As The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Starts ... Some Remembrances-Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky On The Anti-War Movement From War And The International   

The events leading up to World War I from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of the world’s resources to the supposedly eternal pledges by the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those parties in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20^th century history. The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20^th century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine.

The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last war. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas. The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness.

A few voices, voices like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, Lenin and Trotsky in Russia, some anti-war anarchists like Monette in France and here in America Big Bill Haywood and the stalwart Eugene V. Debs, were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space. Those voices, many of them in exile, or in the deportations centers, were being clamped down as well as the various imperialist governments began closing their doors to political refugees when they were committed to clapping down on their own anti-war citizens. As we have seen in our own times, most recently in America in the period before the “shock and awe” of the decimation of Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 the government, most governments, are able to build a war frenzy out of whole cloth. At those times, and in my lifetime the period after 9/11 when we tried in vain to stop the Afghan war in its tracks is illustrative, to be a vocal anti-warrior is a dicey business. A time to keep your head down a little, to speak softly and wait for the fever to subside and to be ready to begin the anti-war fight another day. So imagine in 1914 when every nationality in Europe felt its prerogatives threatened how the fevered masses would not listen to the calls against the slaughter. Yes, one hundred years later is not too long to honor those ardent anti-war voices as the mass mobilizations began in the countdown to war.                   

Over the next period as we lead up to the 100^th anniversary of the start of World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.     

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CHAPTER IV

THE WAR AGAINST THE WEST

ON his return from his diplomatic trip to Italy, Dr. Südekum wrote in the Vorwaerts that the Italian comrades did not sufficiently comprehend the nature of Czarism. We agree with Dr. Südekum that a German can more easily understand the nature of Czarism as he experiences daily, in his own person, the nature of Prussian-German absolutism. The two “natures” are very closely akin to each other.

German absolutism represents a feudal-monarchical organization, resting upon a mighty capitalist foundation, which the development of the last half-century has erected for it. The strength of the German army, as we have learned to know it anew in its present bloody work, consists not alone in the great material and technical resources of the nation, and in the intelligence and precision of the workman-soldier, who had been drilled in the school of industry and his own class organizations. It has its foundations also in its Junker officer caste, with its master class traditions, its oppression of those who are below and its subordination to those who are above. The German army, like the German state, is a feudal-monarchical organization with inexhaustible capitalist resources. The bourgeois scribblers may chatter all they want about the supremacy of the German, the man of duty, over the Frenchman, the man of pleasure; the real difference lies not in the racial qualities, but in the social and political conditions. The standing army, that closed corporation, that self-sufficing state within the state, remains, despite universal military service, a caste organization that in order to thrive must have artificial distinctions of rank and a monarchical top to crown the commanding hierarchy.
In his work, The New Army, Jaurès showed that the only army France could have is one of defence built on the plan of arming every citizen, that is, a democratic army, a militia. The bourgeois French Republic is now paying the penalty for having made her army a counterpoise to her democratic state organization. She created, in Jaurés, words, “a bastard regime in which antiquated forms clashed with newly developing forms and neutralized each other.” This incongruity between the standing army and the republican regime is the fundamental weakness of the French military system.
The reverse is true of Germany. Germany’s barbarian retrograde political system gives her a great military supremacy. The German bourgeoisie may grumble now and then when the praetorian caste spirit of the officers’ corps leads to outbreaks like that of Zabern. [29] They may make wry faces at the crown Prince and his slogan, “Give it to them! Give it to them!” The German Social Democracy may inveigh ever so sharply against the systematic personal ill-treatment of the German soldier, which has caused proportionately twice as many suicides in the German barracks as in the barracks of any other country. But for all that, the fact that the German bourgeoisie has absolutely no political character and that the German Socialist party has failed to inspire the proletariat with the revolutionary spirit has enabled the ruling class to erect the gigantic structure of militarism, and so place the efficient and intelligent German workmen under the command of the Zabern heroes and their slogan, “Give it to them”.
Professor Hans Delbrück seeks the source of Germany’s military strength in the ancient model of Teutoburgerwald [30], and he is perfectly justified.

“The oldest Germanic system of warfare,” he writes, “was based on the retinue of princes, a body of specially selected warriors, and the mass of fighters comprising the entire nation. This is the system we have today also. How vastly different are the methods of fighting now from those of our ancestors in the Teutoburgerwald! We have the technical marvels of modern machine guns. We have the wonderful organization of immense masses of troops, and yet our military system is at bottom the same. The martial spirit is raised to its highest power, developed to its utmost in a body which once was small but now numbers many thousands, a body giving fealty to their War Lord, and by him, as by the princes of old, regarded as his comrades; and under their leadership the whole people, educated by them and disciplined by them. Here we have the secret of the warlike character of the German nation.”

The French Major, Driant, looks on at the German Kaiser in his White Cuirassier’s uniform, undoubtedly the most imposing military uniform in the world, and republican by constraint that he is, his heart is filled with a lover’s jealousy. And how the Kaiser spends his time “in the midst of his army, that true family of the Hohenzollerns!” The Major is fascinated.

