***Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- Penny’s Brand New Phonograph

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Penguins performing their 50s classic, Earth Angel.
Frm The Pen Of Frank Jackman

CD Review

The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; Volume One, various artists, Ace Records, 1994

Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows the ubiquitous, highly coveted, then and today, old time LP (and 45’s convertible) record player and the family radio, probably RCA, both weapons in the 1950’s teenage wars to have our own music, and to be able to listen to said music 24/7 without parental interference, or knowledge. Of course, not everybody, teenage everybody, and that’s what counted, including rock dizzy Penny had one or the other and that is the struggle we are to presently witness.
*******
“Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Dodd, the kids were no problem and thanks again for the money.” “Whee,” Penny Parker whispered under her breathe, as she went out the door. Those kids were nothing but monsters, refusing to go to bed unless, and until, they watched Maverick on television, Penny played checkers with Bobby and Billy Dodd (sister Laura was satisfied to be a spectator), and they each (all three on this one) got not one, but two scoops of ice cream before surrendering to Penny’s demands. And all for a lousy seventy-five cents an hour. Those were slave wages, slave wages even for a thirteen -year old girl and Penny, Parker proud if not Parker bright, bright yet anyway thought for just a minute to give up this monster-sitting, well, baby-sitting really, up. “No,” she yelled into the Clintondale night, “No way after all I have put up with from those beasts am I giving up my dream record player now, no way.” And that was that.

Penny, Parker bright or proud notwithstanding, was a creature of her times, as we all are more or less. And the times called for every self-respecting teenager, and teenagers were all that counted in Penny’s universe, had his or her own private, up in his or her room, phonograph to play his or her favorite music, rock ‘n’ roll music, naturally. Not some lame Benny Goodman or Doris Day mumble that her parents listened to on the radio downstairs and drove Penny up a wall, maybe up more than one wall. And drove her right out of the Parker door down to Bop Benny’s Record Shop to play the jukebox there when the newest of the new records came out. See, Penny did not have her own record player like every other girl, every other teen-age girl that counted in her class at Clintondale Junior High School. Even Pammy Fuller had one, and Pam’s parents had them practically living on the county farm. But Peter Parker, father Parker, was adamant that he would not pay for anything that was connected with rock ‘n’ roll. Not out of religious principles, or anything like that, but he just hated the sound. Yes, I know, Peter Parker, square, square cubed.

So that left Penny down at Benny’s throwing nickels, dimes, and quarters in that old juke box. Many nickels when Kathy Young’s A Thousand Stars was hot, or when she had a crush, a big crush, on Zack Smith and she “broke the bank,” playing Earth Angel by the Penguins and When We Get Married by The Dreamlovers whenever Zack was in Benny’s and she wanted to draw his attention to her. Or the time when “Foul-Mouth” Phil Jackson dared her to play Eddie My Love by the Teen Queens when he was trying to date her up, or what passed for a date at twelve.

One day her brother, Paul, a year older than Penny but seemingly about a million years wiser saw that she had put at least fifty cents in the box when she was feeling all sentimental about Jimmy Kelly, her ex-beau, or as ex-beau as any thirteen- year old girl is allowed to have, and was playing I Love How You Love Me by the Paris Sisters like crazy. He just flat-out told her after dinner that night that it would be a whole lot easier and less expensive to just get her own record player and play up in her room to her heart’s contend. Penny stood there in disbelief, not in disbelief about the idea but that dear old dad would go for it. Well, the long and short of it, was that dear old dad did go for it, with the usual provisos that there would be no loud or late playing. Sure daddy.

And that prospect, that record player of her very own, with her own platters to spin (records, grooved vinyl records to the squares), and no bother, except maybe to invite Jimmy or Zack over bother, is why this night as she walks home she is muttering about wage slavery, the injustices of the world, the teenage world, the only one that counted in case someone might have forgotten, and other communistic sentiments, if anybody had hear her. Penny figured after that night that another twelve hours of drudgery, another nine dollars and she could get that cool one that she saw in the Sears&Roebuck catalogue.

But then Penny, Parker bright just then, looked pensively down at the sidewalk when she realizes that she would have to buy records to feed that record player and that she would have to continue baby-sitting for slave wages forever with Dodd monsters to get all the 45s that she absolutely needed. And then, horror of horrors, what if Jimmy liked Sixteen Candles by the Crests and Zack didn’t but liked Rockin’ Robin by Bobby Day (and he probably would) and she had to buy both records. Well, what’s a girl to do but, Penny, Parker proud just then, thought she would be able to figure it out.

Update 6/22/13: Report on the trial by Bradley Manning Support staff, livestreamed tomorrow, Sun.

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Who is Bradley Manning and what did he do? Can he use a whistleblower defense? What does it mean that he’s being charged with “Aiding the Enemy”? What was in the documents revealed? Was he following directions from WikiLeaks? How does Edward Snowden’s case relate to that of Bradley Manning? Why should you attend the proceedings at Ft. Meade, MD?
Tomorrow, Sunday, June 23 Court Reporter Nathan Fuller and Campaign Organizer Emma Cape will give the answer to these questions and more at DC’s Busboys and Poets (5th &K location) from 5- 6:30pm Eastern Time!
The Bradley Manning Support Network staff have attended every day of Bradley’s trial thus far and are prepared to discuss details of the ongoing court martial proceedings which began June 3rd. Both the PFC Manning’s defense attorney and the prosecution summarized their arguments in the first week of the trial. In weeks 2 & 3, the discussion focused on forensics experts and evidence.
This event will be livestreamed online, for those unable to attend in-person

