From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-The Embryo Of An Alternate Government-Learn The Lessons Of History-Lessons From The Utopian Socialists- Charles Fourier and The Phalanx Movement-Works of Frederick Engels-A Fragment of Fourier’s On Trade

Click on the headline to link to the archives of the Occupy Boston General Assembly minutes from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. The General Assembly is the core political institution of the Occupy movement. Some of the minutes will reflect the growing pains of that movement and its concepts of political organization. Note that I used the word embryo in the headline and I believe that gives a fair estimate of its status, and its possibilities.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:

There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:

“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the ‘new world’ we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”

A couple of the people that I have talked to lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)

I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one.

Previous historical models readily come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.

In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right of public and private sector workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dues on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Works of Frederick Engels-A Fragment of Fourier’s On Trade [204]

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Source: MECW Volume 4, p. 613;
Written: in the latter half of 1845;
First published: in Deutsches Bürgerbuch für 1846;
Signed: F. Engels


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The Germans are gradually beginning to spoil the communist movement too. Here also being as always the last and most inactive, they believe they can conceal their somnolence by contempt for their predecessors and empty philosophical boasting. Communism has hardly come into existence in Germany before it is being seized on by a whole host of speculative minds who imagine they have performed miracles by translating into the language of Hegelian logic propositions that long ago became commonplaces in France and England and now offering this new wisdom to the world as something unprecedented, as “true German theory”, in order to be able to throw mud to their heart’s content at the “bad practice” and “ridiculous” social systems of the narrow-minded French and English. This always ready German theory, which has had the boundless good fortune to get a whiff of Hegel’s philosophy of history and to become embodied in the scheme of the eternal categories by some dried-up Berlin professor, and which then perhaps leafed through Feuerbach, a few German communist writings and Herr Stein’s book [Lorenz von Stein, Der Socalismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankieichs. Ein Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte]on French socialism, this German theory of the very worst sort has already, without the slightest difficulty, reconstrued French socialism and communism according to Herr Stein, has allotted it a subordinate position, has “overcome” it, and “elevated” it to the “higher stage of development” of the always ready “German theory”.[205] It has never occurred to it, of course, to acquaint itself to any extent with the things to be elevated themselves, to take a look at Fourier, Saint-Simon, Owen and the French Communists — Herr Stein’s meagre extracts are quite sufficient to bring about this brilliant victory of German theory over the wretched efforts of foreigners.

In contrast to this comical arrogance of German theory, which is incapable of dying, it is absolutely necessary to show the Germans what a lot they owe to foreigners since they became concerned with social questions. Among all the pompous phrases now loudly proclaimed in German literature as the basic principles of true, pure, German, theoretical communism and socialism, there has so far not been a single idea which has grown on German soil. What the French or the English said as long as ten, twenty and even forty years ago — and said very well, very clearly, in very fine language — the Germans have now at last during the past year become acquainted with in bits and have Hegelianised, or at best belatedly rediscovered it and published it in a much worse, more abstract form as a completely new discovery. I make no exception here of my own writings. What is peculiar to the Germans is only the bad, abstract, unintelligible and clumsy form in which they have expressed these ideas. And as befits genuine theoreticians, from what the French have produced — they still know almost nothing at all of the English — they have so far found worthy of their attention, apart from the most general principles, only what is worst and most theoretical: the schematic plans of future society, the social systems. The best aspect, the criticism of existing society, the real basis, the main task of any investigation of social questions, they have calmly pushed aside. Not to mention the fact that these wise theoreticians are accustomed also to speak contemptuously of, or to ignore altogether, the only German who has really achieved something, namely: Weitling.

I want to put before these wise gentlemen a short chapter from Fourier, which they could take as an example. It is true that Fourier did not start out from the Hegelian theory and for this reason unfortunately could not attain knowledge of absolute truth, not even of absolute socialism. It is true that owing to this shortcoming Fourier unfortunately allowed himself to be led astray and to substitute the method of series for the absolute method and thereby arrived at such speculative constructions as the conversion of the sea into lemonade, the couronnes boréale and australe, the anti-lion, and the conjunction of the planets. [206] But, if it has to be, I shall prefer to believe with the cheerful Fourier in all these stories rather than in the realm of the absolute spirit, where there is no lemonade at all, in the identity of Being and Nothing and the conjunction of the eternal categories. French nonsense is at least cheerful, whereas German nonsense is gloomy and profound. And then, Fourier has criticised existing social relations so sharply, with such wit and humour that one readily forgives him for his cosmological fantasies, which are also based on a brilliant world outlook.

The fragment which I am reproducing here was found among Fourier’s works after his death and was printed in the first number of the periodical Phalange [La Phalange. Revue de la science sociale, XIVE année, 1re série in 8o, Paris, aux Bureaux de la Phalange, 1845. — Publication des Manuscrits de Fourier: “Section ébauchée des trois unités externes”, pp. 1-42 of the January and February issue. — Note by Engels], published by the Fourierists from the beginning of 1845. I am omitting what relates to Fourier’s positive system and what otherwise is of no interest, and in general am making such free use of the text as is absolutely necessary with the foreign Socialists in order to make the things they wrote with definite aims in view readable to a public which is alien to these aims. This fragment is by no means the most brilliant of Fourier’s writings, nor is it the best of what he wrote about trade — and yet no German Socialist or Communist, with the exception of Weitling, has so far written anything remotely comparable to this rough sketch.