The feudal caste, whose hour of political and moral decay had struck long ago, found its connection with the nation once more in the fertile soil of imperialism. And this connection with the nation has taken such deep root that the prophecies of Major Driant, written several years ago, have actually come true prophecies that until now could only have appeared as either the poisonous promptings of a secret Bonapartist, or the driveling of a lunatic.

“The Kaiser,” he wrote is the Commander in Chief and behind him stands the entire working class of Germany as one man ... Bebel’s Social Democrats are in the ranks, their fingers on the trigger, and they too think only of the welfare of the Fatherland. The ten-billion war indemnity that France will have to pay will be a greater help to them than the Socialist chimeras on which they fed the day before.”

Yes, and now they are writing of this future indemnity even in some Social Democratic (!) papers, with open rowdy insolence‘an indemnity, however, not of ten billions, but of twenty or thirty billions.

Germany’s victory over France – a deplorable strategic necessity, according to the German Social Democrats – would mean not only the defeat of France’s standing army; it would mean primarily the victory of the feudal-monarchical state over the democratic-republican state.
For the ancient race of Hindenburgs, Moltkes and Klucks, hereditary specialists in mass-murder, are just as indispensable a condition of German victory as are the 42 centimeter guns, the last word in human technical skill.
The entire capitalist press is already talking of the unshakable stability of the German Monarchy, strengthened by the War. And German professors, the same who proclaimed Hindenburg a doctor of All the Sciences, are already declaring that political slavery is a higher form of social life.

“The democratic republics, and the so-called monarchies that are under subjection to a parliamentary regime, and all the other beautiful things that were so extolled‘what little capacity they have shown to resist the storm!”

These are the things that the German professors are writing now. It is shameful and humiliating enough to read the expressions of the French Socialists, who had proved themselves too weak to break the alliance of France with Russia or even to prevent the return to three years’ military service, but who, when the War began, never the less donned their red trousers and set out to free Germany. But we are seized with a feeling of unspeakable indignation on reading the German Socialist party press, which in the language of exalted slaves extols the brave heroic caste of hereditary oppressors for their armed exploits on French territory.

On August 15, 1870, when the victorious German armies were approaching Paris, Engels wrote in a letter to Marx, after describing the confused condition of the French defence:

“Nevertheless, a revolutionary government, if it comes soon, need not despair. But it must leave Paris to its fate, and continued carry on the war from the South. It is then still possible that such a government may hold out until arms and ammunition are brought and a new army organized with which the enemy can be gradually pushed back to the frontier. That would be the right ending to the war for both countries to demonstrate that they cannot be conquered.”

And yet there are people who shout like drunken helots, “On to Paris.” And in doing so they have the impudence to invoke the names of Marx and Engels. In what measure are they superior to the thrice despised Russian liberals who crawled on their bellies before his Excellency, the military Commander, who introduced the Russian knout into East Galicia. It is cowardly arrogance this talk of the purely “strategic” character of the war on the Western front. Who takes any account of it? Certainly not the German ruling classes. They speak the language of conviction and of main force. They call things by their right names. They know what they want and they know how to fight for it.

The Social Democrats tell us that the War is being waged for the cause of national independence. “That is not true,” retorted Herr Arthur Dix.

“Just as the high politics of the last century,” wrote Dix, “owed its specially marked character to the National Idea, so the political- world events of this century stand under the emblem of the Imperialistic Idea. The imperialistic idea that is destined to give the impetus, the scope and the goal to the striving for power of the great.” (Der Weltwirtschaftskrieg, 1914, p.3).

“It shows gratifying sagacity,” says the same Herr Arthur Dix, “on the part of those who had charge of the military preparations of the war, that the advance of our armies against France and Russia in the very first stage of the War took place precisely where it was most important to keep valuable German mineral wealth free from foreign invasion, and to occupy such portions of the enemy’s territory as would supplement our own underground resources” (Ibid., p.38)

The “strategy” of these wait and see Socialists, who now speak in whispers, really begins with the robbery of mineral wealth. The Social Democrats tell us that the War is a war of defence.
But Herr George Irmer says clearly and distinctly:

“People ought not to be talking as through it were a settled thing that the German nation had come too late for rivalry for world economy and world dominion‘that the world has already been divided. Has not the earth been divided over and over again in all epochs of history?” (Los vom englischen Weltjoch, 1914, p.42.)

The Socialists try to comfort us by telling us that Belgium has only been temporarily crushed and that the Germany will soon vacate their Belgian quarters. But Herr Arthur Dix, who knows very well what he wants, and who has the right and the power to want it, writes that what England fears most, and expressly so, is that Germany should have an outlet to the Atlantic Ocean.

“For this very reason, he continues, “we must neither let Belgium go out of our hands, nor must we fail to make sure that the coast line from Ostend to the Somme shall not again fall into the hands of any state which may become a political vassal of England. We must see to it that in some form or other German influence is securely established there.”

