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, May 20, 2013
From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007)
- On American Political Discourse
Markin comment:
In the period 2006-2009 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.
There is an old saying that no news is good news. Whatever
the validity of that statement is there is no denying that it is hard to get a
focus what to make of latest political news as summer bears down on us.
However, here are a few comments –
SHEEEE’S BACK
In May I commented on the decision of courageous anti-war
activist Cindy Sheehan to ‘resign’ as the face of the anti-war movement noting
that her frustration at the Democratic failure to reverse the direction of the
war ‘as advertised’ in the 2006 midterm Congressional elections had driven her to despair. Apparently now she
is back and ‘on the low’ is traveling and preparing, if necessary, to oppose
herself as a congressional candidate to House Speaker Pelosi in the 2008
elections. The dilemma of Ms. Sheehan graphically illustrates the tremendous
political problems associated with the long time dependence on the ‘good’
offices of the Democratic Party, the other party of capitalist, in order to bring
about social change. Or in the case of Iraq to even stop the imperialist
madness. Militants should not only redouble their efforts to change things but
also take a harder look at ways to defeat this Democratic behemoth. That is
where the fight is in America.
WAITING FOR GODOT
Part of Ms. Sheehan’s dilemma stems for the chronic inability
to break out from the parliamentary cretinism that we have been confronted with
as the solution to the Iraq
question. Right now, as Republican office holders, with the apparent bizarre
exception of Arizona Senator McCain, are fleeing the U.S.S. Bush like rats from
a sinking ship the Democrats are trying to cobble yet another resolution to
‘redeploy’ the troops out of Iraq. But
hold on, Dems- we still have the July 15th interim report of the
interim report to wait on to see if the situation in Iraq has improved. Of course, that
is just the icing on the cake.Everyone
is really waiting (delaying) until General Petraeus’ report in September. Hear
this now- forget these bogus reports- this Bush Administration will see enough
‘light’ in these documents to continue the current strategy until January 20,
2009. My suggestion to Ms. Sheehan and others is that they get on board and
fight for a workers party. That is a great lesson to be learned from all of
this.
REQUIEM FOR A SUMMER SOLDIER
We have just passed the celebration of the 4th of
July and the usual patriotic hoopla. Readers of this space know of my great, if
rather belated, admiration for the winter soldiers at Valley
Forge and elsewhere who kept the democratic faith through think
and thin. As if to mock such devotion there has been a recent spate of conservative
commentary on old time notions of patriotism expressed by ritual display of the
flag. Locally this has been expressed in a commentary in the Sunday Boston
Globe of July 8, 2007 by Op/Ed contributor Jeff Jacoby. Mr. Jacoby and I have
locked horns before but here apparently he is in a lather about the lack of
flags displayed in his neighborhood. The inference to be drawn is that those
who do not display the flag are not patriotic. Of course, Mr. Jacoby is well
known locally as one of the last of about seven supporters in Massachusetts of the current Iraq War. He,
on more than one occasion, has expressed his willingness let some other
father’s son fight on his behalf in this worthless cause. On the other hand he apparently
will be more than happy to wave the flag in the front of his house. Forget this
flag thing, here is the ‘skinny’- until further notice we stand on this idea-
yes we love this country- no, we do not love this government. Enough said
THE CLASH OF THE TITANS
Of course no commentary by this writer would be complete
without at least a little swipe at that other party of capitalism, the
Democrats. If there is one thing that has become apparent this summer it is
that the real battle for the Democratic presidential nomination is down to the
intergenerational fight between Hillary and Obama ‘The Charma”. In recognition
of this the first ‘blood’ was drawn in Iowa
last week. Hillary with her man Bill in tow barnstormed through Iowa spreading the Old
Gospel news that the good old days of the Bill Clinton Administration were
pretty good. Well yes, Bill you were probably better than George Bush. I would
not, however, deem that as high praise under the circumstances since George W.
Bush makes Millard Fillmore, another accidental president, look good by
comparison. As the campaign progresses
the “golden age” of the Clintons
will be discussed further here. Obama is the new kid on the block and strictly
a New Gospel guy and in a not so veiled way has declared that the Emperor (or
currently the Empress) has no clothes. Stay tuned to see how this fight
develops. It will not be pretty, especially if the race gets closer than it is
now. Yes, youth must be served but these ‘guys’ are already old news.
From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007)
- On American Political Discourse
Markin comment:
In the period 2006-2009 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.
************ THE ‘CLASS-WAR’
DEMOCRATS
COMMENTARY
ON THE DEMOCRATIC
‘ANTI-POVERTY’ CAMPAIGN
FORGET DONKEYS,
ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
This week, the week of July 16, 2007, we have seen the
spectacle of the leading Democratic presidential candidates former North
Carolina Senator and 2004 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards
and Illinois Senator Barack Obama squaring off to see who is the ‘better’
advocate of ‘class war’ in defense of the downtrodden or in the parlance of polite
society, the “have-nots”. Of course, in response the leading Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton has also chimed in on this theme. What is unusual about all of
these doings is that the central electoral strategy of the Democrats for at
least the past thirty years has been to deny that the class struggle, despite
all the evident of relative decline in the standard of living of the working
class to the contrary, even existed.The
Democrats were content to struggle along with their version of “trickle down’
theory by arguing that a ‘robust’ economy would help float ‘all boats’. Well,
we knew, and now know differently and there is no satisfaction in these
quarters that these bourgeois politicians have taken up the issue, for the
moment. Why? Their ‘solutions’ are more of the same. Tinker a little with the
system to ‘redistribute’ the wealth (a very little from what I have read of these
plans) by tax schemes or public works but to keep the system fundamentally as
is. Even with the best of intentions this is a plan for failure for working
people, especially the marginal working poor. Not only is it necessary to throw
much more money at the problem than any bourgeois candidate would dream of
doing but the whole thrust is wrong. The culture of poverty, of being poor and
without resources to compete in a ‘rich’ society, not only requires money to
get out from under but a whole different way of looking at life. In short, to
be empowered. This is not our society. We live in it yes but we do not control
it. And the way to get empowered is through a workers government. This, dear
reader, is the hard reality.
