Out In the 1950s Night- A Grifter’s Farewell-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Back in the 1950s the name Dan Shea could be heard, sometimes in whispers, in almost any poker club, back road Indian reservation casino or back alley 14^th floor hotel room in the less choice part of the downtown of any city of any size in California. You would not hear his name in high- roller Vegas or Reno, no, that was not his turf, not his turf at all once he had been buried in Vegas and got the hell out of town one jump ahead of the hard-nosed boys. That is a brutal story not cluttering up Brother Shea’s resume, except that he was always heard to say “water seeks its own level” when asked why he refused to even go there to take in a show or something. So, no. if you were looking for him any night, any night after sundown, any night he could smell some guy who thought he was lucky he would be in some poker club, casino, or back room hotel anyway from Dago to Eureka (he avoided Oregon and latitudes north as being below the standard for a stand-up grifter and so the borders of California were home).

The reason that one Daniel Francis Shea was known far and wide in certain gambling circles, sometimes mentioned in whispers in those circles was simple, five- card stud, the max daddy, walking daddy, any kind of daddy of the poker world. And within that narrowly defined world, the second tier world, he was the king hell grifter, or was until that other shoe dropped, that other shoe that will always drop when you play life close to the bone, when you try to cut just one too many corners. And take it from me every grifter, even every king hell grifter like Dan will eventually hear that shoe fall.

And like every other grifter that has ever been born, or who will ever be born, Dan did the best he could. And the best he could in the stud poker world, in the gambling world, and for that matter in the back streets and low-life spots of any town of any size was to win just enough more than he lost to keep him away from pawn shops, bail bondsmen, loan sharks and other assorted denizen of the back alleys. In order to do that he needed a steady supply of marks to step up to the table and lay their money down, preferably in large bills but any denomination would do when Dan needed to make his rent.

In order to provide that steady flow of marks any grifter worth his salt needed a good roper to bring the prospects in. A roper for the civilian being a sharp-eyed guy who could smell loose money just by hanging around bars, hotels, race -tracks and other places where sports, or guys who thought they were sports, laid some money down, and not two dollars to show money either. And the best ropers had the marks (you can figure that one out, right) practically begging the roper to let him (and very seldom a her) in on easy street money. A book could, and should be written about the real pros at this well-established career. Timmy (The Guy) Riley, Dan’s roper was a prime example of that honored profession.

Now there is no need to go into Dan’s life, except to say he, like a million other guys who saw service in World War II was restless, was not going back to Omaha, Nebraska after the service and search for the great American white picket fence dream. That idea was blasted in some Pacific island for Dan. He tried a couple of years of school on the GI Bill but he just didn’t fit in, couldn’t cope with dizzy nineteen years old wet behind the ears and all starry-eyed (although he did take a run at more than one co-ed, nineteen didn’t matter in that particular category). What he did take from his college stint was some important knowledge about probabilities from a math course that he took. That is why he always, or almost always was right, or right enough times, always excluding Vegas which was a matter of hubris as anything, in his choices at cards-like the song said-“he knew how to hold them, and he knew how to fold them.”

As for Dan’s actual grifter life though there is no need to recite chapter and verse about his profession. Keep searching for marks, move quickly, get up at noon, study various plays, search for money for rent if luck was a little short, have a few drinks, maybe a joint or two to mellow out when the routine got too monotonous. Something more of a kick if it was around but it was dangerous to play middle –stakes cards loaded. So mainly keep moving, keep the action going, keep playing those odds.

One story, which I have been hard-pressed to confirm from anybody but guys who were ready to pump Dan’s legend, or who heard it from a guy, a grifter probably, trying to build up the profession to some kids or something, will give you a flavor of what Dan’s action was like when he “walked with the king.” Dan had been having, like happens to every guy who makes the grift a career, a tough streak, was short of dough, had a few outstanding loans out (not as many as Vegas though), and needed some ready cash because Big Bill Brady, a guy with dough, was coming west for a convention. Dan had always had Big Bill’s number so he needed dough bad. He had Timmy working overtime lining up marks and one night, one night a couple of weeks before Big Bill was to hit town, Timmy brought in a beauty. A guy, a salesman, real good at his profession, who not only had some cash, ready cash, but had a big-sized company check he was supposed to be taking back to the main office from a customer.

Well, you can figure out what happened, Sure the guy won a few big hands, at first. Then his luck changed, changed courtesy of Timmy giving Dan the high sign. The guy lost everything including that big check that he signed over to pay off Dan. So you see how the grift works when it is working right, when it has few moving parts to foul things up. Here is the best part, and a part that was confirmed, because Dan took Big Bill for about eighteen thou when he showed up. And the loser salesman? Someone said he wound up doing a nickel in Joliet courtesy of his company and the State of Illinois. Oh, well, go big or don’t go at all. That’s from Dan, by the way.

Oh yah, let me tell you this too. Like I said Dan had a way with women, although over all they were too much of a distraction, all except, Lizabeth. Lizabeth, a torch-singer over at the Alhambra Club in Santa Monica could get under his skin a little, and she was flat out in love with him come hell or high water. When things were tough, when Dan went dry for a while old Lizabeth made sure his rent was paid and his loans covered, some of them anyway. And maybe that was why she got under his skin. That and when he was in a foul mood she could wipe it away with some song, a throaty song like Cry Me A River, her signature song. But like I said for the rest of Dan’s life, the grifter’s life, it was, is, nothing but keeping on the move, keep looking for that next chance, keep looking for the oro of El Dorado.

And that need to hustle eventually did one Daniel Shea in.

He had been on a hot streak out in Indio and the high desert, had picked up about thirty thousand like finding money on the ground. That was when the back alley guys, the newsies, the jack-roller, the three- card Monte guys began to whisper his name. Timmy was bringing them in, bringing the marks in who wanted to test Dan’s luck. But that line soon dried up once the mystique that Dan was on a serious roll, that he couldn’t be beaten took hold and bad sign in the profession. So Timmy needed to go far afield to get some decent marks, had to go to the uptown hotels and look for, say, a high-end company guy with a taste for the wild side, or some bank executive at a conference who figures he knows money and let it rain on him, guys like that.

