness, that rose something fragrance she always wore (and don’t tell her if you run into her down Sonora way, and you will if you are looking for grade A dope for sure, drove him as crazy as a loon), that smell of her freshly-washed black hair which got all wavy, naturally wavy, and big so that she looked like some old-time Goya senorita, all severe front but smoldering underneath. And those big laughing eyes, yah, black eyes you won’t forget, or want to. Yes, his thoughts drifted back to Juana, treacherously warm-blooded Juana. And it seems almost sacrilegious thinking of her, sitting on this stinking, hit every bump, crowded, air-fouling bus filled with “wetbacks,” sorry, braceros, okay, going to work, or wherever they go when they are not on these stinking buses.
Yah, Juana, Juana whom he met in Harvard Square when he first got back to the world and was looking to deep-six the memories of that 'Nam thing, deep-six it with dope, mope, cope, and some woman to chase his blues away. And there she was sitting on a bench in Cambridge Common wearing some wild seventy-two colored ankle-length dress that had him mesmerized, that and that rose something fragrance. But that day, that spring 1970 day, what Juana-bonded him was the dope she was selling, selling right there in the open like it was some fresh produce (and it was). Cops no too far off but not bothering anyone except the raggedy drunks, or some kid who took too much acid and they needed to practically scrape him off the Civil War monument that centered the park and get him some medical attention, quick.
See Juana, daughter of fairly well-to-do Mexican “somebodies,” needed dough to keep herself in style. Fritz never did get the whole story straight but what was down in Sonora well-to-do was nada in the states. She needed dough, okay, just like any gringa dame. And all of that was just fine by Fritz but Juana was also “connected,” connected through some cousin, to the good dope, the Acapulco Gold and Colombian Red that was primo stuff. Not the oregano-laced stuff that was making the rounds of the Eastern cities and was strictly for the touristas, for the week-end warrior hippies who flooded Harvard Square come Saturday night. So Juana was to good tea like Owsley was to the acid scene, the maestro.
Fitz thought back, as that rickety old bus moved along heading, twenty-seven-stop heading, downtown trying to be honest, honest through that dope-haze rose smell, that black hair and those laughing eyes (and that hard-loving midnight sex they both craved when they were high as kites) about whether it was all that or just the dope in the beginning. Yah, it was the Columbia Red at first. He was just too shattered, 'Nam and Clintondale shattered, to know when he had a woman for the ages in his grasp. But he got “religion”fast. Like every religion though, godly or womanly, there is a price to pay, paid willingly or not, and that price was to become Juana’s “mule” on the Mexico drug runs.
To keep the good dope in stock you had to be willing to make some runs down south of the border. If not, by the time it got to say some New York City middle man, it had been cut so much you might as well have been smoking tea leaves. He could hear himself laugh when she first said that tea leave thing in her efforts to enlist him. But Fritz had religion, Juana religion, and he went off on that first trip eyes wide open. And that was probably the problem because it went off without a hitch. Hell, he brought a kilogram over the border in his little green knapsack acting just like any other tourist buying a cheap serape or something.
And like a lot of things done over and over again the trips turned into a routine, a routine though that did not take into consideration some of the greater not-knowing, maybe not knowable things, although he now had his suspicions, things going on, like the cartelization of the international drug trade, like the squeeze out of the small unaffiliated tea ladies and placing them as mere employees like some regular corporate structure bad trip. But the biggest thing was Juana, Juana wanted more and more dough, and that meant bigger shipments, which meant more Fritz risk, and later Fritz and Tommy risk (rest his soul down in some Cuernavaca back alley). And on this last trip it mean no more friendly Sonora lazy, hazy, getting high off some free AAA perfecto weed after the deal was made and then leisurely taking a plane (a plane for chrissakes) from some Mexican city to Los Angeles, or Dallas, depending on the connections. And then home.
This time, this time the deal was going down in Cuernavaca, in a church, or rather in some side room of a church, Santa Maria’s Chapel, in downtown Cuernavaca, maybe you know it if you have been there it's kind of famous. Fritz didn’t like the switch, but only because it was out of the routine. What he didn’t know, and what his connections on the other side should have known (and maybe did, but he was not thinking about that part right that minute) was that the Federales, instead of chasing Pancho Villa’s ghost like they should have been doing, were driving hard (prompted by the gringo DEA) to close down Cuernavaca, just then starting to become the axis of the cartels further south.
And what he also didn’t know, until too late, was that Juana, getting some kind of information from some well-connected source in the states, had fled to Mexico, first Mexico City where he met here to make connections further south, and then to her hometown of Sonora he heard later. So when the deal in Cuernavaca went sour, after he learned at the almost the last minute that the deal was “fixed,” he headed Norte on the first bus, first to Mexico City and then to El Paso. And here he was, now alighting from that yellow green bus, ready to walk into that fresh soap. And as he got off he staggered for a minute, staggered in some kind of fog, as he “smelled,” smelled, that rose fragrance something in the air. Fritz said to himself, yah, I guess it's still like that with Juana. If you see her tell her Fritz said hello.
