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Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The Fight For $15 An Hour Continues....The Sturggle In Minneapolis-Vote Yes In November!
From The "Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives" Website- The Alba Blog
Click on the headline to link to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive blog page for all kinds of interesting information about that important historic grouping.
Markin comment:
This blog had gotten my attention for two reasons: those rank and filers who fought to defend democracy, fight the fascists and fight for socialism in Spain for the most part, political opponents or not, were kindred spirits; and, those with first-hand knowledge of those times over seventy years ago are dwindling down to a precious few and so we had better listen to their stories while they are around to tell it. More, later.
Markin comment:
This blog had gotten my attention for two reasons: those rank and filers who fought to defend democracy, fight the fascists and fight for socialism in Spain for the most part, political opponents or not, were kindred spirits; and, those with first-hand knowledge of those times over seventy years ago are dwindling down to a precious few and so we had better listen to their stories while they are around to tell it. More, later.
*****On Passing Left-Wing Political “Wisdom” To The Next Generation-With The Lessons Of The 1960s In Mind
*****On Passing Left-Wing Political “Wisdom” To The Next Generation-With The Lessons Of The 1960s In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
One of the worst excesses, and there were many although made mostly from ignorance and immaturity and were moreover minuscule compared to the conscious policies of those in power who we were opposing, that we who came of political age in the 1960s were culpable of was our sense that we had to reinvent the wheel of left-wing political struggle. Mostly a very conscious denial and rejection of those thinkers, cadre and organization who had come before us and whom were disqualified from the discourse by having been worn out, old-timey, or just ideas and methods that we had not thought of and therefore irrelevant. The expression “throwing out the baby with the bath water” may seem a cliché but serves a purpose here. Most of the time back then until fairly late, maybe too late when the tide had begun to ebb toward the end of the 1960s and the then current and fashionable anticommunist theories proved to be ridiculously inadequate, we turned our noses up at Marxism, and at Marxist-Leninist ways of organizing the struggle against the American beast.
I can remember more than a few times when somebody identified him or herself as a Marxist that I and the others in the room would groan audibly. Occasionally, as well, taking part in some of the shouting down exercises when the political disputes became heated. Part of the problem was that those who organizationally claimed to be Marxists-the Communist Party and Socialist Workers Party and to some extent the Progressive Labor Party were following political lines that were far to the right (right being relative here in the context of the left-wing movement in this country) of the politics of those who considered themselves radical and revolutionary youth. Those organizations far too eager to traffic with what we called respectable bourgeois forces who were part of the problem since they helped control the governmental apparatus. (I won’t even mention the moribund Socialist/Social Democratic organizations that only old laborites and “old ladies in tennis sneakers,” although that might be a slander against those nice do-gooder ladies, followed as the expression went at the time.) I know, and I know that many others at the time, had no time for a look at the history books, had nothing but a conscious disregard for the lessons of history, good and bad, that we thought was irrelevant in seeking to build the “newer world.” (Strangely, later after all our empirical experiment proved futile and counter-productive, quoting, quoting loudly and vehemently from this or that book, by this or that thinker, this or that revolutionary or radical became the rage. Ah, the excesses of youth.)
Of course not everybody who came through the 1960s passed through any left-wing political school. Despite the nostalgia, despite the now puffed-up claims that we had this or that decisive effect on history, especially these days with the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the trotting out once again of the overblew claims that the American anti-war movement stopped the Vietnam War rather than the heroic struggles of the people of Vietnam, the number of the young who got catch up more than marginally was significantly smaller that the photographs, videos, and remembrances of the times would suggest. A case in point is my old friend Sam Lowell, from my growing in Carver times whose longtime political trajectory I want to highlight in this sketch.
Highlight to provide something, I am not sure what, perhaps a cautionary tale, to what appears to be the makings of the next “fresh breeze” coming through the land that another Carver corner boy, the late Peter Paul Markin, would harangue us with on lonely Friday nights was coming. The big turn in the environmental movement, the fight for better conditions for young workers (and old) epitomized by the “Fight for $15” movement and above all, the bedrock struggle of the “Black Lives Matter” movement portends some new awakening and we old-timers who have kept the political faith have something about all of that early experience which may push those struggles forward. Here’s Sam’s story and see what you think:
Sam Lowell when he was young, when he was coming of age in the 1960s along with his hang around guys at Jimmy Jack’s Diner on Main Street in Carver, did not give a “tinker’s damn” (Sam’s term which he would endlessly utter especially when the late Peter Paul Markin would start talking about what was going on outside of the Jimmy Jack corner world) about politics, about the fate of the world, about the burning and pressing issues of that day nuclear disarmament, black civil rights down South (he if anything had the Northern white working class prejudices inherited from his parents and relatives using the “n” word to refer to blacks for a very long time), and the exploding war in Vietnam. Sam’s world, like many guys of that time, like now too as far as anybody can see, was about girls or sex or name the gender combinations, above all about the music of the times, about what is now called the classic age of rock and roll (the folk music minute of that period which Bart Webber tried to get him interested in was, is, a book sealed with seven seals and he still grinds his teeth when any of us who hang with him still mention that genre).
Sam, declared by his local draft board exempt from military service as the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after he father had passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack in 1965, had pretty much kept his head in the sand about the war, probably supported the war against demon communism as much as anybody in town who was not directly involved in the escalation of the war. That is until one of his hang around guys, Freddie Callahan, Jack’s younger brother, had lain down his head in some rotted jungle in some unpronounceable hamlet in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in late 1967 and who would later have his name placed on that black granite down in Washington, D.C. which would bring a tear to Sam eye every time he visited it despite his complete change of heart about the war.
The war, the hellish flare-up and destructiveness of the war had not been Freddie’s fault, it had not been Freddie’s war as Sam was at pains to explain when he did get active in the anti-war movement and people around town thought that he was being disrespectful of Freddie’s memory and of the flag, actually probably more the flag until very late, maybe about 1972 when even the American Legion types in town saw the writing on the wall, some of them anyway.