In the endless battles between Ostend and Dunkirk, sacred “strategy” is now carrying out this program of the Berlin stock exchange, also.

The Socialists tell us that the War between France and Germany is merely a brief prelude to a lasting alliance between those countries. But here, too, Herr Arthur Dix shows all the cards. According to him, “there is but one answer: to seek to destroy the English world’ trade, and to deal deadly blows at English national economy.”

“The aim for the foreign policy of the German Empire for the next decades is clearly indicated,” Professor Franz von Liszt announces. “‘Protection against England,’ that must be our slogan.” (Ein mitteleuropaischer Staatenverband, 1914, p.24.)

“We must crush the most treacherous and malicious of our foes, cries a third. “We must break the tyranny which England exercises over the sea with base self-seeking and shameless contempt of justice and right.”

The War is directed not against Czarism, but primarily against England’s supremacy on the sea.

“It may be said,” Professor Schiemann confesses, “that no success of ours has given us such joy as the defeat of the English at Maubeuge and St. Quentin on August 28th.”

The German Social Democrats tell us that the chief object of the War is the ‘settlement with Russia”. But plain, straightforward Herr Rudolf Theuden wants to give Galicia to Russia with North Persia thrown in. Then Russia “would have got enough to be satisfied for many decades to come. We may even make her our friend by it.”

“What ought the War to bring us?” asks Theuden, and then he answers:

“The chief payment must be made us by France France must give us Belfort, that part of Lorraine which borders on the Moselle, and, in case of stubborn resistance, that part as well which borders the Maas. If we make the Maas and the Moselle German boundaries, the French will some day perhaps wean themselves away from the idea of making the Rhine a French boundary.”

The bourgeois politicians and professors tell us that England is the chief enemy; that Belgium and France are the gateway to the Atlantic Ocean; that the hope of a Russian indemnity is only a Utopian dream, anyway; that Russia would be more useful as friend than as foe; that France will have to pay in land and in gold – and the Vorwaerts exhorts the German workers to “hold out until the decisive victory is ours.”

And yet the Vorwaerts tells us that the War is being waged for the independence of the German nation, and for the liberation of the Russian people. What does this mean? Of course we must look for ideas, logic and truth where they do not exist. This is simply a case of an ulcer of slavish sentiments bursting open and foul pus crawling over the pages of the working men’s press. It is clear that the oppressed class which proceeds too slowly and inertly on its way toward freedom must in the final hour drag all its hopes and promises through mire and blood, before there arises in its soul the pure, unimpeachable voice‘the voice of revolutionary honor.

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner-French And German Poets   

 

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French and German poetry from WWI

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01rdh2k

Duration: 07:04

Hugh Sykes listens to works by French and German poets during World War I.

 

 

 

 

***Tales From The Old North Adamsville Neighborhood-In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys-With Kudos To Richard Thompson’s 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

 

 

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman     

 Several years ago I was trying to finally reconcile myself, after many false starts, un-kept makings-up, and bewildering events that would take me back to square one in that effort, with the hard upbringing I had had in my old working-class town of North Adamsville south of Boston. Hard economically since we were the poorest of the poor, the marginally working at a place where that group met the lumpen elements, literally met the jack-rollers, drifters, grifters, and midnight sifters (night sneak thieves for the unknowing), and other riffraff who preyed not on the rich, or even the middle-class up the road but the closest targets, the easy targets, the working poor, us. Hard too, hard to not understand why those outrageous wanting habits (for a room of my own, for a typewriter, for when I came of age a car, for, well, you get the idea, wanting habits) could never be satisfied and when I squawked about it as I did, did squawk there is no other way to put it, all hell came raining down on my head from my mother, mainly. So it took a long while to not cringe every time I tried once I got out from under to make my peace with the old neighborhood, with that wanting habit business (wanting habits still there), with my family or what was left of it after I finally reconciled myself to certain facts that some things in this world are not going to be explained, maybe can’t.

One of the helpful tips I got from a gal who had gone through her own wanting habits childhood was by talking about some of the old neighborhood things I remembered from those days. One time I happened to mention to some new friends that in high school in the early 1960s I had been drawn to and repulsed by the hard ass motorcycle guys from Boston. Guys, white guys, who called themselves the Devil’s Disciplines from around Dorchester, who roamed at will through the streets of our town to get to Adamsville Beach. That beach the nearest point to the ocean in the area and also complete with plenty secluded parking areas and a magnet for good-looking young women (high school girls mainly) who spent their daytime summer hours sunning themselves in order to looked well-tanned when the night time was the right time. And you can figure out what the right time and what was done in that right time yourselves. Naturally I, and sometimes some guy friends, car-less would sit on the seawall and see what was what. These friends I mentioned that romance of the bike to, a couple of them from working class neighborhoods themselves, looked at me askance when I said that I had been drawn to outlaw motorcycle guys what with their reputation for murder, mayhem, drugs, mayhem, or did I say that already. Looked leery at me a guy who has spent his life arguing against the degradation of human life and those who would treat it as cheaply as those outlaws seemed to do. And was not exactly a poster boy for Harley-Davidson.   