Well one night Timmy brought in a Mayfair swell, a guy from New York, a big guy in advertising around that town, James Short. Yes, that James Short who did the advertising campaign that put United Airlines on the map back then. That night Dan was ahead maybe ten thousand, maybe twelve, a big pot of dough for one night’s work and he wanted to quit while he was ahead but Short kept badgering him to keep playing feeling his luck was going to change. And it did. Without detailing every hand, every pot, by six the next morning Short was ahead eighty - thousand dollars, most of it in markers, in I.O.U. collectable when the banks opened. Dan had nowhere near that sum and so he did what every respectable grifter did, he split, split to parts unknown (really unknown since nobody even today knows where he might have hidden out)to figure things.

That move was the end of one Dan Shea though; they found him in a ravine down along the Los Angeles River one morning with two slugs in his heart. See, even Mayfair swells have their standards and one James Short, a large deal in New York, was not about to let some California low-life laugh at him. So he did what more than one New York Mayfair swell has done when necessary. He hired a sweet New York hit man to take care of business.

Oh yah, as for Timmy Riley he went to work as a personal aide to James Short. See that hotel night Timmy changed sides, changed sides and kept giving Short the high- sign during the betting. So Dan Shea met the fate of many out in the back alleys and dark streets of America, unmourned and unloved. Unmourned except for Lizabeth who cried herself a river when she heard that Dan Shea had cashed his check.

Off The Road With On The Road- A Film Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

On The Road, starring, Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund, Kristie Stewart, based on the be-bop Beat Generation novel by Jeanbon Kerouac, IFC Film, 2012

Well, we will always have memories of blasted out Frisco town in the late 1940s ready to take refugees, car-borne refugees, coming in from the cold war red scare Denver/Chi Town/Jersey Shore/Village/Lowell/Hullsville American dreaded night. We will always have Jack Kerouac’s novel, On The Road, that sent one, maybe two generations, on the road, on the road to some mystical discovery thing, some search for language to explain our short existence, to make sense of thing in the modern world that has no time for reflection on the big cosmic questions.

We will always have Kerouac’s finely wrought be-bop word plays jumping off the page out in the desolate 1950s a chicken in every pot and two cars (if not three) cars in every garage, in every suburban ranch house sub-division garage. We will always have Sal (a.k.a Jeanbon Kerouac) and Dean, Dean Moriarty (a.k.a. Neal Cassady), the father we did not know, could not know, while we were sitting on those Jersey shores, sweating out in those Ames cornfields, hell, even sitting on the seawall down in those old Hullsville beach fronts looking for the great blue-pink great Amercian West night.

We will always have Charlie, Sonny, Slim, Big Red, the Duke, blowing out, trying to reach and sometimes making it, that high white, after hours, after the paying customers, the carriage trade, went home to bed and they blew to heaven, or tried to, with the boys, with the guys who knew when that note floated out some funky cellar bar door winding its way down to the harbor.

We will always have Sal, Carlos, Bull, Dean and an ever changing assortment of , well, women, women, mainly, at their beck and call, riding, car-riding, riding hard over the hill and dale of this continent searching, well, just searching okay. We will always have the lost brothers, Sal and Dean, playing off of each other’s strengths (and weaknesses) as they try to make sense of their world, or if not sense then to keep high, keep moving, and keep listening. And we will always have a great American novel to pass on to the next wanderlust generation, if there is another wanderlust generation.

And that is exactly what is wrong with this long time in the making film adaptation of Kerouac’s cultural coming- of- age novel. I looked forward with great anticipation to the film, and came away with fair- sized disappointment. Not with the main actors, Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund and Kristie Stewart since they were confined by the constricts of the way the director (and screen-writers) wanted to play the novel. Take away the drugs, sex, rock and roll (oops, be-bop jazz), and, oh yah, driving at high speed and/or hitchhiking, and there is no glue holding this thing together.

Now no one can complain, or such complaints will go for naught after watching this film, that Kerouac was, frankly very oblique in his sexual references, and certainly in the amount of time he spent on discussing the ins and out of sex in the novel so it was quite disconcerting to find so much time spent on the sex scenes. Moreover, let’s face it women for the men, and it was mainly men, of the Beat generation women were ornaments, or drudges and while it does no good to project today’s mores backward they were kept around because as Dean/Neal shouted out one time “I love women.” End of story.

While Road is not strictly a buddy film I came out of the watching the film thinking that maybe, just, maybe it is impossible to put the novel in cinematic form, there is perhaps too much stream of consciousness, too much introspection, too much angst to corral on film. We will however always have the novel, praise be.

WE WANT THE WORLD AND WE WANT IT NOW!

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

My old friend from the summer of love 1967 days, Peter Paul Markin, always used to make a point of answering, or rather arguing with anybody who tried to tell him back in the day that “music was the revolution.” Meaning, of course not that eight or ten Give Peace A Chance,Kumbaya, Woodstock songs would do the trick, would change this nasty, brutish, old short-life world into the garden, into some prelapsian Eden. No, meaning that the gathering of youth nation unto itself out in places like Woodstock, Monterrey, hell, the Boston Common, or even once word trickled down, Olde Saco Park, would feed on itself and grow to such a critical mass that the enemies of good, kindness, and leave us alone would sulk off somewhere, defeated or at least defanged.