From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007)-On American Political Discourse
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.
******* STILL HO HUM
THE DEMOCRATS PASS A VERY MINIMUM WAGE BILL
This week, the week of January 8, 2007, the Democratically-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a new federal minimum wage bill making the new federal minimum wage standard $7.25/hr. This bill was hailed as the beginning of the golden age of the working class by the organized labor tops and Democratic politicians. Be still my heart-we have reached the promise land! Of course, for the Democratic politicians the minimum wage is very far removed from their daily reality. No, that s not quite true. When at home and they notice the people, mainly immigrants, who tend their lawns and clean and repair their houses- that is where they connect with the puny minimum wage. For a very different take on this question I repost a blog from the summer of 2006 when this question first surfaced. I stand by the political points made there.
HO-HUM- THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO FIGHT FOR A $7 FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
WHAT PLANET ARE THESE PEOPLE ON? FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE!
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Is there no end to this madness of bourgeois parliamentary politics? This writer has just recently learned that the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, wants to reintroduce legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage standard from $5 to $7 (rounded off)/hour. This is legislation that earlier in the session the Republican-dominated Congress brushed aside without a murmur as an outrage against humankind. This project is supposedly the lynchpin of the Democratic program, and incidentally the road to heaven for working people, for the 2006 election cycle in the fall.
Let’s do the math-rounding off a little.National median household income is about $50,000/yr. $5*40hours*52 weeks= $10,000 /yr. That is very, very, very poor, indeed. Now, let us try $7*40 hours*52 weeks=$15,000/yr. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would agree that still is very, very, very poor, indeed. These numbers speak to “Third World” economic conditions. And it’s no accident that a significant proportion of people at the bottom are blacks, Hispanics and immigrants from “third world” countries. Jesus, with this program this writer has to seriously reconsider his longtime fundamental opposition to capitalist parties and to capitalism. $7/hour minimum wages means we have entered paradise. Forget socialist equality. Forget the classless society. Just vote Democratic in 2006.
Seriously though, this issue brings up what militants must do. Our program is not small, incremental increases of minimum wage levels but a living wage for all. That is the program that a workers party representative in Congress would fight for. However, that is not the end all or be our entire program. Karl Marx long ago argued against the bourgeois and socialist theorists of the Iron Law of Wages (those who thought the struggle for increased wages was Utopian or counterproductive because the capitalists’ wage bills were fixed) and trade union reformists that the remedy was not a “fair day’s pay for a far day’s work” but the ultimate abolition of the wage system through societal redistribution of the social surplus generated by labor. That is our ultimate goal.
Nevertheless, the capitalists will argue that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs here or send jobs to other countries. No, it will reduce their profits-maybe (they always seem to be able to generate those non-existent funds when pressed to the wall by successful strikes). That is the bottom line. To be honest, it is not the concern of militants if individual capitalists go under. Our immediate fight is for jobs, and jobs with a living wage and some dignity. To stop runaway shops labor has to organize internationally. To stop the race to the bottom here labor has to organize Wal-Mart and the South, of openers. That is the beginning. The end? Remember Karl Marx’s point-ABOLISH THE WAGE SYSTEM.
An American In Paris- Liam Neeson’s “Taken”
DVD Review
Taken, starring Liam Neeson, 20th Century Fox, 2008
Bryan (played by Liam Neeson), retired, has very special skills honed while a top-notch field agent for the American CIA. Bryan is also a divorced, very divorced from his ex-wife’s perspective, parent of a precocious teenage daughter with singing aspirations and a yen to head to Europe, Paris first stop, in order to follow the international rock group U-2 (?-for a 2008 teenager but we will let that pass). Those Bryan honed spy skills turned out to come in very handy, once he relented and let that wayward daughter head to Europe. See almost as soon as she (and her dippy friend, her older girlfriend) , as single good-looking teenagers on the loose, are spotted and violently kidnapped by a nefarious international gang of white-slavers who are looking to place young girls in their whorehouses or sell them off to the highest bidder.
Thus, we have the perfect storm between a man with a ruthless set of spy skills and a previously neglected daughter in distress and Bryan must use every one of them before he is through. The bulk of the film revolves around Bryan chasing, hitting, shooting, beating, torturing, shooting (oh, I said that), interrogating, driving, leaping, mano y mano fighting, and just plain being a mal hombre as he works his way through the litany of bad guy involved in the white-slave trade from lowly thuggish Albanians (who seemingly collectively cannot fight off one guy) to middle- man pimp daddy French society figures to paid off French security agents to oil-soaked depraved sheiks who specialize in deflowering young girls before he saves his still chaste daughter (naturally) and sends her back to California and a grateful mother, and more respectful ex-wife.