That is the crux of the matter and something none of these well-educated,
well fed parliamentary types have a clue about. Even the patently reformist Chicago
social activist and community organizing guru Saul Alinsky whom Hillary admiringly
wrote her senior thesis on at Wellesley and whom Obama admired knew that much. Moreover
what I do not hear about from these born-again ‘class-warriors’ is any talk about
the necessary first step in raising the ‘boats’ of the poor-unionization. I
have hammered away elsewhere on the importance of organizing the South and the
desperate need to organize Wal-Mart. That, rather than 'make work' and easily
evaded tax schemes would go a long way toward breaking this cycle of poverty.
One final point on John Edwards. Much has been made of the
fact that Edwards is the son of a Southern mill worker. Also, he more than
other candidates has taken this ‘two Americas’ concept as his theme both
in 2004 and now. Yes, John Edwards is a son of the working class. However, his
career is a very good case study in why those of us who propagandize for a
workers party have been stymied for so long. In the normal course of events if
there had been in place even a small viable mass workers party Mr. Edwards in
his youth might very well have been attracted to such a formation. In the absence
of such a formation he saw his main chance as the Democratic Party. Such are
the ways of politics. However, until we can break this vicious cycle our work
will continue to be that of unceasing propaganda for a workers party and a
workers government. Be assured though that in the end we will get our share of real
class war fighters.
The Trail Of One Thousand Tears-With
Val Kilmer’s Thunderheart In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
They were waiting on a sign. That
news had been given to them by an ancient tribal elder, Sammy Eagle Feathers,
before he passed to the next life, given to the desperately spiritually poor
(and every other which way too) Lakota Sioux who were waiting, waiting on a
sign that the avenger of ancient wrongs was to come among them. Waiting for a
few generations now impatiently for a leader, a righteous shaman to take their
hurts away. Waiting always in forlorn hope in the rugged rural squalor of the
reservation that they had been pieced off on by the‘great white father.Always
waiting sitting in half-baked trailers and make-shift lean-tos. Places almost
as primitive as those ancient dream teepees and sweet peyote hogans. Old wrecks
of automobiles carelessly strewn around their sacred land like they were the
new totem. Waiting on the side of the road, fellahin waiting on their haunches,
looking for rides into town to buy the white man’s liquor (firewater for those
addicted to those old time black and white cowboy and injun movies), some cheap
untaxed cigarettes (useful for a little black market trade with the white man),
and some super-processed food to fill tired and worn-out stomachs. Waiting too
at Jimmy Two Feathers’ Gas Station for some major job to be finsihed on that
broken down 1961 Chevy truck that needed to get a few thousand more miles on
it. Waiting any way you described it.
The list of hurts in need of
avenging, white man hurts, was endless from the time he set foot on the sacred
land but they were looking for more immediate revenge for modern hurts, the
killing of their tribal leaders, the jailing of their militants, and the
grinding down of their slender hopes into powered dust. And always, always that
unforgotten festering hurt of Wounded Knee told to every child almost before he
or she understood any other ways of the world. As so one day Billy Three Crows
came thundering into Red Cloud.That is a town in the nowhere Western tablelands
on the reservation just east of Rapid City in the Dakotas, up in high Lakota
Sioux country, country where the native population made the white man cry his
fill for a while, before he then took exterminating angel revenge.
Billy Three Crows came to town
though not as the shaman avenger but just on a routine job working for the
dreaded Bureau of Indians Affairs. What did they call him in the BIA office in
Rapid City, oh yah, a cigar store Indian. Even he laughed at that one, laughed
to think that a quarter red skin would be able to solve the civil wars going on
among the tribal factions exploding on the scene now that high grade shale,
shale that sweet gas could be pulled out of making everybody, even the injuns,
rich just as long as they saw it the big company extractors’way and granted the
drilling rights to plunder the land once again (or somebody granted the
drilling rights, maybe Sammy Eagle’s Nest, one the white man’s favorite kept
Indians, and his confederates). And so Billy was to be the new sheriff in town,
if he lived long enough.
But a funny thing happened to Billy once
he got among his people, got to see that he had denied his heritage for the
white man’s pot of porridge, denied his Native American heritage to say it
properly these days, and little by little as he saw and heard what had happened
he went “native.” That turn of events came to a point of no return one night,
one moonless night, at the tribal dance of the new moon, a most sacred rite in
timeless lore. An old medicine man, a man who had seen it all on the
reservation since about Wounded Knee to hear the elders tell it, slipped a
couple of peyote button into the new sheriff’s coffee. And that was when he had
his vision, his previously denied connection to his past.
Now in the time of Billy Three
Crows, the time we are talking about, the late1970s, these tribal dances were
attended by all kind of people who were encouraged to be there by the elders as
source of revenue for the tribe, a big source then. Especially at the
summertime Dance of the New Moon which was held over several days (until that
new moon came). So the night in question along with most of the Lakota Sioux
who could get there, there were white garbacho tourists and a slew of hippies
who had deserted the cities to go back to nature living in rural communes all
over the West. And they, mainly young, as young will do, brought their own
instruments to play along with the tribal drums, beads and sticks. A couple of
guys, one calling himself Captain Midnight and the other Black Jack, had flutes
and fiddles. Everybody was gathering around the huge camp fire which had an
important symbolic presence in the dance as it lit up the canyon walls behind
the crowds.
Once the tribal drums started,
slowly and in synch at first, getting louder a little later, some strange
images started to appear to Bill Three Crow against the multi-layered canyon
walls. Strangely several others commented on them, including Captain Midnight
and Black Jack who started playing their instruments, at first a little out of
synch with the tribal drums but then catching up. Billy Three Crows then got
up, got up as if possessed, and starting dancing like the images on the walls.
As the music droned on those images got clearer and one and all, one and all
who wanted to see, could see the outlines of some ancient warriors preparing
for battle, getting their courage up, getting their spiritual affairs in order
before their ancestors by a collective dance.
The music picked up, and Billy went into a trance around the
camp fire. The walls appeared to become one great fire dance. Then a few moments
later almost as quickly as they had appeared the images vanished into the
canyon night. Billy kept on dancing for a bit, then suddenly stopped. At that
moment he knew, knew as the on-looking elders knew, that he was the avenging
shaman that his people had been warrior waiting for. And wherever that
knowledge might lead, whatever hell was ahead, just that moment Billy Three
Crows knew what it was like when fearless ancient warriors roamed those hills.
***Out In The Tinsel Town Night–With
Lana Turner’s The Bad And The Beautiful In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Bad and the Beautiful, starring
Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Barry Sullivan and Dick Powell
Kirk Shields, yes that Kirk Shields,
the one who had more Oscars on his mantle than he knew what to do with and the
one who was the genius behind that film classicThe Girl From Faraway
Mountain, wished he had a dollar for everybody in Tinsel Town that he had
given a break to, had made in to something they never thought possible.