To save the German public the trouble of reading the Phalange itself, I should mention that this periodical is a purely monetary speculation on the part of the Fourierists, and Fourier’s manuscripts published in it are of very unequal value. Messieurs the Fourierists who publish this review are germanised, pompous theoreticians who have replaced the humour with which their teacher unmasked the world of the bourgeoisie by a holy, thoroughgoing theoretical, learned seriousness, for which they are deservedly ridiculed in France and prized in Germany. The description of the imaginary triumphs of Fourierism which they present in the first issue of the Phalange could send a professor of the absolute method into raptures.

I begin my reproductions with a passage which has already been reprinted in the Théorie des quatre mouvements. This is the case with considerable sections of the present fragment of which, however, I shall give only what is most essential.

See On Trade, by Fourier

See The Hierarchy of Bankruptcy, by Fourier

F. Engels
Brussels

A View From The Left- Donkeys in Sheep’s Clothing DSA: Democratic Party “Socialists”

Workers Vanguard No. 1113	2 June 2017

Donkeys in Sheep’s Clothing

DSA: Democratic Party “Socialists”

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) reflects two truths in its name—Democrats and America. As to the “socialist” claim, therein lies the lie. When “political revolution” reveries were dashed after Bernie Sanders pledged allegiance to the hated, neoconservative Clinton, who was in turn defeated by the loathsome Trump, the DSA recruited former Sandernistas angry over stark economic inequality. Boasting thousands of new members and heralded as a “leader in the national resistance against Trump’s administration” by Rolling Stone (8 February), the DSA has stepped in to resuscitate the battered Democratic Party.

It doesn’t take much to recognize that the brazenly corporate Wall Street Democrats are not “accountable” to the little guy. But the self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Sanders serves the interests of the same ruling class. Witness his support for U.S. imperialist wars and military adventures abroad, not to mention for the infamous 1994 “anti-crime” mass incarceration bill and his disregard for Black Lives Matter. After Sanders was kicked to the curb by the Democratic Party, the DSA called to support Hillary in contested states and to “vote your conscience” in “safe” states. In effect, this meant prominent DSAers like Cornel West could endorse Jill Stein of the small-time capitalist Green Party—which itself functions as a way station for disgruntled liberals on their way back to the Democratic Party fold.

Nothing new here. For decades, the DSA and its social-democratic forebears have rallied behind the “lesser evil” capitalist Democrats in the name of the “left wing of the possible.” Today, the DSA promotes “fight the right” candidates, including running its own members for local offices like city council, to defeat both Republicans and establishment Democrats. Nonetheless, even the DSA’s alleged left wing, which claims to reject the longstanding policy of “realignment” with liberal Democrats, cautions against “an immediate and total break from voting for or supporting any Democratic candidate” (dsausa.org, 29 October 2016). Millions of people desperate for decent jobs and affordable housing, education, and health care are not offered a pretense of relief by the Democrats. But the DSA does their donkeywork to contain social discontent and refurbish their image in time for the next elections.

Buyer beware: socialists cannot transform the Democrats, but the Democrats will co-opt self-proclaimed socialists. The precondition for any successful revolutionary struggle is the complete political independence of the working class from all parties of the capitalist class enemy. The working class creates the wealth of society and has the objective interest and social power to overthrow the capitalist order. It can liberate itself and all the oppressed only through socialist revolution.

Eager to become more palatable to millennial activists, DSAers launched the journal Jacobin, which includes a broad spectrum of other leftist and reformist contributors. DSA vice-chair Bhaskar Sunkara, founder and editor of Jacobin, claims that Jacobin offers a “Marxist analysis,” while denouncing leftist “crazies” and making clear that he’d “rather engage with the mass mainstream of U.S. liberalism” (Boston Review, 18 December 2012). Indeed, Sunkara has been praised by MSNBC Democratic Party media hack Chris Hayes for his “amazing magazine.” Looking to cash in, fake socialists like the International Socialist Organization and Socialist Alternative are backers of Jacobin’s social-democratic project.

Behind his left-academic smokescreen, Sunkara provides old garbage in new pails. He argues that the “resistance movement” must also be directed against “the failed leadership” that allowed Trump to get elected, i.e., he seeks to replace “unpopular Democratic Party leaders” with those a little less so (theguardian.com, 31 January). Hostile to genuine socialism, Jacobin’s perspective does not extend beyond the so-called Scandinavian model of a supposedly gentler bourgeois rule. Such a strategy poses no threat to the capitalist profit system.

Across West Europe, many of the social programs known as the “welfare state” were granted by the capitalist ruling classes in the aftermath of World War II to head off powerful workers movements and as a response to the existence of the Soviet Union which, despite its Stalinist degeneration, represented an alternative to capitalist exploitation and misery. Since the Soviet Union’s destruction in 1991-92, the capitalist rulers have upped their drive to eliminate the social and economic gains won in prior struggles. Several of the social-democratic parties in power have helped carry out massive austerity, union-busting and anti-immigrant attacks, a far cry from cushy working-class paradises.

A resurgent popularity for social democracy among idealistic young activists in the U.S. must be understood against the backdrop of capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and East Europe, a momentous defeat for working people and the oppressed worldwide. Among left-leaning youth, subjected to two-plus decades of “death of communism” propaganda, Marxism is widely perceived to have been a failed experiment. It is a measure of the extreme rightward shift in society, marked by limited and isolated social struggle, that the DSA, a group so committed to upholding imperialist “democracy” and the Democratic Party, can appear as socialist.