Recently in reviewing another protective parent drama, 2001s The Deep End,I noted that I had been listening to a “high brow” talking- head discussion about the sea-change that has been occurring in the way American parenting has evolved over the past thirty years or so (the speakers however covered themselves with the caveat that this trend excluded certain ethnic, racial, cultural and class exceptions, in short, this was about how middle, now middle, and upper class parents raise their progeny the cohort of that and this film). The gist of the argument was that the new “coddle”generation (say those under thirty, okay) have never learned to fail, their parents have never allowed them to experience failure, and therefore they have never learned how to fly out of the nest unaided and therefore are ill-equipped to face the wicked old world and its snares. And that is a future problem, no question. However I would amend that statement here and say that old Bryan, with remarkably few scars, won the parent of the year award here, protective or not.
From The American Left History Blog Archives (2006) - On American Political Discourse
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.
*******
ON THE 4TH OF JULY -HONOR SAMUEL ADAMS, JAMES OTIS, THOMAS PAINE, THE SONS OF LIBERTY AND THE WINTER SOLDIERS OF VALLEY FORGE.
REMEMBER THE LESSONS OF THIS EARLY STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION- YOU CANNOT WIN IF YOU DO NOT FIGHT.
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
As we approach the 231stAnniversary of the American Revolution militants should honored the valiant fighters for freedom, many not prominently remembered today, such as Samuel Adams, James Otis and Tom Paine who kept the pressure on those other more moderate revolutionary politicians such as Washington and John Adams who at times were willing to compromise with the British Empire short of victory. We should also remember the valiant but mainly nameless Sons of Liberty who lit the spark of rebellion. And the later Winter Soldiers of Valley Forge who held out under extreme duress in order to insure eventual victory. Anyone can be a sunshine patriot; we desperately need militants in the tradition of the winter soldiers. No revolution can succeed without such fighters.
The 4th of July today is covered with so much banal ceremony, flag- waving, unthinking sunshine patriotism and hubris it is hard to see the forest for the tree to the days when as Lincoln stated during that other great progressive action of this country’s history- the Great Civil War of 1861-65- that this country was the last, best hope for civilization. Note this well- those men and women who rebelled against the king from Washington on down were big men and women out to do a big job. And they did it. A quick look at the political landscape today makes one thing clear. This country has no such men or women among its leaders today-not even close.
Rereading the Declaration of Independence today, a classic statement of Enlightenment values, and such documents as the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution demonstrates that these men and women were, hesitantly and in a fumbling manner to be sure, taking on some big issues in the scheme of human development. Today what do we see- half-hearted withdrawal programs to end the quagmire born of hubris in Iraq, amendments against same sex marriage, amendments against flag-burning, the race to the bottom of the international wage scale bringing misery to working people, serious attempts to create a theocracy based on Christian fundamentalism, creation of a fortress against immigration in a nation of immigrants. In short, the negation of that spirit that Lincoln talked about. Today, the militants who fought the American Revolution would probably be in some Guantanamo-like cage. DEFEND THE ENLIGHTENMENT!
Note- To learn more about the history of the American Revolution and the foundation of the Republic any books by Gordon S. Wood on the subject are a good place to start. Garry Wills also has some insights worth reading.
***In The Time Of The Be-Bop Baby-Boom Jail Break-Out- Out In The Seal Rock Night
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:
A while back I was on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in an extensive rock and roll series, you know those “oldies, but goodies” compilations pitched to, uh, certain demographic, an ARRP-worthy demographic, okay. A lot of those reviews had been driven by the artwork which graced the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and to rather truly reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation, the generation of ’68, who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may be, to the themes of those artwork scenes. The one I am thinking of right now is a case of the latter, of not fitting in. On this cover, as I recall, an early 1960s summer scene (always a nice touch since that was the time when we had at least the feel of our generational breakout), a summer night scene, a lovers’ lane summer’s night scene, with a non-described as such but clearly “boss” Corvette front and center car scene to spell it all out, to put a stake right through the heart of this car-less teen, no car soon in sight teen, and no gas money, etc., etc. even if I had as much as an old Nash Rambler junk car. But my aim is not to speak bitterness today, although I do want to talk car dream, Corvette car dream, okay.
I have ranted endlessly about the 1950s as the “golden age of the automobile” and I am not alone. As perceptive a social critic and observer as Tom Wolfe, he of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and many other youth nation tribal gathering-type book screeds, did a whole book on the California car culture, the “hot rod “ culture, the California post- World War II disposable income teen car culture that drifted east and “infested” plenty of young working- class kids in that time, the time of white tee-shirts, jeans, maybe a leather jacket against life’s storms, and of endless grease monkey tune-ups to get that engine revved just right. Moreover, nostalgia-driven George Lucas’s American Graffiti of 1973 is nothing but an ode to that good-night teen life, again California-style.
