A View From The Left - Independence Now! Catalan Masses Defy Spanish State Policía Nacional, Guardia Civil Out of Catalonia! For a Catalan Workers Republic!

Workers Vanguard No. 1119	6 October 2017

Independence Now!

Catalan Masses Defy Spanish State

Policía Nacional, Guardia Civil Out of Catalonia!

For a Catalan Workers Republic!

OCTOBER 3—Two days ago, the Spanish state unleashed massive repression aimed at preventing an independence referendum in Catalonia. Over two million people defied the savage police mobilization to cast their ballots, and 90 percent voted in favor of an independent republic in Catalonia.

The Castilian rulers of the capitalist Spanish state will brook no opposition to the sacrosanct unity of the Spanish prison house of peoples, which denies the right of self-determination to the Catalan, Basque and Galician nations. The state of siege imposed by Madrid is a powerful confirmation that the national oppression of Catalans—and of the Basques—cannot end short of independence. Autonomy is a fraud—Madrid retains the whip hand. The only principled position for revolutionary Marxists is to demand the immediate independence of these nations and to rally the workers of Spain and Europe to this struggle.

In the lead-up to the vote, the Castilian chauvinists who rule the country from Madrid declared the referendum illegal, with the full backing of the European Union. Thousands of Policía Nacional (National Police) and paramilitary Guardia Civil (Civil Guard) cops were sent to suppress any move toward self-determination by the oppressed Catalan people. The Catalan government’s funds were seized, many of its leaders arrested and offices raided. Millions of ballots, posters and official ballot boxes were confiscated. Tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets are threatened with sedition charges. Hundreds of websites promoting the referendum were taken down by the Spanish authorities, including those of the Catalan government. Anyone deemed responsible for conducting the referendum is facing jail time and massive fines.

Thousands occupied schools overnight and massed before dawn to ensure the referendum went ahead. As the polls opened, riot cops smashed their way into polling stations, beating voters, dragging them out into the street and seizing ballot boxes. People outside were hit with rubber bullets, tear gas and police clubs. Nearly 900 people were injured.

Despite the police terror tactics, the Catalan people remain unbowed. As we go to press, a “national stoppage” called by the Catalan government, business associations and unions to protest the repression has brought Catalonia to a halt. It is urgent for the working class in Catalonia and throughout Spain to rally in defense of Catalan national rights. Working people throughout Spain must demand: Drop all charges against independentistes! Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional out of Catalonia!

The brutality unleashed by the Spanish government against the people of Catalonia is reminiscent of the long years of the Franco dictatorship. The Catalans and the republican Basques played a vanguard role in the Spanish Revolution of the 1930s. But the triumph of counterrevolution in 1939 under Generalissimo Francisco Franco resulted in decades of bloody repression of the working class and of the Catalan and Basque nations. Thus, after Franco died in 1975, the struggles of the oppressed nations were mainly expressed along national lines, in contrast to the 1930s, when the working classes of these same nations fought directly for power.

Spain’s right-wing governing Partido Popular (Popular Party) is descended from the Franco regime. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy declares that the Catalan independence referendum violated the 1978 Spanish constitution. Maintaining the unity of the Spanish state is central to the chauvinist, anti-democratic constitution of 1978, which established the monarchy as bonapartist overlord. The social-democratic Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and Stalinist Partido Comunista de España (PCE, now buried in Izquierda Unida) criminally supported the establishment of this reactionary constitution while mouthing platitudes about “self-determination.” To maintain the “indivisibility” of Spain, bloody police-state repression has long been used against militant fighters for Basque independence, including by PSOE governments.

Tens of thousands have rallied in Euskal Herria (Basque Country) in support of the Catalan referendum, and the Basque independence movement has been given a boost by the developments in Catalonia. The Basque and Catalan nations, each of which straddles the border between France and Spain, are oppressed by both these capitalist states. Solidarity protests have also taken place in the Catalan and Basque regions of France.

As we wrote in the document of the ICL’s most recent International Conference, “The fate of the provinces forcibly retained within France strongly depends on what will happen on the Spanish side of the border. We call for the independence of the Basque Country and Catalonia, in the North and the South” (“The Struggle Against the Chauvinist Hydra,” Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 65, Summer 2017).

