US State Terror Targets Syria

by Stephen Lendman

Sunday was John Kerry's third Colin Powell moment. Lies beget more of them. Kerry's a serial liar. He's a malicious one.

He appeared on five Sunday talk shows. He wrongfully blamed Assad for August 21's Ghouta attack. He said Syria used sarin nerve gas.

He has "high confidence" Congress will approve lawless aggression. In 2002, it authorized "use of military force against Iraq."

It's uncertain if they'll do so against Syria. On September 9, it returns from summer recess. Unless called back earlier into special session, we won't know until it votes yea or nay.

Kerry used air time to make the case. He did so duplicitously. His accusations against Assad are baseless. They're bald-faced lied.

Syria threatens no one. Obama plans lawless aggression. He does with or without Security Council and/or congressional approval.

He wants regime change. Proxy war hasn't achieved it. Providing Western-enlisted death squads with air power is planned. So-called token strikes assure shock and awe death and destruction.

Initial bombing assures more ahead. Obama didn't wage war to quit. He wants Syria entirely ravaged and destroyed. It's prelude to targeting Iran.

Britain won't partner in bombing Syria. It remains very much involved. On August 31, London's Telegraph headlined "Syria crisis: Britain will play active role in military action despite vote defeat," saying:

UK Mediterranean-based "intelligence-gathering assets (will) provide the US military with information" ahead of its planned lawless aggression.

"Whitehall sources said Britain's decision not to" launch attacks "only covered its Armed Forces."

On Saturday, the USS San Antonio naval amphibious landing ship arrived near Syria. On board are hundreds of marines, helicopters, and V-22 Osprey aircraft.

Despite Britain's parliament voting against direct attacks, six RAF Typhones and a Sentry early warning plane remain in Cyprus.

Royal Navy sources said orders weren't issued to remove a Trafalgar class nuclear submarine deployed near Syria's coast. It suggests perhaps covert participation in Obama's war.

US Sixth Fleet destroyers will launch it. Cruise missile diplomacy is planned. Expect a nighttime barrage ahead. It won't be announced. It'll be known when bombs explode.

America has F-16 warplanes deployed in Turkey and Jordan. Two Fifth Fleet carrier strike groups supplement them. Longer range bombers may be involved.

France alone agreed to participate with America. Its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is in the western Mediterranean. It deployed an anti-missile destroyer to the region.

French warplanes carry Scalp missiles. Rafales are stationed in Abu Dhabi. Mirage 2000s are in Djibouti. On Wednesday, French parliamentary debate is scheduled. So far, no vote is planned.

President Francois Hollande may order strikes on his own. He strongly supports Obama's imperial project. He's got his own objectives in mind. Syria is a former French colony. He may have recolonization in mind.

UK/US intelligence sharing continues. So do covert actions. On August 29, Activist Post contributor Brandon Turbeville headlined "Western Special Forces Working with Death Squads in Syria," saying:

"A new report by the British Mirror magazine has revealed that British special forces are now operating inside Syria." They're doing so ahead of Obama's planned lawless aggression.

"SAS, Special Boat Service, Special Reconnaissance Regiment, and MI6 operatives are involved.

The Mirror cited a military source, saying:

"It is vital they find every missile site that could threaten British ships or RAF jets and they will probably be taken out by missiles fired from offshore."

"The risk of capture to these special forces units is off the scale and nobody can be trusted in Syria."

"At the top of the hit list are (Assad's) sophisticated long-range mobile missile batteries."

"Special forces troops will use laser and satellite technology to pinpoint the exact location of" of key sites. They plan to destroy them.

"Spies have already (located) scores of major military installations and ammo dumps."

On August 22, Le Figaro said US, Israeli and Jordanian commandos covertly entered Syria. CIA operatives are involved.

They came days before Ghouta's attack. The timing wasn't accidental. They're working cooperatively with hundreds of insurgent fighters.

They're trained in guerrilla warfare. Since mid-August, they headed toward Damascus.

Similar elements operated the same way earlier. British, French, Israeli, Turkish and Qatari forces were involved.

Turbeville forthrighly said:

"With the Western world salivating to launch a military assault on Syria which will inevitably kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, it is important for all Americans to not only actively expose such blatant hypocrisy and treachery, but to actively oppose it. Our window of opportunity is closing."

Syria expects attacks any time. On September 1, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) headlined "Syria calls on UN, Security Council to shoulder responsibilities, prevent absurd use of force out of legitimacy."

Syria UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari urged responsible opposition to planned US aggression, saying:

"The Syrian government warned, more than a year ago, against the serious risks of the possibility of using chemical materials by the armed terrorist groups in Syria."