From the Graveyard of the Second International

A “stinking corpse”—that’s how revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg described the reformist social democrats of the Second (Socialist) International, to which the DSA is still affiliated. The Second International’s decisive moment of betrayal was World War I, when its dominant parties each supported the war efforts of their “own” imperialist bourgeoisies. Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin denounced this betrayal and called for a break with the social chauvinists. The split between the revolutionaries and opportunists laid the ground for the first successful proletarian seizure of power, the 1917 Bolshevik-led October Revolution in Russia, which the social democrats opposed. The line between social democracy and Leninism is drawn in blood: in January 1919, amid proletarian upheaval in Germany, Luxemburg and fellow Spartacist Karl Liebknecht were assassinated by reactionary military forces at the behest of the social democrats.

Enemies of workers revolution, the social democrats have always actively promoted counterrevolution in countries where capitalist rule was overthrown—such as the Soviet Union or Cuba today. Genuine Marxists—i.e., Trotskyists—stand for the unconditional military defense of these workers states, while fighting for political revolution to oust the Stalinist misrulers and replace them with governments based on revolutionary internationalism and workers democracy.

In the 1960s and ’70s, a period of heightened class and social struggle, hatred for the U.S. government and the Democratic Party was elementary for any self-identified radical. It was distinctly in opposition to this radicalization that the predecessors of the DSA cohered. Organized in the Socialist Party (SP), the social democrats during the Cold War acted as loyal servants of the U.S. government and made careers out of anti-Communist crusading around the world. One of these “State Department socialists” was the late Michael Harrington, who left the SP when it split up in 1973 and went on to found the DSA.

While in the SP, Harrington worked tirelessly to keep the civil rights movement within the confines of bourgeois reformism and the Democratic Party. Among Harrington’s claims to fame was braintrusting John F. Kennedy’s, and later Lyndon B. Johnson’s, bogus “war on poverty” with his 1962 bestselling book The Other America. During the U.S.’s losing war in Vietnam, Harrington and his cohorts appealed to the right wing of the antiwar movement, which saw the war as not in America’s best interests. Meanwhile, a growing layer of youth despised U.S. imperialism and wanted a victory to the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese workers and peasants. While Harrington echoed the campaign on behalf of counterrevolutionary imperialism, stating, “I am anti-communist on principle—because I am pro-freedom,” the Spartacist League raised the call: “All Indochina Must Go Communist!”

In 1976, Harrington campaigned for vicious union-buster Jimmy “ethnic purity” Carter, whose human rights campaign was aimed at boosting U.S. imperialism’s credentials in a renewed Cold War drive. The DSA stood side by side with the imperialists who, posturing as champions of “democracy,” funneled arms and money to right-wing military dictatorships and reactionary regimes around the world.

Acting as loyal advisers to U.S. imperialism is in the DSA’s DNA. When the DSA criticizes U.S. bellicosity, its purpose is to paint the warmongers with “humanitarian” colors. In an April 8 statement condemning the recent bombing of Syria, the DSA joins the imperialist hue and cry against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The DSA calls on Washington to “join the international community” in condemning Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons. They go on to urge the United Nations to send weapons inspectors to Syria! The UN and its inspectors have always acted as agents for the imperialists, as in Iraq when they provided a pretext for the 2003 U.S. invasion.

DSA: The Right Wing of the Impossible

The DSA’s website declares, “At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end.” When the term democracy is raised, Marxists always ask: for what class? There is no such thing as “pure” democracy. Capitalism is a class society ruled over by a narrow layer of exploiters. As Lenin wrote in 1918: “Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor.”

The democratic facade is designed to obscure the fact that the capitalist state, with its cops, courts, prisons and military, is an instrument for organized violence against the working class and oppressed at home and for military onslaught against the peoples of the world abroad. For the DSA, touting “democracy” is simply an appeal to liberal, anti-communist public opinion.

For some activists, the DSA/Jacobin is a social milieu for causes like combating racism, anti-immigrant chauvinism, and bigotry against women and gays. To the extent that the DSA has any use for the oppressed, it’s to offer them up as voting cattle. Like the bulk of the reformist left, the DSA acted as cheerleaders for Obama in 2008 and 2012, pushing the lie that his election would bring some relief to the masses. But having a black overseer of the capitalist plantation didn’t change the reality of black oppression, which is endemic to American capitalist rule.

The DSA also offers up its supporters as aspiring recruits to the pro-capitalist, sellout labor bureaucracy, which ties workers to the class enemy through the Democrats. Labor officialdom, assisted by the fake-socialist hangers-on, has long rejected the class-struggle methods that built the unions. In the 1940s and ’50s, the social democrats helped spearhead the McCarthyite red purges in the unions, driving out communist militants and setting the stage for decades of defeat. No wonder most young activists don’t recognize the working class as the agency for social change.

One of the biggest labor defeats was the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers strike. When President Reagan fired the workforce of 12,000, we called on labor to shut down the airports. But “Wimpy” Winpisinger, president of the IAM machinists union, which organized the ground crews and mechanics, refused to call solidarity strike action. Winpisinger was a self-declared “socialist” and leader of the DSA. As we wrote at the time, “Betrayal is the only name for this backstabbing!” (“Unchain Labor!” WV No. 288, 11 September 1981).

The course charted by the reformist left today, that is, a progression of baby steps of reform through building “movements” that will supposedly pressure the capitalist state into enacting a decent social order, has never worked anywhere, at any time. Socialism requires the abolition of wage slavery and private property through workers revolution. Only then can we lay the basis for rationally planned economies based on production for need, not profit, and for qualitative development of the productive forces, opening the road to the elimination of scarcity and to the creation of an egalitarian society. Exposing the fake-socialist pretensions of organizations like the DSA is crucial to removing the obstacles to workers and young radicals seeking a revolutionary alternative to this system of exploitation, poverty, racism and war.