(Actually his wished he had a million dollars for each one.)He, Kirk Shields,
head of Waterworld Studios, a guy who had carried weight in that glittering
burg, who had made guys and gals jump every time he made some move just that
minute though had run into a dry spell, a dry spell that could have happened to
anyone. That dry spell entailed three big flops in a row, first, that money pit
From Here To Romethat had everything, everything except a box office,
then, going back to his first days in the town a comedy with Sid Kidder, The
World Goes Round, that busted flat when Sid’s slapstick humor went out of
style before they could release the damn thing. This last one took the cake
though, Irma Combs, the siren of the ages, starring in Women Talk, a
sure winner that took his last dollars, his last line of credit, a hefty
mortgage on his place, Mont Pied, and his last tinsel town credibility when the
younger audience decided that there was not enough sex, or suggestion of sex on
those forlorn Saturday night movie dates. Christ, Irma and her no-name male
co-star almost burned up the screen in one bedroom scene where she, practically
naked, went mano y mano with her lover boy. Damn fickle audience .
Fickle audiences or not Kirk was
busted, busted flat, busted six ways to Sunday if such a thing was possible,
busted worse that when he had started out producing newsreels to keep the
wolves from the door until he got his big break, his big break with Harry
Smith’s Westward Bound. At least then he could have slid in anonymous
obscurity, maybe sell shoes or something, but now he had his reputation, his
life’s work, hell, he knowledge that he had some more great films in him, at
least a few anyway. But the way the system worked, as he well knew, was that
one bust could happen to anybody, two, well, maybe the times were not right for
the vehicles but three, three was the kiss of death. So Kirk Shields with all
those Oscars gathering dust at Mont Pied could not raise five dollars, if that,
on his next picture idea, a remake of Eric Von Ronk’s classic She Stoops To
Conquer, updated of course, with the works, plenty of close quarters sex,
plenty of bingo bongo be-bop action between sex scenes and a totally different
ending in case a sequel came out of it. But he needed that dough, that upfront
dough, which could get him past the idea stage. And he had an idea of how to
get that dough, an iffy proposition but he was desperate.
Here’s the “skinny.” He called Harry
Smith, still the head of production at Waterworld and a master at getting
people to do things that they under no circumstances wanted to do. Yah, Harry
had that old time Hollywood charm that went out of fashion in about 1950s but
had a certain cache with the arty types. Here is what he figured Harry could do
for him. Kirk needed a director of note and he wanted Harry to call Fred Dean.
Yes, Fred Dean the director who had a couple of years back won that beautiful
Oscar for The Tempted , and rightfully so for it not only was a great
art-house type film that he wished he had make but it made a ton of money. He
and Fred had started out on Jump Street together making art films at night that
nobody watched and soft-core porno films to keep the wolves away from the door
which everybody watched.
He also needed a great woman actress
to play Clarissa, the enchantress, siren, earth mother combination and since
Irma Combs would not answer his calls, and had threatened to have him arrested
for fraud over that last film, he sought out Harry to call Lanna Day. Lanna Day
who after Irma was the siren de jus, all blond and curves for the guys
and really misunderstood little miss innocent for the gals. Jesus, he had given
Lanna her start in pictures, built her up big from some bit player doing tricks
on the street on the side to make ends meet, and to support that growing smack
habit that would have consumed her. He had taken a chance on her and it paid
off. Now she couldn’t go anywhere without a mob following her, mainly young
women who figured that maybe they could get the glitter by being around her.
Nothing but money in the bank.
Finally, damn it, he needed somebody
to round that She Stoops To Conquer script into shape, to make it
sexier, to make the innuendoes of the old- time film more explicit while
passing the code standard. Frankly he had expected to do that task himself but
he was in a dry spell in that department as well so he wanted Harryto call Dick
Sullivan his old writer, and the guy who just won the Bookends Award for his
novel Daisy Buchanan. Dick also had a couple of Oscars sitting in his
office over at UCLA where he was teaching screenwriting to the eager kids
courtesy of one Kirk Shields’ faith that he could write for Hollywood and not
just for eager kids.
So Harry, kicking and screaming,
made those three dutiful calls and reported back to Kirk on the results a few
days later.Nada, no go, nothing, get lost, go on welfare, go jump in the ocean.
And that was just the stuff that could be printed here. See Kirk in his
overweening passion, and it was a passion, to make great films, or at least
moneymakers, stepped on many, many toes. Many of the same give a break to toes
that he wished he had a dollar for (or really a million dollars for). See he
had cut Fred Dean out when he made his first big deal with Harry Smith to do
that first feature- length film and so Fred was still a little sore (we are
being nice here). And Lanna, well, Lanna had it in for Kirk on two scores.
First, he realized that she had star power, star power plus, but only if she
was on the needle. And so Lanna had Kirk to thank for that junk habit, that
jones, which took her years and plenty of dough to cure. Second, she had fallen
in love with him during that first production together. But like a lot of
successful men (maybe women too) he did not mix work and pleasure. Moreover his
pleasure ran not to blonde junkies but low dive brunettes with curvy bodies, no
brains, and plenty of sexual energy. Dick, well, Dick had a little problem with
Kirk since Kirk in order to keep Dick on board writing great scripts had
connections with people who put in the word not to pick one of Dick’s books
when it came Pulitzer time. Later it took Dick many years to get that award, an
award that he coveted above else.
So the last time anybody took note
there was a For Sale sign on Mont Pied and somebody had sighted Kirk selling
shoes in a Hollywood men’s clothing store …
Note: If some
enterprising Hollywood director (or producer for that matter) had decided to do
a film version of Kirk Shields’illustrious life they would have had all three
called performers begging to do that film that Kirk had tried to corral them on
and it would have been a great success and all that. But Tinsel Town is a place
that has this funny little habit of devouring its own and so we will leave Kirk
selling his Florsheim shoes and leave it at that.