Bart Webber was the first to take his slightly held anti-war feelings to the holding up the wall in front of Jimmy Jack’s Diner night but he was facing the draft himself in 1966 so Sam had not taken his plight to heart. It really had been Freddie’s death that got him thinking, Freddie whom he had known since fifth grade when his own family had moved to Carver from North Adamsville when the shipbuilding trade there bottomed out and his father sought work in the new electronics plant just built up the road from Carver. Got him thinking about lots of things that did not add up in the world, the world of people just trying to get by without being shot at, or shot up by friend or foe.
One day, maybe in early spring 1968 in any case sometime before summer of that year, Sam had gone to Boston about thirty miles up the road from Carver on some business when he was walking near the Park Street subway station and a young guy about his age in regulation long hair (Sam’s was short although long for Carver young adults just then and commented on at Jimmy Jack’s by the older crowd going in for the old-timers’ blue plate specials and gung-ho guys who had no truck with “fairies” and “hippies”), unkempt beard, blue jeans and sandals, a picture of heaven’s own high priest hippie who handed him a leaflet for an anti-war rally sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society that was going to take place on the Common later that afternoon. (That was the notorious SDS that every right-thinking American believed, including Sam a little before Freddie’s death, as they could not understand kids who seemed to have everything going for them including draft exemptions were so rebellious unless some unknown source was prodding them, as the agents, paid or unpaid, of Moscow or China or someplace antagonistic to the interests of the United States. Every time an SDS rally was broken up by the cops, or mass arrests occurred, those believers breathed a short sigh of relief).
The guy in hippie garb pressed the issue, something Sam thought was odd since in his experience these hippie types were too laid back doing dope and sex and listening to acid rock to bother about politics usually saying that to get involved only “encouraged” those politicians who had depended on free-wheeling unpaid volunteer youth to campaign for them. That drug, sex and rock and roll were okay with him although he had not been into the dope scene then but rather the traditional Carver Friday and Saturday night down by the cranberry bogs drinking cheap whiskey scene, a scene that Carver guys had been doing since time immemorial at the bogs from what he had heard.
This dippy hippie started yelling at him that it that it was his “duty” to attend the rally and help “stop the fucking war.” Something in that common language “speech” made Sam take notice and he asked the hippie where he was from. He answered from Lynn, a very working class town on the North Shore of Boston, and told Sam, who blushed a little at the information, that he had already been in the Army, had served in Vietnam and had had enough of seeing his buddies killed or otherwise “fucked up.” Sam then out of the blue mentioned the death of Freddie Callahan, something he had never talked about except with the guys at Jimmy Jack’s, and the hippie told him that he had better get his ass to the rally before half their generation went up in smoke.
Sam pleaded business but that afternoon and early evening as the sun went down in Boston Sam was no longer “not political.” And Lance Jones, the hippie who had “recruited” him was there that afternoon and many times later to make sure that he did not backslide, and to give him the “skinny” on what was really going on in Vietnam and whose interests that commitment was serving. Sam and Lance (and others) would do many things together, sit-in at draft boards (Sam uneasy about that given his own status as exempt but Lance said everybody counted in the struggle), rallies, blocking highways and every other kind of civil protest against the damn war.
The defining moment, the moment Sam saw that the movement was ebbing, was becoming ineffective as a way to stop the “fucking war” as even he was prone to express his outrage at the constant bombings and constant lies about the situation, was down in Washington D.C. on May Day 1971 where there was a separation in the movement between those who wanted to endlessly built, presumably, larger mass rallies to show the people’s war weariness and those who decided it was time for more militant in-your-face tactics when the proposal was to “stop the government, if the government did not stop the war.” Sam had gone with the militants, a decision he has since never regretted although not for the outcome of the event itself which was an unmitigated failure but because of the enormity of that failure he had to think through things a bit more carefully, think more strategically.
He had been manhandled and arrested by the cops the first day out as the governmental forces far outnumbered and were more effective in containing the mass than that mass of people had been in evading the waiting cops and troops. Sam had spent a week in detention in RFK Stadium, a goddam football field as he would always tell everybody afterward, for his troubles (although he tempered his remarks about the stadium after the coup in Chile in 1973 where those militants were not merely harassed and detained but jailed for long periods or shot death out of hand in many cases).
Sam, Lance, Jack Callahan, Frankie Riley, me, maybe a couple of other guys did other things too, things like taking those continent-wide hitchhikes to the West Coast, the rock concerts, all of the stuff that those who had broken from the old expected cookie-cutter, if in Sam’s case only partially and slowly since he was not sure that the whole thing had not been a dream, and he had those family responsibilities although they lessened as his sisters came of age and left the house and his mother re-married to a good guy who ran a tool and die shop in town and had government contracts for high precision machine work. But it was funny thing about Sam, a thing that was not apparent when he hung around Carver in high school but once he was convinced that he needed to do something he stuck with it (he would later tell anybody who would listen that “sticking with it” included his two drawn out failed marriages beyond repair).
Sam, after that debacle in Washington, had settled in for the long haul, had listened to what Lance had to say about needing to organize better, get more substantial allies. Gave a glance at Marx and some other thinkers who knew what they were talking about if you wanted to effect real change and not just play at the thing for kicks, or for something to do while you are in school or on the loose, had read some and while for a long time he had his misgivings about taking his political cues from around the edges of rational politics, politics that he and his family, his neighbors, his corner boys had dismissed or worse stigmatized as “commie” talk which still hovered over his thinking. But Sam had been the first in the group to sense in the mid-1970s, particularly after the fall of Saigon and the close of the Vietnam era which had almost split the country in two, that the Garden of Eden was going to be postponed for a long time, that the tide had ebbed just as Bart Webber had sensed the rising tide in the mid-1960s.
