3/25 & 6 National Conference for the Full Normalization of US-CUBA Relations in NYC

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National Conference for the Full Normalization of US-CUBA Relations

END ALL US ECONOMIC, FINANCIAL, AND TRAVEL SANCTIONS AGAINST CUBA!
RETURN GUANTANAMO BAY TERRITORY TO CUBAN SOVEREIGNTY!
STOP US-FUNDED COVERT "REGIME CHANGE" PROGRAMS AGAINST CUBA!

Location:
FORDHAM SCHOOL OF LAW
150 W 62nd St, New York, NY 10023
Near Lincoln Center, two blocks from Central Park. Take A, B,C, D, or 1
subway train to 59th Street/Columbus Circle Station

List of about 20 workshops at the conference.
http://nationalcubaconference.org/work-shops.html

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The July 26th Committee of Boston will be organizing car pooling to
NYC for this.

US-CUBA NORMALIZATION COMMITTEE

Endorsements for the March 25-26, 2017 National Conference on US-Cuba
Normalization at Fordham Law School

Signatures-Endorsements for Invitation to March 25-26, 2017 National
Conference on US-Cuba Normalization at Fordham Law School

Updated 2-15-2017

Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Akubundi Amazu, All African Peoples Revolutionary Party, San Jose, CA
Amadi Ajamu, December 12th Movement
S.E. Anderson, Black Left Unity Network, Author Black Holocaust for
Beginners
Arnold August, Author and Journalist (Canada)
Tom Balanoff, President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Local 1, Chicago*
Iris Baez, Anthony Baez Foundation
Nellie Bailey, WBAI Radio, Host and Producer Behind the News
Clever Banganayi, Deputy General Secretary, Friends of Cuba Society,
South Africa
Fr. Luis Barrios, John Jay College of Criminal Justice – CUNY
Thomas Blanton, Solidaridad Exportaciones, Washington, DC
Keith Bolender, Author, Voices from the Other Side
Nancy Cabrero, Casa de las Americas
Leslie Cagan, Peace and Justice Organizer
Joe Callahan, Minnesota Cuba Committee
William Camacaro, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle
Emily Coffey, Engage Cuba Colorado Council
Mariela Castro Espin, Director, Cuban National Center for Sex Education
(CENESEX)
Greg Clave, Co-Chair, National Network on Cuba
Omowale Clay, December 12th Movement
Dr. Andy Coates, Former President, Physicians for a National Healthcare Plan
Jason Corley, July 26 Coalition
Dr. John Cox, Professor of Global Studies, University of North Carolina
Charlotte, Director, Center for Holocaust, Genocide &Human Rights Studies
Tim Craine, Greater Hartford Coalition on Cuba
Jodi Dean, Professor, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
James Early, Institute for Policy Studies Board, Former Director
Cultural Heritage Policy
Smithsonian Institution Center Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Steve Early. Author and Journalist, Trade Union Organizer
Todd Eaton, NYProtest
Fritz Edler, former Local Chairman, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
and Trainmen Division 482, Washington, DC, Railroad Workers United
Soffiyah Elijah
Steve Eckardt, Chicago Cuba Coalition
Howard Ehrman, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Family Medicine and Public
Health, University of Illinois Chicago
Mark Emanation, American Federation of Musicians Local 14*
Bryan Epps, Director, Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and
Educational Center
Malia Everette, Founder and CEO, AltruVistas
Erin Feely-Nahem, LMSW, Cuba Solidarity New York
Jim Ferlo, President Pittsburgh-Matanzas Sister Cities Partnership,
member Pennsylvania State Senate 2003-15
Jon Flanders, Former President International Association of Machinists,
Local 1145, Retired
Franklin Flores, Casa de las Americas
Ellen David Friedman, Labor Notes Policy Committee
Mark Friedman, Los Angeles, Marine Biology Instructor, Los Angeles
Maritime Institute and Redondo Beach CA United School District
Glen Ford, Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report
Albert Fox, Tampa, FL, Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation
Jane Franklin, Author: Cuba and the U.S. Empire: A Chronological History
Pat Fry, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Martin Garbus, Attorney
William Gerena-Rochet, DiaspoRicans/Disporiquenos Network, New York City*
Joan P. Gibbs, Esq
Margaret (Peggy) Gilpin, WBAI Cuba In Focus
Piero Gleijeses. Professor of United States Foreign Policy, Johns
Hopkins University
Stan Goff, Author and Anti-War Activist, US Special Forces (Retired)
Robert Grace, Former Executive Board Member, New York State Public
Employees Federation
Bob Guild, Marazul Charters
Teresa Gutierrez, International Action Center
Larry Hamm, Chairman, People’s Organization for Progress
Tamara Hansen, Author, Cuba solidarity activist, Coordinator, Vancouver
Communities in Solidarity
Tarik Haskins, Universal Zulu Nation
Doug Henwood, author Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom,
contributing editor, The Nation magazine, publisher Left Business Observer
Dr. Alberto Jones, President, Caribbean American Children Foundation
Ben Jones, Artist and Activist, Jersey City, NJ
Alicia Jrapko, Co-Chair, National Network on Cuba
Ron Kaminkow, General Secretary, Railroad Workers United
Chuck Kaufman, Alliance for Global Justice