Many a night, many a dope-blistered night before some seawall ocean front Pacific Coast campfire I would listen to Markin blast forth against that stuff, against that silliness. As for me, I was too into the moment, too into finding weed, hemp, mary jane and some fetching women to share it with to get caught up in some nebulous ideological struggle. It was only later, after the music died, after rock and roll turned in on itself, turned into some exotic fad of the exile on Main Street that I began to think through the implications of what Markin, and the guys on the other side, were arguing about. Now it makes perfect sense that music or any mere cultural expression would be unable to carry enough weight to turn us back to the garden. Although I guess that I would err on the side of the angels and at least wish they could have carried the day against the monsters of the American imperium we confronted back in the day.

Thinking about what a big deal was made of such arguments recently (arguments carried deep into the night, deep in smoke dream nights, and sometimes as the blue –pink dawn came rising to smite our dreams) I thought back to my own musical appreciations. In my jaded youth I developed an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. Perhaps it initially started as a reaction to my parents’ music, the music that got them through the Great Depression of the1930s and later waiting for other shoe to drop (either in Normandy or at home waiting in Olde Saco), and that became a habit, a wafting through the radio of my childhood home habit. You know who I mean Frank (Sinatra for the heathens), Harry James, the Andrews Sisters, Peggy Lee, Doris Day and the like. Or, maybe, and this is something that I have come closer to believing was the catalyst, my father’s very real roots in the Saturday night mountain barn dance, fiddles blazing, music of his growing up poor down in Appalachia.

The origin of that roots music first centered on the blues, country and city with the likes of Son House , Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James, then early rock and roll, you know the rockabillies and R&B crowd, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Roy, Big Joe and Ike, and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music, especially the protest to high heaven sort, Bob Dylan, Dave Von Ronk, Joan Baez, etc. As I said I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Meaning rootless or not meaningfully or consciously rooted in any of the niches mentioned above. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. Cajun, Tex-Mex, old time dust bowl ballads a la Woody Guthrie, cowboy stuff with the likes of Bob Wills and Milton Brown, Carter Family-etched mountain music (paying final conscious tribute to the mountain DNA in my bone) and so on.

And all those genres are easily classified as roots music but I recall one time driving Markin crazy, driving him to closet me with the “music is the revolution” heads when I mentioned in passing that the Doors, then in their high holy mantra shamanic phase epitomized roots music. That hurt, a momentary hurt then but thinking about it more recently Markin was totally off base in his remarks.

The Doors are roots music? Well, yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derived from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of the Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native American culture that drove the beat of many of his trance-like songs like The End. More than one rock critic, professional rock critic, has argued that on their good nights when the dope and booze were flowing, Morrison was in high trance, and they were fired up the Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here, and it is not a far stretch to classify their efforts as in the great American roots tradition. I argued then and will argue here almost fifty years later when that original statement of mine was more prophetic the Doors put together all the stuff rock critics in one hundred years will be dusting off when they want to examine what it was like when men (and women, think Bonnie Raitt, Wanda Jackson, et. al) played rock and roll for keeps.

So where does Jim Morrison fit in an icon of the 1960s if he was not some new age latter day cultural Lenin/Trotsky. Jim was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix who lived fast, lived way too fast, and died young. The slogan of the day (or hour)- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea however you wanted to mix it up. Then. Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And be creative. Even the most political among us, including Markin in his higher moments, felt those cultural winds blowing across the continent and counted those who espoused this alternative vision as part of the chosen. The righteous headed to the “promise land.” Unfortunately those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change via music or “dropping out” without a huge societal political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Know this as well if you are keeping score. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty plus years of “cultural wars” in revenge by his protégés, hangers-on and their descendants has been a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. And Markin will surely endorse this sentiment. Enough.

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-The Doors'The End

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
**********

WE WANT THE WORLD AND WE WANT IT NOW!

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

My old friend from the summer of love 1967 days, Peter Paul Markin, always used to make a point of answering, or rather arguing with anybody who tried to tell him back in the day that “music was the revolution.” Meaning, of course not that eight or ten Give Peace A Chance,Kumbaya, Woodstock songs would do the trick, would change this nasty, brutish, old short-life world into the garden, into some prelapsian Eden. No, meaning that the gathering of youth nation unto itself out in places like Woodstock, Monterrey, hell, the Boston Common, or even once word trickled down, Olde Saco Park, would feed on itself and grow to such a critical mass that the enemies of good, kindness, and leave us alone would sulk off somewhere, defeated or at least defanged.

Many a night, many a dope-blistered night before some seawall ocean front Pacific Coast campfire I would listen to Markin blast forth against that stuff, against that silliness. As for me, I was too into the moment, too into finding weed, hemp, mary jane and some fetching women to share it with to get caught up in some nebulous ideological struggle. It was only later, after the music died, after rock and roll turned in on itself, turned into some exotic fad of the exile on Main Street that I began to think through the implications of what Markin, and the guys on the other side, were arguing about. Now it makes perfect sense that music or any mere cultural expression would be unable to carry enough weight to turn us back to the garden. Although I guess that I would err on the side of the angels and at least wish they could have carried the day against the monsters of the American imperium we confronted back in the day.

Thinking about what a big deal was made of such arguments recently (arguments carried deep into the night, deep in smoke dream nights, and sometimes as the blue –pink dawn came rising to smite our dreams) I thought back to my own musical appreciations. In my jaded youth I developed an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. Perhaps it initially started as a reaction to my parents’ music, the music that got them through the Great Depression of the1930s and later waiting for other shoe to drop (either in Normandy or at home waiting in Olde Saco), and that became a habit, a wafting through the radio of my childhood home habit. You know who I mean Frank (Sinatra for the heathens), Harry James, the Andrews Sisters, Peggy Lee, Doris Day and the like. Or, maybe, and this is something that I have come closer to believing was the catalyst, my father’s very real roots in the Saturday night mountain barn dance, fiddles blazing, music of his growing up poor down in Appalachia.