"Syria has informed, in official letters, the UN Secretary General and the UNSC about the activities of these groups, which coincided with a political, diplomatic and media campaign led by some countries which are directly responsible for shedding the blood in Syria and preventing the peaceful solution in order to accuse the Syrian government of using chemical weapons."

Kerry's so-called "secret conclusive evidence" is fabricated rubbish. It's "completely false."

According to SANA:

"Al-Jaafari said he would clarify the following:"

"First, Syria as a state, people and government has a national interest in unveiling the facts related to the claims of using the chemical weapons in Syria, based on this national interest, the Syrian government and the UN agreed to investigate in three sites including Khan al-Assal."

"Second, those who mobilize fleets and armies to wage an aggression on Syria, are the same who rejected a Syrian proposed draft resolution at the UN Security Council on December 29, 2003 on freeing the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction."

"Third, the Syrian government has defied the American administration to show one credible evidence on the allegations regarding using chemical weapon, but Kerry publicly said that he relies on what he called 'high credible information' based on internet fabricated photos."

"Fourth, the UN General Secretariat has repeatedly stated that the trails of the use of any kind of toxic gases do not fade over time, therefore the UN sent an investigation mission after five months of the request of The Syrian government to probe into Khan al-Assal case."

"However, the Syrian government didn't hesitate to allow the UN team to enter to place of supposed attack within 48 hours of the arrival of the UN Secretary General's envoy, Angela Kane, the UN disarmament chief."

"Fifth, Kerry's statement that the investigation mission is not responsible for determining the side which used the chemical weapon, and that its mission is limited to confirming its use, comes to justify the US administration's violation of the UNSC."

Al-Jaafari officially asked Ban Ki-moon to determine parties responsible for chemical weapons use in Khan al-Assal. Washington, Britain and France rejected his request.

Ban's a longtime imperial tool. He supports lawless aggression. He does so without overtly saying so. He's got blood on his hands. He's complicit in what demands condemnation.

Assad, Al-Jafaari and other Syrian officials wage lonely battles. They're struggling to save Syria. They face long odds. Obama wants the Syrian Arab Republic destroyed.

He's well on his way toward achieving it. He plans finishing the job ahead. He wants puppet governance replacing sovereign Syrian independence.

He wants Syria exploited and controlled. Mass killing and destruction are small prices to pay. Imperial marauders take no prisoners.

They don't do body counts. They don't give a damn about unconscionable human suffering. Only imperial priorities matter. Nothing stands in the way of achieving them.

On September 1, SANA headlined "President al-Assad: Syria is capable of confronting any external aggression."

He spoke during his Sunday meeting with Alaeddin Boroujerdi. He chairs the Foreign Policy National Security Committee at the Iranian Shura Council.

In the face of overwhelming US power, he put on a brave face. State television reported him saying:

"Syria ... is capable of confronting any external aggression."

"The American threats of launching an attack against Syria will not discourage Syria away from its principles or its fight against terrorism supported by some regional and Western countries, first and foremost the United States of America."

Ahead of informing Americans, Obama told Netanyahu what he plans. Only they and close aides know exactly what was discussed.

Israel's partnered with Washington's war on Syria. It's an open secret. Both countries may coordinate strikes when they come. Israel may participate covertly.

Russia's parliamentary committee head Alexei Pushkov said Obama will use the upcoming September 5 - 6 St. Petersburg G20 summit advantageously.

He'll pressure participating countries. He wants support for attacking Syria. He'll get none from Russia and China. It remains to be seen how others react.

France alone looks likely to join what another writer calls his "coalition of the killing." Vladimir Putin forthrightly opposes war on Syria. Days earlier he was outspoken against it.

According to one observer, Obama's war may start any time. He'll consult Congress. He wants support. He'll act unilaterally if it's not forthcoming.

Rogue leaders operate that way. Obama's by far the worst. World peace hangs by a thread.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

Eat, drink, and be Merry! (Soapbox Podcast September 1, 2013)

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Sunday, September 1, 2013

Eat, drink, and be Merry! (Soapbox Podcast September 1, 2013)

Nuclear Armageddon and More Damned War Lies!

The catastrophic situation at Fukushima Dai'ichi combined with

the damned lies that may get the US involved in yet another

war to slaughter innocents, make a very sober, yet

informative edition of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox.

GUEST: ROBERT FANTINA

AUTHOR OF Look Not into the Morrow

TOPIC: EFFECTS OF WAR AND IMPENDING IMPERIAL AGGRESSION IN SYRIA

GUEST: ARNIE GUNDERSEN

NUCLEAR ENGINEER AND DIRECTOR OF FAIREWINDS

TOPIC: FUKUSHIMA AND WHAT WE CAN DO

***Out In The Be-Bop Rock 1950s Schoolboy Night- School’s Out, Man-"Blackboard Jungle"- A Film Review

A YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing Rock Around The Clock, a song feature in the film under review, Blackboard Jungle, and the first time that be-bop rock served as the soundtrack for a film. Whee!