Stephen Kimber, Professor, School of Journalism, University of King’s
College, Halifax, Canada, Author, What Lies Across the Water: The Real
Story of the Cuban Five
Margaret Kimberley, Editor and Senior Columnist, Black Agenda Report
Dequi Kioni-Sadiki, Chair, Malcolm X Commemoration Committee
Steve Kramer, Vice President 1199SEIU, 1199SEIU Caribbean and Latin
America Democracy Committee
Michael Krinsky, Attorney
Cheryl LaBash, Co-Chair, National Network on Cuba
Ray Laforest, Co-Founder Haiti Support Network
Gloria La Riva, Coordinator, Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee
Dr. Eloise Linger, Professor Emerita, SUNY Old Westbury, former leader
in the section for scholarly relations with Cuba, Latin American Studies
Association (LASA)
Joe Lombardo, United National Antiwar Coalition
Jeff Mackler, National Secretary, Socialist Action
Esperanza Martell, Professor, Hunter College
Pamela Ann Martin, Philadelphia, longtime activist working to end the US
embargo, consultant on legal travel to Cuba
Chris Matlhako, General Secretary, Friends of Cuba Society, South Africa
Luis Matos, World Organization for the Rights of the People to Healthcare
Brother Shepard McDaniel, Universal Zulu Nation
Dr. Rosemari Mealy, Author: Fidel and Malcolm X – Memories of a Meeting
Bob Miller, July 26 Coalition, Sheet Metal and Rail Transportation
(SMART) Union Local 60
Peter Miller, July 26 Coalition of Boston
Rafael Cancel Miranda, Puerto Rican Independence Fighter
Anne Mitchell, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Roberto Monticello, Cuban-American Filmmaker, part of US delegation with
President Obama in Cuba
Radhames Morales, Fuerza de la Revolucion
Derrick Morrison, New Orleans Social Justice Activist
Luci Murphy, Art for the People, Washington, DC
Omari Musa, DC Metro Coalition in Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution
Ike Nahem, Cuba Solidarity New York, July 26 Coalition
Estevan Nembhard, New York District Organizer, Communist Party USA
August Nimtz, Professor of Political Science and African American and
African Studies, University of Minnesota
Sally O’Brien, WBAI Cuba In Focus
Nino Pagliccia, Author, Editor Cuba Solidarity in Canada: Five Decades
of People to People Foreign Relations
Vijay Prashad, Author and Journalist, Professor of International
Studies, Chair in South Asian History, Trinity College
Luis Proyect, The Unrepentent Marxist
Benjamin Ramos Rosado, New York Cuba Solidarity Project
Merle Ratner, Co-Coordinator, Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and
Responsibility Campaign*
Carla Riehle, Minnesota Cuba Committee
Lee Robinson, African Awareness Association, Richmond, VA
Dr. Peter Roman. Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of
Social Sciences Hostos Community College/CUNY
Suzanne Ross, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Pepe Rossy, Albany (New York) Cuba Solidarity
Azza Rojbi, Journalist, Coordinator, Friends of Cuba Against the
Blockade, Vancouver, Canada
Ursula Rozum, Green Party, Central New York
Larry Rubin, Solidaridad Exportaciones, Washington, DC
Malcolm Sacks, Venceremos Brigade
Angelica Salazar, AltruVistas
Cesar Sanchez, July 26 Coalition
Isaac Saney, Co-Chair, Canadian Network on Cuba, Senior Instructor,
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Brock Satter, Mass Action Against Police Brutality*
Bob Schwartz, Disarm/Global Health Partners
Joel Schwartz, Civil Service Employees Association*
Banbose Shango, Co-Chair, National Network on Cuba
Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, President, New York State Nurses Association
Michael Steven Smith, Attorney, Law and Disorder Radio
Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity
Wayne Smith, Retired US State Department official, Chief of Mission, US
Interests Section (now US Embassy) in Havana 1979-82
Johnnie Stevens, Workers World Party
Jan Strout, US Women and Cuba Collaboration
Heide Trampus, Coordinator Worker-To-Worker, Canada-Cuba Labour
Solidarity Network
Walter Turner, President, Board of Directors, Global Exchange
Joel Tyner, Dutchess County, NY Legislator, District 11, representing
Rhinebeck and Clinton
Bandele Tyehimbe, Pan African Connection, USA Revolutionary Party,
Dallas, Texas
Lisa Valanti, Pittsburgh CUBA Coalition
Estela Vazquez, Vice President, 1199SEIU
Amy Velez, New York, Coalition for District Alternatives (CODA)
Frank Velgara, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, Frente Socialista de Puerto
Rico – Comite de Nuevo York
Nalda Vigezzi, Co-chair, National Network on Cuba
Jennifer Wager, Professor, Essex County College
Gail Walker, IFCO/Pastors for Peace
Victor Wallis, Managing Editor, Socialism and Democracy
Michael Warren, Attorney
Mary-Alice Waters, Socialist Workers Party
Aminifu Williams, People’s Organization for Progress
Louis Wolf, DC Metro Coalition in Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution,
Co-Editor Covert Action
Information Bulletin
Dr. Helen Yaffe, Fellow in Economic History, London School of Economics,
Author, Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution
Juanita Young, Longtime fighter against police brutality and killings,
Mother of Malcolm Ferguson,murdered by NYPD
Matilde Zimmermann, Professor Emerita, Sarah Lawrence College

