Sign if you agree: Gov. Baker must obstruct mass deportations

 

1:07 PM

Matthew Andrewsviabmdc-request

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Looks like others are working on this as well.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action" <act@credoaction.com>
Date: Mar 2, 2017 9:12 AM
Subject: Sign if you agree: Gov. Baker must obstruct mass deportations
To: "Matthew Andrews" <matthewandrews80@gmail.com>
Cc:

Tell Gov. Baker: Block Trump’s war on immigrants The petition to Gov. Charlie Baker reads: “Protect immigrants in our state. Do everything in your power to resist any executive mandate or policy that divides and targets people based on their race and country of origin.” Add your name: Dear Matthew, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has built the blueprint for Trump’s mass deportations. Gov. Baker must do everything in his power to disrupt their plans. DHS just released memos that turn Trump’s anti-immigrant executive orders into policy. The memos empower federal immigration officers to target almost every undocumented immigrant for detention and immediate deportation, expand Trump’s deportation army by 10,000 agents and encourage local law enforcement to collaborate with federal immigration officers.1 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is already terrorizing immigrant communities.2 With these new policies, DHS is unleashing and emboldening a dangerous, unaccountable deportation force. States have the power to slow them down. Speak out now to demand that Gov. Baker take bold action. Tell Gov. Baker: Protect immigrants in Massachusetts. Refuse to comply with DHS’ racist anti-immigrant policies. Click here to sign the petition. ICE is a terrifying rogue agency. For much of the last eight years, ICE agents flouted Obama administration enforcement priorities. Now the Trump administration is giving ICE sweeping permission to harass and attack all undocumented immigrants at will. In recent days, ICE agents have arrested and detained: a Chicago father whose criminal record only includes traffic violations;3 a woman at a Texas hospital undergoing treatment for a brain tumor;4 men leaving a church’s overnight hypothermia shelter in Alexandria, Virginia;5 and a transgender woman who was obtaining a restraining order against a violent partner at an El Paso, Texas courthouse.6 Even though the DHS memos protect the legal status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, ICE arrested and detained DACA recipient Daniel Ramirez Medina in Seattle.7 This is not normal. This is not okay. Tell Gov. Baker: Protect immigrants in Massachusetts. Refuse to comply with DHS’ racist anti-immigrant policies. Click here to sign the petition. Fortunately, some state leaders are already standing up to protect immigrants. For example, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee have barred state agencies from cooperating with and aiding federal immigration enforcement.8 California state lawmakers are pushing an omnibus immigration bill through the legislature that would ban state resources from being used to enforce federal immigration laws. Gov. Baker has a choice: Enable Trump’s agenda of criminalization and deportations, or resist and obstruct Trump’s racist regime at every turn. Help make sure Gov. Baker does the right thing. Add your name now. Tell Gov. Baker: Protect immigrants in Massachusetts. Refuse to comply with DHS’ racist anti-immigrant policies. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/governors_immigrants?t=7&akid=21936.11297429.MpEK8h Thank you for speaking out, Nicole Regalado, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: Tal Kopan, “Trump admin set stage for mass deportations,” CNN, Feb. 22, 2017. Vivian Yee, “Immigrants Hide, Fearing Capture on ‘Any Corner,’” The New York Times, Feb. 22, 2017. Arelis R. Hernandez, Wesley Lowery and Abigail Hauslohner, “Federal immigration raids net many without criminal records, sowing fear,” The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2017. Chris Sommerfeldt, “Fed seize undocumented woman with brain tumor at hospital,” New York Daily News, Feb. 214, 2017. The Associated Press, “ICE agents arrest men leaving Alexandria church shelter,” Washington’s Top News, Feb. 17, 2017. Jonathan Blitzer, “The woman arrested by ICE in a courthouse speaks out,” The New Yorker, Feb. 23, 2017. Sydney Brownstone, “Detained Dreamer’s Lawyers Say Government Doctored Document to Justify False Gang Affiliation,” The Stranger, Feb. 16, 2017. Reid Wilson, “Wash. governor order agencies to ignore immigration requests,” The Hill, Feb. 23, 2017. Share on Facebook Post to your wall Tweet this Post to Twitter  2017 CREDO. All rights reserved. This email was sent to matthewandrews80@gmail.com. To change your email or mailing address, please click here: https://act.credoaction.com/me/update/?t=23&akid=21936.11297429.MpEK8h To unsubscribe, please visit our subscription management page at: http://act.credoaction.com/cms/unsubscribe/unsubscribe/?t=25&akid=21936.11297429.MpEK8h