***Johnny Prescott’s Itch- With
Kudos To Mister Gene Vincent's Be-Bop-A-Lula
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
He had the itch. John Prescott had
the itch and he had it bad, especially since his eyes flamed up consumed with
hell-bend flames when he saw Elvis performing live on the Ed Sullivan Showone
Sunday night. And he had it so bad that he had missed, unbeknownst to his
parents who would have been crestfallen and, perhaps, enraged, his last few
piano lessons. Sure, he covered his butt by having saxophonist Sid Stein,
drummer Eddie Shore, and bass player Kenny Jackson from his improvisational
school jazz combo, The G-Clefs (yah, I know, a well-thought out name for a
musical group) come by his house to pick him up. While standing at the Prescott
door parents and sidemen went through the “well aren’t things looking up for
you boys,” and “they seem to be” scene without missing a beat. But as soon as
Kenny’s 1954 Nash Rambler turned the corner of Walnut Street Johnny was a
long-gone daddy, a walking daddy, real long-gone. And where he was long-gone
but not forlorn to was Sally Ann’s Music Shop over on the far end of West Main
Street.
Now the beauty of Sally Ann’s was
that it was, well, Sally Ann’s, a small shop that was well off the main drag,
and therefore no a likely place where any snooping eyes, ears or voices that
would report to said staid Prescott parents when Johnny went in or out of the
place. Everyone, moreover, knew Sally Ann’s was nothing but a run-down, past
its prime place and if you really wanted all the best 45s, and musical
instrument stuff then every self-respecting teenager hit the tracks for Benny’s
Music Emporium right downtown and only about a quick five-minute walk from
North Clintondale High where Johnny and the combo served their high school
time, impatiently served their high school time.
But Sally Ann had, aside from that secluded
locale and a tell-no-tales-attitude, something Johnny could use. She had a
primo Les Paul Fender-bender guitar in stock just like the one Gene Vincent
used that she was willing to let clandestine Johnny play when he came by. And
she had something else Johnny could use, or maybe better Sally Ann could use.
She had an A-Number One ear for guys who knew how to make music, any kind of
music and had the bead on Johnny, no question. See Sally Ann was looking for
one more glory flame, one more Clintondale shine moment, and who knows maybe
she believed she could work some Colonel Parker magic and so Johnny Prescott
was king of the Sally Ann day.
King, that is, until James and
Martha Prescott spotted the other G-Clefs (Kenny, Sid, Eddie) coming out of the
Dean Music School minus Johnny, minus a “don’t know where he is, sir,” Johnny.
And Mr. Dean, Johnny’s piano instructor, was clueless as well, believing
Johnny’s telephone story about having to work for the past few weeks and so
lessons were to be held in abeyance. Something was definitely wrong if Mr.
Dean, the man who more than anyone else recognized Johnny’s raw musical talent
in about the third grade had lost Johnny's confidence.
But the Prescotts got wise to
Johnny’s whereabouts in a hurry because flutist Mary Jane Galvin, also coming
out the school just then and overhearing the commotion about Johnny’s
whereabouts, decided to get even with one John Prescott by, let’s call a thing
by its right name, snitching on him and disclosed that she had seen him earlier
in the day when she walked into Sally Ann’s looking for an old Benny Goodman
record that featured Peggy Lee and which Benny’s Emporium, crazed rock ‘n’ rock
hub Benny’s, would not dream of carrying, or even have space for.
The details of the actual physical
confrontation with Johnny by his parents (with Mr. Dean in tow) are not very
relevant to our little story. What is necessary to detail is the shock and
chagrin that James and Martha exhibited on hearing of Johnny’s itch, his itch
to be the be-bop, long-gone walking daddy of the rock ‘n’ roll night. Christ,
Mr. Dean almost had a heart attack on the spot when he heard that Johnny had,
and we will quote here, “lowered himself to play such nonsense,” and gone over
to the enemy of music. As mentioned earlier Mr. Dean, before he opened his
music school, had been the roving music teacher for the Clintondale elementary
school and had spotted Johnny’s natural feel for music early on. He also knew,
knew somewhere is his sacred musical bones, that Johnny’s talents, his
care-free piano talents in particular, could not be harnessed to classical
programs, the Bachs, Beethoven, and Brahms stuff, so that he had encouraged
Johnny to work his magic through be-bop jazz then in high fashion, and with a
long pedigree in American musical life. When he approached the Prescotts about
coordinating efforts to drive Johnny’s talents by lessons his big pitch had
been that his jazz ear would assure him of steady work when he came of age,
came of age in the mid-1950s.
This last point should not be
underestimated in winning the Prescotts over. James worked, when there was
work, as a welder, over at the shipyards in Adamsville, and Martha previously
solely a housewife, in order to pay for those lessons (and be a good and caring
mother to boot) had taken on a job filling jelly donuts (and other donut stuff)
at one of the first of the Dandy Donuts shops that were spreading over the
greater Clintondale area. Christ, filling donuts. No wonder they were
chagrined, or worse.
Previously both parents were proud,
proud as peacocks, when Johnny really did show that promise that Mr. Dean saw
early on. Especially when Johnny would inevitably be called to lead any musical
assemblage at school and later when, at Mr. Dean’s urging, he formed the G-Clef
and began to make small amounts of money at parties and other functions.
Rock‘n’ rock did not fit in, fit in at all in that Prescott world. Then damn
Elvis came into view and corrupted Johnny’s morals, or something like that.
Shouldn’t the authorities do something about it?
Johnny and his parents worked out a
truce, well kind of a truce, kind of a truce for a while. And that kind of a
truce for a while is where old Sally Ann entered in again. See, Johnny had so
much raw rock talent that she persuaded him to have his boys (yes, Kenny, Sid
and Eddy in case you forgot) come by and accompany him on some rock stuff. And
because Johnny (not Sally Ann, old Aunt Sally by then) was loved, loved in the
musical sense if not in the human affection sense by the other boys they
followed along. Truth to tell they were getting the itch too, a little.
And that little itch turned into a
very big itch indeed when at that very same dime-dropper, Mary Jane Galvin’s
sweet sixteen party concert (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), the G-Clefs
finished one of their covers, Dizzy’s Salt Peanuts with some rock riffs.
The kids started to get up, started dancing in front of their seats and to the
shock of the parents and Mary Jane (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl),
including the senior Prescotts, were crazy for the music. And Johnny’s fellow
G-Clefs noticed, noticed very quickly that all kinds of foxy frails (girls,
okay), girls who had previously spent much time ignoring their existences, came
up all dream-eyed and asked them, well, asked them stuff, boy-girl stuff.