* Organization Listed for Identification Purposes Fordham Law School
Student Organizations Latin American Law Students Association
National Lawyers Guild Chapter
Universal Justice

Additional Endorsing Organizations All African Peoples Revolutionary
Party ANSWER
2017 NYC Voter Campaign For Community Control Of The Police
Capital District Socialist Party of New York State
City College of New York Guillermo Morales-Assata Shakur Community and
Student Center
Engage Cuba Colorado Council
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), James Connolly Upstate New York
Regional General Membership Branch
International Committee for Peace, Justice, and Dignity
Jericho Movement, DC
National Jericho Movement
National Network on Cuba
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Pittsburgh-Matanzas Sister Cities Partnership
Railroad Workers United
Solidarity Committee of the Capital District of New York
The Jericho Movement, DC
Universal Zulu Nation
Safiya Bukhari-Albert Nuh Foundation

National and Local Cuba Solidarity Organizations Albany Cuba Solidarity
July 26 Coalition of Boston
Chicago Cuba Coalition
Cuba Si!, New York-New Jersey
DC Metro Coalition in Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution
Greater Hartford Coalition on Cuba
Minnesota Cuba Committee
Pittsburgh CUBA Coalition
Pittsburgh-Matanzas Sister Cities Partnership

For more information: 917-887-8710
Email: info@nationalcubaconference.org
National Conference Committee for CUBA AND US Normalizaton.
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An Encore -He Saw Starlight On The Rails-With The Irascible Bruce “Utah” Phillips in Mind

An Encore -He Saw Starlight On The Rails-With The Irascible Bruce “Utah” Phillips in Mind

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

Jack Dawson was not sure when he had heard that the old long-bearded son of a bitch anarchist hell of a songwriter, hell of a story-teller Bruce “Utah” Phillips caught the westbound freight, caught that freight around 2007 he found out later a couple of years after he too had come off the bum this time from wife problems, divorce wife problems (that "westbound freight" by the way an expression from the hobo road to signify that a fellow traveler hobo, tramp, bum it did not matter then the distinctions that had seemed so important in the little class differences department when they were alive had passed on, had had his fill of train smoke and dreams and was ready  to face whatever there was to face up in hobo heaven, no, the big rock candy mountain that some old geezer had written on some hard ass night when dreams were all he had to keep him company). That “Utah” moniker not taken by happenstance since Phillips struggled through the wilds of Utah on his long journey, played with a group called the Utah Valley boys, put up with, got through a million pounds of Mormon craziness and, frankly, wrote an extraordinary number of songs in his career by etching through the lore as he found it from all kinds of Mormon sources, including some of the dark pages, the ranch war stuff, the water stuff not the polygamy stuff which was nobody's business except the parties involved of those latter day saints.

For those who do not know the language of the road, not the young and carefree road taken for a couple of months during summer vacation or even a Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac-type more serious expedition under the influence of On The Road (what other travelogue of sorts would get the blood flowing to head out into the vast American Western night) and then back to the grind but the serious hobo “jungle” road like Jack Dawson had been on for several years before he sobered up after he came back from ‘Nam, came back all twisted and turned when he got discharged from the Army back in 1971 and could not adjust to the “real world” of his Carver upbringing in the East and had wound up drifting, drifting out to the West, hitting California and when that didn’t work out sort of ambled back east on the slow freight route through Utah taking the westbound freight meant for him originally passing to the great beyond, passing to a better place, passing to hard rock candy mountain in some versions here on earth before Black River Shorty clued him in.