Workers Must Fight for National Liberation

The struggle for the liberation of the oppressed nations can be a powerful motor force for revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against the Spanish capitalist order. But the central leadership of the countrywide trade-union federations, headquartered in Madrid, is imbued with the putrid anti-Basque and anti-Catalan chauvinism of its own capitalist rulers. Thus, the day after the Catalan people voted for independence, the national leaderships of the two largest trade-union confederations in Spain, the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), issued a statement opposing any “Unilateral Declaration of Independence.” They wrote: “We do not endorse that position nor that political strategy.”

Such chauvinism is not only an obstacle to the struggle for liberation of the oppressed nationalities, but also undermines struggle by all workers in the Spanish prison house of peoples against their own capitalist exploiters. The Madrid government’s offensive against Catalonia has emboldened the Spanish fascists, who have held demonstrations under the call “Catalonia is Spain.” These forces represent a deadly threat to all workers, immigrants and oppressed minorities in Spain, and the working class must mobilize to stop them.

In Catalonia in recent weeks, hundreds of thousands have defied the Castilian rulers, their constitution, courts and cops—the so-called democratic order. Secondary and university students went on strike, while farmers drove their tractors into the cities and formed blockades to protect voters. But most significant were the actions carried out by unions in defense of the referendum. The port workers in Barcelona and Tarragona refused to service the ships being used to accommodate the Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil. The firefighters union also took action, forming security cordons around voting sites.

The working class has enormous potential social power that must be marshalled in support of the struggle for independence. It is absolutely necessary to defend Catalonia’s bourgeois pro-independence leaders against the repression from Madrid. However, workers must be politically independent from these capitalist politicians and their parties. These include not only the bourgeois nationalists of the Partit Demòcrata Europeu Català (PDeCAT) and of the Esquerra Republicana (ERC), but also the left nationalists of the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP). Although claiming to be socialist, the CUP is a petty-bourgeois party that has propped up the bourgeois government of PDeCAT and the ERC in the Generalitat (Catalan parliament).

For the Catalan bourgeoisie, independence means being able to rule over those whom they exploit for profit. They will deploy their own forces of capitalist repression, such as the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police), against the working class. It would be suicidal for the proletariat and oppressed to rely on the Catalan bourgeoisie in the fight for national liberation. For a Catalan workers republic!

The way forward was shown by the Bolshevik Party in Russia, which won the oppressed nationalities to its banner by championing the right of national self-determination. As Leon Trotsky, leader together with V.I. Lenin of the proletarian 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, wrote:

“In order to achieve liberation and a cultural lift, the oppressed nationalities were compelled to link their fate with that of the working class. And for this they had to free themselves from the leadership of their own bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties—they had to make a long spurt forward, that is, on the road of historic development.”

— The History of the Russian Revolution (1932)

Down With the Imperialist EU!

The Catalan bourgeois nationalists have long looked to the European Union (EU) for their salvation. Following the referendum, Catalan government leader Carles Puigdemont declared: “I must appeal directly to Europe.... The European Union can no longer continue looking the other way.” In response, the European Commission made the EU’s position clear: “Yesterday’s vote in Catalonia was not legal.” It went on to reiterate that “this is an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of Spain.”

The EU is determined to keep the current European borders intact, fearful that the breakup of Spain or any other member state could bring down the whole EU house of cards. As Marxists, we are opposed on principle to the EU, which is a reactionary consortium of capitalist countries. The EU aims to increase profits by squeezing workers throughout Europe, while its dominant members—Germany and, to a lesser extent, France—use it to further subordinate the weaker European countries. Our opposition to the EU is proletarian internationalist. We fight for workers revolutions throughout the continent, culminating in a voluntary Socialist United States of Europe.

Following the global financial crisis of 2008, the EU dictated vicious austerity to Spain, while having the common euro currency deprived Spain of the option of devaluing its currency to alleviate the crisis. The then-PSOE government in Madrid willingly enforced the EU’s austerity measures. For their part, the Catalan nationalists in the Generalitat also administered brutal austerity against workers and the oppressed.

The EU has also pushed union-busting across Europe. In 2014, the EU’s Court of Justice decreed that the Spanish port unions are in violation of EU rules on “free enterprise.” The Rajoy government issued a decree to force compliance with the EU rules. In response, thousands of port workers throughout Spain, including in Catalonia and the Basque Country, waged a series of strikes earlier this year against these attempts to smash their union.