Of course that later wisdom was gathered after the initial romance of the outlaw that exploded in straight-laced red scare Cold War America wore off but early on I could have gone that way if I had been a little tougher, no, a lot tougher. Oh yeah, and could do anything, except for once, do anything besides ride on the back seat of a bike. See that beach was a local rendezvous for bikers, babes, and watching “submarine races” after midnight. Not all of those three things came together and maybe none together depending on who was down there any given night. Who meaning what young women, and what kind, were drawn to that locale when those guys, sometimes in two by  two formation sometimes four depending how confrontational they wanted to be with the cops and the square citizenry, with their chrome-infested bikes came to a stop. It was also the place where poor ass corner boys with no bikes but also with no cars, not even a clunker (are you kidding we half the time did not have the wherewithal for a “father car” much less for some kid to go cruising looking for the heart of Saturday night) sat stone-faced on the seawall that protected the boulevard from the furies of Mother Nature when she decided to give humankind a lesson, a good dunking. Sat stone-faced wondering what would happen if, for once, I had access to a chopper and one of girls from notorious Five Point ready to do my bidding. Those Five Point girls were known, high school known, at least from that Monday morning before school boy and girl restroom talk, to be happy to accommodate those love-starved bikers, and at least one, Marie, was according to an old girlfriend of mind who heard the talk in that Monday morning lounge, ready for more, ready to turn up a guy’s toes, maybe, more than one, guy not toes. So that was one of the “drawn to” parts. Especially when they came in formation scaring the citizenry, no cops to be found with a mile of the beach, and the girls looked lustily their way.       

But that girl longing stuff was eternal, whether bikers existed in the universe or not. Eternal out in front of corner boy hang-out Salducci’s Pizza Parlor trying to cadge some time with girls going in for an evening slice of pizza and soda (if a girl ordered onions on top, I, we, would know to forget her that night because she had already determined not a damn thing was going to happen, that night, and we constantly worked for the minute on this subject, or earlier in junior out in front of Doc’s Drugstore waiting for the girls to go inside and spend their nickels, dimes and quarters playing the jukebox on songs they (we) heard on American Bandstand and could not get enough of, or at some woe begotten school dance hoping for that last chance last dance with that girl you have made your eyes sore over, or maybe just in the corridor checking out some girl with that furtive glance that we had worked into a science.

The “drawn to” part of the motorcycle guys for me really was that they were “cool,” outlaw guys with those big motorcycles blazing and I fancied myself a rebel. These guys could give a f- - k if school kept or not (just an expression since most of these guys from what I heard had dropped out of school or if they stayed in school then they were over at Boston Trade working the kinks out of some motor problem, or grabbing school property shop stuff to sell to get gas money together. While my form of alienation was totally different from theirs, or I liked to think that, they were nonplussed by the trappings of bourgeois society circa 1960. Made their own society, kept their own counsel, had no fear of the cops, had no fear of dying when I talked to one guy once who told me “jail or the streets it don’t make no different to me as long as I have my dope, my woman, and my hog when I am on the streets. Oh yeah, and they show the “colors” when my time comes, and I don’t care when that is.” Cool. Existential philosophers, even old brother Jean Genet a true outlaw himself, pouring out a torrent of words could not express the plight of the modern mass man who has fallen through the cracks in the post-World War II golden age better that that doomed biker. Of course that is me later rationalizing my attraction, then it was just guys who got lots respect, no, better, fear by just stepping on the clutch. Got even more fearsome in my eyes when I found out that a couple of guys from my street, tough guys in their own right and who had allegedly committed a couple of armed robberies of local gas stations to get their bikes, were rejected by the Boston guys, the Disciples, for being “pussies.” Jesus.          

Yeah so for a while the outlaws had me in thrall. Then the “repulsed by” part came in, the part where they had no rules at all. One night, a summer night, hot, sweaty (at least it must have been humid because I was sweaty), sultry, a night with no good omens to recommend it about a dozen  Disciples rode in formation to the beginning the beach, the area where during the day the local families would bring the kids, maybe have a picnic, a barbecue, and would leave plenty of trash in the trash barrels stopped and began to systematically light the barrels on fire, and then started tearing the benches and picnic tables apart and throwing the wood on the fires. The cops came about an hour later after the fires had flamed out.  Worse they would, not that night as far as I know since they seemed to be intent on pure destruction, pick on regular guys sitting in their cars (or their father-borrowed car) trying to “make” their dates (and hassle those dates too with ugly language and gestures which appalled most of them). Here is the kicker though they thought nothing of beating up guys for just looking the wrong way at them. And that is not just filler for this story but based on personal experience. One night I was pissed off at something, probably some beef with Ma, or maybe just pissed off to be pissed of like I was a lot of time in those days. And most of the times when I was pissed off I would head to Adamsville Beach. Walking, of course, it wasn’t far, maybe a mile or so from the house. And wound up sitting alone down at the biker end of the beach. And get this just kind of staring absent-mindedly in the bikers’ direction. Well one guy, a tall, thin guy with a chip on his shoulder (but I only though of that later) came over to me and asked why I was looking at him, or his girl. I said as I stood up to try to explain I wasn’t looking at anybody or anything but thinking about stuff because I was pissed off. He didn’t like that answer because then without warning or another word he kicked me in the groin and walked away saying “if you are pissed off don’t come here and bother me, got that?” Yeah, I got it. Got it about fifteen minutes later when the pain finally subsided. In the end I feared them more than saw them as heroic figures, but still that was a close thing.