Of course everybody thinks that if you wind up in Utah the whole thing is Mormon, and a lot of it is, no question, but when Jack hit Salt Lake City he had run into a guy singing in a park. A guy singing folk music stuff, labor songs, travelling blues stuff, the staple of the genre, that he had remembered that Sam Lowell from Carver High, from the same class year as him, had been crazy for back in the days when he would take his date and Jack and his date over to Harvard Square and they would listen to guys like that guy in the park singing in coffeehouses. Jack had not been crazy about the music then and some of the stuff the guy was singing seemed odd now too, still made him grind his teeth.  but back then it either amounted to a cheap date, or the girl actually liked the stuff and so he went along with it.

So Jack, nothing better to do, sat in front of guy and listened. Listened more intently when the guy, who turned out to be Utah (who was using the moniker “Pirate Angel” then, as Jack was using "Daddy Two Cents"  reflecting his financial condition or close to it, monikers a good thing on the road just in case the law, bill-collectors or ex-wives were trying to reach you and you did not want to reached), told the few bums, tramps and hoboes who were the natural residents of the park that if they wanted to get sober, if they wanted to turn things around a little that they were welcome, no questions asked, at the Joe Hill House. (No questions asked was right but everybody was expected to at least not tear the place up, which some nevertheless tried to do.)


That Joe Hill whom the sobering up house was named after by the way was an old time immigrant anarchist who did something to rile the Latter Day Saints up because they threw he before a firing squad with no questions asked. Joe got the last line though, got it for eternity-“Don’t mourn (his death), organize!”                   

Jack, not knowing anybody, not being sober much, and maybe just a tad nostalgic for the old days when hearing bits of folk music was the least of his worries, went up to Utah and said he would appreciate the stay. And that was that. Although not quite “that was that” since Jack knew nothing about the guys who ran the place, didn’t know who Joe Hill was until later (although he suspected after he found out that Joe Hill had been a IWW organizer [Wobblie, Industrial Worker of the World] framed and executed in that very state of Utah that his old friend the late Peter Paul Markin who lived to have that kind of information in his head would have known. See this Joe Hill House unlike the Sallies (Salvation Army) where he would hustle a few days of peace was run by this Catholic Worker guy, Ammon Hennessey, who Utah told Jack had both sobered him up and made him some kind of anarchist although Jack was fuzzy on what that was all about.

So Jack for about the tenth time tried to sober up, liquor sober up this time out in the great desert (later it would be drugs, mainly cocaine which almost ripped his nose off he was so into it that he needed sobering up from). And it took, took for a while.        

Whatever had been eating at Jack kept fighting a battle inside of him and after a few months he was back on the bottle. But during that time at the Joe Hill House he got close to Utah, as close as he had gotten to anybody since ‘Nam, since his friendship with Jeff Crawford from up in Podunk Maine who saved his ass, and that of a couple of other guys in a nasty fire-fight when Charley (G.I. slang for the Viet Cong originally said in contempt but as the war dragged on in half-hearted admiration) decided he did indeed own the night in his own country. Got as close as he had to his corner boys like Sam Lowell from hometown Carver. Learned a lot about the lure of the road, of drink and drugs, of tough times (Utah had been in Korea) and he had felt bad after he fell off the wagon. But that was the way it was. 

Several years later after getting washed clean from liquor and drugs, at a time when Jack started to see that he needed to get back into the real world if he did not want to wind up like his last travelling companion, Denver Shorty, whom he found face down one morning on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge and had abandoned his body fast in order not to face the police report, he noticed that Utah was playing in a coffeehouse in Cambridge, a place called Passim’s which he found out had been taken over from the Club 47 where Sam had taken Jack a few times. So Jack and his new wife (his and her second marriages) stepped down into the cellar coffeehouse to listen up.


As Jack waited in the rest room area a door opened from the other side across the narrow passageway and who came out but Utah. As Jack started to grab his attention Utah blurred out “Daddy Two Cent, how the hell are you?” and talked for a few minutes. Later that night after the show they talked some more in the empty club before Utah said he had to leave to head back to Saratoga Springs in New York where he was to play at the Caffé Lena the next night.         

That was the last time that Jack saw Utah in person although he would keep up with his career as it moved along. Bought some records, later tapes, still later CDs just to help the brother out. In the age of the Internet he would sent occasional messages and Utah would reply. Then he heard Utah had taken very ill, heart trouble like he said long ago in the blaze of some midnight fire, would finally get the best of him. And then somewhat belatedly Jack found that Utah had passed on. The guy of all the guys he knew on the troubled hobo “jungle” road who knew what “starlight on the rails” meant to the wanderers he sang for had cashed his ticket. RIP, brother.