But Sam stayed with the commitment to serious political change, to right some wrongs, to be a stand-up guy when some egregious governmental decision reared its ugly head. Stayed with it far longer that Lance who wound up going to school and becoming a CPA, longer than Bart who decided writing law briefs was easier than sitting around with about twelve people dedicated to changing the world and projecting when the next great mass upsurge would occur. Stayed with longer than Frankie Riley who also was drawn to writing legal briefs although he made a comeback in the lead-up to the first Iraq war in 1991. Longer than even the late Peter Paul Markin who had totally lost his moorings, let that “wanting habits” hunger that all the Jimmy Jack’s hang out guys had near the surface of their lives get the best of him and got caught up in the down side of the dope trade and wound up in a back alley face down under mysterious conditions in Sonora down in Mexico after a dope deal went bad. Yeah, those were not good years
So Sam faced the next few decades doing his best to keep up the good fight, working mainly with ad hoc committees that would rise and fall over specific issues like the effects of the “Reagan revolution” in this country, the struggles in Central America throughout the 1980s, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, that first Iraq war in 1991, and a laundry list of other causes great and small which filled his political life in hard times. But always kept his eyes open and ears to the ground to see if some new version of that 1960s experience would get some wind in its sails as new generations got caught up in the whirlwind of trying to right the world’s wrongs. He knew that the 1960s experience could never be exactly replicated, that each new generation would come to understandings in its own ways and forms, did not believe that a lot of 1960s stuff should be replicated but he did believe that another wave would come, believed in that vision for a long time. But when, damn it.
One of Sam’s worries as he got older and got more concerned about the future, especially in the post 9/11 world of the early 2000s, got much more concerned about the possibilities of a socialist future if not for him then for later generations as the American body politic took one of its prolonged turning in and against itself was that there would be no one to pass on whatever accumulated political wisdom he and his dwindling band of aging 1960s sisters and brothers had been through. No one to make sense of the political battles won and lost, no one to pick up the skills necessary to organize any effective opposition to the fierce predatory appetites of the American imperium, or maybe better said, any opposition at all as the post-2003 anti-war landscape demonstrated. Most importantly no one to learn how to avoid the mistakes of the past, mistakes made, unlike the American government, mostly out of willful ignorance, foolhardiness and hubris but certainly avoidable. Avoidable since a great if fairly obvious lesson from his own experiences had been that uprisings against the government, against the social norms of the day are short and precious opportunities not to be squandered by willful ignorance, foolhardiness and hubris.
Sam’s youthfully derived certitudes had taken a hammering in the process of the reactionary counter-offensive that erupting in the mid-1970s as the spirit of the 1960s rapidly dissipated, and took a decisive turn right under the auspices of the Reagan Revolution. The self-serving, self-promoting, social Darwinist view of society systematically laid out in that period has held a full head of steam since then as everyone almost daily has his or her nose rubbed in the hard fact that most people are not getting ahead while the bourgeoisie, the economic royalists, what did one wag call them, oh yeah, “the one-percent” with all the guns, prosper with no sweat. That ethos had never really abated despite a couple of promising uprising blips around opposition to the second Iraq war in 2003 which evaporated after the hellish bombs began to fall in earnest in Baghdad and after the world financial meltdown in 2008 and the subsequent short-lived and anarchistic Occupy movement of late 2011.
So Sam had more recently begun to feel that feeling in the extreme, the fear that there would be nobody to pass the torch to, nobody in the American body politic to learn a couple of things about past left-wing struggles and organizational efforts to attempt to “tame the monster.” Began to wonder if what he believed had not been an idle thought or some kind of self-induced paranoia.
Over the previous several years he had given the immediate reasons some thought as he began to realize that the generation after his which was the logical place to have passed that information onto never in the aggregate cared much about his kind of politics, had turn tail and gotten caught up in the “Reagan revolution” or after witnessing what happened to the ‘60s crowd ducked their heads, seriously ducked their heads when the deal went down. He had also become pretty sanguine about prospects for the generation after that, the grandkids, who seemed preoccupied with “Me” and with looking down toward the ground with their technological gadgetry and their ethereal “social networking” tweeter. But of late he was not so sure he should have been ready to throw in the towel but a new gathering storm, or what old Bart Webber, who he had run into recently in town for the funeral of a brother, had called “the fresh breeze” was still in its embryonic stage.
Sam had had to laugh at one point after a small demonstration of few hundred in Boston’s Park Street on the Common, the historic spot for such activities, against the escalation of the war in Afghanistan in the early days of the Obama administration (one of the “surges” that was supposed to secure “victory” and which in the final analysis led to more doors in more villages being kicked in and the United States’ action acting, once again, as a “recruiting sergeant” for ISIS-type organizations). That demonstration drew a cohort young people, people who had not previously been out in the public square but who were bewildered by a “peace” American President, a Nobel Peace Prize winner to boot, sending more boots on the ground after he had told the nation that the best American course was to withdraw from that benighted country. Of course the usual dwindling crew of AARP-worthy older types, the ones that his old friend Pete Markin had called when they were young the “little old ladies in tennis sneakers, Quakers up-tights, and assorted harmless do-gooders” back in the Carver days when he didn’t give a damn about politics and now here he was a “little old man in tennis sneakers” carrying on their seemingly utopian struggle.
An unusual combination indeed. The sly laugh part though was his realization that if there was any new action, any seeking of the “newer world” as that same Markin liked to called it comparable to the 1960s, that it would be the grandpas and grandmas and the grandkids linked up against the world. He was okay with that if that ever happened but after that initial burst of young energy faded he got increasingly more morose about that prospect, and the handing of that goddam torch.
Like with a lot of things in the world of politics, particularly left-wing politics where due to the smallness and isolation of those forces there is tendency to have to react to events not of your own making, the reaction by governments, particularly the United States, following 9/11 with its attempt to institutionalize the national security state and to seek vengeance at any target foreign or domestic that it considered dangerous. No question the scariest time of his political life, the only time he felt the full heat of physical threat from the average citizen whom he assumed usually view people demonstrating about anything as mere cranks and weirdoes was in the aftermath of the frenzied American bombing campaign and troop occupation in Afghanistan in 2001 right after 9/11 when he had with very few others had organized a small, a very small demonstration in opposition to the bombing campaign at Park Street and took more menacing guff from passers-by than he had ever encountered before. Those were dark days when some locally well-known committed peaceniks dependable in fair weather favored folding up the tent rather than face the hostile streets, and no question they were hostile, were suddenly not available to rally.
Like Sam said he hoped the later Occupy movement which arose phoenix-like out of the ashes of the world financial crisis but that fizzled fairly quickly and that sent Sam into another bout with what the hell, no who the hell was going to lead the struggle, who among the young who of necessity with their energy and sense of wonder drive all the great movements, was going to step forward. He felt at that time that he would have no problem taking a back sit in the struggle if the new blood came along.