Government agrees to provide ongoing access to court documents in Bradley Manning trial

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Judge Rules Further Court Intervention Not Necessary Where Government Voluntarily Acquiesced to Journalists’ Demands
By the Center for Constitutional Rights. June 20, 2013.
press@ccrjustice.org

CCR lawyer Shane Kadidal. Photo credit: The Ithacan (click for source)

June 20, 2013, Baltimore – Last night, a federal district court denied a request for emergency relief in a lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights after the U.S. government voluntarily agreed to provide ongoing access to documents in the court martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning. The suit, bought on behalf of a group of journalists, asked the court for a preliminary injunction under the First Amendment ordering the military judge in the court-martial of Bradley Manning to grant the press and public ongoing access to documents in the proceedings as done in ordinary criminal trials. In addition, the suit challenged the fact that substantive legal matters in the court martial have been decided in secret.
The Judge in the case, Ellen Lipton Hollander, ruled that a First Amendment decision was unnecessary since the government voluntarily acquiesced to the journalists’ demands and stated that the remaining issues in dispute were not significant enough to justify her intervention on an expedited, emergency basis. Her decision came only after the military uploaded to the Internet several thousand pages of case documents on the day before it had to file its opposition brief in this case, vowed under oath to continue doing so throughout Manning’s court-martial, and permitted privately-funded stenographers to produce daily transcripts of the trial.
“The fact that the government released a huge number of documents after suit was filed, and has committed to the release of documents from the court-martial going forward, and on an expedited basis, seriously diminishes the likelihood of irreparable harm to plaintiffs,” wrote Judge Hollander in her decision.
Media coverage of the Manning trial remains burdened by the lack of access to court documents and transcripts that attended the last year and a half of proceedings. The hundreds of documents dumped on the Internet the day before the government had to respond to the lawsuit were posted three days into the trial, when journalists were preoccupied with covering events in court. Moreover, daily transcripts are now being funded by Internet activists rather than provided by the government.
“The last fourteen months of stonewalling have done incalculable damage to the reputation of the military justice system. Three military courts chose to ignore or avoid our claims over the course of a year before the government suddenly conceded most of what we asked for after we filed in federal court,” said CCR Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal, who argued the motion on Monday in federal court. “It should not take a federal lawsuit to force the Pentagon to allow journalists to have access to unclassified documents in the most important whistleblower trial since the Pentagon papers. We are confident of two things: first, that the restrictions on media access imposed thus far have rendered Manning’s trial fundamentally unfair, and second, that if Manning is convicted and appeals, there will be no way for the government to avoid having a day of reckoning in the military courts on the full scope of media access to courts-martial.”
Attorneys are considering all options for further relief.
Plaintiffs in the case, in addition to the Center for Constitutional Rights, are journalists Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, The Nation and its national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill, and Wikileaks and its publisher, Julian Assange. Also included are Kevin Gosztola, a civil liberties blogger covering the Manning court martial, and author Chase Madar.
Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School is co-counsel with CCR, along with Bill Murphy and John J. Connolly of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP’s Baltimore office.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

***An Old Geezer Jogging, Kind Of, At The North Adamsville"Dust Bowl" (A.K.A. The Cavanaugh Track)

For Bill Bailey, North Adamsville Class Of 1964

YouTube film clip of Hicham el Guerouj, the Moroccan Knight, setting the one mile run world record in 2008. That is not the "old geezer."

Peter Paul Markin comment:

I have written a number of skteches about the old days at North, North Adamsville High School located in an old working-class section of a twin just outside of Boston, in the early 1960s, for those unfamiliar with that hallowed ground, and the like. This little beauty follows in that same tradition, although with this twist- the "old geezer" described in the headline to this sketch has requested anonymity for reasons that will become obvious once the tale he has asked me to tell unfolds. I think, however, that the average, above-average, classmates that old North produced can all figure this one out. Right?

For those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High School and can remember that far back 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of our graduation from that unhallowed school. For the old geezer, a man know personally to me from the old days and man given to the faux-heroic feat, the odd-ball, off-hand symbolic gesture, and a disturbingly steadfast adherence to the drumbeat of history this called for some action. Now the old geezer and I go back to the times when we were corner boys together along with Frankie Riley, yes, Frankie Riley the now successful lawyer that you keep reading about in the newspapers of late (that is if anybody still reads such things in the “new age”) along with several other guys at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs.” (For those unfamiliar with that term don’t worry about such a localism it does not affect the story here). So when I speak of odd-ball behavior I know of where I speak.

As if merely a nodding commemoration of the 50th anniversary graduation “event” were not enough since this year also marked the 50th anniversary of the old geezer’s first seriously taking up running (indoor and outdoor track, cross country) as a sport, under the guidance of old time North Adamsville Junior High Coach Ben Lewis, a gesture was required. As a historic “gesture” he decided to make an attempt to run one mile around the old "Dust Bowl" track that served (and still serves) as an “athletic field” for the North high school and middle school (a.k.a. junior high school) community since Hector was a pup. And if not that long, then since beyond local memory.

Now this Herculean effort was to be done in spite of the fact that the old geezer had done no more, at most, than run for the bus for the past quarter of a century or more. And just missed that bus on more occasions that warrants attention here. Note also that the distance selected for this “heroic” effort was the well-known classic one mile that he sought to run. Not for him that old "lame" 600 yards around the front driveway circle at North that everyone had to do as part of the old-time yearly President's Physical Fitness Test. Kids’ stuff. No, he went back to the mist of time and to feats like those of the first sub-four minute miler, Roger Bannister. (For those unfamiliar with that name it too is not germane to this story, although you can Google the name or look it up in Wikipedia if you have a little time on your hands.)