Oh, the Sally Ann part, the real Sally Ann part not just the
idea of putting the rock band together. Well, she talked her talk to the
headmaster over at North Clintondale High (an old classmate, Clintondale Class
of 1925, and flame from what the boys later heard) and got the boys a paying
gig at the upcoming school Spring Frolics. And the money was more than
the G-Clefs, the avant guarde G-Clefs made in a month of jazz club appearances,
to speak nothing of girls attached to them. So now the senior Prescotts are
happy, well, as happy as parents can be over rock‘n’ roll. And from what I hear
Johnny and the Rocking Ramrods were going, courtesy of Aunt Sally, naturally,
to be playing at the Gloversville Fair that summer. Be-bop-a-Lula indeed.
***Out In The American Neon Wilderness Night- Josie’s Story
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
This is the way Josie, Josie Little, an old flame, told her story late one bluesy, rainy Cambridge bar stool Saturday night in the late 1970s, the Miller Hi-Life sign flickering on and off in the background, a story of a trip she had taken with her first love up north in the early 1970s when their love was still in early bloom. A story out in the neon wilderness.
*******
… Allan [that first love] was crazy to go to Neil’s Harbor and Peggy’s Cove up in Cape Breton and could hardly wait to get on the road out of Halifax and push north. We were however also somewhat behind in our schedule, our rough schedule, to try to head west to California and then south to Mexico before the winter set in. But we had been taken by the beauty, the hills rising above the ocean along the road that encircled the whole place ,and the separate circle that enveloped Cape Breton, Nova Scotia beyond that Arcadia French exile notion further south, and also the provincial parks, unlike the local parks in the states were cheap, were well kept-up, provided firework and hearths, and had decent showers facilities except in the few “primitive” sites we were confronted with at certain points where you had to backpack in and take your chances, ugh. Not taken in though so much by the ocean view aspect, we were both heartily getting tired of endless seas, endless looking at seas, although not of walking them, sitting and listening to the ocean, or making love as the waves rolled in when we had the chance. His thing was to chart things like the furthest point in all directions we hit on the trip, how many of this and that we saw, how many that and this things we did, he was a real numbers and geography guy. Not where those places were in the world , no, so he could said, sometimes brag, brag a little, but mostly say, well, he had been this far in case somebody might think he was a rube if he hadn’t been far enough from home.
That notion was funny too because Allan’s politics made him definitely not a rube, his political passions that he was suppressing a little on the trip for my sake. He was always talking, and doing something about which is where we were beginning to differ, about the struggle against the American government in Vietnam, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the fate of the Palestinians, the one major point where I, a half-hearted Zionist, daughter of Zionists, and he would have a few blow-ups including one night back in Boston before the trip when we, drunk and stoned, were at some party which was being attended, although neither of us knew that was it who they were , by something like the central committee of the Zionist movement in Boston. They were raising money for something in Israel, and he started talking his liberation talk, talking about the Irgun gang, about the King David Hotel, about Deir Yessin, Jesus, stuff even I didn’t know about. He got heated, got heated at me, most of all, for half-defending the infidels at the party, or just their right to support Israel, something like that, so when we got to my place, we weren’t living together then he was living in commune down the road, I threw him out, after we probably woke up half of the student ghetto in Boston.
Then around four o’clock I was missing my sweet walking daddy [her pet name for Allan]and called him up to come back over, he said he didn’t want to, didn’t want to because he was sleepy, and we had another row over that. He, when I propositioned him, propositioned him with a little secret thing that I did to him in bed, a thing that as he said he had heard on some blue song, maybe David Bromberg, maybe Muddy Waters I don’t remember, that “curled his toes,” he came over, but it was not a good night, not a good omen at all.
It’s funny on that rube thing too because I was, and he later admitted that he was too, very provincial, not in the sense of being some hayseed thing out in Iowa but provincial in the way we interpreted Saul Steinberg’s funny New Yorker cover, the one where his map of America started in Manhattan big and then the rest of America was put in about one inch of space. I related to that and would tell him, at his request, endless things, odd-ball things, about the vagaries of growing up in Manhattan, about what I had seen there, and done. He said he felt the same about Boston and maybe that is why he had to have charts and lists and a stuff like that, his stuff in the world.
My thing in Peggy’s Cove though was, besides the great view and friendly huge immense rocks we could sit on and get splashed by the sea and feel clean, that since that was the eastern most point of our trip (and we thought at the time it would be the northernmost as well) we could stay in a bed and breakfast place. Indoors with an indoor shower, private, not wait in line, or anything like that like out in the woods. And we did, did find one, just off the main road, Mrs. Miller’s Bed and Breakfast. And if thename of that place and the name of the woman who ran it sounded like something out of about 1947 then you would be right because that is exactly what it was like, and what she was like. Of course out in the provinces, the gentle provinces, among the folk who live in the little off-the-road places, the places where times stands still, they depend on the travelling peoples of the world who want to see great natural beauty, and relax against the craziness of the world to make their, what did Allan call it, their harsh lonely winter tide-me-over money, in season. But these people, and we ran into many, on the outskirts of civilization have their toleration limits, and have their own mores, and good for them.
Except not good for us, almost. Mrs. Miller wanted to know if we were married, and we, thinking we were in Boston or New York, said, well no, and, essentially, what of it. She kind of flipped out and did not want to let us stay in her “home.” So we, tired from a long day on the road, some time spent in the rock-bound sea sun, and not sure where the next B&B was, if any, started back-tracking, started talking about our travels, about our tires, about our using this trip to see if we should get married. (That contribution was by me so you could see Allan’s blarney side rubbing off.) She didn’t like it but, as a good Christian woman, she had to welcome us. It was close though, very close. See too though we intended that this indoor scene would allow us to have a freshen up shower, have a nice dinner, maybe some wine to get a little high (we had no intention of doing pot, no way), and then some serious gentle sex. We were both tired of hard-scrabble dirt, of rocks, of fleas, gnats and every other bug taking the edge off our love-making. So we had to debate whether to do this deed in this good Christian woman’s house. We did but we did it so quietly that I thought that this was the way that they are forced to do it in Chinese villages and working- class neighborhoods where everybody was packed in together. But here is the best part, the next morning Mrs. Miller made the best pancake-waffle-eggs-anyway you wanted them-ham-hash-home fries- muffins-juice-and whatever for us the best breakfast we had ever had we both agreed. And to top it off a big old fresh-baked blueberry pie for us to eat on our travels. A good Christian angel woman, indeed, she has her place reserved in heaven, if such a place is worthy.