A Writer’s Tale-Vincente Minnelli’s Film Adaptation Of James Jones’ “Some Came Running” (1958)-A Film Review

A Writer’s Tale-Vincente Minnelli’s Film Adaptation Of James Jones’ “Some Came Running” (1958)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Josh Breslin  

Some Came Running, starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, directed by Vincente Minelli, adapted from the novel by James Jones, 1958  

No question I was first drawn to Some Came Running, a film based on the novel of the same name by James Jones whose more famous novel Here To Eternity also was adapted to the screen and stands as one of the great classic films of the modern cinema, by the ex-soldier’s story and then by his plight as a blocked writer. The draw of the ex-soldier’s story reflected something that had been in my own experience about coming back to the “real” world after the military. That seems to be the character played by Frank Sinatra Dave Hirsh’s situation. That inability to go to the nine to five routine, to settle down after military service had shaken him out of his routine rang a bell. In my own military service generation, in my own service, I ran across plenty of guys who couldn’t deal with the “real” world coming back from Vietnam and who tried to hide from that fact as “brothers under the bridges” alternate communities out in places like Southern California. I see and hear about young Iraq and Afghanistan War service personnel having the same woes and worse, having incredibly high suicide rates. So yeah, I was drawn to Dave’s sulky, moody, misshapen view of the world.           

The story line is a beauty. Dave, after a drunk spree, finds he was shipped by bus back in that state by some guys in Chicago to his Podunk hometown in Parkman, Indiana, a town he had fled with all deliberate speed when he was a kid orphaned out by his social-climbing older brother Frank because, well, because he was in the way of that social-climb after their parents die. Dave was not alone in his travels though since he had picked up, or had been attached to, a floozy named Ginny, played by Shirley MacLaine, who will make life hell for him in the end. As he became accustomed to his old hometown and while deciding whether to stay or pick up stakes (the preferred fate of his brother and his also social-climbing wife) he was introduced to a local school teacher Gwen, played by Martha Hyer, who will also make hell for him in the end since he was quickly and madly in love with her but she was seriously stand-offish almost old maid stand-offish since she had had a few tastes of his rough-hewn low life doings. Doings which were encouraged by a gambler, Bama, played by Dean Martin who became his sidekick.        

But here is the hook that almost saved Dave and almost lit a spark under dear Gwen. Dave was a blocked writer, had some time before written a couple of books that were published and had gathered some acclaim, were well written. Gwen attempted to act as his muse, and did prove instrumental in getting a work of his published. To no avail since Dave was not looking for a muse, well, not a muse who wasn’t thinking about getting under the silky sheets. No go, no go despite Dave’s ardent efforts. Frustrated Dave turned to Ginny and whatever charms she had-and the fact that she loved him unconditionally despite their social and intellectual differences. In the end Dave in a fit of hubris decided to marry Ginny after being rebuffed by Gwen enough times. The problem though was that Ginny had a hang on gangster guy trailing her who was making threatening noises about putting Dave, and or Ginny underground. In the end they were not just threatening noises as he wounded Dave and killed poor bedraggled Ginny. Watch this one-more than once and read James Jones’ book too which includes additional chapters about those soldiers who could not relate to the “real” world after their military experiences. This guy could write sure write about that milieu based on his own military service. (There is a famous photograph of Jones, Norman Mailer, and William Styron, the three great soldier boy American literary lights of the immediate post-World War II war period with Jones in uniform if I recall.)                

From NPR-Chronicling Ernest Hemingway’s Relationship With The Soviets-And Then Some-From The Pen Of Ernest Hemingway-Bullfighting 101- "Death In The Afternoon"

From NPR-Chronicling Ernest Hemingway’s Relationship With The Soviets-And Then Some

CIA archivist Nicholas Reynolds discusses his new book, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures. It describes Hemingway's relationship with Soviet intelligence.

Click on link for a piece of Papa Hemingway’s link with the Soviets during World War II 

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/520631331/chronicling-ernest-hemingways-relationship-with-the-soviets

BOOK REVIEW

DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON, ERNEST HEMINGWAY, PUTNAM, NEW YORK, 1931

At the time that Hemingway wrote this book the rather exotic art of bullfighting was fairly unknown to English audiences. Hemingway's book almost single-handedly drove many expatriate Americans and Europeans of the ‘lost generation’ to the corrida. Some of his novels and short stories also have the bullring as a backdrop. This book is an interesting combination of Hemingway’s literary flair and a 'how to' book on the art of bullfighting. The bullfight experience (watching, that is) became a mandatory exercise for later, mainly American, male writers and formed a rite of passage for manly writing. One thinks immediately of Norman Mailer but there were others.