Reformist Left: Wedded to the Bourgeois Order

Sundry reformists in Spain have for years opposed independence for Catalonia, while pretending to fight for self-determination. The Corriente Revolucionaria de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (CRT), affiliated to the neo-Morenoite Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth International, vociferously claimed to defend the “right to decide” in the referendum while openly opposing Catalan independence. They wrote: “We don’t call for a Yes vote because we are neither independentistas nor do we share the republican and constitutional process proposed by Junts pel Sí [bourgeois-nationalist parliamentary coalition] and the CUP” (izquierdadiario.es, 27 September).

The Izquierda Revolucionaria/Esquerra Revolucionària (IR/ER) of Peter Taaffe’s Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) likewise trumpeted, “The Catalan people have the right to decide!” but were careful to assure chauvinist opponents of independence that “anyone who does not support independence has the clear choice not to vote for it.” Then, on the day before millions voted for an independent Catalan republic...these consummate opportunists came out for independence.

The Taaffeites spent years inside the social-democratic PSOE and fully imbibed its national chauvinism. As recently as 2014, the IR/ER explicitly opposed independence in a pamphlet titled ¡Por el derecho a la autodeterminación, por el socialismo! (For the Right of Self-Determination, for Socialism!): “The task of the workers movement, there as here, in Euskal Herria and Catalunya, in the Spanish state as a whole and in Europe, is not to build new states and erect new borders, but to build socialism on a global scale.”

The breakup of the Castilian-chauvinist Spanish state, with its monarchy and Francoist nostalgists, would represent an enormous step forward for the struggles of all working people in Spain against the capitalist rulers. The struggle for national liberation of Catalonia and the Basque Country is integrally linked to the fight to overthrow capitalist rule throughout Spain and France. What is needed to lead the workers and oppressed in this fight are Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard parties, national sections of a reforged Fourth International. Down with the Spanish monarchy! For workers republics!

In Honor Of Jean Bon Kerouac On The 60th Anniversary Of “On The Road” (1957)-In The Birthday Anniversary -“The Subterraneans"

In Honor Of Jean Bon Kerouac On The 60th Anniversary Of “On The Road” (1957)-In The Birthday Anniversary -“The Subterraneans" I

n Honor Of Jean Bon Kerouac On The 60^th Anniversary Of “On The Road” (1957)

By Book Critic Zack James

To be honest I know about On The Road Jack Kerouac’s epic tale of his generation’s search for something, maybe the truth, maybe just for kicks, for stuff, important stuff that had happened down in the base of society where nobody in authority was looking or some such happening strictly second-hand. His generation’s search looking for a name, found what he, or someone associated with him, maybe the bandit poet Gregory Corso, king of the mean New York streets, mean, very mean indeed in a junkie-hang-out world around Times Square when that place was up to its neck in flea-bit hotels, all-night Joe and Nemo’s and the trail of the “fixer” man on every corner, con men coming out your ass too, called the “beat” generation. (Yes,  I know that the actual term “beat” was first used by Kerouac writer friend John Clemmon Holmes in an article in some arcane journal but the “feel” had to have come from a less academic source so I will crown the bandit prince Corso as genesis) 

Beat, beat of the jazzed up drum line backing some sax player searching for the high white note, what somebody told me, maybe my oldest brother Alex who was washed clean in the Summer of Love, 1967 but must have known the edges of Jack’s time since he was in high school when real beat exploded on the scene in Jack-filled 1957, they called “blowing to the China seas” out in West Coast jazz and blues circles, that high white note he heard achieved one skinny night by famed sax man Sonny Johns, dead beat, run out on money, women, life, leaving, and this is important no forwarding address for the desolate repo man to hang onto, dread beat, nine to five, 24/7/365 that you will get caught back up in the spire wind up like your freaking staid, stay at home parents, beaten down, ground down like dust puffed away just for being, hell, let’s just call it being, beatified beat like saintly and all Jack’s kid stuff high holy Catholic incense and a story goes with it about a young man caught up in a dream, like there were not ten thousand other religions in the world to feast on- you can take your pick of the meanings, beat time meanings. Hell, join the club they all did, the guys, and it was mostly guys who hung out on the poet princely mean streets of New York, Chi town, Mecca beckoning North Beach in Frisco town cadging twenty-five cents a night flea-bag sleeps (and the fleas were real no time for metaphor down in the bowels where the cowboy junkies drowse in endless sleeps, raggedy winos toothless suck dry the dregs and hipster con men prey on whoever floats down), half stirred left on corner diners’ coffees and groundling cigarette stubs when the Bull Durham ran out).