DVD Review

Blackboard Jungle, starring Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Vince Morrow, Sidney Portier, 1955

Film noir as a genre came in all shapes and sizes, mainly the best being the crime noir saga. Occasionally though other subjects received royal treatment, as here on the troubling rise of juvenile delinquency in the cities (and maybe elsewhere too) of America in the film under review, Blackboard Jungle. Although a re-viewing of this classic noir reveals some pretty ham-handed notions about the subject of JDs and about schools it still has some “socially redeeming qualities." For one, as the vehicle that connected film with the emerging be-bop rock sound being heard on the AM radio in the early 1950s, at least as heard in some places, through the use of Billy Halley and the Comets’ smash hit of 1955, Rock Around The Clock. Beyond that some of the performances, especially that of Sidney Portier, as a young alienated, “talented tenth” black student who could go either way, fame or crime, also sticks out.

The plot of this thing though even for its red scare- moral uplift-we-had better-get-a-handle-on-these-troubled-youth-or-the-Russkies-will-beat us time seems well, corny. Corny because the characters from Glenn Ford’s worldly-wise but idealistic and frustrated young teacher to the white (represented by Vince Morrow), black (Portier), Spanish and other city ethnic group students are wooden when I compare them to my own similar working-poor neighborhood (minus the blacks) of the time. In short, youth here are merely misunderstood and with the right formula (some version of tough love and a peek at Ozzie and Harriet) they will, except those few rotten apples who we will put in stir for good, change their ways.

A little plot summary will give you an idea of what I mean. Ford, hires on in a deeply troubled urban (New York but could have been a lot of places, including on a smaller scale my hometown, North Adamsville) school beset by racial, ethnic, class and social tensions. He is just idealistic enough, like many before and after him, to try to make a difference despite the heavy odds against him. Of course the first rule of teaching, thugs or princes, is who rules the classroom. For much of the film that is an open question as he seeks allies among the motley crew of students, especially Portier. Of course not everybody makes it, student or teacher alike. The be-bop jazz-loving nerdish math teacher (played by Richard Kiley) and the Irish gang leader thug (played by Vince Morrow)to name two. But in the end the key figures have an epiphany and the uphill education struggle goes on.

Moral uplift and due regard for the efforts of generations of teachers trying to make a different aside you can see where the holes in the plot shine through. The hard reality is that, like at my school, the thugs were weeded out long before high school, or they ran the show, mostly the former.

This brings to mind a character from my working- class streets, "Stewball" Stu (we never called him that to his face because we would have been shivved but that is what we called him among our younger set because the guy was a heavy, heavy whiskey drinker, day and night, walking or driving). Stu dropped out, or rather was kicked out of school, in the ninth grade, I think. But he had a “boss” ’57 Chevy when they were the rage, about ten million girls around him (and no “dogs” either) and all kind of criminal enterprises running. The reason that he got kicked out of school? Oh yeah, he threw a teacher, and not a small one out the window, fortunately it was only from the first floor. And they never did squat about it. So see that moral uplift stuff is good for the 1950s movies but just yawn stuff in the real world. Oh yeah too, Stu's luck ran out later, like sometimes happens but in the 1950s he was the be-bop max daddy king of the jungle. And no blackboard jungle either. Later, fortunately, more realistic troubled youth films were made, like the film adaptations of S.E. Hinton’s works, and made without the heavy-handed cautionary tale.

***Shoot ‘Em Up, Bang “Em Up- Johnny Depp’s (Antonio Banderas And Salma Hayek Too)-“One Upon A Time In Mexico"- A Film Review

DVD Review

Once Upon A Time In Mexico, starring Johnny Depp, Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, 2004

This one may be a little too close for comfort these days what with the almost daily carnage reported from the drug wars in Mexico but anything that has Johnny Depp in it will at least get my attention. Although Johnny is not always up to par, Sweeney Todd seemed, well, too bizarre even for him, he is not afraid to take on quirky roles in the interest of making some memorable characters. Here he plays an upfront (literally) CIA agent down in Mexico to help defuse what looks like an attempt by the bad guys to knock off what passes for a good guy el presidente there and take over the government. To do, whatever. Yes, I know the plot sounds very familiar. Also familiar in this third part of the trilogy is the Angel-Diablo avenger of the people’s wrongs, and his own personal wrongs (wife, played by Salma Hayek, in flash-backs killed by the bad guys), Antonio Banderas. Of course that means plenty of shoot ‘em up, bang ‘em up as the two sides fire everything they have at each other. And equally true, of course, the bad guys get their just desserts. Johnny will get a citation from the bosses at Langley for this one for sure.