Steppenwolf - Monster

Songs For Our Times-Build The Resistance-Steppenwolf's "America When Are You Now...We Can't Fight Lone Against The Monster"

Songs For Our Times-Build The Resistance-Steppenwolf's "America When Are You Now...We Can't Fight Lone  Against The Monster"   

During, let’s say the Obama administration or, hell, even the Bush era, for example  we could be gentle angry people over this or that notorious war policy and a few others matters and songs like Give Peace A Chance, We Shall Overcome, or hell, even that Kumbaya which offended the politically insensitive. From Day One of the Trump administration though the gloves have come off-we are in deep trouble. So we too need to take off our gloves-and fast as the cold civil war that has started in the American dark night heads to some place we don’t want to be. And the above song from another tumultuous time, makes more sense to be marching to. Build the resistance!

Steppenwolf – Monster Lyrics

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of Kingdom and pope

Like good Christians some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands, to court the wild
But she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And till the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end

While we bullied, stole and bought a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
But she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The Blue and Grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war was over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has its share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But its protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

The spirit was freedom and justice
And its keepers seemed generous and kind
Its leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
Now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told

Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into the noose
And it just sits there watchin'

The cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole world's got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner we can't pay the cost

'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into the noose
And it just sits there watchin'

America, where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

America, where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

America...America...America...America...

Songs For Our Times-Build The Resistance-Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing"

Songs For Our Times-Build The Resistance-Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing" 

During, let’s say the Obama administration or, hell, even the Bush era, for example  we could be gentle angry people over this or that notorious war policy and a few others matters and songs like Give Peace A Chance, We Shall Overcome, or hell, even that Kumbaya which offended the politically insensitive. From Day One of the Trump administration though the gloves have come off-we are in deep trouble. So we too need to take off our gloves-and fast as the cold civil war that has started in the American dark night heads to some place we don’t want to be. And the above song from another tumultuous time, makes more sense to be marching to. Build the resistance!

The Times They Are A-Changin’

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Copyright

© 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music

The Girl With The Gun Simple Eyes-With Robert Mitchum And Jane Greer’s The Big Steal In Mind

The Girl With The Gun Simple Eyes-With Robert Mitchum And Jane Greer’s The Big Steal In Mind

By Zack James

Duke Halliday had a funny feeling that he had seen her before, had seen her maybe one time when he was in Acapulco over by the ocean on other side of Mexico from where he was now landing in Vera Cruz on the eastern side of this benighted sweat-filled dusty road bracero country. Yeah she had come up on his from behind speaking some low-slung Spanish to a bracero that he had pushed aside, pushed aside hard and she had made her apologies for the whole gringo race to that besotted bracero and then levelled off and told Duke what was what in proper schoolteacher or something English. She had not gotten half way through her schoolmarm berating an errant student when he had had that funny feeling that while her hair was darker (the result of some man-made formula figure it out for yourselves), she was a little more shapely and had a couple of small crow’s feet showing around the eyes she was the spitting imagine of Kathie, Kathie who had tried to kill him, kill him good as they were heading to Baja California and the good life. Left him on the side of the road after having just crashed through a police blockade and with two big slugs in his almost in his heart leaving him for dead and for primed for taking the fall if he survived, the big step-off fall if it came to that, the hang ‘em high step-off.    

That funny feeling maybe not so funny because when Duke had seen her the last time she had already broken his spirit so bad that it would have taken emergency surgery, maybe more to put the broken pieces together. The story flashed through his now fevered brain almost as quickly as it happened. In those days he had been a private eye, a shamus, and a pretty good one with a partner who maybe wasn’t so good but who covered his back, mostly. 