Having watched a bullfight in Mexico I find it hard to see the interest that Hemingway and the others had in the sport. I do not care for prizefighting either, another rite of passage for an earlier generation of writers. I have, on the other hand, seen the 'bullpen' at Fenway Park of the beloved home town Boston Red Sox do things to blow a lead that would shame even a novice matador. On its own terms, Hemingway surely had more than an amateur interest in describing the ritual of the fight and grading the performances of man and beast. That part, in essence, the literary part is what held my interest. If one suspends judgment on the obvious surface brutality of the event and rather delves into the ‘man against nature’ and ‘dancing with death’ aspects of this stylized ritual that is where you will find Hemingway. Ole

In The Days Soviet-American Friendship Society- Humphrey Bogart’s Action In The North Atlantic

In The Days Soviet-American Friendship Society- Humphrey Bogart’s Action In The North Atlantic

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Action In The North Atlantic, starring Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, screenplay by John Howard Lawson, 1943      

No question sailors, guys who are sworn lovers of the sea even if they born in wheat fields, who find landlubbers and stability tough to take are a different breed, especially the guys who served in the merchant marines the subject of the film under review, Humphrey Bogart’s Action In The North Atlantic. No question these were tough guys especially in the old days when they  had a girl in every port, maybe two if they were adventuresome, drank their hard paid wages off in waterfront saloons mixing it up with other sailors, or girls whatever came first and put the fear into even tough old swabbies, navy guys who were no slouches if it came right down to it. Civilians, smart civilians, stayed away from that waterfront or places like Scollay Square in Boston when the ships were in.         

Well some much for the tough guy stuff because this film, a pretty straight forward pro-Allied forces World War II war propaganda film, also showed two other sides of these tough guys. One was their sticking together when times got tough out in the rough seas Atlantic when a big gale could sent a ship down with the fishes and each man needed to be able to depend on the prowess of the others when Mother Nature turned nasty. Also especially during wartime where in addition to the rough seas the Germans were wolf -packing submarines to pick off isolated merchant ships plying the waters to Europe with supplies. That sticking together included their adherence to the National Maritime Union (NMU) and the union hiring hall which was won in hard fought battles against the shipping bosses. A good example of that hiring hall in action is shown in the film as guys lined up to get work on the next ships coming in. The other aspect shows their serious patriotism for their country and its allies in getting the needed supplies to Europe which is the heart of this film.

The action here is pretty straight forward as you would expect, no frills, with the first part of the film showing how vulnerable isolated basically unarmed merchant ships were in the North Atlantic when the U-boats picked up the scent.  Joe (the first officer of the ship played by a grim and determined Humphrey Bogart) and his ship’s captain (played by a grim and determined Robert Massey in an old puritan way evoking a gentler Captain Ahab) show their metal after they are hit by an enemy torpedo and have to abandon ship only to be rammed in their lifeboat by the U-boat and left on a raft for many days before they are rescued.  

Now most civilians, landlubbers, would consider that enough adventure for a life-time and pass on going out to sea again for the duration but not old tars like Joe, the Captain, and the surviving crew. After a short time on shore they are off again on a new ship, a Liberty ship freshly built which made their old sunken tub seem like a clipper ship or something. (Although the film puts the Liberty ships in their best light their record was very uneven since they were built very quickly, one a day from what I heard later when someone from the Fore River Shipyard near where I grew up, and were unreliable overall many going down as a result of poor workmanship.) But this run was to be different a run in a convoy escorted by naval war ships to, well, Murmansk in the Soviet Union, an ally then facing the brunt of the German land and air assaults and in need of supplies, and hence the title of this review.

Of course captains of German U-boats running in wolf packs were licking their lips over this development since it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Or so they thought. The captain and Joe’s Liberty ship drifted from the convoy and they seemed to be dead in the water against a U-boat that was tracking them for the kill. Needless to say despite being down for the count they made that U-boat sink like a stone after ramming it. And so bedraggled the ship got to Murmansk and the much needed supplies get delivered. A job well done and thanks.

A note: The NMU in the World War II period was filled with Communist Party supporters who volunteered for the dangerous Murmansk run as did supporters of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party both groups acting in practical support of their defense of the Soviet Union positions. The screenwriter of the film, John Howard Lawson, after World War II when the red scare Cold War descended on the world and the previous ally, the Soviet Union, became the new main enemy was part of the Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted and jailed for their support to the American Communist Party. Such are world politics.       

A CALL TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE

 

3/19/2017 10:12 AM

United for Justice with Peace

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A CALL TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE

WATER IS LIFE AND THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE STRUGGLE FOR CLEAN WATER EACH DAY

 

From Flint, to Standing Rock to Palestine, water is at stake for the very survival and health of millions of people.  We are engaged in and support all struggles for clean, accessible water for everyone and oppose all privatization, theft/diversion and threats from fossil fuel pipelines that will not support that goal.

 

            JOIN US !

Join the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine as we leaflet and talk with students, medical folks and other commuters about the on-going struggle in Palestine for justice and human rights and access to their own water.