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-Before The Gonzo Wave Receded- The Life and Work Of Hunter Thompson- A Second Look

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-Before The Gonzo Wave Receded- The Life and Work Of Hunter Thompson- A Second Look

Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet, and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.

After completing that project, or maybe while completing it I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.

The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it seems relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included hopefully for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.           

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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017                

Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion, photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful expression.

That project subsequently got me started thinking about the late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of 1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.     

Here is what is important today though, about how the dots get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today. Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are you when we need, desperately need, you.       

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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017 

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In the times of this 50^th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20^th of this year.   

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  

DVD REVIEW

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride, Indeed

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride: The Life And Times Of Doctor Hunter Thompson, Hunter Thompson and various commentators, 2007

Since Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s death by suicide and the extravaganza of the funereal flight of his ashes at Woody Creek in 2005 there has been a veritable avalanche of documentaries, books and other forms of tribute by his friends, like Ralph Steadman and Johnny Depp, his associates, like Jann Wanner and David Brinkley, and others. Whatever other intention each tribute may have they all have in common a desire to influence that crucial “first draft of history” in order to assure Thompson’s place in the pantheon of 20th century American letters. There is no question that Thompson belongs there and furthermore no question that his work will be read even by future digitally-centered 'cyberspace' generations (who will, I am sure, get a kick out of that old mojo wire of his as we did in our time on discovering something like an old antique crank-up telephone). What is at question is the extent that each tribute, including this 2007 documentary, adds or detracts from that commemoration.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this space on the subject of albums of musical tributes to legendary folk, rock and blues stars not all such efforts are create equally. Nor, in the case of Thompson, do such tributes all cover the same ground (although on such a narrow subject as the hey day of Hunter Thompson’s best work there is bound to be, and is, overlap). In the very recent past I have reviewed another Thompson documentary tribute- “Gonzo: The Life And Work Of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson”- that concentrated on his rising career as a hip 1960’s journalist and political commentator. The center of that piece was Thompson’s journalistic efforts in the period from the mid-1960’s, including the personally decisive 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, to the rise of Jimmy Carter’s presidential candidacy in the mid-1970’s.

The current film tends to concentrate more on Thompson’s emergence as an icon at a later period and on the effect that two films about him- “Where The Buffalo Roam” and “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas” contributed to that status. Moreover, unlike “Gonzo” that was filled with commentary by more political types, like former presidential candidates George McGovern and Gary Hart, or on the evolution of his journalism by the likes of his "Rolling Stone” boss Jann Wanner and the writer Tom Wolfe (of “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” fame) this work features more Hollywood film-types like Thompson friends Sean Penn, Johnny Depp and John Cusack. I, thus, give the edge to “Gonzo” as the more important and informative film because, in the final analysis Thompson’s legacy for future generations will be those many, many printed words that keep us going on many a hard night out on the edge.

Finally, I would make this comment that I have made in “Gonzo” and in reviews of some of Hunter’s books.

“Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists and other progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self defense, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a known dope fiend, gun freak and all-around lifestyle addict like the late, lamented Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far from any thought of a socialist solution and would reject such a designation we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us- but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.”

Hunter, I hope that you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Damn, the 2008 campaign, despite the hoopla, was boring without your knife even if at the end it was not as sharp as in the old days. Watch this DVD. And then “buy the ticket, take the ride” and read his books.

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- Before The Gonzo Wave Receded- The Life and Work Of Hunter Thompson

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- Before The Gonzo Wave Receded- The Life and Work Of Hunter Thompson





Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For Hunter S. Thompson. Beware Of This Source For Doctor Gonzo Information. I Think He Has His Mojo Working to Disrupt Entries.

DVD REVIEWS

Gonzo: The Life And Work Of Doctor Hunter Thompson, Hunter Thompson and various commentators, Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2007

Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists and other progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self defense, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a known dope fiend, gun freak and all-around lifestyle addict like the late, lamented Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far from any thought of a socialist solution and would reject such a designation we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us- but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.

That said, the DVD under review, complete with the “talking head” commentaries by those who knew him like his hard-pressed wife and ex-wife, Professor Douglas Brinkley and Jann Warner (of “Rolling Stone”) and pertinent readings from his works by the likes of Johnny Depp is both a valentine to his memory and a rather full exposition of his most creative years from the late 1960’s to the mid-1970’s. From his success with the still worthy book “The Hell’s Angels” about the West Coast outlaw bikers, which took him to the dark side of the counter-culture of the 1960’s, to “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas”, which took him to the dark side of the American dream, to “Fear and Loathing on Campaign Trail 1972” with his companion the “Brown Buffalo” , Oscar Acosta, which took him to the dark side of American politics he fearlessly (some would say recklessly) skewered one and all in the fight for new cultural values.

I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself or wanted to been seen as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968 being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu. His earlier writings show that effect. His work from South America in the early 1960's, for example, is almost straight journalism. His later best stuff was on a different order of magnitude. Only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. As with all journalists and in the end that was his forte, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time lines and for mass circulation media these pieces show an uneven quality. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others will have to push on further.

One should note that ‘gonzo’ journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within himself/herself as an actor in the story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in other disciplines like history and political science is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best, and those are mainly his early works highlighted here, that was Hunter’s way.