Here is a funny thing, a quirk of politics. Everybody Sam talked to, young and old, understood that the social tinder underlying American society only needed a little push to go wild. Knew that as a result of the vast increase in income inequality, knew the weight of the endless wars on the budget and human resources was at a breaking point, knew that people, a lot of people, did not feel they were getting ahead in life always something that will steadily enflame people. So Sam, and they, the ones he talked to and talked to him knew something had to flare up. But didn’t, for a long time didn’t. Then in a rather quick succession the environment, the fight for a living wage and the fight against police brutality and the fight against the hard racism against black people were taken up by the young, or rather sections of the young from say late 2013 to now.
Not everything that has been proposed, not every action has made political sense but there is some motion toward upping the struggle, getting back into the street politics that Sam had been pushing for some time in various committee meetings since the portals of government seemed to be tone-deaf to what was going on down at the base of society. Here is the kicker though. The kicker for now as things are still in flux, still have a way to go before they are sifted out. Things may be in flux and need sifting out but Sam is starting to get and uneasy feeling already. Sam went to a meeting of those who wanted to respond to the various egregious police shootings of the past years around the country and tried to make some points, give some perspectives. He was rather unceremoniously dismissed by the young leaders there, both the young black and white leaders, as an old-timey too talkative guy.
The young, like in his generation, appear ready to seek to reinvent the wheel. Appear too as well to be as naïve about the enemies they are facing as they were in his generation. But what bothered Sam most of late has been that the young in their identity political way are “ageist” if such a term makes sense, are disrespectful of his right to have his say since when the deal goes down he will be on the barricades right beside them. Sam thought that even with the slights he could still say-“Ah, to young was very heaven” though as old Wordsworth had said in his sunnier days.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
As The Anniversary Of The Execution Of Sacco and Vanzetti Approaches (1927)-Sacco's Letter To His Son-The Case That Will Never Die
As The Anniversary Of The Execution Of Sacco and Vanzetti Approaches (1927)-Sacco's Letter To His Son-The Case That Will Never Die
SACCO AND VANZETTI- THE CASE THAT WILL NOT DIE NOR SHOULD IT
DVD REVIEW
SACCO AND VANZETTI, PETER MILLER, 2006
I have used some of the points mentioned here in previous reviews of books about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenbergs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the raw tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the film under review.
Using documentary footage, reenactment and ‘talking head’ commentary by interested historians, including the well-known author of popular America histories Howard Zinn, the director Peter Miller and his associates bring this case alive for a new generation to examine. In the year 2007 one of the important lessons for leftists to be taken from the case is the question of the most effective way to defend such working class cases. I will address that question further below but here I wish to point out that the one major shortcoming of this film is a lack of discussion on that issue. I might add that this is no mere academic issue as the current case of the death-row prisoner, militant journalist Mumia-Abu-Jamal, graphically illustrates. Notwithstanding that objection this documentary is a very satisfactory visual presentation of the case for those not familiar with it.
A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the director’s overall thesis that the two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 were railroaded to know that the case against them 'stunk' to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force the most mildly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on.
Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This film does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless it does not adequately address a question that is implicit in its description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?
The film spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the 'grandees' and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. It does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. It gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles and a friend of Carlos Tresca, a central figure in the defense case) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about its place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. Hopefully it will draw the viewer to read one or more of the many books on the case. Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.
SACCO AND VANZETTI- THE CASE THAT WILL NOT DIE NOR SHOULD IT
DVD REVIEW
SACCO AND VANZETTI, PETER MILLER, 2006
I have used some of the points mentioned here in previous reviews of books about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenbergs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the raw tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the film under review.
Using documentary footage, reenactment and ‘talking head’ commentary by interested historians, including the well-known author of popular America histories Howard Zinn, the director Peter Miller and his associates bring this case alive for a new generation to examine. In the year 2007 one of the important lessons for leftists to be taken from the case is the question of the most effective way to defend such working class cases. I will address that question further below but here I wish to point out that the one major shortcoming of this film is a lack of discussion on that issue. I might add that this is no mere academic issue as the current case of the death-row prisoner, militant journalist Mumia-Abu-Jamal, graphically illustrates. Notwithstanding that objection this documentary is a very satisfactory visual presentation of the case for those not familiar with it.
A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the director’s overall thesis that the two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 were railroaded to know that the case against them 'stunk' to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force the most mildly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on.
Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This film does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless it does not adequately address a question that is implicit in its description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?
The film spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the 'grandees' and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. It does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. It gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles and a friend of Carlos Tresca, a central figure in the defense case) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about its place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. Hopefully it will draw the viewer to read one or more of the many books on the case. Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.
*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"
Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"
Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"
Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
*Those Who Honor Sacco And Vanzetti Are Kindred Spirits- "Sacco's Letter To His Son"
Click on title to link to an overview of the Sacco and Vanzetti case today on the anniversary of their executions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1927.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
SACCO'S LETTER TO HIS SON
If nothing happens they will electrocute us right after midnight
Therefore here I am, right with you, with love and with open heart,
As I was yesterday.
Don’t cry, Dante, for many, many tears have been wasted,
As your mother’s tears have been already wasted for seven years,
And never did any good
So son, instead of crying, be strong, be brave
So as to be able to comfort your mother.
And when you want to distract her from the discouraging soleness
You take her for a long walk in the quiet countryside,
Gathering flowers here and there.
And resting under the shade of trees, beside the music of the waters,
The peacefulness of nature, she will enjoy it very much,
As you will surely too.
But son, you must remember; Don’t use all yourself.
But down yourself, just one step, to help the weak ones at your side.
The weaker ones, that cry for help, the persecuted and the victim.
They are your friends, friends of yours and mine, they are the comrades that fight,
Yes and sometimes fall.
Just as your father, your father and Bartolo have fallen,
Have fought and fell yesterday. for the conquest of joy,
Of freedom for all.
In the struggle of life you’ll find, you’ll find more love.
And in the struggle, you will be loved also.
Words by Niccola Sacco (1927)
Music by Pete Seeger (1951)
© 1960 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.