The origin of that roots music first centered on the blues, country and city with the likes of Son House , Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James, then early rock and roll, you know the rockabillies and R&B crowd, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Roy, Big Joe and Ike, and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music, especially the protest to high heaven sort, Bob Dylan, Dave Von Ronk, Joan Baez, etc. As I said I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Meaning rootless or not meaningfully or consciously rooted in any of the niches mentioned above. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. Cajun, Tex-Mex, old time dust bowl ballads a la Woody Guthrie, cowboy stuff with the likes of Bob Wills and Milton Brown, Carter Family-etched mountain music (paying final conscious tribute to the mountain DNA in my bone) and so on.

And all those genres are easily classified as roots music but I recall one time driving Markin crazy, driving him to closet me with the “music is the revolution” heads when I mentioned in passing that the Doors, then in their high holy mantra shamanic phase epitomized roots music. That hurt, a momentary hurt then but thinking about it more recently Markin was totally off base in his remarks.

The Doors are roots music? Well, yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derived from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of the Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native American culture that drove the beat of many of his trance-like songs like The End. More than one rock critic, professional rock critic, has argued that on their good nights when the dope and booze were flowing, Morrison was in high trance, and they were fired up the Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here, and it is not a far stretch to classify their efforts as in the great American roots tradition. I argued then and will argue here almost fifty years later when that original statement of mine was more prophetic the Doors put together all the stuff rock critics in one hundred years will be dusting off when they want to examine what it was like when men (and women, think Bonnie Raitt, Wanda Jackson, et. al) played rock and roll for keeps.

So where does Jim Morrison fit in an icon of the 1960s if he was not some new age latter day cultural Lenin/Trotsky. Jim was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix who lived fast, lived way too fast, and died young. The slogan of the day (or hour)- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea however you wanted to mix it up. Then. Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And be creative. Even the most political among us, including Markin in his higher moments, felt those cultural winds blowing across the continent and counted those who espoused this alternative vision as part of the chosen. The righteous headed to the “promise land.” Unfortunately those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change via music or “dropping out” without a huge societal political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Know this as well if you are keeping score. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty plus years of “cultural wars” in revenge by his protégés, hangers-on and their descendants has been a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. And Markin will surely endorse this sentiment. Enough.

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-The Doors'The End

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
**********

WE WANT THE WORLD AND WE WANT IT NOW!

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

My old friend from the summer of love 1967 days, Peter Paul Markin, always used to make a point of answering, or rather arguing with anybody who tried to tell him back in the day that “music was the revolution.” Meaning, of course not that eight or ten Give Peace A Chance,Kumbaya, Woodstock songs would do the trick, would change this nasty, brutish, old short-life world into the garden, into some prelapsian Eden. No, meaning that the gathering of youth nation unto itself out in places like Woodstock, Monterrey, hell, the Boston Common, or even once word trickled down, Olde Saco Park, would feed on itself and grow to such a critical mass that the enemies of good, kindness, and leave us alone would sulk off somewhere, defeated or at least defanged.

Many a night, many a dope-blistered night before some seawall ocean front Pacific Coast campfire I would listen to Markin blast forth against that stuff, against that silliness. As for me, I was too into the moment, too into finding weed, hemp, mary jane and some fetching women to share it with to get caught up in some nebulous ideological struggle. It was only later, after the music died, after rock and roll turned in on itself, turned into some exotic fad of the exile on Main Street that I began to think through the implications of what Markin, and the guys on the other side, were arguing about. Now it makes perfect sense that music or any mere cultural expression would be unable to carry enough weight to turn us back to the garden. Although I guess that I would err on the side of the angels and at least wish they could have carried the day against the monsters of the American imperium we confronted back in the day.

Thinking about what a big deal was made of such arguments recently (arguments carried deep into the night, deep in smoke dream nights, and sometimes as the blue –pink dawn came rising to smite our dreams) I thought back to my own musical appreciations. In my jaded youth I developed an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. Perhaps it initially started as a reaction to my parents’ music, the music that got them through the Great Depression of the1930s and later waiting for other shoe to drop (either in Normandy or at home waiting in Olde Saco), and that became a habit, a wafting through the radio of my childhood home habit. You know who I mean Frank (Sinatra for the heathens), Harry James, the Andrews Sisters, Peggy Lee, Doris Day and the like. Or, maybe, and this is something that I have come closer to believing was the catalyst, my father’s very real roots in the Saturday night mountain barn dance, fiddles blazing, music of his growing up poor down in Appalachia.

The origin of that roots music first centered on the blues, country and city with the likes of Son House , Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James, then early rock and roll, you know the rockabillies and R&B crowd, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Roy, Big Joe and Ike, and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music, especially the protest to high heaven sort, Bob Dylan, Dave Von Ronk, Joan Baez, etc. As I said I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Meaning rootless or not meaningfully or consciously rooted in any of the niches mentioned above. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. Cajun, Tex-Mex, old time dust bowl ballads a la Woody Guthrie, cowboy stuff with the likes of Bob Wills and Milton Brown, Carter Family-etched mountain music (paying final conscious tribute to the mountain DNA in my bone) and so on.

And all those genres are easily classified as roots music but I recall one time driving Markin crazy, driving him to closet me with the “music is the revolution” heads when I mentioned in passing that the Doors, then in their high holy mantra shamanic phase epitomized roots music. That hurt, a momentary hurt then but thinking about it more recently Markin was totally off base in his remarks.

The Doors are roots music? Well, yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derived from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of the Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native American culture that drove the beat of many of his trance-like songs like The End. More than one rock critic, professional rock critic, has argued that on their good nights when the dope and booze were flowing, Morrison was in high trance, and they were fired up the Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here, and it is not a far stretch to classify their efforts as in the great American roots tradition. I argued then and will argue here almost fifty years later when that original statement of mine was more prophetic the Doors put together all the stuff rock critics in one hundred years will be dusting off when they want to examine what it was like when men (and women, think Bonnie Raitt, Wanda Jackson, et. al) played rock and roll for keeps.