As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that this was a period of particular importance which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States and all- around political chameleon. Thompson went way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick him when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon represented the ‘dark side’ of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Damn, the 2008 campaign, despite the hoopla, was boring without your knife. Watch this DVD. And then read his books.

Rosalie Sorrels Passes At 83-Don’t Mourn- Organize (And Maybe Sing A Song Or Two) - In Honor Of Labor Agitator/Songwriter Joe Hill-Utah Phillips At The Ready

Rosalie Sorrels Passes At 83-Don’t Mourn- Organize (And Maybe Sing A Song Or Two) - In Honor Of Labor Agitator/Songwriter Joe Hill-Utah Phillips At The Ready

If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go Round At 83

By Music Critic Bart Webber

Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in (and the former two never got over since they will still tell a tale or two about the times if you go anywhere within ten miles of the subject-I will take my chances here because this notice is important) all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. That is where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers who sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.  

But there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some other colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s where some of those names played but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.

Yeah, out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is different, where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A tough life when the original pioneers drifted westward from Eastern nowhere looking for that pot of gold or at least some fresh air and a new start away from crowded cities and sweet breathe vices. Tough for guys like Joe Hill who tried to organize the working people against the sweated robber barons of his  day (they are still with us as we are all now very painfully aware.Tough too when you landed in rugged beautiful two-hearted river Idaho, tried to make a go of it in Boise, maybe stopped short in Helena but you get the drift. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes.  

The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. She was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember her cover of her classic Old Devil Time that night -yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels

     

Joe Hill’s Last Will

My will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide,
My kin don’t need to fuss and moan-
“Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.”
My body? Ah, If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will,
Good luck to all of you, Joe Hill

Joe Hill was an IWW man. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was, and is a radical union dedicated to abolishing the wage system and replacing it with a democratic system of workplace organization.

Joe Hill was a migrant laborer to the US from Sweden, a poet, musician and union radical. The term “pie in the sky” is believed to come from his satirical song, “The Preacher and the Slave”.

Hill was framed for murder and executed by firing squad in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 19, 1915. His last words were, “Fire!”

Just before his death he wrote to fellow IWW organizer Big Bill Haywood a letter which included the famous words, “Don’t mourn, Organize”.

The poem above was his will. It was set to music and became the basis of a song by Ethel Raim called “Joe Hill’s Last Will”.

A praise poem by Alfred Hayes became the lyrics of the best-known song about Joe Hill, written in 1936 by Earl Robinson. This was sung so beautifully by Joan Baez at Woodstock in 1969:

Joe Hill

words by Alfred Hayes
music by Earl Robinson

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
“I never died” said he,
“I never died” said he.

“In Salt Lake, Joe,” says I to him,
him standing by my bed,
“They framed you on a murder charge,”
Says Joe, “But I ain’t dead,”
Says Joe, “But I ain’t dead.”

“The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe” says I.
“Takes more than guns to kill a man”
Says Joe “I didn’t die”
Says Joe “I didn’t die”

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe “What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize”

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where working-men defend their rights,
it’s there you find Joe Hill,
it’s there you find Joe Hill!

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
“I never died” said he,
“I never died” said he.

"The Preacher And The Slave"

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;
But when asked how ’bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die

And the Starvation Army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray,
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you’re on the bum

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out
And they holler, they jump and they shout
Give your money to Jesus, they say,
He will cure all diseases today

If you fight hard for children and wife-
Try to get something good in this life-
You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries, unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain

You will eat, bye and bye,
When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry;
Chop some wood, ’twill do you good
Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye

The chorus is sung in a call and response pattern.

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]
In that glorious land above the sky [Way up high]
Work and pray [Work and pray] live on hay [live on hay]
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die [That's a lie!]

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]
When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry [How to fry]
Chop some wood [Chop some wood], ’twill do you good [do you good]
Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye [That's no lie]

THE REBEL GIRL

by Joe Hill /words updated/

There are women of many descriptions
In this cruel world as everyone knows
Some are living in beautiful mansions
And wearing the finest of clothes

There's the blue blooded queen and the princess
Who have charms made of diamonds and pearls
But the only and true kind of lady
Is the Rebel Girl

chorus:
She's a rebel girl, a rebel girl
To the working class she's the strength of this world
From Newfoundland to B.C.
She's fighting for you and for me

Yes she's there by our side
With her courage and pride
She's unequalled anywhere

And I'm proud to fight for freedom
With the rebel girl!


Pete Seeger Lyrics

Joe Hill Lyrics

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you or me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he,
"I never died," says he

"In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,
Him standing by my bed.
"They framed you on a murder charge."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The copper bosses killed you, Joe,
They shot you, Joe," says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man."
Says Joe, "I didn't die,"
Says Joe, "I didn't die."

And standing there as big as life,
And smiling with his eyes,
Joe says, "What they forgot to kill
Went on to organize,
Went on to organize."

"Joe Hill ain't dead," he says to me,
"Joe Hill ain't never died.
Where working men are out on strike,
Joe Hill is at their side,
Joe Hill is at their side."

"From San Diego up to Maine
In every mine and mill,
Where workers strike and organize,"
Says he, "You'll find Joe Hill."
Says he, "You'll find Joe Hill."

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you or me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he,
"I never died," says he.

Pete Seeger Lyrics

Talking Union Lyrics

If you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do;
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you;
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
But if you all stick together, now, 'twont he long.
You'll get shorter hours,
Better working conditions.
Vacations with pay,
Take your kids to the seashore.