Yeah Duke had been known for taking no prisoners when he got on a case. Left no untidy pieces and was as anybody could tell from a quick look at him that he was built for heavy lifting, could handle himself in a tight corner, and could give and take a few swift punches. That is what brought him to the attention of Whit Sterling, Whit the big-time mobster out in Reno. Whit had as most guys, guys including big-time mobsters a woman problem, had it bad for a piece of fluff named Kathie. Nothing but a work of art femme fatale and noting but big trouble from the first day she came out of some ditch in some Podunk town looking for the next best thing with that slinky dress “come hither look of hers and the guys fell right in line. No heavy lifting for that gal, none. She had for kicks skipped out on Whit with a chunk of dough, about forty thou, not much today, not much then maybe either but being a big-time mobster meant no sweet pussy was going to do a dance of death on him. Not if he expected to stay on top of the totem pole. 

And so Whit had sent Duke to find her, bring her back alive if possible, bring back that fucking forty thou though even if he had to waste her. That waste her being perhaps necessary since she carried a very un-ladylike .32 and had used it on some long ago lover whom she shot dead as a doornail, and walked. Walked when the jury believed that she had been raped by that guy. Had clipped Whit too when she was in the process of her escape.

The trail to Kathie naturally led south to warm sunny cheap living Mexico. Duke had had no problem finding her, as if she had left bread crumbs to lead him to her. Once he got a look at her, no, smelled that jasmine something scent she was wearing and which he could smell/feel a block before she entered the café where an informant told him she hung out he was a goner. And she seeing those broad shoulders, that cleft chin, those arms and hands that looked like they could handle just about anything-except a woman’s gun- took dead aim at her new protector. They hit the sheets that first night, she almost raping him before they got to the bed, and they ran around for a while in Mexico before heading north until Whit got nervous and hired another private eye to ferret them out. In that confrontation Kathie killed that trailing shamus without blinking an eye, probably had her fear of rape story already planned out if Duke didn’t tumble and fall, after he had knocked Duke out for the count. Needless to say Duke was not going to take the fall for her, not on murder one. 

Duke figuring it was his hard luck that he had picked a gun simple gal dropped out of sight, went underground really but he didn’t figure that Whit might have hard feelings about Duke taking his case money, and his woman too. But Whit was built that way and one of his minions found Duke doing short order chef duty in a dinky café diner outside of Pacifica. Brought him in to see White, and Kathie. Yeah Whit was a piece of work. Had scared Kathie enough when they found her to have her simper back into the fold-although probably like a rattler rather than a lamb. But bringing oil and water together was not good this time as Duke and Kathie linked up again to do in Whit (both agreeing for their own reasons that Whit had to be done in or else neither life was worth a penny). Kathie placed two neat slugs into Whit’s heart from a few feet away as they were leaving. Never even looked back.        

As they headed out in Whit’s automobile for freedom in the Baja they ran into that police roadblock which they ran and Duke sensing he was in for a rough tumble if he ever crossed Kathie decided that he would turn himself in. Needless to say Kathie did not like that idea and placed two neat slugs in what she though was Duke’s heart doing the deed while she was driving to boot. The commotion though caused the car to crash and Duke jumped out trying to get the hell away. Kathie lay with her head over the steering wheel, maybe dead, maybe alive. That was the last he saw of her, the last time he had been in trouble over a woman after he squared himself with the coppers on the Whit and private eye beefs.      