So where does Jim Morrison fit in an icon of the 1960s if he was not some new age latter day cultural Lenin/Trotsky. Jim was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix who lived fast, lived way too fast, and died young. The slogan of the day (or hour)- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea however you wanted to mix it up. Then. Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And be creative. Even the most political among us, including Markin in his higher moments, felt those cultural winds blowing across the continent and counted those who espoused this alternative vision as part of the chosen. The righteous headed to the “promise land.” Unfortunately those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change via music or “dropping out” without a huge societal political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Know this as well if you are keeping score. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty plus years of “cultural wars” in revenge by his protégés, hangers-on and their descendants has been a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. And Markin will surely endorse this sentiment. Enough.

From The Marxist Archives-70th Anniversary of Founding of Trotsky’s Fourth International

	Workers Vanguard No. 922	10 October 2008

TROTSKY

LENIN

70th Anniversary of Founding of Trotsky’s Fourth International

September 3 marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Fourth International, world party of socialist revolution. The founding of the Fourth International was a culmination of the fight led by Leon Trotsky to defend the program of Bolshevism (i.e., genuine Marxism). We print below “A Great Achievement,” by Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. Lenin of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, announcing the Fourth International’s founding. The piece originally appeared in the October 1938 issue of New International; it is reprinted from the Writings of Leon Trotsky (1937-38).

Trotsky was instrumental, along with Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders, in the founding of the Third (Communist) International in 1919. World War I had exposed the complete bankruptcy of the Second International, whose sections—with such notable exceptions as the Russian, Serbian and Bulgarian parties—betrayed Marxism by supporting their own bourgeoisies in the war. Meanwhile, the October Revolution was met with a bloody civil war, where the forces of counterrevolution were allied with 14 invading capitalist powers. Trotsky led the Red Army to victory in the Civil War. But the Soviet workers state was bled white, many of its best proletarian fighters having fallen in the struggle to defend the Revolution. By 1923, the Bolsheviks were also faced with the failure of socialist revolutions in the West, especially in Germany. It was under these dire conditions that a conservative, nationalist bureaucratic caste emerged, effecting a political counterrevolution in 1923-24 and consolidating power in the Soviet Union.

Against the Stalinist dogma put forward in late 1924 of “socialism in one country,” which liquidated the program of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, Trotsky and the Left Opposition fought for Leninist internationalism. In retaliation, a series of Stalinist bureaucratic measures would lead, by 1928, to Trotsky’s exile to Alma-Ata and his expulsion from the Soviet Union in February 1929.

But at the 1928 Sixth World Congress of the Comintern held in Moscow, American delegate James P. Cannon and Canadian delegate Maurice Spector read copies of Trotsky’s Critique of the Congress’ draft program, published later in The Third International After Lenin. It was a searing indictment not only of the policies of the Stalinist bureaucracy within the USSR, but also of its disastrous policies internationally. It dealt in particular with the lessons of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27, with Stalin & Co.’s policy of liquidation of the Chinese Communist Party into the bourgeois-nationalist Guomindang, which in turn resulted in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Communists and trade unionists.

Trotsky’s Critique won Cannon and his allies to the Left Opposition, for which they were expelled from the American Communist Party in October 1928. The direct corollary to “socialism in one country” was the transformation of the Comintern from an instrument of world revolution into an instrument of the nationalist policies of the Kremlin Stalinist bureaucracy. In 1930, the International Left Opposition was founded in order to wage a factional struggle to restore the Third International to its revolutionary purpose. But by 1933, Stalin’s Comintern could not be awakened by what Trotsky called “the thunder of fascism”—the victory of Hitler’s Nazis without a shot being fired by the powerful, pro-socialist German workers movement.

When this catastrophe did not give rise to outrage, or even significant dissent, within the ranks of the Third International, Trotsky concluded that that body had proved itself utterly dead as a force for revolution. He called for the building of a new, Fourth International. In 1935, the Third International at its Seventh Congress explicitly codified its program of class collaboration with the policy of the “People’s Front.” The Stalinized Comintern went on to play an aggressive counterrevolutionary role in the Spanish Civil War, slaughtering revolutionary fighters in order to appease the “democratic” imperialists and head off proletarian revolution in Spain.

The founding conference of the Fourth International was held in Périgny, France, on the eve of the interimperialist Second World War, as the Trotskyist movement faced murderous repression internationally at the hands of capitalist regimes of all stripes, from fascist to bourgeois-democratic, and the Stalinists. The conference adopted as its basic programmatic document Trotsky’s “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International,” popularly known as the Transitional Program. Trotsky considered the founding of the Fourth International the most important work of his political life. Writing in 1935 (printed in Trotsky’s Diary in Exile—1935), he noted:

“Had I not been present in 1917 in Petersburg, the October Revolution would still have taken place—on the condition that Lenin was present and in command…. The same could by and large be said of the Civil War….

“But now my work is ‘indispensable’ in the full sense of the word. There is no arrogance in this claim at all. The collapse of the two Internationals has posed a problem which none of the leaders of these Internationals is at all equipped to solve.”

In 1940, the dirty work of a Stalinist assassin would finally silence this great revolutionary. But it could not obliterate his massive volume of revolutionary work, including the construction of the Fourth International. Indeed, Trotsky’s final fight was against a petty-bourgeois minority in the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) that, as the Second World War got under way, wanted to jettison the program of unconditional military defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state.

Unlike the Second and Third Internationals, the Fourth International never betrayed; it was destroyed in the early 1950s by the liquidationist forces led by Michel Pablo. Faced with the onset of the imperialist Cold War and the creation of Stalinist-ruled deformed workers states in East and Central Europe, the Pabloites denied the need for a Trotskyist vanguard. The Pabloites looked to the Stalinists, social democrats and, eventually, Third World nationalists, arguing that they could be pressured to outline a “roughly” revolutionary course. The struggle against Pabloism in the Fourth International was led by Cannon, albeit partially, belatedly and on the SWP’s own national terrain. The SWP would later take quite another tack, that of seeking “convergence” with the Pabloites in the 1963 “reunification,” which formed the “United Secretariat” (USec). It is beyond the scope of this introduction to deal in a substantive or thorough fashion with the post-World War II Pabloite degeneration of the Fourth International. We refer readers to “Genesis of Pabloism” (Spartacist No. 21, Fall 1972), Prometheus Research Series No. 4, “Yugoslavia, East Europe and the Fourth International: The Evolution of Pabloist Liquidationism” (March 1993).