For those not familiar with the location the old "Dust Bowl" is the field the next street over from the North Adamsville Middle School. It served as our junior high school field for some other sports as well. It also was the place where the legendary 1964 football team, led by "Bullwinkle", "Woj", Jim Fallon, Charlie McDonald, Tom Kiley, Walt Simmons, Don McNally, Lee Munson and a host of others practiced being mean under Coach Lion in order to beat beleaguered cross town arch-rival Adamsville High School that year. Now I know that some readers here "know" that location.

Furthermore, it was also the training ground and meet location for the high school spring track team where the silky-strided Bill Bailey held forth in distance running, Ritchie McDonald and others in the middle distances, Brooks Atkins in the sprints, Carl Lindberg and Ralph Moore in the hurdles, Al Bartley in the pole vault and a host of others who ran around in their skimpy black shorts, including the old geezer. The old geezer, moreover, was then distinguished by being a consummate well-below average runner. He had the “slows” as every other teammate told him at every possible opportunity. He was not sure on this one, nor am I, but, perhaps, the football cheerleaders led by the spunky Josie Weinfeld, the sprightly Roxanne Gower, and the plucky Linda Plane also practiced there. In short, if you were not familiar with the locale and grew up in the old town there then you now stand accused of being willfully out of touch with old North Adamsville reality.

I should also mention that this name "Dust Bowl" is not mere hyperbole on my part. In summer and fall, at least, there was more dust that the EPA would find tolerable these days. Moreover, as the old geezer told me the field 'owed' him. So revenge was also a motive here, as well. Apparently he still has cinders in his left knee from when he fell while running on the track 50 years ago. Ouch! He asked me to ask around to see if others had similar "war stories", although none came worthy of notice-mere band-aid wounds. Moreover, and this is symbolic in its own way, the track is not the normal quarter-mile one that you only had to go around four times to the mile(for the non-Math whizzes out there) but five laps to the mile. That may explain many things about our subsequent lives, right?

Okay, now to the big event. In the interest of accuracy this "event", according to the old geezer's information, occurred at about 9:00 AM on February 6, 2010. Now why he was not in Florida or at least in some warm house instead of being out on the "track" will go a long way to explaining the "inner demons" that plague this then sixty-three year-old man's psyche. Moreover, he continued on with his quest despite having to wait upon dogs, and their owners, who seemingly felt such an hour was ripe for a canine national convention at the old bowl. But, we digress.

The old geezer started off okay with the usual burst of adrenaline one gets when the big day finally comes carrying him along for a while, he then settled into a 'pace' and all went well until he started breathing heavily, got light-headed and began feeling cramps in his thigh, and that was only on the first lap. It went down hill from there. He insisted I give the gory details of each lap but thank god for the Delete button. Intrepid soul that he is he” dogged" it out. He informed me that his time for the mile has been declared a matter of national security and therefore not available to the public, although he did allude to an unfavorable comparison with the time it takes to get to the moon and back. Nevertheless the gesture is in the books, a member of the class of 1964 has been vindicated, and life can return to normal. Oh, the old geezer did mention this. For those of you with grandchildren under the age of five he is ready to take on all comers. Okay.

Postscript- If you can believe this the old geezer refuses to permit me to post the “news” of his “heroic” one mile effort if I do not include a blow-by-blow description of his five lap (remember the “Dust Bowl” is five laps to the mile in case you might have forgotten). I thought that giving a short summary of his first lap was more than adequate but no we need to know every hurried breathe, every turned toe, every near collapse. The reader should feel no compulsion to wade through this but don’t forget the Delete button is readily at hand. In any case the following is strictly the old geezer’s take on the matter.

Old Geezer comment:
That February day was cold but not much colder than in the old days when we went down to Clintondale and their winter outdoor track in January that really froze you. The trick was to take off your sweat suit, jump on the oval banked-wooden track as quickly as possible and hit the starting line just as the starter yelled to run. And then do the same thing in reverse after the race. Funny the old Dust Bowl with the exception of them taking out the wooden bleachers where the seven (hey, maybe it was six if you didn’t count the girl scorer, the cute girl scorer, Roseanne something, I think) track and field fans gathered in the old days the place looked like it hadn’t been upgraded since about 1964. Same old rutted, brambly, asphalty, hard-scrabble surface that you dare not trip and fall on. I know because I still carry some “cinder” from the old days in my left knee. But enough. To the run itself.

Of course I started out slow, slow as hell, slower than a couple of the dogs that were rummaging around along with their “guardians.” As I picked up steam I was going pretty good until I started breathing real heavy, started to get the inevitable sweating, and my legs started getting light and wobbly. That was almost at the end of the first lap with four more to go. I almost stopped but I am not built that way, slow or fast, mainly slow I almost always finished a race except when I came up injured a couple of times. The second lap was tough as I started to put my head down to push myself along just like in the old days. Painful step after step.

The third lap got a little better as I got in stride and was pretty uneventful except for a random dog who decide he (or she) wanted to be my “rabbit” ( a rabbit in track is someone who sets the pace, a fast pace, for others and then either falls back or drops out). The fourth lap though almost did me in. I stumbled and almost fell on a clod of dirt that must have been dug up before the winter set in. I managed to right myself but I felt kind of dizzy after that for a while. Hey, four laps are done now and I am at the “gun” lap (fifth for those legions who don’t know track “lingo”). No way am I not going to finish now. And while it seemed like an eternity I did finish with a “sprint” the last ten yards or so. After about twenty minutes recuperation while my pulse slowed down, my blood pressure stabilized and about thirteen other medical conditions passed the crisis point I left the dust bowl feeling I had even up the score on that damn place.