Fast forward.

A couple of years ago, now like I said generally reconciled with my roots, I got in contact with the reunion committee for my class at North Adamsville which after the 40^th anniversary reunion had put together a website for classmates to communicate through. One of the sections on the site was for interactive messages about whatever subject came into your head. I had just seen, or seen again, the classic 1950s motorcycle film, Marlon Brando’s The Wild Ones, and the generational, our generation, our generation of ’68 “hippie” free as the wind classic, Easy Ride. So I was hopped up to ask a question about motorcycles, about what people had to say about them. But I put the question a little differently from that straight motorcycle talk because I was, once again, in thrall to that old biker time experience (forgetting that kick in groin).

The way I posed the question since I had an answer already in mind was asking about what classmates thought was the classic working-class love song, the song that would “speak” to those old times. Now North Adamsville was in those days a classic working-class suburb dependent on factory and service jobs although there were pockets of middle-class-dom as pictured in the glossy magazines so not everybody from school would gravitate to the idea of the classic working class song. But enough would to make the question worth asking. Moreover I was looking for something that might speak to our working-class roots as well as the intricacies of the working-class love ritual which I really believed (and still believe) is a different gradient than the middle-class ritual. And so I motivated my question by presenting my answer alongside. Here is what I had to say:                 

 

Okay here is the book of genesis, the motorcycle book of genesis, or at least my motorcycle book of genesis which drives my choice of great working-class love song, Richard Thompson’s 1952 Vincent Black  Lightning. But, before I get all that let me make about seventy–six disclaimers. First, the whys and wherefores of the motorcycle culture, except on those occasions when they become subject to governmental investigation or impact some cultural phenomena, is outside the purview of the leftist politics that have dominated my life. There is no abstract leftist political line, as a rule, on such activity, nor should there be. (Some of my best friends are bikers, okay, will that hold you.) Those exceptions include when motorcyclists, usually under the rubric of “bad actor” motorcycle clubs, like the famous (or infamous) Oakland, California-based Hell’s Angels are generally harassed by the cops and we have to defend their right to be left alone (you know, those "helmet laws", and the never-failing pull-over for "driving while being a biker") or, like, going the other way, since they are not brethren when the Angels were used by the Rolling Stones at Altamont and that ill-advised decision represented a watershed in the 1960s counter-cultural movement. Decisive some say and we have been fighting a rear-guard action ever since. Or, more ominously, from another angle, when such lumpen formations form the core hell-raisers of anti-immigrant, anti-socialist,   anti-gay, anti-women, anti-black liberation fascistic demonstrations and we are compelled, and rightly so, to go toe to toe with them. Scary yes, necessary yes, bikes or no bikes.

 

Second, in the interest of full disclosure I own no stock, or have any other interest, in Harley-Davidson, or any other motorcycle company. Third, I do not now, or have I ever belonged to a motorcycle club or owned a motorcycle, although I have driven them, or, more often, on back of them on occasion. Fourth, I do not now, knowingly or unknowingly, although I grew up in a working- class neighborhood like you did where bikes and bikers were plentiful, hang with such types. Fifth, the damn things and their riders are too noisy, despite the glamour and “freedom of the road” associated with them. Sixth, and here is the “kicker”, I have been, endlessly, fascinated by bikes and bike culture as least since early high school, if not before, and had several friends who “rode.” Well that is not seventy-six but that is enough for disclaimers.

 

Okay, as to genesis, motorcycle genesis. Let’s connect the dots. A couple of years ago, and maybe more, as part of a trip down memory lane, the details of which do not need detain us here, I did a series of articles on various world-shaking, earth-shattering subjects like high school romances, high school hi-jinx, high school dances, high school Saturday nights, and most importantly of all, high school how to impress the girls( or boys, for girls, or whatever sexual combinations fit these days, but you can speak for yourselves, I am standing on this ground). In short, high school sub-culture, American-style, early 1960s branch, although the emphasis there, as it will be here, is on that social phenomena as filtered through the lenses of a working- class town, a seen-better-days- town at that, our growing up wild-like-the-weeds town.