Although I lived the island of Manhattan growing up I never had an occasion to ride the Staten Island ferry which people who don’t come from Manhattan don’t understand, especially since it was only a nickel. Allan said that his mother told him when she was a girl that she would take boat from Boston down to New York via the Cape Cod Canal and the two things he remembered that she went on and on about were the cheap jack Automat, the cafeteria where you inserted coins and got your food via the cubicles, a far out thing in the 1930s I guess, and the ride on the cheap Staten Island ferry (and a grand view of downtown Manhattan from the Staten Island side). So he told me that first time we went down to New York City together to face the fireworks from my parents about us living together and me having a goy boyfriend and they wouldn’t, no way, let us stay together in my room he actually spent the night riding the ferry back and forth, a very cheap way to keep out of the cold and away from harm and cops' eyes. So when we made the turn past Neil’s Harbor and headed west, the first real west move we made the trip he said let’s take the ferry over to Prince Edward Island and so we did and while it was interesting to be on the water with our funny old Datsun it wasn’t anything like the big deal he made of it. Let’s put it this way I still haven’t taken the Staten Island ferry. Now Prince Edward Island certainly had its charm, small fishing and farming villages dotted the highway around the island, but even I was getting a little antsy about moving on to see some different scenery from the boats and cows.
The one thing that sticks out though was this incredible beach on the north side of the island, this Brackley Beach which extended from miles jutting out into the Saint Lawrence River, and which, if you can believe this, that far up north had no qualms about allowing nude bathing. We were kind of shocked but I said to Allan I was game, although I had a swim suit along. Allan was kind of funny about that though, some Irish Catholic working-class hang-up about public exposure, or something. He used to hang around the various water spots we landed on with a light weight long sleeve shirt, his jeans and sandals, he refused to wear a bathing suit, and as it turned out didn’t even have one with him. This all-purpose get-up thing was he said because of the bugs that really did seem to draw a bee-line to him. That day though I coaxed him out of his jeans and all when I whispered in his ear that I was kind of horny, horny like down in Maine and maybe I was up for giving him a little something to “curl his toes.” That perked him up as we headed to some private area of the dunes, put down a big towel, maybe a small blanket and I went to work on him. See I knew how to get to him, although it wasn’t all tough to do, not then.
“Flow river flow, down to the sea,” a phrase from The Ballad Of Easy Riderby the Byrds, I think, is what Allan kept practically chanting as we drifted down the Saint Lawrence River headed to Quebec City. But along the way we stopped at seemingly twenty different towns, Trois this and that kind of towns, three river places, all the same as far as I was concerned, but one I will give you as my little road story because it really could stand in for all of them. See all these river towns had, like a lot of towns we had seen, a small main street, a few stores, maybe a library, a school showing here and there, and all had churches, but not the New England big steeple white simple church gathering in the pious brethren on Sunday to hear some big top theology from some learned Harvard-trained minister, something like that but stone-etched imposing cathedral like edifices with plenty of artwork , devotional stuff, and dank, dark, and smelling of death, or really the readiness for death that the Catholics are always hankering for. Really though just like the New England pine-box churches once you have seen one you have pretty much seen all you need to see about the damn things.
And I would have left it at that but something about the whole sanctified, sacred, scented scene, kind of took Allan off his moorings. Like I said before he was off the church thing but like he also said such things when so intense die hard, die out only after some kind of sacred exorcism, and so that is how he schemed (schemed in the good sense of planning something out) to do a mock exorcism at the church in Trois Rivieres, a couple of hundred miles from Quebec City. Now this was not some churchy thing he was thinking of but rather as was our thing then, a little sexual escapade. See his idea was that we would do some hanky-panky in that dark church (dark, like the white steeple churches because the brethren were deep in work on the farms or in the cotton mill that provided some work for the town folk). So we snuck over to the chapel I guess you call it, Allan did know what it was like maybe he knew that was the best place , although he swore, swore after we were done that he had never done it there, or even though about it until the ride down the Saint Lawrence.
I was afraid to take my clothes off, and I said I wouldn’t so we settled on me giving him some head, but he said that for once we would use a condom and leave it there as a burnt offering for the sins of the world. I don’t usually like condoms (rubbers) in my mouth because they taste funky but this time I kind of didn’t notice it some much because frankly, as we got started I got so turned on by the idea we were doing it in church, a sacred place, that I just went about my work, and I could tell by his little moanings that Allan was appreciating my efforts, although after a bit I started thinking about how maybe we should “do the do” (our little term for our love-making courtesy of a Howlin’ Wolf song) and I suggested that to him but once he got into my head thing that usually was what he wanted. Well, he came, after I had given him the best blow job I think I had ever given him until then, and least he had a big grin on his face after I took the condom off and we placed it carefully in front of the altar. I told him I was still turned on and so we went back to that secluded area and did our “do the do,” twice. I would tell you more, a couple of little extra things we did, but I can tell you are getting turned on a little and so I will leave it at that.
After the farms, fields and rivers coming down the Saint Lawrence all of a sudden out of the river mist, out of the river turn around Ile de Orleans there came into view the great fortress city of Quebec City, a city that we both confessed that we knew about mainly from the Plains of Abraham, bloody deaths of Montcalm and Wolfe in some 18thcentury part of the world- wide battle between the British and French for world supremacy, for the ports, the commercial ports of entry. Quebec to me though was mainly a matter of about ten million churches, Gallic Roman Catholic churches fit for the lame, halt and crippled it seemed by their names or names associated with each parish, with all grey stone, all gothic, all forbidding, foreboding and frankly hostile, hostile to whatever Jewish identity I felt, felt being among those who not that long ago (and maybe they still did) called my people Christ-killers and did stuff about it. Allan, a long lapsed Catholic ,lapsed since about fourteen when he started reading some stuff , some stuff by Jews like Karl Marx and Sartre, and feeling out of sorts and oppressed by the Catholic-ness of the place (except for those bloody plains of Abraham alongside the Saint Lawrence that were really beautiful), for his own reasons, stated categorically that he would defend me, my honor, the bones of my forbears, even my fussy parents, if anybody, anybody under cloak of clerical authority, or just any lay person who got crazy, tried any rough stuff on me and mine, and that kept me in check (and made me love him even more, and ready then to show him some decidedly non-Catholic loving out of wedlock, and out of procreation’s way too).