I was too young to have had anything but a vague passing reference to the thing, to that “beat” thing since I was probably just pulling out of diapers then, maybe a shade bit older but not much. I got my fill, my brim fill later through my oldest brother Alex. Alex, and his crowd, more about that in a minute, but even he was only washed clean by the “beat” experiment at a very low level, mostly through reading the book (need I say the book was On The Road) and having his mandatory two years of living on the road around the time of the Summer of Love, 1967 an event whose 50^th anniversary is being commemorated this year as well and so very appropriate to mention since there were a million threads, fibers, connections between “beat” and “hippie” despite dour grandpa Jack’s attempts to trash those connection when the acolytes and bandit hangers-on  came calling looking for the “word.” So even Alex and his crowd were really too young to have been washed by the beat wave that crashed the continent toward the end of the 1950s on the wings of Allan Ginsburg’s Howl and Jack’s travel book of a different kind (not found on the AAA, Traveler’s Aid, Youth Hostel brochure circuit if you please although Jack and the crowd, my brother and his crowd later would use such services when up against it in let’s say a place like Winnemucca in the Nevadas or Neola in the heartlands).

Literary stuff for sure but the kind of stuff that moves generations, or I like to think the best parts of those cohorts. These were the creation documents the latter of which would drive Alex west before he finally settled down to his career life as a high-road lawyer (and to my sorrow and anger never looked back which has caused more riffs and bad words than I want to yell about here).             

Of course anytime you talk about books and poetry and then add my brother’s Alex name into the mix that automatically brings up memories of another name, the name of the late Peter Paul Markin. Markin, for whom Alex and the rest of the North Adamsville corner boys, Frankie, Jack, Jimmy, Si, Josh (he a separate story from up in Olde Saco, Maine and so only an honorary corner boy after hitching up with the Scribe out on a Russian Hill dope-filled park), Bart, and a few others still alive recently had me put together a tribute book for in connection with that Summer of Love, 1967, their birthright event, just mentioned.  Markin was the vanguard guy, the volunteer odd-ball unkempt mad monk seeker, what did Jack call his generation’s such, oh yeah, holy goofs,   who got several of them off their asses and out to the West Coast to see what there was to see. To see some stuff that Markin had been speaking of for a number of years before 1967 (and which nobody in the crowd paid any attention to, or dismissed out of hand, what they called “could give a rat’s ass” about in the local jargon which I also inherited in those cold, hungry bleak 1950s cultural days in America) and which can be indirectly attributed to the activities of Jack, Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, that aforementioned bandit poet who ran wild on the mean streets among the hustlers, conmen and whores of the major towns of the continent, William Burroughs, the Harvard-trained junkie  and a bunch of other guys who took a very different route for our parents who were of the same generation as them but of a very different world.

But it was above all Jack’s book, Jack’s travel adventure book which had caused a big splash in 1957(after an incredible publishing travail since the story line actually related to events in the late 1940s and which would cause Jack no end of trauma when the kids showed up at his door looking to hitch a ride on the motherlode star, and had ripple effects into the early 1960s and even now certain “hip” kids acknowledge the power of attraction that book had for their own developments, especially that living simple, fast and hard part). Made the young, some of them anyway, like I say I think the best part, have to spend some time thinking through the path of life ahead by hitting the vagrant dusty sweaty road. Maybe not hitchhiking, maybe not going high speed high through the ocean, plains, mountain, desert night but staying unsettled for a while anyway.    