 

When:  Thursday, February 16th, 4:30-5:30PM

Where: Ruggles stop on Orange line (Northeastern side)

 

Upcoming Events: 

Film and Discussion: The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel's Public Relations War in the U.S.	Tuesday, March 21, 2017 - 6:30pm	Church of the Good Shepherd	Watertown
Trump's Global Policies: Russia, the world and implications for the peace movement	Thursday, March 23, 2017 - 7:00pm	Friends Meeting House	Cambridge
U.S. Never-Ending War in the Time of Trump and How to S

In Cambridge Thursday-STAND OUT to mark WORLD WATER DAY.

) STAND OUT to mark WORLD WATER DAY.

A version of this mail was sent out earlier today with incorrect information. This is the corrected information.

 

When:  Thursday, March 22, 5:00-6:00PM

Where: Harvard Square, Cambridge -  in the space in front of Brattle Square Florists (31 Brattle Street), across the street from Dickson’s Hardware.

WATER IS LIFE - THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE STRUGGLE FOR CLEAN WATER EACH DAY

From Flint, to Standing Rock to Palestine, water is at stake for the very survival and health of millions of people.  We are engaged in and support all struggles for clean, accessible water for everyone and oppose all privatization, theft/diversion and threats from fossil fuel pipelines that will not support that goal.

            JOIN US !

Join the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine as we leaflet and talk with students, medical folks and other commuters about the on-going struggle in Palestine for justice and human rights and access to their own water.

 

Upcoming Events: 

Film and Discussion: The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel's Public Relations War in the U.S.	Tuesday, March 21, 2017 - 6:30pm	Church of the Good Shepherd	Watertown
Trump's Global Policies: Russia, the world and implications for the peace movement	Thursday, March 23, 2017 - 7:00pm	Friends Meeting House	Cambridge
U.S. Never-Ending War in the Time of Trump and How to Stop It	Thursday, April 13, 2017 - 7:00pm	Friends Meeting House	Cambridge

More Peace and Justice Events.    How to Submit Events
 

Newsletter: 

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In Boston-Regis Tremblay TONIGHT Mon March 20, 7pm "30 Seconds to Midnight"--the film everyone MUST see

Regis Tremblay TONIGHT Mon March 20, 7pm "30 Seconds to Midnight"--the film everyone MUST see

 

9:00 AM

Amy Hendricksonviamapa-nuclear-disarmament

To  brookline-announce@lists.riseup.net,   wilpfa  and 6 others

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[Thanks to David Rolde for sending. Event organized by Joan Livingston, Thanks Joan!]

Regis Tremblay is going to be in Boston tonight

Monday March 20

7pm at the

Community Church of Boston

(565 Boylston St. in Copley Square)

to show his new movie 'Thirty Seconds to Midnight' about the danger of nuclear annihilation of the world because of U.S. imperialism. I haven't had time to watch the whole movie, but I have watched the first half hour, and I think it is a really good anti-imperialist movie. Regis Tremblay is a longtime anti-war activist from Maine. I know him. A lot of us know him. He is probably best known for his 'Ghosts of Jeju' movie about the struggle to stop the construction of the naval base on Jeju Island Korea by the U.S.-puppet South Korean regime and Samsung; The base will be used to advance U.S. imperialist military power in Asia. More recently Regis has traveled to Russia. He has also recently made a short film with interviews with ordinary Russian people. So anyway I am recommending this event tomorrow. Regis will be there to talk and  answer questions. There is a Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/1749653525349032/  . And you can also watch the 'Thirty Seconds to Midnight' movie online on Regis' website at http://registremblay.com/thirty-seconds-midnight-film-everyone-must-see/ 

~ David Rolde

From: "Joan Livingston" <joanlives@earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 1:38:34 PM
Subject: [BostonUNAC] "30 Seconds to Midnight"--the film everyone MUST see: next Monday, 7pm, CCB

A reminder to peace and climate people and groups (please

forward to anyone I’ve missed, and your friends): a reminder. 

You should have received more detailed info on Regis Tremblay’s 

new film, “30 Seconds to Midnight”—a clear reference to the

Doomsday clock—back in February.*

Just a week away now! Hope you can come and bring many friends to

see this important new film on the three biggest current threats to all

life on the planet: nuclear technology (including nuclear plants, like

Pilgrim); nuclear war; and the ongoing climate catastrophe. 

Hoping for a terrific turnout at the Community Church next

Monday: 7pm on, 565 Boylston Street, Boston.