Also despite the architectural beauty of the city, the gothic old time sense of some very much earlier age, some age when men and women were not afraid to come out and face the wilds, the hostile Indians, the even more hostile wildlife and stake their claim to new world riches and pay homage to the providence that spared those who survived put paid to that good wind by those incredible churches, nunneries and chapels (and the vast number of personal to service them), the current crop of French-Canadians who just then dominated the very nationalistic scene were short with Anglos, including sympathetic Anglos like us. This was the heyday of the Quebec independence movement and the tensions were still in the air against the Anglo government which had at one point declared martial law in the province. The way this feeling came out was when we would go into restaurant in Old Town and try to order lunch or something (admittedly my high school and first year of college long past French and later Allan’s Spanish in Mexico were too Anglo to fake anybody out that we were anything but Americanos) and be snubbed at every turn, deliberately snubbed by waiters, slumming while students like was almost universal then, maybe now too, who you could overhear speaking perfectly usable English among themselves when they wanted to make some obscure point. Allan would get on his high horse with me and while he wasn’t happy about snubs, or any other of the small change hurts of people, people like his Irish forbears, who couldn’t respond to their oppression any other way was more tolerate than I was toward what he called his fellahin brethren .
I asked him, asked him seriously one time when we were driving out of Quebec City toward Montreal, what he meant by fellahin. Had he heard or seen the word in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road where he wrote about it as part of his trip in southern California in describing the people in the night after hard day fields places, the mex places, where he and his lady of the time, his little mex whore, their mores, his kindred? Allan said no he had learned it in seventh- grade at Hull Junior High School when some history teacher, a Jewish guy if he remembered correctly, held the class in awe with stories about the struggles on th eland in the Middle East with the Palestinians, including labor Zionists, and he had held the word like a lot of odd-ball words that interested him in his head since then. What he meant, maybe like Kerouac, and like that history teacher too, was life’s dispossessed, those left behind in the dust who, until their judgment day (not that foolish religious one) when they were liberated, maybe generations later, would forget that bondage times but until then he wanted to be very indulgence toward them, even if we got poor wait staff service, ouch.
*******
After that last piece Josie then said she was getting tired, she had had too many scotches and had previously taken a few too many puffs off a proffered joint and didn’t want to talk about Allan anymore that night. She asked if I wanted to take her home. In the cab she ruefully whispered that the trip was their beginning, the real beginning, and every once in a while although she could no longer be with him, no way, there was just too much sorrow between them, on wind-swept nights, or when she was near some ocean, or some raggedy scruffy guy selling some left-wing newspaper passed by her she would get misty about her sweet walking daddy. She said I would have to know that, know that up front on that rainy, sad, bluesy night. And that was our beginning…
Sunday, May 19, 2013
CHOCKY AR LA-The Plays Of Sean O'Casey
Minute Book Review
THREE PLAYS: JUNO AND
THE PAYCOCK, THE SHADOW OF A GUNMAN’ THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS, SEAN O’CASY, ST.
MARTIN’S PRESS, NEW YORK,
1981
The history of Ireland is replete with ‘times of troubles’,
no question about that. The particular ‘ time of troubles’ that the master
Anglo- Irish socialist playwright Sean O’Caseytakes on in these three classic and best known of his plays is the time
from the Easter Uprising in 1916 to the time of the lesser known Civil War
battles between Free Staters and die-hard Republicans in 1921-22. Needless to
say they were all classified as tragedies by O’Casey. What qualified O’Casey to do much more than provide
yeoman’s cultural service to this period? Well, for one he helped organize the
famous James Connolly-led Irish Citizen’s Army that took part in the heroic
Easter Uprising in 1916. For another, O’Casey was a true son of the Dublin tenements where
the action of the three plays takes place. He KNEW the ‘shawlie’ environment
and the language of despair, duplicity and treachery that is the lot of the
desperately poor. Finally, as an Anglo- Irishman he had that very fine ear for
the English language that we have come to cherish from the long line of Irish
poets and playwrights who have graced our culture. That said, please read about
this period in Irish history but also please read these plays if you want to
put that history in proper perspective- in short, to understand why the hell
the British had to go then from Ireland and need to go now. Below are capsule
summaries of the three plays.
Juno and the Paycock- the Boyles, the central characters in
this play, have benefited from the creation of the Free State but at a cost, namely the
incapacity of their son. Their daughter has seemingly better prospects, but
that will remain to be seen. The device that holds this play together is the
hope of good fortune that allegedly is coming under the terms of a relative of
Captain Boyle’s’ will. The ebb and flow of events around that fortune drives
the drama as does the fickleness of the tenement crowd who gather to ‘benefit’
from it. There is also a very lively and, from this distance, seemingly
stereotyped camaraderie between the Captain and his ‘boyo’ Joxer.
The Shadow of a Gunman- the gun has always played, and
continues to play, an important part in the Irish liberation struggle. That premise
was no different in 1920 than it is today. Whether the gun alone, in the
absence of a socialist political program, can create the WorkersRepublic
that O’Casey strove for is a separate question. What is interesting here is
what happens, literally, when by mistake and misdirection, a couple of
free-flooding Irish males of indeterminate character and politics are assumed
to be gunmen but are not. It is not giving anything in the play away to state
that the real heroine of this action is a woman, Minnie, who in her own
patriotic republican way takes the situation as good coin. The Minnies of this
world may not lead the revolution but you sure as hell cannot have one without them
(and their preparedness to sacrifice).
The Plough and the Stars- There was a time when to even say
the words plough and stars brought a little tear to this reviewer’s eye. Well
he is a big boy now but the question posed here between duty to the liberation
struggle in 1916 and its consequences on the one hand and, for lack of a better
word, romance on the other is still one to br reckoned with. That it had such tragic
consequences for the young tenement couple Jack and Nora only underlines the problem
of love and war in real life, as on the stage.
ON THE QUESTION OF
MULICULTURALISM
COMMENTARY
RECENT HARVARD STUDY
PRODUCES DISTURBING RESULTS
As a professed socialist I know that our ultimate aim is to
mix the various peoples of the world, their institutions and the way they look
at the world in order to benefit humankind as a whole. In short, we are
decidedly in favor of the concept that has entered into the political
vocabulary as multiculturalism.With
this proviso –we know that the material basis for such solidarities as
expressed above require a totally different form of social organization and use
of ‘social’ capital than currently exists. Nevertheless we support
multilingualism, international acts of solidarity and ‘diversity’ cultural
events as steps in the right direction. We have no interest in the
‘superiority’ of one language over another, one race over another, one nation
over another or one culture over another.