Like I said above Alex was out on the road two years and other guys, other corner boys for whatever else you wanted to call them that was their niche back in those days and were recognized as such in the town not always to their benefit, from a few months to a few years. Markin started first back in the spring of 1967 but was interrupted by his fateful induction into the Army and service, if you can call it that, in Vietnam and then several more years upon his return before his untimely and semi-tragic end down some dusty Jack-strewn road in Mexico cocaine deal blues. With maybe this difference from today’s young who are seeking alternative roads away from what is frankly bourgeois society and was when Jack wrote although nobody except commies and pinkos called it that for fear of being tarred with those brushes. Alex, Frankie Riley the acknowledged leader, Jack Callahan and the rest, Markin included, were strictly “from hunger” working class kids who when they hung around Tonio Pizza Parlor were as likely to be thinking up ways to grab money fast any way they could or of getting into some   hot chick’s pants any way they could as anything else. Down at the base of society when you don’t have enough of life’s goods or have to struggle too much to get even that little bit “from hunger” takes a big toll on your life. I can testify to that part because Alex was not the only one in the James family to go toe to toe with the law back then when the coppers were just waiting for corner boy capers to explode nay Friday or Saturday night, it was a close thing for all us boys as it had been with Jack when all is said and done. But back then dough and sex after all was what was what for corner boys, maybe now too although you don’t see many guys hanging on forlorn Friday night corners anymore.

What made this tribe different, the Tonio Pizza Parlor corner boys, was mad monk Markin. Markin called by Frankie Riley “Scribe” from the time he came to North Adamsville from across town in junior high school and that stuck all through high school. The name stuck because although Markin was as larcenous and lovesick as the rest of them he was also crazy for books and poetry. Christ according to Alex, Markin was the guy who planned most of the “midnight creeps” they called then. Although nobody in their right minds would have the inept Markin actually execute the plan. That was for smooth as silk Frankie now also like Alex a high-road lawyer to lead. That operational sense was why Frankie was the leader then (and maybe why he was a locally famous lawyer later who you definitely did not want to be on the other side against him). Markin was also the guy who all the girls for some strange reason would confide in and thus was the source of intelligence about who was who in the social pecking order, in other words, who was available, sexually or otherwise. That sexually much more important than otherwise. See Markin always had about ten billion facts running around his head in case anybody, boy or girl, asked him about anything so he was ready to do battle, for or against take your pick.

The books and the poetry is where Jack Kerouac and On The Road come into the corner boy life of the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor life. Markin was something like an antennae for anything that seemed like it might help create a jailbreak, help them get out from under. Later he would be the guy who introduced some of the guys to folk music when that was a big thing. (Alex never bought into that genre, still doesn’t, despite Markin’s desperate pleas for him to check it out. Hated whinny Bob Dylan above all else.) Others too like Kerouac’s friend Allen Ginsburg and his wooly homo poem Howl from 1956 which Markin would read sections out loud from on lowdown dough-less, girl-less Friday nights. And drive the strictly hetero guys crazy when he insisted that they read the poem, read what he called a new breeze was coming down the road. They could, using that term from the times again, have given a rat’s ass about some fucking homo faggot poem from some whacko Jewish guy who belonged in a mental hospital. (That is a direct quote from Frankie Riley at the time via my brother Alex’s memory bank.)

Markin flipped out when he found out that Kerouac had grown up in Lowell, a working class town very much like North Adamsville, and that he had broken out of the mold that had been set for him and gave the world some grand literature and something to spark the imagination of guys down at the base of society like his crowd with little chance of grabbing the brass ring. So Markin force-marched the crowd to read the book, especially putting pressure on my brother who was his closest friend then. Alex read it, read it several times and left the dog- eared copy around which I picked up one day when I was having one of my high school summertime blues. Read it through without stopping almost like Jack wrote the final version of the thing on a damn newspaper scroll in about three weeks. So it was through the Scribe via Alex that I got the Kerouac bug. And now on the 60^th anniversary I am passing on the bug to you.           