The forebears of the Spartacist League, the Revolutionary Tendency (RT), waged a fight within the SWP against, among other things, its perversion of revolutionary Trotskyism in order to unify with Pablo and his ilk. For this, the RT was bureaucratically expelled from the SWP, which quickly degenerated from centrism into outright reformism (see our 1984 pamphlet The Socialist Workers Party: An Obituary).

Comrade Trotsky insisted that revolutionaries must swim against the stream, as indeed he did and as we strive to do in order to reforge a Fourth International that Trotsky would recognize as his own.

* * *

When these lines appear in the press, the conference of the Fourth International will probably have concluded its labors. The calling of this conference is a major achievement. The irreconcilable revolutionary tendency, subjected to persecutions as no other political tendency in world history has in all likelihood suffered, has again given proof of its power. Surmounting all obstacles, it has under the blows of its mighty enemies convened its International Conference. This fact constitutes unimpeachable evidence of the profound viability and unwavering perseverance of the international Bolshevik-Leninists. The very possibility of a successful conference was first of all assured by the spirit of revolutionary internationalism which imbues all our sections. As a matter of fact, it is necessary to place extremely great value upon the international ties of the proletarian vanguard in order to gather together the international revolutionary staff at the present time, when Europe and the entire world live in the expectation of the approaching war. The fumes of national hatreds and racial persecutions today compose the political atmosphere of our planet. Fascism and racism are merely the most extreme expressions of the bacchanalia of chauvinism which seeks to overcome or stifle the intolerable class contradictions. The resurgence of social patriotism in France and other countries, or, rather, its new open and shameless manifestation, pertains to the same category as fascism, but with an adaptation to democratic ideology or its vestiges.

Also pertaining to the same circle of events is the open fostering of nationalism in the USSR at meetings, in the press, and in the schools. It is not at all a question of the so-called “socialist patriotism,” i.e., defense of the conquests of the October Revolution against imperialism. No, it is a question of restoring preeminence to the patriotic traditions of old Russia. And here the task is likewise one of creating suprasocial, supraclass values, so as thereby more successfully to discipline the toilers and subject them to the greedy bureaucratic vermin. The official ideology of the present Kremlin appeals to the exploits of Prince Alexander Nevsky, to the heroism of the army of Suvorov-Rymniksky or Kutuzov-Smolensky, while it shuts its eyes to the fact that this “heroism” was based on the enslavement and benightedness of the popular masses, and that for this very reason the old Russian army was victorious only in struggles against the still more backward Asiatic peoples, or the weak and disintegrating states on the Western border. On the other hand, in conflicts with advanced countries of Europe the valiant czarist soldiery always proved bankrupt. Obviously, the experience of the last imperialist war has already been buried in the Kremlin, just as it has forgotten the not unimportant fact that the October Revolution grew directly from defeatism. What do Thermidorians and Bonapartists care about all this? They require nationalistic fetishes. Alexander Nevsky must come to the aid of Nikolai Yezhov.

The theory of socialism in one country, which liquidated the program of the international revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, could not fail to terminate in a wave of nationalism in the USSR and could not but engender a responsive wave of the same nature in the “Communist” parties of other countries. Only two or three years ago it was maintained that the sections of the Comintern were obliged to support their governments only in the so-called “democratic” states that were prepared to support the USSR in the struggle against fascism. The task of defending the workers’ state was intended to serve as a justification for social patriotism. Today, Browder, who has been no more and no less prostituted than other “leaders” of the Stalintern, declares before a Congressional investigating committee that in the event of a war between the U.S. and the USSR, he, Browder, and his party will be on the side of their own democratic fatherland. In all probability this answer was prompted by Stalin. But the case is not altered thereby. Betrayal has a logic of its own. Entering the path of social patriotism, the Third International is now being clearly torn from the hands of the Kremlin clique. “Communists” have become social imperialists and they differ from their “Social Democratic” allies and competitors only in that their cynicism is greater.

Betrayal has a logic of its own. The Third International following the Second has completely perished as an International. It is no longer capable of displaying any kind of initiative in the sphere of world proletarian politics. It is, of course, no accident that after 15 years of progressive demoralization, the Comintern revealed its complete internal rottenness at the moment of the approaching world war, i.e., precisely at a time when the proletariat is most urgently in need of its international revolutionary unification.

History has piled up monstrous obstacles before the Fourth International. Moribund tradition is being aimed against the living revolution. For a century and a half, the radiations of the Great French Revolution have served the bourgeoisie and its petty bourgeois agency—the Second International—as a means of shattering and paralyzing the revolutionary will of the proletariat. The Third International is now exploiting the incomparably more fresh and more powerful traditions of the October Revolution to the same end. The memory of the first victorious uprising of the proletariat against bourgeois democracy serves the usurpers to save bourgeois democracy from the proletarian uprising. Confronted with the approach of the new imperialist war, the social patriotic organizations have joined forces with the left wing of the bourgeoisie under the label of the People’s Front, which represents nothing else but an attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie, in its death agony, once again to subject the proletariat to its rule just as the revolutionary bourgeoisie had subjected it at the dawn of capitalism. What was once a progressive historical manifestation now appears before us as a revolting reactionary farce. But while the “People’s Fronts” are impotent to cure a capitalism that is rotten to the core, while they are incapable of even checking the military aggression of fascism—the example of Spain is full of symbolic meaning!—they nevertheless still prove sufficiently powerful to sow illusions among the ranks of the toilers, to paralyze and shatter their will to fight, and thereby create the greatest difficulties in the path of the Fourth International.