Now that he looked at her a second time Duke could see that although she looked very much like Kathie, and giving a few pounds and years gone by this was not her, although she did have that gun simple look in her eyes that he had come to fear but it may have just been coincidence. As for her, as for Joan, she too had some sneaking feeling that she had met Duke before, had maybe met him up in Reno one night when she was feeling frisky after a few drinks, after winning a few bucks at the gaming tables and feeling like she wanted a man that night had picked a guy with broad shoulders, big hands that knew where to be put them with a willing woman, and the ability to fend off any guy whom she didn’t want to deal with once she gave him her best come hither look. He, the guy who Duke reminded her of who called himself Jeff then had been built strictly for one night stands which was fine by her that night as they hit the sheets without even knowing last names, also that night just first names had been okay with her. A second look at this guy, Duke, said behind those sleepy blue eyes and that granite chin was long-time serious affairs not one night stands. Still given what her predicament was just then trying to get a couple of thou back from the last guy who threw her over for some cheap laughing eyes Spanish whore who probably would give him a sexually transmitted disease those big shoulders, those hands and those fighter eyes would come in handy in case she ran into trouble with Jim, Jim Fiske, if that was his real name.          

Duke looked her up and down and licked his chops and she took note that he ate her up, a conquest and she wasn’t even wearing her jasmine something scent that was guaranteed to get from a guy whatever she wanted from sex to heavy-lifting. So their dance in a dance began. He asked her if she wanted a drink, she accepted and they went into Senor somebody’s cantina. They drank for a few hours, talked the talk and headed to her place (he didn’t have a place since he was just off the boat) and hit the sheets just the way they both figured when they compared notes in the morning. Here is the funny part, the part that would glue them together for the duration. Joan had a photograph of that last guy she had tangled with, the guy who had run out on her on her bedroom table face down. When Duke turned the frame over and saw one Jim Fiske he flipped out. Pulled out his revolver and carefully aimed it at Joan. She in turn turned around and pulled out her own gun. A draw. That was when upon inquiry Duke found out that Joan and this Fiske had been lovers. Fiske was the guy who had taken a powder on her. More importantly to Duke this Fiske had waylaid him when he worked for a Wells Fargo and taken some quarter of a million in cash from the bags strapped to his wrists. Then Joan told her two bit story. Comparing notes they decided to work together, after another run under the sheets to seal the deal, seal the deal by request from Joan on this one (Duke was not sure that he cared for her sexual aggressiveness but she had little tricks that he liked that usually only whorehouse whores knew).    

They gathered information that Fiske had hit the highway for Mexico City where he probably would try to convert the cash he had stolen from Duke which any way one looked at it was hot as a pistol since one did not usually act so foolishly as to rob a Wells Fargo armored truck or its employees. So they rented a car and headed west stopping along the way to give a description of the dapper Fiske who had the look of a solid gringo and not some stinking bracero. They had some trouble in a small town, really just a trading post and a cantina, over cashing a check. That is where Duke started buckling a little once Joan took out her little snub-nosed gun and forced the proprietor to cash the check. Duke just stood there with his jaw hanging until she told him to wise up and that they had better vamoose.       

Having been given a description of Jim’s car they hit a little town and noticed a car fitting Jim’s description being worked on. They waited around for Jim to show to pick up the car and a couple of hours later he did show up. With a look of surprise on his face at seeing Joan he sized Duke up and figured that at best in a mix he would get the worst of it and so he “cut” them in on the robbery dough not knowing that Duke was the guy whom he had robbed. They travelled together uneasily until they hit the outskirts of Mexico where they went up a private road and entered a big hacienda where Senor Blanco was waiting for Jim to deliver the hot money to fence. Jim took a cool one hundred thou in the transfer, and was glad to get it. Duke figured he was a goner, could never work security again. When the trio got outside though before Jim could say to Joan for them to move on together without Duke Joan coolly put two slugs between his eyes. He fell like a tree.

Joan just as coolly went over to the fallen Jim and swooped up the dough. Asked if Duke was up for the road ahead. Not sure juts then that he had not played out this scene already he walked toward her and took the gun out of her hand. Then took her arm as they walked out into the sunset but the look on his face said he would spent many sleepless nights watching over his shoulder for the other shoe to fall. Jesus, these gun simple women would kill him yet.   