That said, a recent study concerning this very question of
multiculturalism has been the subject of some agony by liberals and delight by
conservatives. Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard, well-known for his now
classic study of the breakdown of civil solidarity in America in “Bowling
Alone”, has concluded a massive long time survey that indicates that the more heterogeneous
a society (like the United States, for example) the less likely that the various
social, ethnic and racial groups that make up that society will coalesce and
work together to create a greater unitary civil society. Of course, as a
quintessential liberal these conclusions have frightened the good professor and
he has been campaigning to lessen the impact of his study. Conservatives,
obviously, delight in these conclusions and will use this information to deny
the value of affirmative action, immigration, bilingualism, etc.
We, however, will take the study for what it is worth. As a good
indicator, for an academic study, of how far we have to go to get to those
goals mentioned in the first paragraph. Whether the sociological methodology
behind Professor Putnam’s work is politically reliable is an open question.
Some of it seems to be the same old academic ‘hat trick’ methodology that,
unfortunately for the professor, went astray when confronted with political and
social reality. And that is the point. Liberals, through such programs as
affirmative action, changes in the educational curriculum and the mere fact of
celebrating diversity through recognition of various cultural events formerly
neglected, truly believe that these actions would make a multicultural society.
In short, if everyone made nice things would be nice. Even an off hand look at
the social composition of most educational institutions in America - including
ones of higher learning, housing patterns and cultural events could have confirmed
the professor’s thesis without the paperwork. The only significant place,
important for us, where there is mingling is in the workplace. That is to the
good. And that is added confirmation about why we have to organize those
workplaces for socialism.
Boston Common-May 18, 2013:
Boston human rights activists held a vigil/speakout
as part of international protests to shut down Guantanamo prison; in support of the Guantanamo prisoner hunger strike.
Boston,Mass.-May 18, 2013:
This weekend is one of global protests to shut
down Guantanamo prison, where most of
the prisoners have been on a long hunger
strike to protest their indefinite detention
without trial or due process-victims of the US
war on terror that has gone horribly wrong.
About 20 protesters held a vigil/speakout
in Boston, Mass., outside Park Street subway
station; this was today, May 18.
The call was to make Obama keep his 2008
campaign promise to close Guantanamo.
It was organized by The Committee For Peace And Human
Rights-Boston, who hold a weekly anti-war vigil
at the same time/location as today's protest;
also Veterans For Peace and Women's International
League For Peace And Freedom(WILPF)helped organize
this protest as well.
Here are links to a short video and some photos of the protest,
(if not highlighted, copy and paste links in your
browser)--
VIDEO: http://youtu.be/ZJdH7sBbA-w
May 8, 2013, Times Square, NYC, Photo credit Julia Reinhart
LYNNE STEWART SHOULD BE FREE!
Together we will create a public presence in front of the very courts that persecuted Lynne Stewart. We will stand for love, courage and solidarity to make the call for
Last May, some 18 anti-racist militants broke up a gathering of fascists in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park called to organize a “White Nationalist Economic Summit.” Among the vermin sent scurrying were some with links to the Stormfront Web site run by a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon. Such fascist meetings are not merely right-wing discussion clubs but organizing centers for race terror against black people, Jews, immigrants, gays and anyone else the white-supremacists consider subhuman. For their basic act of social sanitation, five of the anti-fascist fighters were sentenced by a Cook County court to prison terms of three-and-a-half to six years on charges of “armed violence.” (See “Freedom Now for Tinley Park 5!” WV No. 1018, 22 February.)
The Spartacist League and the Partisan Defense Committee stand by these militants and call on workers, leftists and anti-racist fighters to demand freedom for the Tinley Park Five. The fascists are a deadly threat to the integrated labor movement, which should be in the forefront of efforts to crush them in the egg. Four of the five who were sentenced—Jason Sutherlin, Cody Lee Sutherlin, Dylan Sutherlin and Alex Stuck—have agreed to receive $25 monthly stipends the PDC sends to class-war prisoners. The PDC program, which includes additional gifts during the holiday season, serves not merely to alleviate some of the harshness of incarceration but also as a message of solidarity from those outside prison walls.
The courage of the Tinley Park defendants was seen in their principled response to the government vendetta. Each of the five was initially charged with 37 felony counts, including armed violence, property damage and mob action. The cops and prosecutors applied continuous pressure to try to get them to give up names of those involved in sending the fascists scattering, which the five steadfastly refused to do. Unable to meet the exorbitant bonds, which ranged up to $250,000, they spent seven months in Cook County Jail. Facing the prospect of up to another year behind bars awaiting trial, they accepted a non-cooperating agreement in which each pleaded guilty to three counts of armed violence in return for guarantees of time off for good behavior.
In their letters agreeing to receive PDC stipends, the four expressed appreciation for the contributions and also for the issues of Class-Struggle Defense Notes and Workers Vanguard that they have received. One noted that his fellow inmates lined up to read the WV article about their case.
Initiated in 1986, the stipend program takes as its model that of the International Labor Defense (ILD), affiliated to the early Communist Party, which provided stipends to over 100 prisoners of the class war. As James P. Cannon, founder and first secretary of the ILD, wrote, “The class conscious worker accords to the class war prisoners a place of singular honor and esteem” (“The Cause That Passes Through a Prison,” Labor Defender [September 1926]). Past PDC recipients worldwide include an Irish Republican Socialist Party militant, members of the British National Union of Mineworkers and members of the U.S. miners, Teamsters and Steelworkers unions. Now, the Tinley Park anti-fascists are joined in the program with America’s foremost class-war prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, former Black Panther supporters Mondo we Langa and Ed Poindexter and imprisoned members of the Philadelphia MOVE commune.
We urge WV readers to contribute to the stipend program by sending checks payable to the PDC and earmarked “prisoners stipends fund” to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal St. Station, New York, NY 10013-0099. Letters to the Tinley Park Five can be sent to: Alex Stuck M34020, 2600 N. Brinton Avenue, Dixon, IL 61021; Cody Sutherlin M34021, 13423 E. 1150th Avenue, Robinson, IL 62454; Dylan Sutherlin M34022, P.O. Box 7711, Centralia, IL 62801; Jason Sutherlin M34023, 100 Hillcrest Rd., East Moline, IL 61244; John Tucker M34024, P.O. Box 900, Taylorville, IL 62568.
* * *
(reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1023, 3 May 2013)
Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.