The working class, especially in Europe, is still in retreat, or at best, in a state of hesitation. Defeats are still too fresh, and their number far from exhausted. They have assumed their sharpest form in Spain. Such are the conditions in which the Fourth International is developing. Is it any wonder that its growth proceeds more slowly than we should like? Dilettantes, charlatans, or blockheads, incapable of probing into the dialectic of historic ebbs and flows, have more than once brought in their verdict: “The ideas of the Bolshevik-Leninists may perhaps be correct but they are incapable of building a mass organization.” As if a mass organization can be built under any and all conditions! As if a revolutionary program does not render it obligatory for us to remain in the minority and swim against the stream in an epoch of reaction! The revolutionist who uses his own impatience as a measuring stick for the tempo of an epoch is worthless. Never before has the path of the world revolutionary movement been blocked with such monstrous obstacles as today, on the eve of a new epoch of greatest revolutionary convulsions. A correct Marxist appraisal of the situation prompts the conclusion that we have achieved inestimable successes in recent years, despite everything.

The Russian “Left Opposition” originated 15 years ago. Correct work on the international arena does not add up as yet even to a complete decade. The prehistory of the Fourth International properly falls into three stages. In the course of the first period, the “Left Opposition” still placed hopes on the possibility of regenerating the Comintern, and viewed itself as its Marxist faction. The revolting capitulation of the Comintern in Germany, tacitly accepted by all its sections, posed openly the question of the necessity of building the Fourth International. However, our small organizations, which grew through individual selection in the process of theoretical criticism practically outside of the labor movement itself, proved as yet unprepared for independent activity. The second period is characterized by the efforts to find a real political milieu for these isolated propagandist groups, even if at the price of a temporary renunciation of formal independence. Entry into the Socialist parties immediately increased our ranks, although in respect to quantity the gains were not as great as they could have been. But this entry signified an extremely important stage in the political education of our sections, which tested themselves and their ideas for the first time face to face with the realities of the political struggle and its living requirements. As a result of the experience acquired our cadres grew a head taller. A not unimportant conquest was also the fact that we parted company with incorrigible sectarians, muddlers, and tricksters who are wont to join every new movement in the beginning only to do everything in their power to compromise and paralyze it.

The stages of development of our sections in various countries cannot of course coincide chronologically. Nevertheless, the creation of the American Socialist Workers Party can be recognized as the termination of the second period. Henceforth the Fourth International stands face to face with the tasks of the mass movement. The transitional program is a reflection of this important turn. Its significance lies in this, that instead of providing an a priori theoretical plan, it draws the balance of the already accumulated experience of our national sections and on the basis of this experience opens up broader international perspectives.

The acceptance of this program, prepared and assured by a lengthy previous discussion—or rather, a whole series of discussions—represents our most important conquest. The Fourth International is now the only international organization which not only takes clearly into account the driving forces of the imperialist epoch, but is armed with a system of transitional demands capable of uniting the masses for a revolutionary struggle for power. We do not need any self-deceptions. The discrepancy between our forces today and the tasks on the morrow is much more clearly perceived by us than by our critics. But the harsh and tragic dialectic of our epoch is working in our favor. Brought to the extreme pitch of exasperation and indignation, the masses will find no other leadership than that offered them by the Fourth International.

Big Bill Broonzy Is In The House

CD Reviews

Big Bill Broonzy, Chicago, 1937-1940 (four CD set), Big Bill Broonzy, ISP Records, 2005

I am in the process of reading and re-reading many of the books of oral history interviews collected by the recently departed Studs Terkel. As part of that process I have read his last work (published in 2007), a memoir of sorts but really a series of connected vignettes, that goes a long way to putting the pieces of Studs’ eclectic life together. A fact that I did not know is that Studs’ had radio and television music shows in the Chicago of the 1950’s. On one of those shows he performed with the blues/jazz folk artist under review here, Big Bill Broonzy. That long ago reference was enough for this reviewer to scamper back to give a listen to the melodious voice of one of the best in these traditions. But that begs the question where to start?

That is not merely a rhetorical question here. My first exposure to Big Bill, back in the mists of times, was as a performer on a Sunday night folk program here in Boston. In that format he was presented as a folk singer in the style of a black Pete Seeger, including singing many leftist political songs dealing with the pressing questions of race and class. Later I found some more jazzy works by him and some more raucous material in the old country blues tradition. So I hope you can see my dilemma.

The hard fact is that certain musicians, certain very talented musicians, can work more than one milieu or can transform themselves (for commercial or other reasons) into more than one genre. Moreover, in Big Bill’s case, the confluence of folk, blues and jazz at some points is fairly close. That surely is the case here on this CD compilation. So give a listen to that voice, that guitar and those wonderful songs. I might add that, although it seemed to be a given at the time, some of Big Bill lyrics are on point on racial segregation and other social issues. Think of the songs like “Brown, Black and White” or his version of “This Train” (that whipsaws Jim Crow very nicely). That is the real connection with old Studs, that is for sure.


Do That Guitar Rag 1928-1935, Big Bill Broonzy, Yazoo, 1991

The hard fact is that certain musicians, certain very talented musicians, can work more than one milieu or can transform themselves (for commercial or other reasons) into more than one genre. Moreover, in Big Bill's case, the confluence of folk, blues and jazz at some points is fairly close. That surely is the case here on this CD compilation. So give a listen to that voice, that guitar and those wonderful songs. At this time Big Bill was influenced by (and in turn influenced) the country blues mania then sweeping the black enclaves of the South (and not just those enclaves either- think about Jimmy Rodgers) and the songs here reflect that origin. What's good? "Guitar Rag", of course. "Down in the Basement" and "Bull Cow Blues" deserve a listen but for my money "Operation Blues" is tops here.