Markin comment:
That "fifteen minutes of fame" thing is pretty attenuated here but for those who actually read this last section there you have it. Enough.

From The Marxist Archives-The Amercian Socialist Workers Party-World War II and Trotskyist Defense of the Soviet Union

Workers Vanguard No. 865	3 March 2006

World War II and Trotskyist Defense of the Soviet Union

(Quote of the Week)

 

Writing one month after the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler’s Germany, the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) published a program of demands to reinforce the defense of the Soviet workers state, which had undergone degeneration under the Stalinist bureaucracy. That declaration, from which the following is excerpted, was published in the same issue of the Militant that announced the U.S. government’s indictment of 29 SWP and trade-union leaders—18 of whom were jailed—for their revolutionary proletarian opposition to American imperialism as it prepared to enter World War II.

We stand for the unconditional defense of the Soviet Union, as everyone knows who is acquainted with our party’s position.

The Stalinist leaders are desperately trying to fool their rank and file into believing that the Trotskyists do not defend the Soviet Union.

The word “unconditional” is plain enough. It means that we set no conditions whatsoever before we defend the Soviet Union. We do not demand that Stalin make any concessions to us before we defend the Soviet Union.

We defend the Soviet Union because the foundation of socialism established by the October revolution of 1917, the nationalized property, still remains and this foundation it is necessary to defend at all costs.

The Trotskyists in this country, in the Soviet Union and everywhere in the world say to the Soviet government: Place us in the most dangerous posts, we are ready and shall unhesitatingly accept….

In this situation the Soviet Union, alone of the existing states, can undermine Hitler by pledging to the German workers that the defeat of Hitler will not mean a second and worse Versailles but will begin the creation of the Socialist United States of Europe. The imperialist states cannot possibly make this pledge to the German workers. Only the Soviet Union, the Workers’ State, can thus cement revolutionary unity with the German proletariat.

—“For Unconditional Defense of the Soviet Union: A Program of Victory
for the Soviet Union,” Militant (19 July 1941)

*******

 

James P. Cannon

A Statement on the War

December 21, 1941

---

Written: 1941
Source: Fourth International, New York, Volume III, No. 1, January 1942, pages 3-4.
Transcription\HTML Markup: David Walters
Copyleft: James P. Cannon (www.marx.org) 2005. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

---

December 22, 1941
The considerations which determined our attitude toward the war up to the out break of hostilities between the United States and the Axis powers retain their validity in the new situation.
We considered the war upon the part of all the capitalist powers involved—Germany and France, Italy and Great Britain — as an imperialist war.
This characterization of the war was determined for us by the character of the state powers involved in it. They were all capitalist states in the epoch of imperialism; themselves imperialist—oppressing other nations or peoples—or satellites of imperialist powers. The extension of the war to the Pacific and the formal entry of the United States and Japan change nothing in this basic analysis.
Following Lenin, it made no difference to us which imperialist bandit fired the first shot; every imperialist power has for a quarter of a century been “attacking” every other imperialist power by economic and political means; the resort to arms is but the culmination of this process, which will continue as long as capitalism endures.
This characterization of the war does not apply to the war of the Soviet Union against German imperialism. We make a fundamental distinction between the Soviet Union and its “democratic” allies. We defend the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is a workers’ state, although degenerated under the totalitarian-political rule of the Kremlin bureaucracy. Only traitors can deny support to the Soviet workers’ state in its war against fascist Germany. To defend the Soviet Union, in spite of Stalin and against Stalin, to defend the nationalized property established by the October revolution. That is a progressive war.
The war of China against Japan we likewise characterize as a progressive war. We support China. China is a colonial country, battling for national independence against an imperialist power. A victory for China would be a tremendous blow against all imperialism, inspiring all colonial peoples to throw off the imperialist yoke. The reactionary regime of Chiang Kai-shek, subservient to the “democracies,” has hampered China’s ability to conduct a bold war for independence; but that does not alter for us the essential fact that China is an oppressed nation fighting against an imperialist oppressor. We are proud of the fact that the Fourth Internationalists of China are fighting in the front ranks against Japanese imperialism.
None of the reasons which oblige us to support the Soviet Union and China against their enemies can be said to apply to France or Britain. These imperialist “democracies” entered the war to maintain their lordship over the hundreds of millions of subject peoples in the British and French empires; to defend these “democracies” means to defend their oppression of the masses of Africa and Asia, Above all it means to defend the decaying capitalist social order. We do not defend that, either in Italy and Germany, or in France and Britain—or in the United States.
The Marxist analysis which determined our attitude toward the war up to December 8, 1941 [i.e. up to the Pearl Harbor raid] continues to determine our attitude now. We were internationalists before December 8; we still are. We believe that the most fundamental bond of loyalty of all the workers of the world is the bond of international solidarity of the workers against their exploiters. We cannot assume the slightest responsibility for this war. No imperialist regime can conduct a just war. We cannot support it for one moment.
We are the most irreconcilable enemies of the fascist dictatorships of Germany and Italy and the military dictatorship of Japan. Our co-thinkers of the Fourth International in the Axis nations and the conquered countries are fighting and dying in the struggle to organize the coming revolutions against Hitler and Mussolini.
We are doing all in our power to speed those revolutions. But those ex-socialists, intellectuals and labor leaders, who in the name of “democracy” support the war of United States imperialism against its imperialist foes and rivals, far from aiding the German and Italian anti-fascists, only hamper their work and betray their struggle. The Allied imperialists, as every German worker knows, aim to impose a second and worse Versailles; the fear of that is Hitler’s greatest asset in keeping the masses of Germany in subjection. The fear of the foreign yoke holds back the development of the German revolution against Hitler.
Our program to aid the German masses to overthrow Hitler demands, first of all, that they be guaranteed against a second Versailles. When the people of Germany can feel assured that military defeat will not be followed by the destruction of Germany’s economic power and the imposition of unbearable burdens by the victors, Hitler will be overthrown from within Germany. But such guarantees against a second Versailles cannot be given by Germany’s imperialist foes; nor, if given, would they be accepted by the German people. Wilson’s 14 points are still remembered in Germany, and his promise that the United States was conducting war against the Kaiser and not against the German people. Yet the victors’ peace, and the way in which the victors “organized” the world from 1918 to 1933, constituted war against the German people. The German people will not accept any new promises from those who made that peace and conducted that war.
In the midst of the war against Hitler, it is necessary to extend the hand of fraternity to the German people. This can be done honestly and convincingly only by a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. We advocate the Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. Such a government, and only such a government, can conduct a war against Hitler, Mussolini and the Mikado in cooperation with the oppressed peoples of Germany, Italy and Japan. Our program against Hitlerism and for a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government is today the program of only a small minority. The great majority actively or passively supports the war program of the Roosevelt administration. As a minority we must submit to that majority in action. We do not sabotage the war or obstruct the military forces in any way. The Trotskyists go with their generation into the armed forces. We abide by the decisions of the majority. But we retain our opinions and insist on our right to express them.
Our aim is to convince the majority that our program is the only one which can put an end to war, fascism and economic convulsions. In this process of education the terrible facts speak loudly for our contention. Twice in twenty-five years world wars have wrought destruction. The instigators and leaders of those wars do not offer, and cannot offer, a plausible promise that a third, fourth and fifth world war will not follow if they and their social system remain dominant. Capitalism can offer no prospect but the slaughter of millions and the destruction of civilization. Only socialism can save humanity from this abyss. This is the truth. As the terrible war unfolds, this truth will be recognized by tens of millions who will not hear us now. The war-tortured masses will adopt our program and liberate the people of all countries from war and fascism. In this dark hour we clearly see the socialist future and prepare the way for it. Against the mad chorus of national hatreds we advance once more the old slogan of socialist internationalism: Workers of the World Unite!
New York, December 22, 1941