P.S. Here is one thing that has always intrigued about shoot 'em up movies and it was really obvious here. Now I am no expert on weaponry, although I know how to handle a gun, but Antonio Banderas’ shooting from every hip at random would seem to be foolhardy. Not only that but his chances of hitting anybody in the real world that way would seem minimal. On the other hand even the elite forces of the bad guys opponent seem, always, to be something out of the gang that could not shoot straight. The good guys must have the angels on their side, right?

***Just Before The Sea-Change- On The 52th Anniversary Of The Freedom Riders- All Honor To Those Who Took To The Buses "Heading South"

Link to a Wikipedia entry for the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights workers who valiantly tried, by example, to integrate interstate transportation in the South. We are not so far removed from those events even today, North or South.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_riders

Markin comment:

I was in high school at the time of the freedom rides and was part of a support group sponsored by the Americans For Democratic Action (ADA), then an anti-Soviet Cold War left-liberal organization but very pro-civil rights (in the South) that was raising money in order to sent more civil rights workers "heading South." Heading toward the danger not away from it. Honor those black liberation fighters, black and white.
********
The following comment, although we are labelling it anonymous to honor the writer's personal preference(he is no longer political, is an opponent of almost everything communistic about this blog, and has a job now that places him on the other side of the barricades, is that enough?), is from a person known to me, and in the old days quite well-known as a fellow North Adamsville corner boy. I am posting it for the sole purpose of showing that even those, some of them anyway, on the other side of the class line at one time showed "the better angels of their natures."
***********
Anonymous comment:

It’s funny how things work out. I was recently thinking about the old time “freedom riders” who, black and white, from the South and North, tried to integrate the local and interstate buses in 1961 down in the Deep South. And some not so deep parts like North Carolina where Markin wound up, I think, some fifty years ago now, stuff that should have never been segregated in the first place. Then, shortly thereafter I was “surfing” the Internet for material on the subject to check my own remembrances and way down in the “match” list for what I Googled was a blog entry, get this, entitled Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1964-Just Before The Sea Change - With The Rolling Stone’s In Mind.

Now hold on before you start sending for the padded wagon for me. Yes, the blog entry was a review of an “oldies but goodies” CD about some of the popular non-Beatles, non-Rolling Stones songs that got us through that tough senior year in high school. But it also contained a story about the trials and tribulations of some kids in my old home town, North Adamsville, a strictly white working class suburb just outside of Boston, trying to get swept up in one of the great social movements of their generation, and mine. That, of course, in those pre-Vietnam War escalation times was the black freedom struggle down South in this country. See, I knew those kids, Edward Rowley, Judy Jackson, and Peter Paul Markin featured in the review. Christ, for a while in senior year I hung out with Edward and Peter Paul (“The Scribe,” to one and all in those days, christened so by head honcho Frankie Riley, a mad man if I ever saw one) in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” for a while so I know the stuff (the guff really) that those guys were going through in trying to be “different.” I also know that Frankie, and most of the school (North Adamsville High School, if I forgot to mention it before) didn’t like what they were doing one bit. And Edward and Judy were getting serious grief at home about it as well.

As for Edward's grief, I was at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor sitting right along side Peter Paul when Edward came rushing in all fluttered, all red-faced too, and related the story of what had just happened at his house that Peter Paul already told you about in that CD review I mentioned Googling above. Peter and I decided that we would just repeat that story here to get you caught up in case you didn’t get a chance to read it. If it sounds all too familiar under any circumstances from back then, or now for that matter (except now it is us giving the guff, right?), then that is just about right:

“Isn’t that hair of yours a little long Mr. Edward Rowley, Junior,” clucked Mrs. Edward Rowley, Senior, “You had better get it cut before your father gets back from his conference trip, if you know what is good for you.” That mothers’-song was being endlessly repeated in North Adamsville households (and not just North Adamsville household either) ever since the British invasion brought longer hair (and a little less so, beards) into style. Of course when one thinks of the British invasion in the year 1964 one is not thinking about the American Revolution or the War of 1812 but the Beatles. And while their music has taken 1964 teen world by a storm, a welcome storm after the long mainly musical counter-revolution since Elvis, Bo, Jerry Lee and Chuck ruled the rock night, the 1964 parent world was getting up in arms.