Book Review

The Subterraneans, Jack Kerouac, Grove Press, 1958

What if a monstrously- gifted, an immensely-gifted one million bloated word man maybe working on his second million words and those words not all “and, the, and buts (although maybe butts)” but some fantastic jazzy (not Duke big band tone poems or Benny clarinet quartet swing-a-ling but Dizzy salt peanuts bop-bop-bop and Charlie solo austere heaven-reaching big note blows) sing-song reflecting childhood, red brick Lowell mill town moody street pawtucketville dying for lack of work and jobs moving to cheap labor south childhood, reflecting early brother death is eternal loss sadnesses, big sadnesses, reflecting Merrimack rocky tree-strewn river runs, hide-outs, stone-skippings, buddy-adventuring against the adult sorrows, big adult sorrows to come, reflecting father-son –and the holy ghost Gallic Roman Catholic French-Canadian (F-C to you, okay) old country (Canuck) Gaspe sad sack existences and forbear breton celtic moodinesses, big moodinesses, reflecting hard time father time day dreams and moving, endless moving from one street triple-decker to another to make the rent, from one bewildering printer job town (and odd jobs as circus promoter, oh, wrestling promoter, sad sack bowling pin ball man) to another, reflecting modern Greek god-like athletic prowesses running football-loped head-long like some Pamplona bull in holy arch-enemy Lawrence games , a slight speed burst juke here, a slight jet stream flash juke there, reflecting mad teenage boy-girl crushes (hardened Maggie), conquests (easy Paula , and half of the reflex football F-C girls all a-glitter with handsome Johnnie’s dark good looks, ooh-la-la) and woman madness, reflecting sailing out on the seven seas, or part of them, stoic, reflecting New Jack City romps, discoveries, heartaches, women taken, booze drunk, pills devoured, reflecting first-time cross country jaunts with golden- haired western cowboy heroes, more women, more wine, taken in search of the post-World War II blue-pink Great American West night, reflecting big book discoveries and plots for even bigger books and two million words passed to three million, writer blew into 1950s Frisco town.

What if that reflected writer searching for that post-World War II blue-pink Great American West night searched around North Beach looking for beat angels (although not called beat angels just then just angels, and angles- figuring angles at that), searched around Columbus taverns and bars looking for that one drink that would bring relief to his aching besotted head, that one joint that would clear the air of all the stinks of Lowell, of New Jack City, of Jersey shore sprays, of Chicago hog butcher to the world bloods, of Denver poolroom pass-throughs looking for golden-haired all-American cowboys to drive his vengeance, searched around Larkin Street wino stink-holes, smelling of urine and bad karma on top of non-fumigated beds, desperately in need of cleaning shower stalls, and small hot stoves for liberty coffee, searched around, well, you know, searched, no better waited around for some juicy woman, fresh from some Podunk town (not realizing, she not realizing, that he too came from podunk but just smitten with good looks and great writer bedroom eyes) to call at his door, to, frankly be bedded and be pushed out the door when his writing habits came on, searched for kindred (guy kindred although no fags need apply if that is what you think) to spend endless benny-nights and morning sun come-ups talking, talking of Proust (that old reprobate Frenchman, maybe kindred back, way back in old, old country days, maybe Adam time), talking rough trade fag wharf-heavy Jean Genet and flowers, talking about cold war break- outs with no word of cold war break-outs spoken , searched for that high white note that came from the negro streets blown by Lester Young, blown by Charlie, blown by some twelve year old Broadway boy when the title was vacated, searched for, alright, searched for the subterraneans, the denizens of the newer world, the be-bop world.

What if that searched writer decided, well, maybe not decided that is too strong a word but fell into something, fell into something that he needed, no, that he wanted right then, an affair, a tryst, an encounter, hell, a steady easy ride with a woman, a subterranean, an exotic, a woman of color, hell with a negro woman, no, a negress (proper usage then before black devoured negro, and negress, although not those po’boy, and girl, negro streets that beat angel, before beat, Allen Ginsberg kept jabbering about), decided that he would take her and her brown exotic (exotic from ten million American meltings with hobo gypsies, hobo injuns, hobo white trash, hell even with Mister back in plantations days when nobody ever heard of miscegenations) essence (and brown or exotic that fragrance, that perfume smell that has trapped man, men, since Adam’s day, maybe before) and ride out the storm (her storm, orphan annie , junkie, benny-high, tokay low, cheap anyway in an emergency, anybody’s girl if the mood struck her, her get it, and different, different from the F-C girls, different from the too easy New York City jewish girls looking for that first goy trick, different from white stocking lace curtain (or want to be) Maggie Cassidy, different in the head too, different in the kicks department, decided that he would chance, mother scorn chance that black-white mix (exotic and subterranean overcoming doubts on the white streets of North Beach even among beat angels), chance the mental balance nightmare of her life, decided too that he needed to move on to that second million words alone, alone like in the end we are all alone.