Fight Sexism - Strike for our Rights! March 8 Forum

 

3/1/2017 10:00 PM

 

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International Women's Day Forum! View this email in your browser RSVP on Facebook! March 8th - 6:30 PM 9A Hamilton Place, Boston, MA   Trump's landslide of Executive Orders has made it clear that his goal is making attacks on women and immigrants the priority of his administration. With the specter of a right-wing Supreme Court and attacks on Planned Parenthood, Roe v. Wade and trans rights there have been calls for strikes and other actions on International Women's Day (March 8th) to push back against Trump from the grassroots. But the attacks on womens' rights are not alone. Trump's plan to increase deportations en masse pose an existential threat to undocumented immigrants in the US. The early battles of resistance to prevent these attacks on women and immigrants will play a key role in the defeat of Trump's policies. Come join us for a International Women's Day forum with speakers focused on defeating Trump's attacks on women and immigrants by pointing towards mass strike and boycott action on May 1st throughout the country. We must stand together united in action as working people in order to beat Trump. An injury to one is an injury to all! Speakers from Socialist Alternative, Democratic Socialists of America and others TBA Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- Book Reviews

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

**********
Arif Dirlih, The Origins of Chinese Communism, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1989, pp315, £9.95

This is a work of most intensive scholar ship, one of the few to provide fresh in formation and insight into the origin and peculiarities of Chinese Communism. The future development in China of both Stalinism and Trotskyism cannot be understood without it, and the data it provides can be used for comparison with the emergence of revolutionary movements in other countries during similar stages of radicalisation and industrialisation. The model constructed by the author begins with a loose network of circles of intellectuals with a diffuse and abstract Anarchist/populist ideology concerned mainly with problems of culture, whose limitations are painfully revealed in the defeat of the May Fourth Movement. The growth of a working class, and the impact of the War and the Russian Revolution lead to a turning to ‘Marxism’, whilst at the same time the need for organisation leads to the formation of a Communist Party. Just as Anarchism answered to the needs of the previous movement, Marxism seemed to meet the requirements of the new period. Comintern intervention thus fell on fertile soil, so that the Chinese revolutionaries in effect accepted Marxism without understanding it, and in a version that owed more to Kautsky than it did to Marx or Lenin, at least to begin with.



The book reveals a rich ideological ferment in China before the foundation of the CCP in July 1921. The most widespread ideology among the intelligentsia was Anarchist, in the form of Kropotkin's ‘mutual aid’, and here the author demonstrates that both Cold War and Chinese Stalinist historians have systematically neglected this background which fits so uneasily with their preoccupations (pp.3-4). Even Chinese perception of what had happened in Russia in 1917 came to them largely influenced by Anarchism (pp.25ff.). Yet here it is strange not to find any reference to the standard treatments of the early years of Chinese Anarchism, Robert Scalapino and George Yu’s The Chinese Anarchist Movement (1961) and Albert Meltzer’s The Origins of the Anarchist Movement in China (1968). For if official historiography did its best to forget the Anarchist contribution, the Anarchists never did.



Other forms of thought jostled – or rather co-existed ’ with the general Anarchist overlay, and it is remarkable to discover that English Guild Socialism as popularised by G.D.H. Cole also enjoyed a respectable following (pp.129-30, 133-4). A striking parallel with the development of revolutionary ideology in Russia was the emergence of a sort of ‘legal Marxism’ among the left intellectuals of the Guomindang, almost a mirror image of the theories of Peter Struve, and the writer makes clear that in fact it was this group which probably had the clearest perception of what Marxism was, rather than the future leaders of the Communist Party (pp225-34, 267). Even after 1921, apart from what came in from the Comintern, “what there was in the way of independent Marxist literature came not from the Communists but the Marxists in the Guomindang” (p.269). And as in other countries where class antagonisms have not developed sufficiently to pose class questions, feminism also gained considerable support (p.67).



Having accepted Marxism as a by-product of their need for organisation, the early Chinese Communists took it over in its orthodox Second International version. Apart from the appearance of Lenin’s State and Revolution late in 1920, for the first few years Marxist literature in translation was limited to the Communist Manifesto, Wage Labour and Capital, Liebknecht’s biography of Marx, and Kautsky’s Economic Doctrine of Karl Marx and The Class Struggle, and with their Anarchist background it is not surprising that they found what they took to be Marxism’s economic determinism to be repugnant. As the writer comments, “Marxism in China was converted into a political movement too rapidly to allow time to find out about the theory, let alone apply it to the analysis of Chinese society” (pp.97-8), with the result that “the Communists themselves were riot to re-evaluate their assumptions concerning Chinese society until after 1927, when the Party’s policies, first having given it enormous power and prestige, had brought it within a few years to the verge of extinction” (p.l5).