The Latest From The "Jobs With Justice Blog"-The Seemingly One-Sided Struggle Continues-It's High Time To Push Back-Push Back Hard-30 For 40 Is The Slogan Of The Day.

Click on the headline to link to the Jobs With Justice Blog for the latest national and international labor news, and of the efforts to counteract the massively one-sided class struggle against the international working class movement.

From the American Left History blog-Wednesday, June 17, 2009

With Unemployment Rising- The Call "30 For 40"- Now More Than Ever- The Transitional Socialist Program

Google To Link To The Full Transitional Program Of The Fourth International Adopted In 1938 As A Fighting Program In The Struggle For Socialism In That Era. Many Of The Points, Including The Headline Point Of 30 Hours Work For 40 Hours Pay To Spread The Work Around Among All Workers, Is As Valid Today As Then.

Guest Commentary

From The Transitional Program Of The Fourth International In 1938- Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

Hands Off Edward Snowden- Free Bradley Manning !

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The Justice Department is believed to be seeking Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong. | AP Photo

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 6/21/13 7:48 PM EDT Updated: 6/22/13 3:09 PM EDT

Federal prosecutors secretly charged former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last week with three felonies in connection with recent leaks of classified information about secret U.S. surveillance programs, according to a court complaint unsealed Friday.
Snowden was charged with conveying classified information to an unauthorized party, disclosing communications intelligence information, and theft of government property.
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The charges, which can carry a penalty of up to ten years in prison on each count, were filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va., last Friday.

The Justice Department is believed to be seeking Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong, although his precise whereabouts at the moment are not publicly known.
(DOCUMENT: Edward Snowden unsealed complaint)
The charges were first reported Friday evening by the Washington Post, which said the complaint against Snowden was sealed. It’s not immediately clear whether the charges were unsealed before or after the Post report.
A Justice Department official confirmed Friday evening that a complaint was filed in the case, but declined further comment on the matter.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who has called Snowden’s leaks “an act of treason,” praised the move. “I’ve always thought this was a treasonous act. Apparently so does the U.S. Department of Justice,” he said, although the complaint unsealed Friday does not include a treason charge. “I hope Hong Kong’s government will take him into custody and extradite him to the U.S.”
(Also on POLITICO: 10 famous/infamous whistleblowers)
A U.S. law enforcement official contacted by POLITICO refused to elaborate on American efforts to have Snowden taken into custody by Hong Kong authorities, but said simply, “The U.S. and Hong Kong have excellent bilateral cooperation on law enforcement matters.”
Assuming Snowden is arrested in Hong Kong, the extradition process could take months, and the outcome is far from certain. The extradition treaty with the United States excludes “political” offenses, a phrase which usually includes crimes like espionage.
Criminal leaking charges, however, are sufficiently rare that it’s unclear how they would be treated under the treaty. The theft charge could offer a backup of sorts, if Hong Kong authorities balk at extraditing Snowden on charges relating to disclosure of classified information.
Only the single cover page of the complaint was unsealed Friday. Based on filings in other cases, it appeared to indicate a single count filed against Snowden on each charge. However, the underlying affidavit which would provide more details on the charges was not released.
Normally, prosecutors would be free to recraft and expand the charges when seeking an indictment from a grand jury — something that’s expected to happen in the coming weeks. However, when extradition is sought, the prosecution sometimes has less latitude to reframe the charges or add new ones once the extradition process is underway.
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-charged-nsa-93179.html#ixzz2WyuWMCzF

The Latest From The “Veterans For Peace” Facebook Page-Gear Up For The Fall 2013 Anti-War Season-Troops Out Now!