What if he wrote a book, a slender book, about it? Yah, what if…

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-And Of The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club" Album

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-And Of The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club" Album  

Zack James comment;

Frankly although I was only a young very young teenager at the time I was not as enamored of this album as my older brothers and sisters were who were knee deep into the drug, sex and counter-cultural revolutions (which drove my conservative parents crazy) which I only knew about in passing. I would hear the music around the house from up in their rooms (when those conservative parenst were not around or on the jukebox at Doc's Drugstore up the Square or at school dances but it never moved me the way say the playing of Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis did at any of those locales and that music was even futher removed from my age cohort. 50 years later after a recent re-listening on YouTube I had the same impression despite my acquired knowledge that this album was the all time album seller and listen to even today-this album like the Stones' effort of the same time period Their Satanic Majesties have not to my ear aged well. (You do not see a single song from that latter album on any recent Stones' concert playlists.) Whereas let's say the almost unique It's A Beautiful Day album or some of the Jefferson Airplane albums like After Bathing At Baxter's seem still pretty fresh and representative of that sweet world Summer of Love, 1967 time before the ebbtide set in and we all were reduced to nostagia buffs.  

In Boston- Smedley Butler Brigade- VFP Invitation To March With Us On Armistice Day-Saturday November 11th

In Boston- Smedley Butler Brigade- VFP Invitation To March With Us On Armistice Day-Saturday November 11^th-We would be pleased to have you join us. 

Put Your Marching Sneakers On… Armistice Day For Peace Saturday November 11, 2017

It is that time again. Every year for well over a decade we have had our Armistice Peace March behind the “official” Veterans Day parade in Boston. We continue that tradition this year as well.

Meet at the Corner Of Beacon Street and Charles at the far end of Boston Common at Noon 

We will form up at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles at the edge of the Boston Common at noon for an approximately 1 PM step off. (Depending when the “officials” step off.) We will have flags, banners, etc. but you can bring your own posters especially this year around the war clouds forming over North Korea and Iran.

Armistice Day Program starts at Sam Adams Park in Fanuiel Hall at about 2:00 PM   

After the finish of the march at City Hall Plaza we will walk across the street for our Armistice Day program at Sam Adams Park at Fanueil   Hall from about 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. This year’s MC will be our Smedley Butler Brigade-VFP coordinator Vietnam veteran Dan Luker. We are lining up speakers knowledgeable about the impending war clouds over Korea and Iran and the long continuing ones over Afghanistan.  We will have music, poetry and other speakers. As usual we will have our canopy up where you can purchase VFP clothing, media, and buttons.    

See you all on Saturday November 11^th at noon at Beacon and Charles –thanks- Executive Committee-Smedley Butler Brigade-VFP

  

In Boston- Peace Protests and Events

Peace Protests and Events

United for Justice with Peace

12:11 PM

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Peace Protests and Events

Urgent Peace Actions:

November 8 5:15-6:15 pm
Stand out for Peace at Park Street:  No threats/attacks on North Korea/Keep the Iran Deal with special guest speaker – Tim Shorrock, expert on US-Korean relations, US intelligence/foreign policy, Author of Spies for Hire
No threats on North Korea – Negotiate! 

Following the rally,from 7-9 pm Tim Shorrock will speak at a near-by venue.  Diplomacy with North Korea Has Worked Before, and Can Work Again.  Location:   Encuentro 5, 9 Hamilton Place, Boston.  Venue may change, announcement to be made at rally and check the calendar at http://masspeaceaction.org/event

November 11 at Noon VFP Smedley Armistice Day March and Rally
Veterans For Peace Smedley Butler Brigade will once again march on Armistice Day following the official Veterans Day Parade.  (Historical Note:  VFP is not welcome to join the official parade and asks peace allies and friends to join in their Veterans against war march.)  Meet at the Parade Grounds (between Boston Common and the Public Garden at noon (Charles is closest stop on Red Line - walk up Charles, Arlington on Green Line - walk through Public Garden).  March to Faneuil Hall, where there will be a rally featuring many VFP speakers, poets and music.  (The Red Line will be running shuttle buses from Kendall to Park Street this weekend, allow extra time.) 