It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train;
'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We'll all be waiting till Judgment Day;
We'll all he buried - gone to Heaven -
Saint Peter'll be the straw boss then.

Now, you know you're underpaid, hut the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work till you're 'bout to faint,
You may he down and out, but you ain't beaten,
Pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'
Talk it over - speak your mind -
Decide to do something about it.

'Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
To go to your meeting and act like a stool;
But you can always tell a stool, though - that's a fact;
He's got a yellow streak running down his back;
He doesn't have to stool - he'll always make a good living
On what he takes out of blind men's cups.

You got a union now; you're sitting pretty;
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.
The boss won't listen when one man squawks.
But he's got to listen when the union talks.
He better -
He'll be mighty lonely one of these days.

Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous,
They're paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell,
"Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell."
Well, he's puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick,
He thinks he's got your union licked.
He looks out the window, and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree
He's a bastard - unfair - slave driver -
Bet he beats his own wife.

Now, boy, you've come to the hardest time;
The boss will try to bust your picket line.
He'll call out the police, the National Guard;
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card.
They'll raid your meeting, hit you on the head.
Call every one of you a goddamn Red -
Unpatriotic - Moscow agents -
Bomb throwers, even the kids.

But out in Detroit here's what they found,
And out in Frisco here's what they found,
And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found,
And down in Bethlehem here's what they found,
That if you don't let Red-baiting break you up,
If you don't let stool pigeons break you up,
If you don't let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don't let race hatred break you up -
You'll win. What I mean,
Take it easy - but take it!

*****Frank Jackman’s Fate-With Bob Dylan’s Masters of War In Mind

*****Frank Jackman’s Fate-With Bob Dylan’s Masters of War In Mind

 

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

Jack Callahan’s old friend from Sloan High School in Carver down in Southeastern Massachusetts Zack James (Zack short for Zachary not as is the fashion today to just name a baby Zack and be done with it) is an amateur writer and has been at it since he got out of high school. Found out that maybe by osmosis, something like that, the stuff Miss Enos taught him junior and senior years about literature and her favorite writers Hemingway, Edith Wharton and Dorothy Parker to name a few, that she would entice the English class stuck with him with through college where although he majored in Political Science he was in thrall to the English literature courses that he snuck in to his schedule. Snuck in although Zack knew practically speaking he had a snowball’s chance in hell, an expression he had learned from Hemingway he thought,  of making a career out of the literary life as a profession, would more likely wind driving a cab through dangerous midnight sections of town  occasionally getting mugged for his night’s work. That Political Science major winding up producing about the same practical results as the literary life though. Stuck with him, savior stuck with him, through his tour of duty during the Vietnam War, and savior stayed with him through those tough years when he couldn’t quite get himself back to the “real” world after ‘Nam and let drugs and alcohol rule his life so that he wound up for some time as a “brother under the bridge” as Bruce Springsteen later put the situation in a song that he played continuously at times after he first heard it “Saigon, long gone…."  Stuck with him after he recovered and started building up his sports supplies business, stuck with him through three happy/sad/savage/acrimonious “no go” marriages and a parcel of kids and child support.  And was still sticking with him now that he had time to stretch out and write longer pieces, and beat away on the word processor a few million words on this and that.  

Amateur writer meaning nothing more than that he liked to write and that writing was not his profession, that he did not depend on the pen for his livelihood(or rather more correctly these days not the pen but the word processor). That livelihood business was taken up running a small sports apparel store in a mall not far from Lexington (the Lexington of American revolutionary battles to give the correct own and state) where he now lived. Although he was not a professional writer his interest was such that he liked these days with Jimmy Shore, the famous ex-runner running the day to day operations of the store, to perform some of his written work in public at various “open mic” writing (and poetry) jams that have sprouted up in his area.

This “open mic” business was a familiar concept to Jack from the days back in the 1960s when he would go to such events in the coffeehouses around Harvard Square and Beacon Hill to hear amateur folk-singers perfect their acts and try to be recognized as the new voice of their generation, or something like that. For “no singing voice, no musical ear” Jack those were basically cheap date nights if the girl he was with was into folk music. The way most of the "open mics" although they probably called them talent searches then, worked was each performer would sign up to do one, two, maybe three songs depending on how long the list of those wishing to perform happened to be (the places where each performer kicked in a couple of bucks in order to play usually had shorter lists). These singers usually performed in the period in front of the night’s feature who very well might have been somebody who a few weeks before had been noticed by the owner during a pervious "open mic" and asked to do a set of six to sixteen songs depending on the night and the length of the list of players in front of him or her. The featured performer played, unlike the "open mic" people, for the “basket” (maybe a hat) passed around the crowd in the audience and that was the night’s “pay.” A tough racket for those starting out like all such endeavors. The attrition rate was pretty high after the folk minute died down with arrival of other genre like folk rock, heavy rock, and acid rock although you still see a few old folkies around the Square or playing the separate “open mic” folk circuit that also ran through church coffeehouses just like these writing jams.

Jack was not surprised then when Zack told him he would like him to come to hear him perform one of his works at the monthly third Thursday “open mic” at the Congregational Church in Arlington the next town over from Lexington. Zack told Jack that that night he was going to perform something he had written and thought on about Frank Jackman, about what had happened to Frank when he was in the Army during Vietnam War times.