Click on the headline to link to the Veterans For Peace Facebook page for the latest news on what anti-war front the organization is working on. 

 

 

Re-posted from the American Left History blog- Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!

Markin comment:

Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.

Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.

Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated, if you can believe, this from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old "I’ll take my ball and bat and go home" by the "officials" was in the air on that one.

But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in this wicked old world.  In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.

REPORT FROM DICK GREGORY AND LOUIS WOLF ON THE ONGOING VIGIL AT THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, DC, SEEKING COMPASSIONATE RELEASE FOR LYNNE STEWART

On Monday, June 17, as activists stood before the BOP headquarters on Monday, a guard emerged to ask why they were there. Upon hearing that Dick Gregory would be present at the vigil the following day, he responded enthusiastically: "My man, Dick Gregory!"

On Tuesday, June 18, shortly after noon, fifteen people with banners and signs assembled outside the doors of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, DC. for the historic vigil, the first in support of a federal prisoner at the Bureau headquarters.

Dick Gregory spoke about the urgent need for FBOP Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr. to sign Lynne Stewart's fully vetted Compassionate Release application and to authorize the federal attorney to file the motion for Compassionate Release with Judge John Koetl. Lynne cannot be freed without the completion of these steps. At this moment, the unconscionable holdup rests with the absence of Director Samuels signature as the completed file remains "on his desk."

As Dick Gregory spoke, workers at the Federal Bureau of Prisons gathered at FBOP windows. The ground floor lobby was filled with FBOP employees, listening and watching.

At 1:15 p.m. two Homeland Security cars pulled up. One of the men who exited one of the cars was in full combat dress. They stopped, watched as Dick Gregory spoke, noted the rapt attention Dick Gregory was receiving from both inside the FBOP and outside it, looked at each other and entered the building without speaking.

Askia Muhammad, News Director of WPFW, was there throughout the two hour vigil and recorded all that was said. Free Speech Radio News filmed and recorded. Code Pink and We Will Not Be Silent were present along with David Schwartzman, a noted DC activist.

Fernando Velasquez of Pacifica's KPFA interviewed Dick Gregory and Lou Wolf on the international campaign to free Lynne Stewart and the vigils at the FBOP and the White House. Fernando broadcasts across Latin America.

The vigil at the Bureau of Prisons headquarters continues all week. If you are in Washington, DC, please come at noon tomorrow and Friday to Federal Bureau of Prisons Headquarters, 320 1st St NW, Washington, DC (corner 1st Street and Indiana Avenue, NW) to demand compassionate release for Lynne.

Simultaneously, Lynne Stewart's husband Ralph Poynter and activists continue a vigil at the White House, mobilizing support for Lynne's release.

If you cannot be in DC, telephone BOP Director Samuels at 202-307-3250. Urge him to act now to move forward compassionate release for Lynne Stewart. There is no time to lose.

This message was sent by Ralph Poynter using the Change.org system. You received this email because you signed a petition started by Ralph Poynter on Change.org: "Petition to Free Lynne Stewart: Save Her Life - Release Her Now!." Change.org does not endorse contents of this message.

San Francisco Pride Board: Reinstate Bradley Manning as Grand Marshal!

Sign the on-line petition

<a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/san-francisco-pride-board-reinstate-bradley-manning-as-grand-marshal.html">San Francisco Pride Board: Reinstate Bradley Manning as Grand Marshal! Petition | GoPetition</a>

Cocaine Blues With Nelson Algren’s The Man With The Golden Arm In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The whole set-up reeked of cop, of a cop ambush, just like before, the time several years before when he, Jason Sloan, got caught up in a cop dragnet when they were hassling street people, drug-involved street people, his people, in one of their periodic “make the citizens happy” busts and he had fallen down on a thirty day clinker rap for possession since he had “forgotten” to get rid of a couple of fine ass joints that he was carrying in his shirt pocket in time. Fortunately he had just an hour before handed off a kilo of grass, ganja, herb or whatever you call marijuana in your neighborhood and had parked the dough in a safe place. Yes, it had the look, the same look, the dreaded look of a planned cop ambush although this time Jason had moved “uptown” (as had the drug brotherhood) and he was now dealing “cousin,” cocaine (girl, sister, snow or whatever you call it in your neighborhood), dealing and using, lately more using than dealing, a lot more.

The “meet”had been set-up by Jimmy James, a guy he only slightly knew, knew from the streets around the Common, Boston Common for anyone asking, for this back alley near Beacon Street (nobody wanted to make a meet to far from his or her base, he lived up a few blocks on Joy Street, for a lot of reasons, mainly some form of laziness, some form of turf protection).That part wasn’t so bad. Jason had done more than one dead of night back alley deal but the times were now out of sort for that type arrangement. What was bad, bad medicine, was there were no lights showing from the windows of the apartment that abutted the alley, there were no cars either, and worse, worse on a Saturday night no foot traffic, no bustling to cover the transaction. So, desperate as he was to make this deal, to make this connection, not for the money so much but to get well, to get a little something for his head, he was going to walk away, walk away without a score.