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"Red" Emma Goldman-The Fate of An Anarchist Woman

DVD REVIEW

MARCH IS WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

EMMA GOLDMAN: AN EXCEEDINGLY DANGEROUS WOMAN, PBS, 2004

Fair portions of the comments made in the following review were also made in a review of Emma Goldman's autobiography Living My Life for Women’s History Month in March 2007. This PBS documentary tracks a great deal of the chronology of events and Ms. Goldman’s reflections on her life made in that book. Needless to say, as is almost always the case with PBS documentaries the filming and editing are top notch even if the politics are fuzzy and reek of do-goodism. As always, as well, with theses types of documentaries you get a plethora of 'talking heads' giving their take on the life of this exceedingly interesting and controversial woman, some expressed quite passionately by comparison with other documentary efforts. Read on.

Sometimes in reviewing a political biography or autobiography of some capitalist hanger-on such as George Bush, Tony Blair or Jacques Chirac it is simply a matter of dismissing a known and deadly political opponent and so heaping scorn up that person is part of the territory of being a leftist militant. For others who allegedly stand in the socialist tradition, like the old theoretical leader of the pre-World War I German social democracy Karl Kautsky, who provide reformist rather than revolutionary solutions to the pressing issues of the day that also tends to be true, as well.

However, with an enigmatic figure like the anarcho-communist and modern day feminist heroine "Red" Emma Goldman it is harder to do the political savaging job that is necessary. Why? Ms. Goldman came out of that tradition of pre-World War I life-style anarchism (made fashionable in the Greenwich Village of the time) where her politics, to the extent that political carping is politics, placed her somewhere on this side of the angels. However, the total effect of her career as an anarchist propagandist, sometime agitator and proponent of women’s rights shows very little as a present day contribution to radical history. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) experiences (recently reviewed here), by comparison, are filled with lessons for today’s militants.

Obviously someone associated with the fiery German immigrant anarchist Johann Most is by any measure going to have trouble with some government at some point in their lives. Most was Goldman's lover and first teacher of the principles of ' propaganda by the deed' anarchism. For those readers not familiar with that tendency the core of the politics is that exemplary actions, not excluding martyrdom, by individual heroic revolutionaries are supposed to act as the catalyst to move the masses. In short, these are the politics of ‘shoot first and ask questions later’. As a tactic within a revolutionary period it may prove necessary and make some sense but as a strategy to put masses in motion, no empathically, no.

Emma's own life provides the case study for the negative aspects of this theory. At the time of the famous bloody Homestead Steel strike in the 1890's here in America Ms. Goldman's lifelong companion and fellow anarchist of the deed, Alexander Berkman, decided that the assassination of one Henry Frick, bloody symbol of capitalist greed in the strike, would serve in order to intensify the struggle of capital against labor. Needless to say, although Mr. Berkman was successful, in part, in his attempt both Mr. Frick and the Homestead plant were back in business forthwith. For his pains Berkman received a long jail sentence.

The most troubling aspect of Ms. Goldman's career for this writer is her relationship to the Bolshevik Revolution. Let us be clear, as readers of this space know, I have not tried to hide the problems generated by that revolution from which, given the course of history in the 20th century, the Soviet Union was never able to recover. However, from Ms. Goldman's descriptions of the problems seen in her short, very short stay in the Soviet Union just after the revolutionary takeover one would have to assume that, like most aspects of her life, this was just one more issue to walk away from because she personally did not like it. She, moreover, became a life-long opponent of that revolution.

In contrast, some pre-World War I anarchists, particularly from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) were able to see the historic importance of the creation of the Soviet state and were drawn to the Communist International. Others, like Emma, used that flawed experiment as a reason to, in essence, reconcile themselves to the bourgeois order. Nowhere is that position, and that tension, more blatantly spelled out that in Spain in 1936.

Spain, 1936 was the political dividing point for all kinds of political tendencies, right and left. While we will allow the rightists to stew in their own juices the various positions on the left in the cauldron of revolution graphically illustrate the roadblocks to revolution that allowed fascism, Spanish style, to gain an undeserved military victory and ruin the political perspectives of at least two generations of Spanish militants. The classic anarchist position, adhered to by Ms. Goldman, is to deny the centrality of conquering and transformation of the capitalist state power (and the old ruling governmental, social, cultural and economic apparatuses). To the anarchist this necessity is somehow to be morphed away by who knows what.

Yes, that is the theory but on the hard ground of Spain that was not the reality as the main anarchist federation FAI/CNT gave political support to the bourgeois republican government and accepted seats in that government. These same elements went on to play a part in disarming the 1937 Barcelona uprising that could have sparked a new revolutionary outburst by the disheartened workers and peasants. So much for anarchist practice in the clutch. Ms. Goldman spent no little ink defending the actions of her comrades in Spain. Wrong on Russia and Spain, on the side of the angels on women's issues and the need to fight capitalism. In short, all over the political map on strategic issues. Still, although Emma was, and her defenders today are, political opponents this writer does not relish that fact. Damn it.