And not just about hair styles either. But about trips to Harvard Square coffeehouses to hear, to hear if you can believe this, folk music, mountain music, harp music or whatever performed by long-haired (male or female), long-bearded (male), blue jean–wearing (both), sandal-wearing (both), well, for lack of a better name “beatniks” (parents, as usual, being well behind the curve on teen cultural movements). “Why can’t Eddie (he hated that name by the way) be like he was when he listened to Bobby Vinton and his Mr. Lonely or that lovely-voiced Roy Orbison and his It’s Over and other nice songs on the local teen radio station, WMEX,” mused Mrs. Rowley to herself. “Now it’s the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a cranky-voiced guy named Bob Dylan that has his attention. And that damn Judy Jackson with her short skirts and her, well her… "

Since Mrs. Rowley, Alice to the neighbors, was getting worked up it anyway we might as well continue with her tirade, “What about all the talk about doing right by the down-trodden Negros down in Alabama and Mississippi. And Eddie and that damn Peter Paul Markin, who used to be so nice when they all hung around together at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor and you at least knew they were no causing trouble, talking about organizing a book drive to get books for the little Negro children down there. If Eddie’s father ever heard that there would be hell to pay, hell to pay and, maybe, a strap coming out of the closet big as Eddie is. Worst though, worst that worrying about Negros down South is that treasonous talk about leaving this country, leaving North Adamsville, defenseless against the Communists with his talk of nuclear disarmament. Why couldn’t he have just left well enough alone and stuck with his idea of forming a band that would play nice songs that make kids feel good like Gale Garnet’s We’ll Sing In The Sunshine or that pretty Negro girl Dionne Warwick and Her Walk On By instead of getting everybody upset.”

That mother-madness, however, as we shall see didn’t stop Edward Rowley, Junior once he got his Irish up but that was what he was up against on a daily, maybe on some days, an hourly basis. Judy’s story was more of the same-old, same-old but again we decided to let it rest as is like with Edward’s story. Her story I got second-hand anyway one night when Edward and I were sitting down at the seawall in front of old Adamsville Beach trying to figure things out, not big things, just things. Here's what happened:

“Young lady, that dress is too short for you to wear in public, take it off, burn it for all I care, and put on another one or you are not going out of this house,” barked Mrs. James Jackson, echoing a sentiment that many worried North Adamsville mothers were feeling (and not just North Adamsville mothers either) about their daughters dressing too provocatively and practically telling the boys, well practically telling them you know what as she suppressed the “s” word that was forming in her head. And that Eddie (“Edward, Ma,” Judy keep repeating every time Mrs. Jackson, Dorothy to the neighbors, said Eddie), and his new found friends like Peter Paul Markin taking her to those strange coffeehouses instead of the high school dances on Saturday night. And endless talk about the n-----s down South and other trash talk. Commie trash about peace and getting rid of our nuclear weapons. They should draft the whole bunch of them and put them over in front of that Berlin Wall. Then they wouldn’t be so negative about America.”

So you see how hard Judy Jackson’s break-out was when all was said and done.

As for the Scribe, Peter Paul Markin, his people were torn a different way. They, on his mother’s side, were Catholic Worker movement people so they knew the political score. But they also knew Peter Paul could be god-awful righteous when he got his dander up. Who knows what he would say down there, or where he might wind up for saying it to the wrong person, meaning just about anybody not black. Ya, I guess if I was his parents I would have been worried too.

This is how it figured though for me if you really want to know.

Old time North Adamsville was strictly for white working class people, and a few middle class types, period. No blacks, no browns, no yellows, no red, no nothing color except white, period. So nobody could figure why three pretty smart kids, with plenty going for them, would risk their necks “heading” South for some, well, let me put it the way it was really said on the streets, some “n-----s.” Now you get it. But see here is what you didn’t know, what Gary, Judy and Peter Paul didn’t know either. I wanted to go with them. I never said much about it, one way or the other, but every day on the television I saw what they, the cops and white vigilantes were doing to kids, black kids, ya, but still just kids who were trying to change a world that they had not made, but sure in hell, unlike most of their parents, were not going to put up with the old way. The “we did it this way for generations so we will continue to do it for generations” routine. That is a big reason that I was rooting for them (like at some football game that I was addicted to in those days, cheering on the under-dog who eventually was ground under by the over-dog).

Still I never went, and you know why. Sure my mother threatened to throw me out of the house if I dared to cross the Mason-Dixon Line. After all my father was a proud, if beaten, son of the South who, no matter how humbled and humiliated he was by the Yankee ethos that condemned him, always thought of himself as a good-ole Southern boy. And a man who we (my brothers and sisters) could, in later years, never get to say anything better that “nigra” when talking about black people. So there was that. And then there was my ambivalence about whether a boy, me, who had never been south of New York City, and that just barely, and whether I could navigate the “different ways” down South, especially in regard to the idea that white people actually liked/tolerated or were deep friends with black people and wanted to do something about their condition.