 

One of the subjects worked over in that series was the search, the eternal search I might add, for the great working- class love song. Not the Teen Angel, Earth Angel, Johnny Angel generic mush that could play in Levittown, Shaker Heights or La Jolla as well as Youngstown or Moline. No, a song that, without blushing, we could call our own, our working- class own, one that the middle and upper classes might like but would not put on their dance cards. As my offering to this high-brow debate I offered a song by written by Englishman Richard Thompson (who folkies, and folk rockers, might know from his Fairport Convention days, very good days, by the way), 1952 Vincent Black Lightning. (See lyrics below.) Without belaboring the point the gist of this song is the biker romance, British version, between outlaw biker James and black-leathered, red-headed Molly. Needless to say such a tenuous lumpen existence as James leads to keep himself “biked" cuts short any long term “little white house with picket fence” ending for the pair. And we do not need such a boring finish. For James, after losing the inevitable running battle with the police, on his death bed bequeaths his bike, his precious “Vincent Black Lightning”, to said Molly. His bike, man! His bike! Is there any greater love story, working class love story, around? No, this makes West Side Story lyrics and a whole bunch of other such songs seem like so much cornball nonsense. His bike, man. Wow! Kudos, Brother Richard Thompson (the first name needed as another Thompson, Hunter, Doctor Gonzo, of journalistic legend, cut his teeth on the Hell’s Angels)   

 

Now despite my flawless logic and the worthiness of my choice a few, actually a torrent of comments by fellow classmates followed, after denying that our town was working-class, went on and on about how Mark Dinning’s Teen Angel with the girl falling through the cracks of life to save her guy’s class ring from some speedy train, the Shirelles Leader Of The Pack where the guy, big tough hellish biker, falls apart, goes not gentle into that good night when the girl’s parents told her to drop the dude, even Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Girl ( I admit Jersey is working class enough once you get away for the New York City orbit) where the guy is trying to piece off his girl with trips to some two-bit amusement park where I guess he figures she will give him whatever he wants if he wins her a kewpie doll all were better choices. Jesus. Well, I grabbed the ticket, I took the ride on that question.    

 

Needless to say that exploration, that haunted question, was not the end, but rather the beginning of thinking through the great American night bike experience. And, of course, for this writer that means going to the books, the films and the memory bank to find every seemingly relevant “biker” experience. Such classic motorcycle sagas as “gonzo” journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and other, later Rolling Stone magazine printed “biker” stories and Tom Wolfe’ Hell Angel’s-sketched Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and other articles about California subset youth culture that drove Wolfe’s work in the old days). And to the hellish Rolling Stones (band) Hell’s Angels “policed” Altamont concert in 1969. And, as fate would have it, with the then recent passing of actor/director Dennis Hooper, the 1960s classic biker/freedom/ seeking the great American night film, Easy Rider. And from Easy Rider to the “max daddy” of them all, tight-jeaned, thick leather-belted, tee-shirted, engineer-booted, leather-jacketed, taxi-driver-capped (hey, that’s what it reminds me of), side-burned, chain-linked wielding, hard-living, alienated, but in the end really just misunderstood, Johnny, aka, Marlon Brando, in The Wild One.

 

Okay, we will cut to the chase on the plot. Old Johnny and his fellow “outlaw” motorcycle club members are out for some weekend “kicks” after a hard week’s non-work (as far as we can figure out, work was marginal for many reasons, as Hunter Thompson in Hell’s Angels noted, to biker existence, the pursue of jack-rolling, armed robbery or grand theft auto careers probably running a little ahead) out in the sunny California small town hinterlands.(They are still heading out there today, the last time I noticed, in the Southern California high desert, places like Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree.)

 

And naturally, when the boys (and they are all boys here, except for a couple of “mamas”, one spurned by Johnny, in a break-away club led by jack-in-the-box jokester, Lee Marvin as Chino) hit one small town they, naturally, after sizing up the local law, head for the local café (and bar). And once one mentions cafes in small towns in California (or Larry McMurtry’s West Texas, for that matter), then hard-working, trying to make it through the shift, got to get out of this small town and see the world, dreamy-eyed, naïve (yes, naive) sheriff-daughtered young waitress, Kathy, (yes, and hard-working, it’s tough dealing them off the arm in these kind of joints, or elsewhere) Johnny trap comes into play. Okay, now you know, even alienated, misunderstood, misanthropic, cop-hating (an additional obstacle given said waitress’s kinships) boy Johnny needs, needs cinematically at least, to meet a girl who understands him.

 

The development of that young hope, although hopeless, boy meets girl romance relationship, hither and yon, drives the plot. Oh, and along the way the boys, after a few thousand beers, as boys, especially girl-starved biker boys, will, at the drop of a hat start to systematically tear down the town, off-handedly, for fun. Needless to say, staid local burghers (aka “squares”) seeing what amount to them is their worst 1950s “communist” invasion nightmare, complete with murder, mayhem and rapine, (although that “c” word was not used in the film, nor should it have been) are determined to “take back” their little town. A few fights, forages, causalities, fatalities, and forgivenesses later though, still smitten but unquenched and chaste Johnny (and his rowdy crowd) and said waitress part, wistfully. The lesson here, for the kids in the theater audience, is that biker love outside biker-dom is doomed. For the adults, the real audience, the lesson: nip the “terrorists” in the bud (call in the state cops, the national guard, the militia, the 82nd Airborne, The Strategic Air Command, NATO, hell, even the “weren't we buddies in the war” Red Army , but nip it, fast when they come roaming through Amityville, Archer City, or your small town).