When this re-evaluation began to take place, it is significant that it took the form of a reversion of Chinese Communism to its origins. In the case of Mao Zedong the writer supports Scalapino’s analysis that the strongest influence on him in 1919 was Kropotkin, whose thought he described as “broader and more far-reaching” than that of “the party of Marx” (p.178), and which he continued to support until the end of 1920 (p.206). The May Fourth Movement was, of course, a ‘Cultural Revolution’, and whilst noting that Meisner sees ‘populism’ as a salient feature of Chinese ‘Marxism’ from Li Dazhao to Mao, the writer drops the significant hint that “some have blamed the ‘Anti Party’ activities of the Cultural Revolution upon Anarchism” (p.271). In this way Mao promoted Anarchist-sounding ideas “to serve an authoritarian political structure” and “to undermine the Party” (p272).



It is significant also that Mao’s essay in support of Anarchism bore the title The Great Union of the Popular Masses (p.178), and he had a predecessor in Jiang Kanghu, the founder of China’s first Socialist Party, who rejected the idea of class struggle and was the first in China to use the term ‘New Democracy’ (p.139). When Mao turned once more to these notions in the ’thirties, he was only repeating what he had already said in 1919, that “as for the aristocrats and capitalists, it suffices that they repent and turn towards the good” (p.179).



One of the other directions taken by part of the leadership of the Party was, of course, Trotskyism. Here the author indicates that “now the political animus against Chen Duxiu that has long dominated Chinese historiography has subsided, at least relatively speaking, Chinese scholars admit that Chen Duxiu, not Li Dazhao, was responsible for the founding of the party in 1920-1921” (p.196, cf. also p.151). He shows how Chen, to his credit, was particularly suspicious of the alliance with the Guomindang imposed by Moscow, a policy which was “pushed through the party against the will of some of its older leaders” only “with the aid of younger members who had been persuaded in Moscow” (p.267). In a certain sense, Chen’s conversion to Trotskyism after the 1927 catastrophe also took the form of a reversion to origins, just as with Mao Zedong. The reader would have to be blind not to see in the debate with the ‘legal Marxists’ a groping towards the theory of Permanent Revolution:



The most interesting aspect ... was the upholding of Socialism’s relevance in contemporary China. Most fundamental was the argument that it was meaningless to speak of whether or not capitalism existed in China, since in the age of international capital, no distinction could be made between Chinese and foreign capitalism or capitalists. This argument (again an important Trotskyist argument later on in the decade) was shared by all Communist participants in the debate, including Li Dazhao, who, in his only contribution, insisted that there were no economic boundaries in the contemporary world. There was an accompanying argument, again one that Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu shared. While insisting on the unity of world capitalism, Chen argued that all Chinese held the position of labourers vis-a-vis foreign capital! China could not develop because Chinese capitalists were under the sway of foreign capital; real economic independence could only be achieved, therefore, through a workers' revolution. (p.232)



A significant number of those who held this view were later to side with Trotskyism. Li Ji argued that Marx was only human, that not all his ideas were eternally valid, and that “times had changed since Marx had formulated his historical theory, and new times required new explanations and solutions” (p.233), whilst Liu Renjing, who was the only one at the founding conference of the Communist Party “to hold an unequivocally Bolshevik position” (p.249) “argued for the immediate adoption of the policies of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat” (p.247). In the passing over of this layer to the support of the theory of Permanent Revolution we can see that the evaluation of the crisis of 1927 led back to the original Marxist insights of the first generation of Chinese revolutionaries.