Those are, maybe, good and just reasons to take a dive but here is the real reason. I just did not want to get my young butt “fried-Southern-style” by those nasty bastards down in places like Philadelphia, Mississippi (although Philadelphia, Pa, was a tough spot as well, as it turned out). We had all heard about the three civil rights workers who were slain by persons unknown (officially) in the sweat-drenched Southern summer night. We had heard further of beatings, jailings ands other forms of harassment. Yes, I was scared and I let my scared-ness get the better of me, period. That’s why I say hats off to the “freedom riders” in that 1961 hard night. Hats off, indeed.

The Face (book) Photo That Launched A Thousand Clicks- Or “Foul-Mouth” Phil Hits Pay-Dirt-Finally

Link below to a Wikipedia entry for Facebook for those three or four people in the Western world , hell, the whole world, who have not gotten the word about this new form of "social-networking" yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Peter Paul Markin comment:
Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).

Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.

But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.

Phil Larkin comment:
Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.

You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.

Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.

Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?

Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.

Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.

Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:


“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”

The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.

Markin comment:
Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.

***Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More"-You Have That Right, Brother

A YouTube film clip of Stephen Foster's Hard Times Come Again No More performed by the McGarrigle Sisters. You had that right Brother Foster.
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.
*******
Hard Times Come Again No More-Stephen Foster
Lyrics

1.
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh hard times come again no more.

Chorus:

Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

2.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus

3.
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er:
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus

4.
Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh hard times come again no more.
Chorus

STRIKE THE BLOW-THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN LATE OF HARPERS FERRY

Reclaiming John Brown for the Left

BOOK REVIEW

JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST, DAVID S. REYNOLDS, ALFRED A. KNOPF, NEW YORK, 2005
From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harpers Ferry. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a prior existence as a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they headed south. I was then, however, neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the struggle against slavery. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery. Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was executed I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Almost 150 years after his death this writer is proud to stand in defense of the exploits of John Brown.

That said, it is with a great deal of satisfaction that I can recommend Mr. Reynolds’s book detailing the life, times and exploits of John Brown, warts and all. Originally published in hardcover in 2005, this is an important source (including helpful end notes) for updating various controversies surrounding the John Brown saga. While I may disagree with some of Mr. Reynolds’s conclusions concerning the impact of John Brown’s exploits on later black liberation struggles and to a lesser extent his position on Brown’s impact on his contemporaries, particularly the Transcendentalists, on the key point of the central place of John Brown in American leftist revolutionary history there is no dispute.

Mr. Reynolds has moreover taken pains to provide substantial detail about the ups and downs of John Brown’s posthumous reputation. Most importantly, he defends the memory of John Brown against all-comers-that is partisan history on behalf of the ‘losers’ of history at its best. He has reclaimed John Brown to his proper position as an icon for the left against the erroneous and outrageous efforts of modern day right wing religious and secular terrorists to lay any claim to his memory or his work. Below I make a few comments on some of controversies surrounding John Brown developed in Mr. Reynolds’s work.

If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth, of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As Mr. Reynolds’s points out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the ‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life- the raid on Harpers Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it, and their latter-day apologists, about his so-called ‘madness’. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.

For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly, it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions in Kansas (concerning the murder of some pro-slavery elements under his direction) also cloud his image. However, when the deal went down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like, but even a slight acquaintance with great historical figures shows they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.

Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy for the Harpers Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination of slave revolt modeled after the maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s earlier Virginia slave rebellion combined with rural guerrilla warfare of the ‘third world’ type that we have become more familiar with since his time. 150 years later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs. The execution of the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with connections to the plantations would have greatly enhanced the chances for success at Harpers Ferry.

A point not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist avenging angel in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. In short, he was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist determination that he would not been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement led by Emerson,Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported him and kept his memory alive in hard times. In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the Old Testament prophet, but they did not emulate him. Now Brown's animating spirit is not one that animates modern leftist revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand the depths of his religious convictions on his actions. It is better today to look at Brown more politically through his hero (and one of mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind that picture of John Brown.

By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown. These results are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order and one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by history.

Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ to this day cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such 'madman' theories. Historians and others have also willfully misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy which led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians in order to take the sting out of their proper political implications.

From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to had been immediately successful, reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the existing American constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone. Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political freedom that would have insured a running start toward that equality. That is still our fight. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the reign of ‘Jim Crow’ and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities have changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time. Black people are now a part of "free labor," and the key to their liberation is in the integrated fight of labor in the current one-sided class war in order to establish a government of workers and their allies. Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown (and of his friend Frederick Douglass). We need to complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the Civil War, not by emulating Brown’s exemplary actions but to moving the multi-racial American working class to power. Finish the Civil War.