November 11
Balfour's Legacy:  Confronting the Consequences, all day conference (8am-6pm)
First Parish Church in Cambridge, 3 Church Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge
Speakers and more info at: http://justicewithpeace.org/node/7151

November Events:  

November 1
Trita Parsi, author, teacher, President of the National Iranian American Council
Speaking on the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal.  Nearby Venues (including Tufts) – see link:  http://masspeaceaction.org/event/trita-parsi-future-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal/2017-11-01/

November 4
Conference – Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons:  Is it Legal? Is it Constitutional?  Is it Just?
November 4 from 9am-5pm, Harvard Science Center C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
see the impressive list of speakers at:  http://masspeaceaction.org/event/presidential-first-use/

November 4, Singing out for peace and justice with Chris Nauman and Kenny Selcer, Chris and Quinn Eastburn, The Harmonators, Liz Buchanan and Gordon McFarland.  This is a benefit for local sanctuary efforts and Arlington UJP at First Parish UU of Arlington, 630 Mass. Ave., Arlington.  Doors open at 7 pm, $15 at the door, no one turned away.
 

Upcoming Events: 

Trita Parsi: Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal	Wednesday, November 1, 2017 - 5:30pm	Suffolk University Law School	Boston
Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons: Is it Legal? Is it Constitutional? Is it Just?	Saturday, November 4, 2017 - 9:00am	Harvard University	Cambridge
Sing Out! for Peace and Justice with Chris Nauman and Friends	Saturday, November 4, 2017 - 7:30pm	First Parish UU Arlington	Arlington
No War on North Korea!  Save the Iran peace deal! End the Endless Wars	Wednesday, November 8, 2017 - 5:15pm	Park Street Station	Boston
BALFOUR’S LEGACY: Confronting the Consequences	Saturday, November 11, 2017 - 8:00am	The First Parish Church in Cambridge	Cambridge

More Peace and Justice Events.    How to Submit Events
 

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Exciting Events with Global Zero Boston

Global Zero is a network of over 300 world leaders and countless grassroots organizing groups across the globe that all share a common goal: the elimination of nuclear weapons Dear Friend: Not a day goes by without half a dozen frantic appeals about abuses against our common interests. This administration is keeping us on our toes no like administration has in my lifetime. In fact, reacting to the abuses and blunders committed each day almost makes me dizzy. It is hard to imagine that you don't feel something comparable. I am writing to inform you about Global Zero, and one campaign in particular, to mobilize grassroots support for House Resolution: “H.R.669”, or Senate Bill: “S.200”, titled: “Restricting the first use of nuclear weapons act,” heretofore referred to as “Markey-Lieu”, for the bill’s sponsors, Representative Ted Lieu(Democrat, California) and Senator Edward Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts). And since the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, talk about nuclear disarmament is the most popular it’s been in a generation. Over the course of 2017-18, Global Zero chapters across the country will be dedicated to empowering locally lead efforts to pass resolutions urging congressional leaders to act on Markey-Lieu! We are counting on help from our community to find the right people to create this groundswell of popular pressure. If you are interested, please contact us at: <GlobalZeroBoston@gmail.com> In addition to these local grassroots initiatives, we’ve also been working with Harvard University and the Massachusetts chapter of Peace Action, and a host of other activists and organizations to prepare a one-day conference, “Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons: Is it legal? Is it constitutional? Is it just?” whereat Global Zero founder Prof. Bruce Blair, and a host of other activists and academics will answer any question you may have about the Markey-Lieu bill, or nuclear policy in general. The conference will begins at 9:00 am on Saturday, November 4 at the Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge. There is no cost to attend, but donations are appreciated to continue this necessary work. More information can be found here: <https://presidential-first-use.brownpapertickets.com> Finally, on Wednesday, November 8, Global Zero will be cosponsoring a dialogue at The Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Copley Square, Boston between renowned Progressive Activist, Ralph Nader and Boston College Political Science Professor Charles Derber Once again, if you are interested in attending or volunteering at any event or for any initiative, DON’T BE SHY! Email us as <GlobalZeroBoston@gmail.com> and we’ll plug you right in. Thank you and we look forward to working with you this coming year! Very truly yours, Quinn A. Global Zero Boston Copyright © 2017 Global Zero Boston, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you joined our mailing list at one of our many events. We're so happy to have you as a contact! :) Our mailing address is: Global Zero Boston 34 Lewis Avenue Boston, MA 02474 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.