 

After that summary you can see what we are up against. This is pure fantasy Hollywood cautionary tale on a very real 1950s phenomena, “outlaw” biker clubs, mainly in California, but elsewhere as well. Hunter Thompson did yeoman’s work in his Hell’s Angels to “discover” who these guys were and what drove them, beyond drugs, sex, rock and roll (and, yah, murder and mayhem, the California prison system was a “home away from home”). In a sense the “bikers” were the obverse of the boys (again, mainly) whom Tom Wolfe, in many of his early essays, was writing about and who were (a) forming the core of the surfers on the beaches from Malibu to La Jolla and, (b) driving the custom car/hot rod/drive-in centered (later mall-centered) cool, teenage girl–impressing, car craze night in the immediate post-World War II great American Western sunny skies and pleasant dream drift (physically and culturally).

Except those Wolfe guys were the “winners”. The “bikers” were Nelson Algren’s “losers”, the dead-enders who didn’t hit the gold rush, the Dove Linkhorns (aka the Arkies and Okies who in the 1930s populated John Steinbeck’s Joad saga, The Grapes Of Wrath). Not cool, iconic Marlin-Johnny but hell-bend then-Hell Angels leader, Sonny Barger.

And that is why in the end, as beautifully sullen and misunderstood the alienated Johnny was, and as wholesomely rowdy as his gang was before demon rum took over, this was not the real “biker: scene, West or East.

Now I lived, as a teenager, in a really marginally working- poor, neighborhood of North Adamsville that I have previously mentioned was the leavings of those who were moving up in post-war society. That neighborhood was no more than a mile from the central headquarters of Boston's local Hell’s Angels (although they were not called that as I said they were Devil’s Disciples). I got to see these guys up close as they rallied at various spots on our local beach or “ran” through our neighborhood on their way to some crazed action. The leader had all of the charisma of Marlon Brando’s thick leather belt. His face, as did most of the faces, spoke of small-minded cruelties (and old prison pallors) not of misunderstood youth. And their collective prison records (as Hunter Thompson also noted about the Angels) spoke of “high” lumpenism. And that takes us back to the beginning about who, and what, forms one of the core cohorts for a fascist movement in this country, the sons of Sonny Barger. Then we will need to rely on our leftist politics, and other such weapons. But for now bad ass bikler James and his perfect working-class love gesture to his benighted red-headed Molly rule the roost.  

*************

ARTIST: Richard Thompson

TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

Lyrics and Chords

 

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike

A girl could feel special on any such like

Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you

It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems

Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme

And he pulled her on behind

And down to Box Hill they did ride

 

/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D A /

/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - - - /

 

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand

But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man

I've fought with the law since I was seventeen

I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine

Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22

And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you

And if fate should break my stride

Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

 

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae

For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery

Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside

Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside

When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left

He was running out of road, he was running out of breath

But he smiled to see her cry

And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

 

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world

Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl

Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do

They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52

He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys

He said I've got no further use for these

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

And he gave her one last kiss and died

And he gave her his Vincent to ride

 

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UPCOMING SCREENINGS AND SHOWTIMES

DATE	CITY	VENUE	TYPE
Sept 5–18, 2014	New York	Sunshine Cinema	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 5–18, 2014	New York	Lincoln Plaza	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 12–18, 2014	Washington DC	E Street Cinema	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 19–25, 2014	Boston	Kendall Square	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 19–25, 2014	Los Angeles	Nuart	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 19–25, 2014	Philadelphia	Ritz Bourse	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 26–Oct 2, 2014	San Francisco	Opera Plaza	Theatrical	tickets
Sept 26–Oct 2, 2014	Berkeley	Shattuck Cinemas	Theatrical
Sept 26–Oct 2, 2014	San Rafael	Rafael Film Center	Theatrical
Sept 26–Oct 2, 2014	San Jose	Camera 3	Theatrical
Sept 26–Oct 2, 2014	San Diego	Ken Cinema	Theatrical
Sept 26–Oct 2, 2014	Irvine, CA	University 6	Theatrical
Oct 3–9, 2014	Chicago	Music Box Theatre	Theatrical
Oct 3–9, 2014	Denver	Chez Artiste	Theatrical
Oct 3–9, 2014	Seattle	Varsity	Theatrical
Oct 3–9, 2014	Minneapolis	Edina 4	Theatrical
Oct 10–16, 2014	Phoenix	Camelview	Theatrical
Oct 17–23, 2014	Atlanta	Midtown Art	Theatrical
Oct 17–23, 2014	Houston	Sundance Cinemas	Theatrical

From The Labor History Archives -In The 80^th Anniversary Year Of The Great San Francisco, Minneapolis And Toledo General Strikes- Lessons In The History Of Class Struggle 