Jason had to laugh to himself as he went walking back onto Beacon Street that there were going to be some angry cops, city, state and feds, the way things had been going on the streets of late in their frenzy for high profile street busts, and that the “snitch” Jimmy James was going to be taking his own sad ass tumble over this one, this busted bust, for whatever deal he had made to get out from under whatever they had on him. Yah, he had to laugh.

That thoughwould be the last laugh Jason had for a while, although he did not know that hard fact, that hard street fact, while he was walking up Beacon Street to Joy and his rooming house, his lonely rooming house room, alone now since Shana had fled the scene a few months back when he had started to dip into the coke for his head more than for selling it. Had left when he had stopped giving her and her baby (not his, but some guy back in stupid unprotected sex high school, Jesus) some money to keep them together. Hell, before she left, he had borrowed dough off of her (or took dough from her pocketbook, just like when he was just a snot-nosed sneaky kid out his own mother’s purse).

Worse he took the dough after Shana had gone out on those mean streets downtown, down in“the zone,” and done a number of quick tricks to bring in some dough for the baby when he was feeling low, he Jason, not the baby. She had soon tired of it, had from what he heard got herself a new walking daddy (a guy from what he had also heard who was the king of the midnight sifters, and so bringing in steady dough, and no hassles). As he made the turn on Joy he knew he was in for a couple of tough days if he could not score before then, and the chances of him scoring now with no dough (he was fronted the dough for that Beacon Street back alley deal and knew, knew for a certainty, that he would be found dead early some morning the next week if he dipped into that stash to get himself well). He would rather face the withdrawal symptoms , tough as they were as he knew from the previous two episodes he had endured than be found face down somewhere, unclaimed and unidentified, although as he walked up Joy he could already feel those first running nose blues flashing through his system.

He stopped for some cigarettes and a quart of cheap jack Southern Comfort (the only liquor he could stomach as a kid, cheap or not, and he had kept up that habit occasionally when some choicer drug was not around) at Joe’s Liquor Store. Fortunately Joe, who had run the place by himself for the past forty years serving winos, yuppies and Mayfair swells alike and knew the lore of the hill like no one else, would let him cuff his purchases since he had put Joe onto a few good drug scores for those self- same swells and yuppies a while back. So package in hand he entered the front door of his rooming house, hell, his flop, just about the last one left on that side of the hill, populated with the dregs of the earth, you know winos, old age guys, a few broken down midnight sifters, a grafter or two, a couple of guys on the lam for this and that, a couple of low-profile whores on the first floor (and not bad, not bad at all, especially the younger one who knew all the tricks and knew how to use them, back before he dug cousin more than sex).He could smell, as always the strong smell of disinfectant, of spilled wine, of misplaced urine, of land’s end, and all who enter here give up hope, as he walked up the stairs to his fly-by-night third floor room.

He was short of breath as he hit his landing and after turning the key to his door he immediately flopped down on the unmade bed, unmake for the past several days as he had been scrambling like crazy to put a score together and had no time for the niceties of good housekeeping. He pulled out a cigarette, a Camel, unfiltered, and lit it up thinking how funny it was that he took up smoking back in the early 1960s just when every doctor in the universe, including the long time lungers among them, was telling every teenager who would listen to stop the damn habit. Even funnier as he coughed the inevitable cough after that first drag was how tobacco addiction was kid’s stuff, kid’s stuff at least to him, when old cousin was calling, screaming really. He took the first of a long line of swigs from the Southern Comfort bottle and felt better for a minute, for about a minute each time.

Maybe he could sleep through it this time as he pushed his pillow, his slip- less pillow, under his head to try to catch a few nods. As he did so he thought about how back in the days, back in those halcyon hippie days about a decade or so back how everybody made big deal about pot, you know marijuana, and how it was worse than tobacco and would get you all addicted. What a joke, what a crying out loud joke, that was. What they, he, didn’t know was how sweet cousin could be and while he had heard that horse, h, or whatever you call heroin in your neighborhood was really bad that coke was just fine, just fine to keep the edge off. To keep your dreams clean.

Just that moment he craved just one little snort, one thin line and so he got up and frantically looked for any residue that might be around. Finding none he took another swig of that rotgut and fell back down on the pillow and tried, tried like seven devil to put some sleep between him and his desire. Yah, the night was starting out rough, rougher than the previous two times. And as he finally nodded off he swore, swore on seven sealed bibles, if they had been around that this time he was done, he was going to sober up.

A few hours later, still dark out as he awoke, he got up to make himself a cup of coffee on his hot plate. And while he was waiting for the coffee to boil he began to think about how the Be-Bop Kid over on Shawmut Avenue would be holding some stuff and that he would use just a few of those fronted dollars to get himself well and then he really would forget this cousin stuff…

***“The Next Girl Who Throws Sand In My Face Is…” Johnny Silver’s Sad 1950s Be-Bop Beach Blanket Saga

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

No question that my corner boy comrades from the old Frankie Riley-led Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out back in the day and me from the first day high school got out for the summer drew a bee-line straight to the old-time Adamsville Beach of blessed memory. Did we go to said beach to be “one” with our homeland, the sea? No. Did we go to admire the boats and other things floating by? No. Did we go to get a little breeze across our sun-burned and battered bodies on a hot and sultry August summer day. No. Well, maybe a little. But come on now we are talking about sixteen, maybe seventeen, year old guys. We were there, of course, because there were shapely teeny-weeny bikini-clad girls (young women, okay, let’s not get technical about that pre-women’s liberation time) sunning themselves like peacocks for all the world, all the male teenage North Adamsville world, the only world that mattered to guys and gals alike, to see.