We are now able to examine the ‘tragedy of the Chinese Revolution’ in all its thought forms. As opposed to the first healthy instincts of the founders of Chinese Marxism, “decisions concerning the revolution were made for them by others, who claimed political superiority because they commanded theoretical superiority” (p.98), leading to “rocky relations” (p.197) and mutual mistrust (p.267). Having awakened Chinese Marxism, the Comintern, first of all of Zinoviev, and then of Stalin, stifled it, and a real examination of China in the light of a critical analysis had to wait until after the defeat of 1927, when it was too late to have a positive effect. As the author of this study so succinctly states it, “ideological cliches replaced a burgeoning Marxist inquiry into Chinese society that would not be revived seriously until it became evident in the later 1920s that the revolutionary strategy based on those cliches had failed” (p.l4). The fact that the writer of this book believes that the orthodoxy of the Comintern was Marxism, and that the revolutionary strategy that was appropriate to China was Mao’s peasant ‘Socialism’ does not alter the fundamental validity of this insight.



Serious enquirers should not allow themselves to be put off by this, or by the customary trendy genuflections to Hobsbawm, Kolakowski, Williams and Althusser, any more than they should be upset by the consistent misspelling of Stepniak’s name. These are trivia which in no way interfere with the massive learning and compelling logic in this work. It is by far the finest treatment of its subject in. the English language since the publication of the original edition of Harold Isaacs’ book.









Al Richardson

In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Film “Casablanca”- Once Again, 'The Stuff Of Dreams"- "The Maltese Falcon"- A Film Review

DVD Review

The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, directed by John Huston, 1941

The first two paragraphs are taken from a review of Dashiell Hammett’s book The Maltese Falcon, also reviewed today, from which this film adaptation was, pretty closely, drawn.

“Dashiell Hammett, along with Raymond Chandler, reinvented the detective genre in the 1930's and 1940's. They moved the genre away from the amateurish and simple parlor detectives that had previously dominated the genre to hard-boiled action characters who knew what was what and didn't mind taking a beating to get the bad guys. And along the way they produced some very memorable literary characters as well. Nick Charles (and Nora), Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are well known exemplars of the action detective.

Hammett and Chandler also speak to a different, more macho if you will, but also a more world-wary and world-weary style of detection than today’s hyper-extended and techno-detail-oriented detectives who rely on computers and gadgetry more than guts. Still, with few exceptions, it is hard now to find a better proto-type for the kind of detective that writers of detective fiction wished they had, in their long, smoke-filled, whiskey-soaked, staring at that blank white page, writer nights (and we will not even speak of the days), dreamed up than Sam Spade. Nor a better, sparse, functional language-filled story line than old Dashiell Hammett thought up."

In literature and film there have been no lack of private detective-types depicted from the urbane Nick and Nora Charles (also a Hammett creation) of The Thin Man series to Mickey Spillane's rough and tumble Mike Hammer but the classic model for all modern ones is Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade (the Humphrey Bogart role in the film) in The Maltese Falcon. Some may argue on behalf of Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe and may have a point but as for film adaptations Spade wins hands down. Compare, if you will, Bogart's performance in The Maltese Falcon with his performance (good as it was, and as “hot” as it was with real life lady love, Lauren Bacall, be still my heart, co-starring) The Big Sleep. Get my point. But enough of that. What make's Spade the classic is his intrepidness, his orneriness, his dauntless dedication to the task at hand, his sense of irony, his incorruptibility, his willingness to take an inordinate amount of bumps and bruises for paltry fees and his off-hand manner with the ladies, femme fatales included, and a gun. And in The Maltese Falcon he needs all of these qualities and then some.

And for what? It is the bird, stupid. You know, the stuff that dreams are made of. This modern tale of greed and desire gets nicely worked with a cast of adventurers, including Sam's love interest, one femme fatale, Brigid, of course, who are serious, inept, and ultimately dangerous. There is a certain amount of off-hand humor as is warranted by some of the situations thrown in to boot. Sam is well up to handling everything thrown at him by is male adversaries. But, the dame (played by Mary Astor in the film), that is a different question. She is as greedy (if not more so) than the rest but she is ready to use her feminine wiles on even the incorruptible Spade in order to get that damn bird. That, dear friends, puts her beyond the pale and she will have many a lonely night in prison to think that through. In the end Sam's honor and the honor of his private detective profession is intact, and that's what counts in his world. Counts big, as it turns out.