Poet’s Corner- Seamus Heaney Passes –Take Two

 

On The Passing Of Seamus Heaney

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (nee Francis Riley) 

A word. He came from the land of poets, porridge, potatoes, publicans, paupers, prayers, pissers and peat, the well-known eight p’s (a ninth,  protestants, will be left unspoken). He spoke the mother tongue, nay, the grandmother’s tongue never quite the King’s and then time passing the Queen’s English but that surly brogue that bespoke of ancient sorrows, ancient oppressions, ancient dreams against the hard seas surrounding dear mother. Dear green earth mother born of sorrows, sea-borne easy prey for reckless adventurers seeking simple riches and too easy passage to points east and west when the troubles come.

Grandmother, gone to Amerikee, gone to easy sea-borne passage east or west when the troubles came, famine, field rot, rack-rents and imperial decrees, spoke unto death, and maybe beyond the grave too, spoke in brogue too (and not just grandmother in her generation, her Dublin “shawlie” generation transported to M Street, Southie and Ashmont Street, Dorchester) defiant against vanilla Americanization, against tarnished green, against some lost old sod memory. And so DNA-wired her sprawl unto the third generation learned, prosaic and poetic both, the swirl of language, the twisting of a word upon the tongue, the savoring of it, and the blarney and insincerely of it too when needed, and the delight in catching just the right breeze of a phrase as it passes in some bay (always some bay present, these were a sea-bound, sea-faring people, if only to diaspora) drifting back across the seas. Across the seas to that good green earth.             

And grandmother’s tongue, speak plainly brother, grandmother’s brogue bespoke not just of flailed language, and of savorings, but as repository of other sights, smells and sounds, and ancient clan customs. Eternal white sheets, pillow cases, towels, underwear (men’s, women’ s hung somewhere, some modest somewhere, hidden from sex-distorted youth and lecherous old men) flying in the back porch triple-decker wind trying to make due for the umpteenth time although one and all can almost see though the hand wrung bleached whiteness of the things. The sound of the trains belching coal dust fumes almost in the back door as they ferry THEM to their busyness.

The smell of oatmeal bread, oatmeal set aside from the daily ration, fresh baked from widow lady Ida’s Bakery (really the downstairs part of her house converted of necessity into a money-producing operation since Mister’s passing), and Friday buns (yes, yes too, Lenten hot-cross reprieve buns I hadn’t forgotten). The no smell of the boiled dinner (non- descript meat, someone’s leavings, yes, yes, potatoes, cabbage and so on, boiled to perdition by the time the damn thing boiled, got boiled down). The smell of whiskies (and Uncle Sean, named after Sean Flynn, whisky breathes) cheap low-shelf whiskies, the cheapest Johnny Walker could bring forth, to make the pennies go farther, and of stouts and ales too when whiskey credits were short. The acrid smell of sweaty barrooms, men only, ladies by invitation, just before last call, just before a whole slew of grizzled fathers, uncles, older brothers crabbed their ways home to some sullen sleep. The smell of sunken sunrise Sunday church (Roman Catholic, naturally) all dank and foreboding, faint wisps of wine sand incense left from some past ceremony, and young innocent boys (and girls too but they can speak for themselves, them and their rosary-saying, stations of the cross praying ways all dressed in white, damn them) filled with wonder about hell, heaven and that hope, the high hope of purgatory as a way-station,       

Spoke too of eight hundred year oppressions and scratching on hard rock earth against foreign slayings.  Of 1916, always of the men of ’16, eternally of the men of ’16, of James Connolly and his pipedream workers’ republic above all, who was right and who was wrong when Mick Collins and Harry Boland had it out, and later the boys in the North when they came under British guns and that unnamed unadorned tin can sitting atop the Dublin Grille counter filled with dollars and nobody, no matter what their thirst and no dough, touched that under, well, under penalty of death so not touched.  Yes, the boys in the north, and never quite getting the whole thing settled.

Of shame, of shanty shame, also DNA-etched from time before mist.  Of keeping one own counsel, also known as not airing the family’s linen in public unlike those threadbare sheets flailing away on the back porch. Above all spoke of the “squawlie” net-work that ran amok over every tenement block and kept the whole wide world informed, kept young and old in line under the threat of terrible shawlie justice (not until later was it understood as sham). Informed not in the language of the poet by the way. All past now. So too Seamus Heaney passes.    

From The Marxist Archives -In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International-

“The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism”

  

Workers Vanguard No. 937	22 May 2009

“The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism”

By V.I. Lenin

(From the Archives of Marxism)

V.I. Lenin’s “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism,” which we reprint below, was first published in March 1913 in the Bolshevik journal Prosveshcheniye to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx, who, along with Friedrich Engels, founded scientific socialism. The following translation is taken from Volume 19 of the Collected Works of Lenin (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1963).

Throughout the civilised world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a kind of “pernicious sect.” And no other attitude is to be expected, for there can be no “impartial” social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage-slave society is as foolishly naïve as to expect impartiality from manufacturers on the question of whether workers’ wages ought not to be increased by decreasing the profits of capital.