Jack knew almost automatically what Zack was going to do, he would somehow use Bob Dylan’s Masters of War lyrics as part of his presentation. Jack and Zack ( a Vietnam veteran who got “religion” on the anti-war issue while he in the Army and became a fervent anti-war guy after that experience despite his personal problems) had met Frank in 1971 when they were doing some anti-war work among the soldiers at Fort Devens out in Ayer about forty miles west of Boston. Frank had gotten out of the Army several months before and since he was from Nashua in the southern part of New Hampshire not far from Devens and had heard about the G.I. coffeehouse, The Morning Report, where Jack and Zack were working as volunteers he had decided to volunteer to help out as well.

Now Frank was a quiet guy, quieter than Jack and Zack anyway, but one night he had told his Army story to a small group of volunteers gathered in the main room of the coffeehouse as they were planning to distribute Daniel Ellsberg’s sensational whistle-blower expose The Pentagon Papers to soldiers at various spots around the base (including as it turned out inside the fort itself with one copy landing on the commanding general’s desk for good measure). He wanted to tell this story since he wanted to explain why he would not be able to go with them if they went inside the gates at Fort Devens.

Jack knew Zack was going to tell Frank’s story so he told Frank he would be there since he had not heard the song or Frank’s story in a long while and had forgotten parts of it. Moreover Zack wanted Jack there for moral support since this night other than the recitation of the lyrics he was going to speak off the cuff rather than his usual reading from some prepared paper.  

That night Zack was already in the hall talking to the organizer, Eli Walsh, you may have heard of him since he has written some searing poems about his time in three tours Iraq. Jack felt right at home in this basement section of the church and he probably could have walked around blind-folded since the writing jams were on almost exactly the same model as the old folkie “open mics.” A table as you entered to pay your admission this night three dollars (although the tradition is that no one is turned away for lack of funds) with a kindly woman asking if you intended to perform and direct you to the sign-up sheet if so. Another smaller table with various cookies, snacks, soda, water and glasses for those who wished to have such goodies, and who were asked to leave a donation in the jar on that table if possible. The set-up in the hall this night included a small stage where the performers would present their material slightly above the audience. On the stage a lectern for those who wished to use that for physical support or to read their work from and the ubiquitous simple battery-powered sound system complete with microphone. For the audience a bevy of chairs, mostly mismatched, mostly having seen plenty of use, and mostly uncomfortable. After paying his admission fee he went over to Zack to let him know he was in the audience. Zack told him he was number seven on the list so not to wander too far once the session had begun.

This is the way Zack told the story and why Jack knew there would be some reference to Bob Dylan’s Masters of War that night:

Hi everybody my name is Zack James and I am glad that you all came out this cold night to hear Preston Borden present his moving war poetry and the rest of us to reflect on the main subject of this month’s writing jam-the endless wars that the American government under whatever regime of late has dragged us into, us kicking and screaming to little avail.  I want to thank Eli as always for setting this event up every month and for his own thoughtful war poetry. [Some polite applause.] But enough for thanks and all that because tonight I want to recite a poem, well, not really a poem, but lyrics to a song, to a Bob Dylan song, Masters of War, so it might very well be considered a poem in some sense.   

You know sometimes, a lot of times, a song, lyrics, a poem for that matter bring back certain associations. You know some song you heard on the radio when you went on your first date, your first dance, your first kiss, stuff like that which is forever etched in your memory and evokes that moment every time you hear it thereafter. Now how this Dylan song came back to me recently is a story in itself.

You remember Eli back in October when we went up to Maine to help the Maine Veterans for Peace on their yearly peace walk that I ran into Susan Rich, the Quaker gal we met up in Freeport who walked with us that day to Portland. [Eli shouted out “yes.”] I had not seen Susan in about forty years before that day, hadn’t seen her since the times we had worked together building up support for anti-war G.I.s out at the Morning Report coffeehouse in Ayer outside Fort Devens up on Route 2 about thirty miles from here. That’s when we met Frank Jackman who is the real subject of my presentation tonight since he is the one who I think about when I think about that song, think about his story and how that song relates to it.   

Funny as many Dylan songs as I knew Masters of War, written by Dylan in 1963 I had never heard until 1971. Never heard the lyrics until I met Frank out at Fort Devens where after I was discharged from the Army that year I went to do some volunteer anti-war G.I. work at the coffeehouse outside the base in Army town Ayer. Frank too was a volunteer, had heard about the place somehow I forget how, who had grown up in Nashua up in southern New Hampshire and after he was discharged from the Army down at Fort Dix in New Jersey came to volunteer just like me and my old friend Jack Callahan who is sitting in the audience tonight. Now Frank was a quiet guy didn’t talk much about his military service but he made the anti-war soldiers who hung out there at night and on weekends feel at ease. One night thought he felt some urge to tell his story, tell why he thought it was unwise for him to participate in an anti-war action we were planning around the base. We were going to pass out copies of Daniel Ellsberg’s explosive whistle-blower expose The Pentagon Papers to soldiers at various location around the fort and as it turned out on the base. The reason that Frank had balked at the prospect of going into the fort was that as part of his discharge paperwork was attached a statement that he was never to go on a military installation again. We all were startled by that remark, right Jack? [Jack nods agreement.]

And that night the heroic, our kind of heroic, Frank Jackman told us about the hows and whys of his Army experience. Frank had been drafted like a ton of guys back then, like me, and had allowed himself to be drafted in 1968 at the age of nineteen not being vociferously anti-war and not being aware then of the option of not taking the subsequent induction. After about three week down at Fort Dix, the main basic training facility for trainees coming from the Northeast then, he knew two things-he had made a serious mistake by allowing himself to be drafted and come hell or high water he was not going to fight against people he had no quarrel with in Vietnam. Of course the rigors of basic training and being away from home, away from anybody who could help him do he knew not what then kept him quiet and just waiting. Once basic was over and he got his Advanced Infantry Training assignment also at Fort Dix which was to be an infantryman at a time when old Uncle Sam only wanted infantrymen in the rice paddles and jungles of Vietnam things came to a head.