And they were sunning themselves and otherwise looking very desirable and, well, fetching, in not just any old spot wherever they could place a blanket but strictly, as tradition dictated, tradition seemingly going back before memory, between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. So, naturally, every testosterone-driven teenage lad who owned a bathing suit, and some who didn’t, were hanging off the floating dock right in front of said yacht clubs showing off, well, showing off their prowess to the flower of North Adamsville maidenhood. And said show-offs included, of course, Frankie Riley (when he was not working drudge hours at the old A&P Supermarket), his faithful scribe, Peter Paul Markin, and other including the, then anyway, “runt of the litter,” Johnny Silver. It is Johnny’s sad beach blanket bingo tale that gets a hearing today. If it all sounds kind of familiar despite the passage of time, even to the younger set, it is because, with the exception of the musical selections, it is.

*********

“The next girl who throws sand in my face is going get it,” yelled Johnny Silver to no one in particular as he came back the Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boy beach front acreage just in front of the seawall facing, squarely facing, midpoint between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. As the sounds of Elvis Presley’s Loving Youcame over Frankie Riley’s transistor radio and wafted down to the sea, almost like a siren call to teenage love, one of those no one in particulars, Peter Paul Markin replied, “What did you expect, Johnny? That Katy Larkin is too tall, too pretty, and just flat-out too foxy for a runt like you. I am surprised you are still in one piece. And I would mention, as well, that her brother, “Jimmy Jukes,” does not like guys, especially runt guys with no muscles bothering his sister.”

Johnny came back quickly with the usual, “Hey, I am not that small and I am growing, growing fast so Jimmy Jukes can eat my… “But Johnny halted just in time as one Jimmy Jukes, James Allen Larkin, halfback hero of many a North Adamsville fall football game came perilously close to Johnny and then veered off like Johnny was nothing, nada, not a thing. And after Jimmy Jukes was safely out of sight, and Frankie flipped the volume dial on his radio louder as the Falcons’ You’re So Fine came on heralding Frankie’s attempt by osmosis to lure a certain Betty Ann McCarthy his way, another standard brand fox in the teenage girl be-bop night, Johnny poured out his sad saga.

Seems that Katy Larkin was in one of Johnny’s classes, biology he said, and one day, one late spring day Katy, out of the blue, asked him what he thought about Buddy Holly who had passed away in crash several years before, well before he reached his potential as the new king of the be-bop rock night. Johnny answered that Buddy was “boss,” especially his Every Day, and that got them talking, but only talking, almost every day until the end of school. Of course, Johnny, runt Johnny, didn’t have the nerve, not nearly enough nerve to ask a serious fox like Katy out, big brother or not. Not until that very day that is when he got up the nerve to go over to her blanket, a blanket that also had Sara Bigelow and Tammy Kelly on board, and as a starter asked her if she liked Elvis’ That’s When The Heartache Begins.She answered quickly and rather curtly (although Johnny did not pick up on that signal at the time) that it was “dreamy.” Then Johnny’s big moment came and he blurted out, “Do you want to go to the Surf Dance Hall with me Saturday night? Crazy Lazy is the DJ and the Rockin’ Ramrods are playing. And as the reader knows, or should be presumed to know, Johnny’s answer was a face full of sand. And that sad, sad beach saga is the end of another teen angst moment. So the to the strains of Robert and Johnny’s We Belong Together blasting out of Frankie’s radio we will move along.

Well, not quite. It also seems that Katy Larkin, tall (too tall for Johnny, really), shapely (no question of really about that), and don’t forget foxy, Katy Larkin had a “crush” on one John Raymond Silver if you can believe that. She was miffed, apparently more than somewhat, that Johnny had not asked her out before school got out for the summer. That miffed more than somewhat entailed throwing sand in Johnny’s face when he did get up the nerve to ask. So on the first day of school, while Johnny was turning his radio off and putting it in his locker just before school started, after having just listened to the Platters One In a Millionfor the umpteenth time, Katy Larkin “cornered” (Johnny’s term) Johnny and said in a clear, if excited voice, “I’m sorry about that day at the beach last summer.”And then in the teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all women imperative, “You are taking me to the Fall All-Class Mixer and I will not take no for an answer.” Well, what is a guy to do when that teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all women imperative, voice commands. So Johnny re-evaluated his attitude toward beach sand and maybe, after all, it was just a girl being playful. In any case, Johnny grew quite a bit that summer and then Katy Larkin was not too tall, not too tall at all, for Johnny Silver to take to the mixer, or anywhere else she decided she wanted to go.

***In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion-He Ain't No One-Trick Pony- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Keep It Simple”

CD Review

Keep It Simple, Van Morrison, Exile Records, 2008

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Keep It Simple, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast Cowboy. But he ain't no one-trick pony.No way, no how. Too many hard life lessons "learned."

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on School of Hard Knocks, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful Song Of Home; the pathos of No Thing; the title song reflecting back from back in youthful rock times, Keep It Simple; and, something out of time, Behind The Ritual. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. But I guess they do.

***In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion-He Ain't No One-Trick Pony- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Down The Road”

CD Review

Down The Road, Van Morrison, Exile Records, 2002

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Down The Road , and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast cowboy.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on Steal My Heart Away, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful The Beauty Of Days Gone By; the pathos of Chopping Wood; the title song reflecting back on youthful rock times Down The Road; and, something out of time, Fast Train. The Belfast cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. But I guess they do.