Sure, and as that car wind drifted back east Sammy the local wizard, the local car wizard, had all the girls, all the good-looking girls hanging around his home garage just waiting to be “selected” for a ride in Sammy’s latest effort, usually some variation off a ’57 Chevy. Sammy, believe me, was nothing but very average for looks. A high school drop-out too (he said cars and girls what did he need school for anyway) But get this, old bookish writer here, old two-thousand facts and don’t stop counting writer here, got exactly nowhere even with the smart girls in Sammy-ruled land. That was how tight Sammy’s rule was on the car dream night.
And one girl, a girl who was supposed to be my girl, or something like that, once Sammy even gave her a look, a look, for crying out loud (which I didn’t see, honest), as he passed by in that two-toned (white and red) ’57 Chevy said this to me the very next day (after spending that night out with Sammy although I didn’t know that part until a long time afterwards) when she gave me the brush-off- “ Yah, get away kid, ‘cause Sammy is the be-bop daddy of the Eastern ocean night. And books and book-knowledge, well you have old age for books but a ’57 Chevy is now.” This from a girl who eventually went to Colby College. And here is the unkindest cut of all as she tore out my heart -"go wait for the bus at the bus stop, boy. Sammy rules here."
But a man can dream, can’t he? And even Sammy, greased up, dirty fingernails, blotched tee-shirt, admitted, freely admitted, that he wished, wished to high heaven that he had enough dough for the upkeep on a Corvette the ding-daddy (his word) “boss” (my word) car of the age and nothing but a magnet for even smarter and better looking girls than the neighborhood girls that“harassed” him. ( I found out later that this “harassed” was nothing but a nothing thing because come Friday or Saturday night he had more than his fair share of companions down by the seashore-everything is alright night.) Still Corvette meant big dough and as the scene in that CD cover indicated, probably big “new money” California daddy rich kid dough to look out at the Hollywood Hills or Laguna Beach night. Yah, that was the dream, and that window-fogged Seal Rock night part too (the local lovers’ lane down at the far end of Olde Saco Beach up in Maine but you fill in your own lovers’ lane locale).
And whether you were a slave to your car (or not, as with this writer), be it ’57 Chevy, Corvette or just that old beat down, beat around Nash Rambler you had that radio glued, maybe literally, to the local rock station to hear the tunes that made us jump into that good night.
Something About Mom- Tilda Swinton’s “The Deep End”
DVD Review
The Deep End, starring Tilda Swinton, Fox Productions, 2001
A while back I was listening to a “high brow”talking- head discussion about the sea-change that has been occurring in the way American parenting has evolved over the past thirty years or so (the speakers however covered themselves with the caveat that this trend excludes certain ethnic, racial, cultural and class exceptions, in short, this was about how middle, now middle, and upper class parents raise their progeny). The gist of the argument is that the new “coddle” generation (say those under thirty, okay) have never learned to fail, parents have never allowed them to experience failure, and therefore they have never learned how to fly out of the nest unaided and therefore are ill-equipped to face the wicked old world and its snares. And that seems pretty close to some personal anecdotal evidence I have accumulated over the years.
Subsequently I watched this film, The Deep End, which seems to be nothing but a homage to the trend those speakers spoke of- “coddle” nation. Here dear old mom (well not so old, at least not so old looking, played by Tilda Swinton) has to play mom and dad (dad off flying planes somewhere) and is forced to “pick up” after her teenage sonny boy. Seems he had a torrid love affair with an older man, the older man, a sleaze, tried to put the dough bite on mom to keep things quiet, sonny boy didn’t like that when he found out and confronted that older man about it. Older man fell off the family pier, was impaled by an inconvenient anchor, where the confrontation took pace and the chase was on, for mom that is. She could see where sonny boy could take the big step for this one. Sonny boy just kind of went about his teen alienated way.
First mom, no problem, disposed of the incriminating older man’s body, including a dip in the lake to help let it sink. Then all hell breaks loose. It seems that the older man took some very compromising video of the pair having sex and that video would up in exactly the wrong hands, some sleaze associate and his enforcer. So blackmail, big time blackmail entered the scene. Of course mom had no serious ready cash on hand when the enforcer man came calling and so things deterioratedfrom there, although ever resourceful mom tried every avenue, including hocking her jewels, to come up with the dough. The squeeze was on though from the sleaze associate, although the enforcer, kind of smitten with mom and her pluckiness, started going to bat for her, and lost his own life over it in the end. That messy battle over with life went back to normal. With sonny boy head in the clouds, not a care in the world. Now that I think of it though I wouldn’t have minded a mom like that although with my own hard-faced mom I learned to face this wicked old world, and survive.