The General Strike of 1934

From FoundSF

Historical Essay
by Chris Carlsson

Strikers shot by police, July 5, 1934
Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

Police and strikers on Rincon Hill, July 10, 1934.
Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
After Bloody Thursday, the joint marine strike committee called for a general strike. Fourteen unions voted to support the call the next day, and the Teamsters voted to go out on July 12 if the strike remained unsettled. On Monday July 9 a crowd of 40,000 people solemnly filled Market Street in a funeral procession for the slain strikers.
Over the next week, momentum for a General Strike snowballed. The Central Labor Council, which had denounced the maritime strike leaders as communists in late May, scrambled to head off the General Strike by creating a Strike Strategy Meeting, an effort characterized by Sam Darcy as an effort "to kill the strike, not to organize it."
At 8 a.m. on Monday, July 16, the San Francisco General Strike officially began, involving around 150,000 workers around the Bay. But it had already been rolling along for a few days by then. Between July 11 and 14, over 30,000 workers went out on strike, including teamsters, butchers, laundry workers, and more; by July 12th 21 unions had voted to strike, most of them unanimously.
The newspapers coordinated a vitriolic attack on the strike. The Examiner ran a front page piece on July 16 with the headline General Strike in England Crushed When Government Took Control of Situation next to a front page editorial A Lesson From England. The Los Angeles Times picked up the theme and wrote "The situation in San Francisco is not correctly described by the phrase 'general strike'. What is actually in progress there is an insurrection, a Communist-inspired and led revolt against organized government..."
On Tuesday, July 17, National Recovery Administrator General Hugh S. Johnson gave a speech at UC Berkeley (where students had served as scab workers by the hundreds) in which he paid lip service to the labor's right of collective bargaining, but went on to declare the general strike "a threat to the community, a menace to the Government... civil war," brought on by subversive influences.
July 17 also began a reign of terror targeting suspected homes and meeting places of radicals, subversives, and communists, including the offices of the Marine Workers Industrial Union (60 were arrested for being present), the Communist Party Headquarters, the Ex-Servicemen's Headquarters on Valencia Street, and several private homes. Dozens of armed men burst in, clubbed people, and smashed furniture and equipment. Police "mopped up" behind them, arresting 300 "radicals" in one day.
Charles Wheeler, vice president of McCormick Steamship Line, said in speaking to the Rotary Club that day that the raids would start soon, intimating that the government had given its approval. Arrested radicals were subject to immigration status inquiries and deportation, another indication of federal involvement in the repression.
The General Strike began to weaken almost as soon as it began. On top of the violent attacks by vigilantes throughout the city, the conservative Central Labor Council's Strike Committee authorized so many exceptions that they dramatically undercut the General Strike. On the first day, they allowed municipal carmen (streetcar operators) to return to work, ostensibly because their civil service status might be jeopardized. The Chairman of the Labor Council was Edward Vandeleur, who was also president of the same Municipal Carmen, and had opposed the strike since the beginning.
The Ferryboatmen, the printing trades, electricians, and telephone and telegraph workers were never brought into the strike. Typographical workers and reporters continued to work on newspapers that spewed forth anti-strike propaganda. Labor Council leaders even went so far as to issue a work permit to striking sheet metal workers to return to their jobs in order to repair police cars.
President Roosevelt officially stayed aloof from the strike; his Labor Secretary Perkins cabled him that the General Strike Committee of Twenty-Five "represents conservative leadership."
By July 19th the General Strike Committee voted narrowly to end the Strike. On July 20th, the Teamsters voted to return to work, fearing that the Mayor's Committee of 500 and the Industrial Association would put strike-breakers on all the trucks in SF and leave the Teamsters without jobs.
This was the end for the Longshoremen and Seamen's strikes along the waterfront. They soon submitted to arbitration that ultimately led to partial victories on wages and hours, but the key issue of union control over hiring halls was lost to a formula that allowed for joint management of hiring halls with the shipping companies. But the unions got to pick the dispatchers, so they enjoyed control in fact if not by contract. And the strength of the maritime workers was far from broken. For instance, during the period January 1, 1937 to August 1, 1938, more than 350 small strikes and work stoppages occurred along the Pacific Coast.
READ MORE:
Strike! by Jeremy Brecher, South End Press: Boston, 1972.
American Labor Struggles by Samuel Yellen © 1936, Monad Press edition: New York, 1974.
The Labor Wars by Sidney Lens, Anchor/Doubleday: New York, 1974.
The Big Strike by Mike Quin, Olema Books: 1948.
On The Drumhead by Mike Quin, Daily People's World: San Francisco, 1948.
The Big Strike: A Pictorial History of the 1934 SF General Strike with a narrative by Warren Hinckle, Silver Dollar Books: Virginia City, Nevada, 1985.

Pathe News coverage of early days of General Strike.
Video: Prelinger Archive
Open War in the Streets Newsreel
Silent footage of early weeks of strike

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