Liar, Liar Pants On Fire-The “Anti-War” Cred Of One Barack Obama
Liar, Liar Pants On Fire-The “Anti-War”
Cred Of One Barack Obama
Frank Jackman comment:
Sure there are plenty of ironies of
history to go around but those of us who have been working the anti-war
peaceful world end of things have to stand around these days and think about
the bitter irony of the regime on one Barack Obama, President of the United
States and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. A prize that he won just as he was, as
an American president, once again, committed additional troops to Afghanistan
and worked on a long term commitment to keep troops in abyss Iraq. The further
irony is that when the deal goes down as he ends his presidency he will have
presided over the longest period of seemingly endless war in America’s history.
All the heart flutter back in early 2008 about his anti-Iraq stance war when he
was baiting Hillary Clinton about her vote for war in Iraq was some much confetti
since unlike Clinton he never had to take a vote stance on the issue since he
did not become a Senator until after the dust of those votes settled in 2005.
Here’s the real deal though what about all those Iraq War appropriations that
he did vote for as a Senator. No, not the big war budget the several hundred billion
dollar one, that fuels the general rush to war but the simple supplementary appropriations
one that guys like Congressman Jim McGovern had the simple dignity to vote “no,”
a big no on. And you wonder why some people want to call him Pinocchio Obama.
Enough said.
*From The Pen Of International Labor Defense Leader James P. Cannon-"HONOR THE MEMORY OF SACCO AND VANZETTI"
Click on the title to link to "Wikipedia"'s entry for the Sacco and Vanzetti case, provided ere as background. As always with this source and its collective editorial policy, especially with controversial political issues like the Sacco and Vanzetti case, be careful checking the accuracy of the information provided at any given time.
COMMENTARY
In honor of the anarchist martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti on the 88th Anniversary of their execution by the bloody State of Massachusetts. Their flag was black, this writer's flag is red. Nevertheless, as an elementary act of international working class solidarity we honor their sacrifice-red and black are one on this question. Of such militants as Sacco and Vanzett revolutions are made. The American working class has still not avenged their deaths. Forward.
Below find a commentary on the Sacco and Vanzetti executions by James P. Cannon, founder of the International Labor Defense, a forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, who led the international labor fight to save their lives taken from the American Communist Party’s Daily Worker of August 24, 1927. No comment I could make now could say it better.
I do note, however, that the Sacco-Vanzetti defense was plagued by, among other things, the same kind of political confusionism on the freedom/new trial issue that plagues current political death penalty cases today- witness Mumia Abu-Jamal's case. In political defense cases, particularly death penalty cases, militants support the use of every legal avenue to overturn a conviction while centrally depending on the masses for support in the streets and in meeting halls. Militants then (in the 1920's) correctly called for freedom for Sacco and Vanzetti (their convictions were, after all, prototypical frameups even under the norms of capitalist justice). Liberals and their reformist-minded socialist hangers-on called for new trials, commutations or pardons, etc. Basically this is a position that a simple miscarriage of justice had occurred in the case not that Sacco and Vanzetti had been framed-up. This writer says Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent- what the hell did they need a new trial for? As the Mumia case graphically illustrates-some things just never change.
DAILY WORKER August 24, 1927
The Murder of Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti are dead but their names will live forever and become a shining banner for the upward striving toilers of the world. They have been murdered by the assassins of the capitalist class. Their execution was a cynically brutal defiance of the world-wide demand of the millions of people that they be liberated or at least be given a new trial to prove again their innocence. It was a legal lynching, a fiendish act of class vengeance, cunningly prepared and planned and violently consummated by the willing tools of the capitalist class.
Sacco and Vanzetti died for the working class. Like their immortal comrades of Chicago's Haymarket they died as martyrs to the cause of labor. This was known or felt by tens of millions of workers in every corner of the globe who fought bitterly to the very last moment to vindicate the two martyred labor fighters. Their admirable loyalty and devotion to labor was the only crime they were guilty of; they were innocent of the crime charged against them by their executioners.
The last words of Vanzetti uttered a minute before the current of death silenced his voice were the echo of the deep convictions of the people:
"I wish to tell you that I am innocent and have never committed a crime, but perhaps some sins. I am innocent of all crimes, not only of this one but of all. I am an innocent man."
The Massachusetts executioners have put to death two glorious spirits. These two fighters, living for seven years in the shadow of the electric chair, unceasingly tortured by their suspension between delay and death, calmly watching the relentless net of the capitalist lynchers closing about them, showed by their heroic conduct how the revolutionary fighters of the working class can die at the hands of their class enemy.
The noble dignity and courage which sustained them throughout the seven years remained with them to the end. They went to death calmly and bravely without fear or embarrassment. It was their murderers, the governors and the judges who hid their faces in fear and shame.
Yes, their names will live forever, for the electric current that killed them has burned their names permanently into the hearts of the toilers of the world. Their miserable executioners will be buried in oblivion while the names and struggles of Sacco and Vanzetti still remain a shining guide to the masses, an inspiration to the oppressed everywhere.
They are our noble and heroic martyrs. Their conduct up to the very last moment was in that spirit. Their voices are stilled but their silence thunders around the world. The workers of America who fought to free Sacco and Vanzetti must pay tribute to their heroic memory in every section of the country. The workers must gather at memorial meetings to pledge themselves to keep alive the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti and their fight; to pour their hatred upon the heads of the murderers; to build their strength to prevent new Sacco-Vanzetti cases and to obtain freedom for the class fighters who are also victims of the frame-up and still in prison.
The International Labor Defense will continue its work for that cause in the spirit of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Honor and respect to our fallen comrades! Remember Sacco and Vanzetti! Remember labor's deathless martyrs!
COMMENTARY
In honor of the anarchist martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti on the 88th Anniversary of their execution by the bloody State of Massachusetts. Their flag was black, this writer's flag is red. Nevertheless, as an elementary act of international working class solidarity we honor their sacrifice-red and black are one on this question. Of such militants as Sacco and Vanzett revolutions are made. The American working class has still not avenged their deaths. Forward.
Below find a commentary on the Sacco and Vanzetti executions by James P. Cannon, founder of the International Labor Defense, a forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, who led the international labor fight to save their lives taken from the American Communist Party’s Daily Worker of August 24, 1927. No comment I could make now could say it better.