Added note: I "forgot" to add that on many of these tracks Big Bill has company. On some tracks that company is none other than the legendary Tom Dorsey (who also played behind Blind Willie McTell and many others in those days before going on to a gospel music career). On other tracks, in addition to Dorsey, the very, very bluesy voice of Jane Lucas is heard. Listen to "Leave My Man Alone". Nice, indeed.

Free Bradley Manning Now!

Update 8/15/13: Reactions and reports after Bradley’s request for leniency

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Rally for Bradley Manning at the start of the court martial. Take action in your local community immediately after the sentence is announced!

Closing the Defense’s sentencing arguments, Bradley Manning showed integrity and conscience when he took the stand yesterday issuing a plea to Judge Lind for leniency. In his statement he apologized for the harm he caused even though the evidence showed no harm came from the releases. And he expressed regret for not being more aggressive with his attempts to expose war crimes through the proper military channels. His statement was consistent with that of a humanist, one guided by morals and conscience: “I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people” and “In retrospect I should have worked more aggressively inside the system” he said.
WikiLeaks issued a statement asking supporters to accept this statement with “compassion and understanding” given the enormous weight on Manning’s shoulders. Facing 90 years in prison, having endured a year in solitary confinement, and having his defense blocked at every turn, it is no wonder that Bradley Manning – now only 25 years old – would appeal to the court to give him a second chance at life,

Since his arrest, Mr. Manning has been an emblem of courage and endurance in the face of adversity. He has resisted extraordinary pressure. He has been held in solitary confinement, stripped naked and subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment by the United States government. His constitutional right to a speedy trial has been ignored. He has sat for three years in pretrial detention, while the government assembled 141 witnesses and withheld thousands of documents from his lawyers.
The government has denied him the right to conduct a basic whistleblower defense. It overcharged him until he faced over a century in prison and barred all but a handful of his witnesses. He was denied the right at trial to argue that no harm was caused by his alleged actions. His defence team was pre-emptively banned from describing his intent or showing that his actions harmed no one.
Despite these obstacles, Mr. Manning and his defense team have fought at every step. Last month, he was eventually convicted of charges carrying up to 90 years of prison time. The US government admitted that his actions did not physically harm a single person, and he was acquitted of “aiding the enemy.” His convictions solely relate to his alleged decision to inform the public of war crimes and systematic injustice.

It is understandable that Bradley Manning seeks leniency, and given his strong moral compass it is understandable he has showed regret for causing anyone harm. But outside the court room we must consider the fact no harm actually occurred. The Freedom of the Press Foundation also provides an excellent critique, breaking down the government’s ongoing rhetoric and lies about the potential harm caused:

While the legal strategy of Manning’s attorney at this point—as it would be for any attorney—is to convince the judge to reduce Manning’s sentence as much as possible, the public should know: Bradley Manning didn’t actually hurt the United States.
For years now, the government may have attempted to paint a dire picture of WikiLeaks’ potential impact, but they’ve also admitted, quietly but repeatedly, that the results have been more embarrassing than harmful.
Even when the WikiLeaks hysteria was in full swing, government officials from the State Department have briefed Congress on the impact of the Wikileaks revelations, and have said that the leaks were “embarrassing but not damaging.” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that, while some of the information may have been embarrassing, “I don’t think there is any substantive damage.”

Because Bradley Manning selected particular categories of documents that did not contain source information, and which would not put soldiers in harms way, the only damage from the leaks according to all evidence presented publicly was embarrassment. Even so, Manning’s apology is understandable. With few options left, and facing 90 years in prison, deferring to the military court, and to military honor, makes sense. In his article “There Are People Who Should Have to Plead for Mercy from a Judge—None Are Named Bradley Manning”, Kevin Gosztola at FDL writes:

A statement like this was probably to be expected. He had pled guilty to some offenses on February 28 and his defense had diligently worked to have him acquitted of the more serious federal charges he faced. His defense had sought to present evidence of how government agencies had done reviews after the leaks and found little to no damage or harm had been caused, but the judge deemed such evidence irrelevant to the charges. His defense also tried to stop military prosecutors from preventing the defense from presenting evidence related to Manning’s “good faith” during trial, but that effort failed.
Making the kind of public interest defense supporters—and people throughout the world—wanted to hear would and could not have happened.

Supporters holding a vigil for Bradley Manning at Fort Meade. August 15, 2013.

Gosztola is also critical of the military’s arguments that Bradley Manning did not follow the proper channels, writing that he is unsure how much Bradley Manning knows about similar whistleblower cases, such as that of Thomas Drake who approached Congress but found all his requests went “into a black hole”. Read more about these failed “proper channels” here.
We can hope now, as the closing arguments are made and as Judge Lind decides Bradley Manning’s fate, that she will look deeper into the issues presented during the pre-trial hearings – the unheard of punishment of keeping someone on Prevention of Injury status for 9 months – where Manning was stripped naked, given max an hour a day exercise, forced to ask for toilet paper, watched constantly from behind a two way mirror, forced never to lean his back against a wall. We hope Lind will consider the enormous delays created by the government when they withheld crucial evidence from the defense, and which led to the longest pre-trial detention of an American soldier since Vietnam (more than 3 years). We hope Lind understands that Bradley Manning’s treatment at Quantico prison was “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” just as the UN declared, and that the sentencing credit she gave Manning, of 112 days, did not even amount to a slap on the hand for the military. In fact, it gave the military free reign to continue to abuse soldiers. And most importantly, we hope Lind can see the bigger picture – that without more Bradley Manning’s the military apparatus would run amok, that hundreds of thousands of documents were unreasonably kept secret, and that there were very real coverups of war crimes which even after being exposed have not been prosecuted.
We need more Bradley Manning’s and so let’s hope Judge Lind shows understanding and compassion and that she takes Bradley Manning’s actions and statements to heart. The sentence is expected to come sometime next week.