After a few weeks in AIT he got a three day weekend pass which allowed him to go legally off the base and he used that time to come up to Boston, or really Cambridge because what he was looking for was help to file an conscientious objector application and he knew the Quakers were historically the ones who would know about going about that process. That is ironically where Susan Rich comes in again, although indirectly this time, since Frank went to the Meeting House on Brattle Street where they were doing draft and G.I. resistance counseling and Susan was a member of that Meeting although she had never met him at that time. He was advised by one of the Quaker counselors that he could submit a C.O. application in the military, which he had previously not been sure was possible since nobody told anybody anything about that in the military, when he got back to Fort Dix but just then, although they were better later, the odds were stacked against him since he had already accepted induction. So he went back, put in his application, took a lot of crap from the lifers and officers in his company after that and little support, mainly indifference, from his fellow trainees. He still had to go through the training, the infantry training though and although he had taken M-16 rifle training in basic he almost balked at continuing to fire weapons especially when it came to machine guns. He didn’t balk but in the end that was not a big deal since fairly shortly after that his C.O. application was rejected although almost all those who interviewed him in the process though he was “sincere” in his beliefs. That point becomes important later.

Frank, although he knew his chances of being discharged as a C.O. were slim since he had based his application on his Catholic upbringing and more general moral and ethical grounds. The Catholic Church which unlike Quakers and Mennonites and the like who were absolutely against war held to a just war theory, Vietnam being mainly a just war in the Catholic hierarchy’s opinion. But Frank was sincere, more importantly, he was determined to not got to war despite his hawkish family and his hometown friends’, some who had already served, served in Vietnam too, scorn and lack of support. So he went back up to Cambridge on another three day pass to get some advice, which he actually didn’t take in the end or rather only partially took up  which had been to get a lawyer they would recommend and fight the C.O. denial in Federal court even though that was also still a long shot then.  

Frank checked with the lawyer alright, Steve Brady, who had been radicalized by the war and was offering his services on a sliding scale basis to G.I.s since he also had the added virtue of having been in the JAG in the military and so knew some of the ropes of the military legal system, and legal action was taken but Frank was one of those old time avenging Jehovah types like John Brown or one of those guys and despite being a Catholic rather than a high holy Protestant which is the usual denomination for avenging angels decided to actively resist the military. And did it in fairly simple way when you think about it. One Monday morning when the whole of AIT was on the parade field for their weekly morning report ceremony Frank came out of his barracks with his civilian clothes on and carrying a handmade sign which read “Bring the Troops Home Now!”

That sign was simply but his life got a lot more complicated after that. In the immediate sense that meant he was pulled down on the ground by two lifer sergeants and brought to the Provost Marshal’s office since they were not sure that some dippy-hippie from near-by New York City might be pulling a stunt. When they found out that he was a soldier they threw him into solitary in the stockade.

For his offenses Frank was given a special court-martial which meant he faced six month maximum sentence which a panel of officers at his court-martial ultimately sentenced him to after a seven day trial which Steve Brady did his best to try to make into an anti-war platform but given the limitation of courts for such actions was only partially successful. After that six months was up minus some good time Frank was assigned to a special dead-beat unit waiting further action either by the military or in the federal district court in New Jersey. Still in high Jehovah form the next Monday morning after he was released he went out to that same parade field in civilian clothes carrying another homemade sign “Bring The Troops Home Now!” and he was again manhandled by another pair of lifer sergeants and this time thrown directly into solitary in the stockade since they knew who they were dealing with by then. And again he was given a special court-martial and duly sentenced by another panel of military officers to the six months maximum.

Frank admitted at that point he was in a little despair at the notion that he might have to keep doing the same action over and over again for eternity. Well he wound up serving almost all of that second sex month sentence but then he got a break. That is where listening to the Quakers a little to get legal advice did help. See what Steve Brady, like I said an ex-World War II Army JAG officer turned anti-war activist lawyer, did was take the rejection of his C.O. application to Federal District Court in New Jersey on a writ of habeas corpus arguing that since all Army interviewers agreed Frank was “sincere” that it had been arbitrary and capricious of the Army to turn down his application. And given that the United States Supreme Court and some lower court decisions had by then had expanded who could be considered a C.O. beyond the historically recognized groupings and creeds the cranky judge in the lower court case agreed and granted that writ of habeas corpus. Frank was let out with an honorable discharge, ironically therefore entitled to all veteran’s benefits but with the stipulation that he never go onto a military base again under penalty of arrest and trial. Whether that could be enforced as a matter of course he said he did not want to test since he was hardily sick of military bases in any case.                                       

So where does Bob Dylan’s Masters of War come into the picture. Well as you know, or should know every prisoner, every convicted prisoner, has the right to make a statement in his or her defense during the trial or at the sentencing phase. Frank at both his court-martials rose up and recited Bob Dylan’s Masters of War for the record. So for all eternity, or a while anyway, in some secret recess of the Army archives (and of the federal courts too) there is that defiant statement of a real hero of the Vietnam War. Nice right?      

Here is what had those bloated military officers on Frank’s court-martial board seeing red and ready to swing him from the highest gallow, yeah, swing him high.

Masters Of War-Bob Dylan 

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music