I do note, however, that the Sacco-Vanzetti defense was plagued by, among other things, the same kind of political confusionism on the freedom/new trial issue that plagues current political death penalty cases today- witness Mumia Abu-Jamal's case. In political defense cases, particularly death penalty cases, militants support the use of every legal avenue to overturn a conviction while centrally depending on the masses for support in the streets and in meeting halls. Militants then (in the 1920's) correctly called for freedom for Sacco and Vanzetti (their convictions were, after all, prototypical frameups even under the norms of capitalist justice). Liberals and their reformist-minded socialist hangers-on called for new trials, commutations or pardons, etc. Basically this is a position that a simple miscarriage of justice had occurred in the case not that Sacco and Vanzetti had been framed-up. This writer says Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent- what the hell did they need a new trial for? As the Mumia case graphically illustrates-some things just never change.
DAILY WORKER August 24, 1927
The Murder of Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti are dead but their names will live forever and become a shining banner for the upward striving toilers of the world. They have been murdered by the assassins of the capitalist class. Their execution was a cynically brutal defiance of the world-wide demand of the millions of people that they be liberated or at least be given a new trial to prove again their innocence. It was a legal lynching, a fiendish act of class vengeance, cunningly prepared and planned and violently consummated by the willing tools of the capitalist class.
Sacco and Vanzetti died for the working class. Like their immortal comrades of Chicago's Haymarket they died as martyrs to the cause of labor. This was known or felt by tens of millions of workers in every corner of the globe who fought bitterly to the very last moment to vindicate the two martyred labor fighters. Their admirable loyalty and devotion to labor was the only crime they were guilty of; they were innocent of the crime charged against them by their executioners.
The last words of Vanzetti uttered a minute before the current of death silenced his voice were the echo of the deep convictions of the people:
"I wish to tell you that I am innocent and have never committed a crime, but perhaps some sins. I am innocent of all crimes, not only of this one but of all. I am an innocent man."
The Massachusetts executioners have put to death two glorious spirits. These two fighters, living for seven years in the shadow of the electric chair, unceasingly tortured by their suspension between delay and death, calmly watching the relentless net of the capitalist lynchers closing about them, showed by their heroic conduct how the revolutionary fighters of the working class can die at the hands of their class enemy.
The noble dignity and courage which sustained them throughout the seven years remained with them to the end. They went to death calmly and bravely without fear or embarrassment. It was their murderers, the governors and the judges who hid their faces in fear and shame.
Yes, their names will live forever, for the electric current that killed them has burned their names permanently into the hearts of the toilers of the world. Their miserable executioners will be buried in oblivion while the names and struggles of Sacco and Vanzetti still remain a shining guide to the masses, an inspiration to the oppressed everywhere.
They are our noble and heroic martyrs. Their conduct up to the very last moment was in that spirit. Their voices are stilled but their silence thunders around the world. The workers of America who fought to free Sacco and Vanzetti must pay tribute to their heroic memory in every section of the country. The workers must gather at memorial meetings to pledge themselves to keep alive the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti and their fight; to pour their hatred upon the heads of the murderers; to build their strength to prevent new Sacco-Vanzetti cases and to obtain freedom for the class fighters who are also victims of the frame-up and still in prison.
The International Labor Defense will continue its work for that cause in the spirit of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Honor and respect to our fallen comrades! Remember Sacco and Vanzetti! Remember labor's deathless martyrs!
*Sacco And Vanzetti- The Case That Will Not Die, Nor Should It
Click on title to link to Sacco and Vanzetti commemoration site.
Below is a repost of the Sacco and Vanzetti post for 2008. The main points of the book review still tell the tale well about the fate of these class-war prisoners.
Sacco and Vanzetti- Class War Prisoners in the Dock, Circa 1920
BOOK REVIEW
Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti on this the 82st Anniversary of their execution by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruce Watson, Viking, New York, 2007
I like to put each item about the Sacco and Vanzetti case that I review in historical context with this well-worn standard first paragraph of mine. It, I believe, holds up today as in the past- Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the book by Professor Bruce Watson under review here.
In the year 2008 one, like myself, who openly proclaims partisanship for the heroic memory of Sacco and Vanzetti when looking for a book to help instruct a new generation about the case is not after all this time afraid of a little partisanship by its author. One is also looking to see if, given advances in modern criminology and technology, those sources have presented any new information that would change the judgments of history. That is apparently not the case with Professor Watson’s book. It is rather another garden variety narrative of the events that have been covered elsewhere by partisans on either side of the divide on the question of the guilt or innocence of the pair. Nevertheless it is good to have an updated narrative so that the youth will know that the pressing issues around the case have not gone away.
Professor Watson has presented a good description of the events that led up to the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in a Dedham, Massachusetts court presided over by an old WASP figure, Judge Webster Thayer. He details the hard work lives of the two Italian immigrants, the problems with foreigners especially South Europeans like them trying to gain a toehold in America, the future troubles to be brought on by their anarchist beliefs and more damagingly their departure for Mexico in 1917 to avoid being drafted into the American army after its entry into World War I.
Professor Watson further links the personal trials and tribulation of Sacco and Vanzetti with the general political atmosphere after World War I with its wave of anarchist bombings, the victory of the Russian Revolution and the response of capitalist America with the Attorney-General Palmer-led “ Red Scare, Part I”. He further details the South Braintree payroll robbery that set in motion the events of the next seven years that would bring world-wide attention to the cause of the two beleaguered anarchists. He gives the factual events of the day of the robbery and double murders, the subsequent search for the robbers, the narrowing of the chase to these two who were found to be armed at a later date in a very different context and their arrest and indictments for murder.
Needless to say any narrative of the Sacco and Vanzetti case needs to pay close attention to the trial itself, the personalities of the players and the evidence. In the background one has to look at the state of the law, especially its procedural aspects, at that time concerning capital punishment and further the social climate against foreigners, specifically Italians here. Watson, more than most accounts, gives special emphasis to chief trial defense lawyer Fred Moore and his various maneuvers, intrigues and, frankly, mistakes.