But this is not all. The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling “sectarianism” in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism.

The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.

It is these three sources of Marxism, which are also its component parts, that we shall outline in brief.

I

The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century in France, where a resolute struggle was conducted against every kind of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of democracy have, therefore, always exerted all their efforts to “refute,” undermine and defame materialism, and have advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion.

Marx and Engels defended philosophical materialism in the most determined manner and repeatedly explained how profoundly erroneous is every deviation from this basis. Their views are most clearly and fully expounded in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-Dühring, which, like the Communist Manifesto, are handbooks for every class-conscious worker.

But Marx did not stop at eighteenth-century materialism: he developed philosophy to a higher level. He enriched it with the achievements of German classical philosophy, especially of Hegel’s system, which in its turn had led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The main achievement was dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest, deepest and most comprehensive form, the doctrine of the relativity of the human knowledge that provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. The latest discoveries of natural science—radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements—have been a remarkable confirmation of Marx’s dialectical materialism despite the teachings of the bourgeois philosophers with their “new” reversions to old and decadent idealism.

Marx deepened and developed philosophical materialism to the full, and extended the cognition of nature to include the cognition of human society. His historical materialism was a great achievement in scientific thinking. The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in views on history and politics were replaced by a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops—how capitalism, for instance, grows out of feudalism.

Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that the various political forms of the modern European states serve to strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.

Marx’s philosophy is a consummate philosophical materialism which has provided mankind, and especially the working class, with powerful instruments of knowledge.

II

Having recognised that the economic system is the foundation on which the political superstructure is erected, Marx devoted his greatest attention to the study of this economic system. Marx’s principal work, Capital, is devoted to a study of the economic system of modern, i.e., capitalist, society.

Classical political economy, before Marx, evolved in England, the most developed of the capitalist countries. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, by their investigations of the economic system, laid the foundations of the labour theory of value. Marx continued their work; he provided a proof of the theory and developed it consistently. He showed that the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent on its production.

Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people. The exchange of commodities expresses the connection between individual producers through the market. Money signifies that the connection is becoming closer and closer, inseparably uniting the entire economic life of the individual producers into one whole. Capital signifies a further development of this connection: man’s labour-power becomes a commodity. The wage-worker sells his labour-power to the owner of land, factories and instruments of labour. The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day he works without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus-value, the source of profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class.

The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of Marx’s economic theory.

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. In industry, the victory of large-scale production is immediately apparent, but the same phenomenon is also to be observed in agriculture, where the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture is enhanced, the use of machinery increases and the peasant economy, trapped by money-capital, declines and falls into ruin under the burden of its backward technique. The decline of small-scale production assumes different forms in agriculture, but the decline itself is an indisputable fact.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social—hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a regular economic organism—but the product of this collective labour is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, the furious chase after markets and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population are intensified.

By increasing the dependence of the workers on capital, the capitalist system creates the great power of united labour.

Marx traced the development of capitalism from embryonic commodity economy, from simple exchange, to its highest forms, to large-scale production.

And the experience of all capitalist countries, old and new, year by year demonstrates clearly the truth of this Marxian doctrine to increasing numbers of workers.

Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital.

III

When feudalism was overthrown and “free” capitalist society appeared in the world, it at once became apparent that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and exploitation of the working people. Various socialist doctrines immediately emerged as a reflection of and protest against this oppression. Early socialism, however, was utopian socialism. It criticised capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed of its destruction, it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation.

But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution. It could not explain the real nature of wage-slavery under capitalism, it could not reveal the laws of capitalist development, or show what social force is capable of becoming the creator of a new society.

Meanwhile, the stormy revolutions which everywhere in Europe, and especially in France, accompanied the fall of feudalism, of serfdom, more and more clearly revealed the struggle of classes as the basis and the driving force of all development.

Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class was won except against desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country evolved on a more or less free and democratic basis except by a life-and-death struggle between the various classes of capitalist society.

The genius of Marx lies in his having been the first to deduce from this the lesson world history teaches and to apply that lesson consistently. The deduction he made is the doctrine of the class struggle.

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can—and, owing to their social position, must—constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle.

Marx’s philosophical materialism alone has shown the proletariat the way out of the spiritual slavery in which all oppressed classes have hitherto languished. Marx’s economic theory alone has explained the true position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism.

Independent organisations of the proletariat are multiplying all over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to South Africa. The proletariat is becoming enlightened and educated by waging its class struggle; it is ridding itself of the prejudices of bourgeois society; it is rallying its ranks ever more closely and is learning to gauge the measure of its successes; it is steeling its forces and is growing irresistibly.