In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Film “Casablanca”- Out In The 1950s Be-Bop Crime Noir Night- Humphrey Bogart’s “Beat The Devil”-A Film Review

DVD Review

Beat The Devil, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, directed by John Huston, 1953

When Humphrey Bogart was in his prime, say from the time of Petrified Forest in the late 1930s until say 1947’s Dark Passage, he was hands down king of film noir hill. No question. There were prettier faces (Clark Gable), there were better actors (Spencer Tracey), there were actors with more angst per ounce (Montgomery Cliff) but for sheer gritty, grizzled, gnarly (nice, huh) film presence Bogie was the one. Of course even those who have not kept up with their history know that every king (or queen) has his (or her) day. And then-done. Well, not exactly done but since actors, like some generals, only fade away and hang on for just as long as studios think they have “start” quality to put in the bank. In the film under review, Beat The Devil, our man Bogie is in such a quandary. Clearly, on the screen, it is almost painful to see his physical decline from his prime (only slightly hidden by “make-up magic”) if not his ability to throw off a few off-hand devil take the hinter-post lines in this one.

Fortunately this film, directed skillfully to enhance the black and white features, by John Huston, is not desperately in need of “high” Bogie to carry it along. The story line, about a motley crew of “desperados” seeking fame and fortune in post-World War Africa is fairly straight forward and mundane. Unfortunately, for them, they are stuck in an out-of the-way port in Italy. The keys to the kingdom that this crew is trying to corner in the heated up Cold War world- uranium (or some other equally precious commodity, if thinks turn out badly). If in earlier times gold or diamonds stirred men’s (and women’s) greedy thoughts just then in that red scare night it was that particularly important produce. However not for one moment can any of the parties (and those like Ms. Jennifer Jones and her down-at-the-heels British husband who wonder what this crew is doing out in the sticks) take one eye, much less two, off the others. And that, more than the thin plot line, is what carries the day here. The collective day, with likes of Robert Benchley, Peter Lorre and Ms. Jones, playing off against Bogie’s world-wary, world-weary performance. Add into the mix a little off-hand undone infidelity for the good of the cause and that makes a very interesting mix. If you need classic “high” Bogie then go to Casablanca, To Have or Have Not or The Big Sleep. But if you want to see him play against type and in an ensemble performance watch this one.

In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Film “Casablanca”- When Humphrey Bogart Ruled The Crime Noir Night- "Dead Reckoning"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Humphrey Bogart’s Dead Reckoning.



Dead Reckoning, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, 1947. 

Elsewhere in this space I have noted my love for film noir. The black and white photography, the story lines, the sparse and functional language. However, not all film noir is created equal and that is the case here. Humphrey Bogart was a classic match for the genre-tough, rugged, resolute, loyal and always loyal to a pal come what may. Such roles as Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep or Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon come to mind. Here he tries to milk that work without being a detective but with the same qualities as he tries to defend the honor of a fallen and maligned fellow soldier. Add Lizabeth Scott as the femme fatale who jams up the works and you would seemingly have the makings of a fine film. When the plot holds interest to a point there is a very strong sense of déjà vu from previous work. If you want to see the film noir master at work then see Bogie in The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon. Save this one for back up.

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-LessonsForToday-The Bolshevik Revolution Versus The State Church

From The Marxist Archives-The Bolshevik Revolution Versus The State Church 

Frank Jackman comment:

Usually when I post something from some other source, mostly articles and other materials that may be of interest to the radical public that I am trying to address I place the words “ A View From The Left” in the headline and let the subject of the article speak for itself, or let the writer speak for him or herself without further comment whether I agree with the gist of what is said or not. After all I can write my own piece if some pressing issue is at hand. Occasionally, and the sentiments expressed in this article is one such time, I can stand in solidarity with the remarks made. I do so here.