Of course, the heart of the book is an account of the appeals both legal and political throughout the seven year period. That included various strategies from calls for gubernatorial clemency to mass strikes by labor so the whole litany of class struggle defense policies gets a workout in the case. Although Professor Watson does a creditable job of describing these efforts as far as he goes I object, on political grounds, to his short shrift of the work of the Communist International and its class defense organization the International Labor Defense in publicizing the case. Who do you think brought the masses of workers out world-wide? It was not those Brahmin ladies on Beacon Hill, well-intentioned or not. This is certainly a subject for further comment by any reader of these lines.
The other point that I object to is Watson’s agnostic approach to the question of the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti. At this far remove it is not necessary to be skittish about the question of their guilt or innocence in a legal sense. There is, obviously, not quite the sense of urgency of the call today for Mumia Abu Jamal’s freedom rather than retrial. However, although 80 years separate the two cases there is a steady tendency to limit justice in these cases to calls for retrial. However, in both cases the parties were innocent so the appropriate call would have been and is for freedom. This political ostrich act by Professor Watson, allegedly in the interest of being ‘objective’ and 'letting the new generation decide for itself', does a tremendous disservice to the memories of these class war fighters.
Nevertheless, this is a worthy book to use as a primer toward understanding the background to that long ago case. The end notes are helpful as is the bibliography for further research. Additionally, unlike Professor Watson’s excellent book Bread and Roses that I have previously reviewed in this space here he stays more closely with the subject and avoids bringing in every possible historical fact that might tangentially relate to the case. As always, until ultimate justice in done in the Sacco and Vanzetti case honor their memories today.
Below is a repost of the Sacco and Vanzetti post for 2008. The main points of the book review still tell the tale well about the fate of these class-war prisoners.
Sacco and Vanzetti- Class War Prisoners in the Dock, Circa 1920
BOOK REVIEW
Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti on this the 82st Anniversary of their execution by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruce Watson, Viking, New York, 2007
I like to put each item about the Sacco and Vanzetti case that I review in historical context with this well-worn standard first paragraph of mine. It, I believe, holds up today as in the past- Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the book by Professor Bruce Watson under review here.
In the year 2008 one, like myself, who openly proclaims partisanship for the heroic memory of Sacco and Vanzetti when looking for a book to help instruct a new generation about the case is not after all this time afraid of a little partisanship by its author. One is also looking to see if, given advances in modern criminology and technology, those sources have presented any new information that would change the judgments of history. That is apparently not the case with Professor Watson’s book. It is rather another garden variety narrative of the events that have been covered elsewhere by partisans on either side of the divide on the question of the guilt or innocence of the pair. Nevertheless it is good to have an updated narrative so that the youth will know that the pressing issues around the case have not gone away.
Professor Watson has presented a good description of the events that led up to the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in a Dedham, Massachusetts court presided over by an old WASP figure, Judge Webster Thayer. He details the hard work lives of the two Italian immigrants, the problems with foreigners especially South Europeans like them trying to gain a toehold in America, the future troubles to be brought on by their anarchist beliefs and more damagingly their departure for Mexico in 1917 to avoid being drafted into the American army after its entry into World War I.
Professor Watson further links the personal trials and tribulation of Sacco and Vanzetti with the general political atmosphere after World War I with its wave of anarchist bombings, the victory of the Russian Revolution and the response of capitalist America with the Attorney-General Palmer-led “ Red Scare, Part I”. He further details the South Braintree payroll robbery that set in motion the events of the next seven years that would bring world-wide attention to the cause of the two beleaguered anarchists. He gives the factual events of the day of the robbery and double murders, the subsequent search for the robbers, the narrowing of the chase to these two who were found to be armed at a later date in a very different context and their arrest and indictments for murder.
Needless to say any narrative of the Sacco and Vanzetti case needs to pay close attention to the trial itself, the personalities of the players and the evidence. In the background one has to look at the state of the law, especially its procedural aspects, at that time concerning capital punishment and further the social climate against foreigners, specifically Italians here. Watson, more than most accounts, gives special emphasis to chief trial defense lawyer Fred Moore and his various maneuvers, intrigues and, frankly, mistakes.
Of course, the heart of the book is an account of the appeals both legal and political throughout the seven year period. That included various strategies from calls for gubernatorial clemency to mass strikes by labor so the whole litany of class struggle defense policies gets a workout in the case. Although Professor Watson does a creditable job of describing these efforts as far as he goes I object, on political grounds, to his short shrift of the work of the Communist International and its class defense organization the International Labor Defense in publicizing the case. Who do you think brought the masses of workers out world-wide? It was not those Brahmin ladies on Beacon Hill, well-intentioned or not. This is certainly a subject for further comment by any reader of these lines.
The other point that I object to is Watson’s agnostic approach to the question of the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti. At this far remove it is not necessary to be skittish about the question of their guilt or innocence in a legal sense. There is, obviously, not quite the sense of urgency of the call today for Mumia Abu Jamal’s freedom rather than retrial. However, although 80 years separate the two cases there is a steady tendency to limit justice in these cases to calls for retrial. However, in both cases the parties were innocent so the appropriate call would have been and is for freedom. This political ostrich act by Professor Watson, allegedly in the interest of being ‘objective’ and 'letting the new generation decide for itself', does a tremendous disservice to the memories of these class war fighters.
Nevertheless, this is a worthy book to use as a primer toward understanding the background to that long ago case. The end notes are helpful as is the bibliography for further research. Additionally, unlike Professor Watson’s excellent book Bread and Roses that I have previously reviewed in this space here he stays more closely with the subject and avoids bringing in every possible historical fact that might tangentially relate to the case. As always, until ultimate justice in done in the Sacco and Vanzetti case honor their memories today.
Get The U.S. Military Bases Out Of Okinawa-Now!
Get The U.S. Military Bases Out Of
Okinawa-Now!
Frank Jackman comment:
A country like the United States that
has military bases, missions, right of ways, air space privileges and whatever else
it wants that it can bribe, cajole, strong-arm or just flat-out do what it wants
is a power which needs to be opposed on every front. Our forces right now however
are relatively few so we have to pick our battles (and that is exactly the
right term, military expression or not). Have to pick and choose which bases we
can focus on to try to shut down. No question a tough task in the Pacific Rim what
with U.S. foreign and military policy ever focusing on China. But after seventy
plus years the people of Okinawa have had enough, had paid enough of a price
for U.S. arrogance and hubris. Every war leaves vestiges that only slowly get
resolved but let’s fight to end World War II on Okinawa-U.S. Out Now! And Stay
Out!
*****Victory To The Fast-Food Workers The Vanguard Of The Fight For $15......
*****Victory To The Fast-Food Workers The Vanguard Of The Fight For $15......Fight For $15 Is Just A Beginning-All Labor Must Support Our Sisters And Brothers
From The Pen Of Sam Lowell
Frank Jackman had always ever since he was a kid down in Carver, a working class town formerly a shoe factory mecca about thirty miles south of Boston and later dotted with assorted small shops related to the shipbuilding trade, a very strong supporters of anything involving organized labor and organizing labor, anything that might push working people ahead. While it had taken it a long time, and some serious military service during the Vietnam War, his generation’s war, to get on the right side of the angels on the war issue and even more painfully and slowly on the woman’s liberation and gay rights issues, and he was still having a tough time with the transgender thing although the plight of heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower Army soldier Chelsea Manning had made it easier to express solidarity, he had always been a stand-up guy for unions and for working people. Maybe it was because his late father, Lawrence Jackman, had been born and raised in coal country down in Harlan County, Kentucky where knowing which side you were on, knowing that picket lines mean don’t cross, knowing that every scrap given by the bosses had been paid for in blood and so it was in his blood. Maybe though it was closer to the nub, closer to home, that the closing of the heavily unionized shoe factories which either headed down south or off-shore left slim leaving for those who did not follow them south, slim pickings for an uneducated man like his father trying to raise four daughters and son on hopes and dreams and not much else. Those hopes and dreams leaving his mother to work in the “mother’s don’t work” 1950s at a local donut shop filling donuts for chrissakes to help make ends meet so his was always aware of how close the different between work and no work was, and decent pay for decent work too. How ever he got “religion” on the question as a kid, and he suspected the answer was in the DNA, Frank was always at the ready when the latest labor struggles erupted, the latest recently being the sporadic uprisings amount fast-food workers and lowly-paid Walmart workers to earn a living wage.
One day in the late summer of 2014 he had picked up a leaflet from a young guy, a young guy who later identified himself as a field organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a union filled to the brim with low-end workers like janitors, nurses assistants, salespeople, and the like, passing them out at an anti-war rally (against the American escalations in Syria and Iraq) in downtown Boston. The leaflet after giving some useful information about how poorly fast-food worker were paid and how paltry the benefits, especially the lack of health insurance announced an upcoming “Fight for $15” action in Downtown Boston on September 4, 2014 at noon as part of a national struggle for economic justice and dignity for the our hard working sisters and brothers. He told the young organizer after expressing solidarity with the upcoming efforts that he would try to bring others to the event although being held during a workday would be hard for some to make the time.
In the event Frank brought about a dozen others with him. They and maybe fifty to one hundred others during the course of the event stood in solidarity for a couple of hours while a cohort of fast-food workers told their stories. And while another cohort of fast-food workers were sitting on the ground in protest prepared to commit civil disobedience by blocking the street to make their point. Several of them would eventually be arrested and taken away by the police later to be fined and released.
Frank, when he reflected on the day’s events later, was pretty elated as he told his old friend Josh Breslin whom he had called up in Maine to tell him what had happened that day. Josh had also grown up in a factory town, a textile town, Olde Saco, and had been to many such support events himself and before he retired had as a free-lance writer written up lots of labor stories. The key ingredient that impressed Josh in Frank’s description had been how many young serious black and Latino workers had participated in the actions. Later than night when Frank reflected further on the situation he broke out in a smile as he was writing up his summary of his take on the events. There would be people pass off the torch to when guys like him and Josh were no longer around. He had been afraid that would not happen after the long drought doldrums in the class struggle of the previous few decades. Here is what else he had to say:
No question in this wicked old world that those at the bottom are “the forgotten ones,” “los olvidados,” those who a writer who had worked among them had long ago correctly described as the world fellahin, the ones who never get ahead. This day we are talking about working people, people working and working hard for eight, nine, ten dollars an hour. Maybe working two jobs to make ends meet since a lot of times these McJobs, these Wal-Mart jobs do not come with forty hours of work attached but whatever some cost-cutting manager deems right to keep them on a string and keep them from qualifying for certain benefits that do not kick in with “part-time” work. And lately taking advantage of cover from Obamacare keeping the hours below the threshold necessary to kick in health insurance and other benefits. Yes, the forgotten people.
But let’s do the math here figuring on forty hours and figuring on say ten dollars an hour. That‘s four hundred a week times fifty weeks (okay so I am rounding off for estimate purposes here too since most of these jobs do not have vacation time figured in).That’s twenty thousand a year. Okay so just figure any kind of decent apartment in the Boston area where I am writing this-say one thousand a month. That’s twelve thousand a year. So the other eight thousand is for everything else. No way can that be done. And if you had listened to the young and not so young fast-food workers, the working mothers, the working older brothers taking care of younger siblings, workers trying to go to school to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty you would understand the truth of that statement. And the stories went on and on along that line all during the action.
Confession: it has been a very long time since I have had to scrimp and scrim to make ends meet, to get the rent in, to keep those damn bill-collectors away from my door, to beg the utility companies to not shut off those necessary services. But I have been there, no question. Growing up working class town poor, the only difference on the economic question was that it was all poor whites unlike today’s crowd. Also for many years living from hand to mouth before things got steady. I did not like it then and I do not like the idea of it now. I am here to say even the “Fight for $15” is not enough, but it is a start. And I whole-heartedly support the struggle of my sisters and brothers for a little economic justice in this wicked old world. And any reader who might read this-would you work for these slave wages? I think not. So show your solidarity and get out and support the fast-food and Wal-Mart workers in their just struggles.
Organize Wal-Mart! Organize the fast food workers! Union! Union!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/09/04/boston-fast-food-workers-rally-for-wages-unions/bc1ZqZIgwsVcOw0QHIV74M/story.html
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