Fifty years after MLK’s death, activists revive his most radical project: the Poor People’s Campaign

Will the poor “be with us always”? Rev. Liz Theoharis on repurposing the true, radical message of MLK and Jesus

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PAUL ROSENBERG

MAY 20, 2018 4:05PM (UTC)

Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr. first launched the idea in the last months of his life, this past week saw the kickoff of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, starting with an initial 40-day period of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. Described as "a moral fusion coalition that is multi-racial, multi-gendered, intergenerational, inter-faith and constitutionally grounded,” it shares King’s commitment to fighting the “Triplets of Evil” — systemic racism, poverty, and the war economy and militarism — but adds the interrelated problem of ecological devastation.

Unlike the original, this new campaign is not solely focused on bringing the moral witness of the poor to the nation’s capital. It is simultaneously organizing in dozens of states as well, and building coalitions of poor people’s power in those states is the core of its long-term strategy.

“We had a very powerful launch on Monday, in more than 30 states, and in Washington, D.C.,” the Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the campaign, told Salon. Along with her co-chair, the Rev. William J. Barber II, she was arrested in front of the Capitol, along with hundreds of others from dozens of states, plus many more in state capitals as well — from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Sacramento, California. Theoharis estimated that 1,000 people were arrested. “People are saying it's the most expansive wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in this country's history," she said. 

Others arrested with Barber and Theoharis in Washington included Women’s March board member Linda Sarsour, Service Employees International Union executive vice president Rocio Sáenz, and Disciples of Christ general minister and president the Rev. Teresa Hord Owens.

Theoharis and Barber both have decades of grassroots organizing experience, and spent two years on a listening tour laying the foundations for the campaign. As part of the buildup, they helped create a policy document, The Souls of Poor Folks, written by the Institute for Policy Studies. Their activism, both say, comes just as much from their own faith struggles as well.

Protesters carried banners reading “Fight Poverty, Not the Poor,” highlighting a moral and theological concern so central to  Theoharis’ work that she wrote a book about it, “Always With Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor.” Properly interpreting the Bible’s teachings about the poor today, she told Salon, is as important as properly interpreting its teachings about slavery and liberation was in the decades leading up to the Civil War. While poverty is sinful, “being poor isn’t,” she writes in the preface. It is one thing "to affirm that God loves the poor, but it is the collective responsibility of Christians and all people of faith and conscience to eliminate poverty. What is ‘good news for the poor’ if it is not ending the poverty and suffering in this life? What do we mean when we pray, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’?"

Protesters also carried signs saying, “Nothing Would Be More Tragic Than to Turn Back Now,” words from Martin Luther King Jr., on which Barber focused during a recent Memphis rally commemorating King’s presence and commitment there shortly before his assassination. That was when King made his famous last speech, telling his audience, "I have been to the mountaintop."

“We must remember,” Barber said, “that before he ever said anything about the mountaintop, he said we must give ourselves to this struggle, because nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now. He said that we must rise up with a greater readiness … because you dishonor the movement and dishonor a prophet, if you just remember the prophet without having a revival of the movement that the prophet stood for.”

For almost 40 years now, conservatives have dominated the conversation about religion and politics in America, promoting their narrow moral agenda, centered on defending Puritan sexual strictures and dividing the country between “sinners” and “the saved.” In 2016, however, they threw all that out the window to support Donald Trump in record numbers. Their façade has cracked, and the time is ripe for an authentic American gospel politics to re-emerge.

“We must challenge every lying preacher who strives to pray -- p-r-a-y -- and sanction unjust leaders, while those leaders are preying -- p-r-e-y-i-n-g -- on the poor.” Barber said. “We must turn this nation around, until we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all, because nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now.”

Salon spoke to the Rev. Liz Theoharis about why the Poor People's Campaign is happening now, how it differs from King's original and how it echoes earlier activist movements as well.

It's been 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped launch the Poor People's Campaign. He was assassinated while it was still in the planning phase. Why launch a second Poor People's Campaign now?

It is clear from us traveling around the country – and we been doing this for months and years now – that people are ready to come together in new ways and fight for universal single-payer health care, equitable education for kids, voting rights and anti-poverty programs, because things are very bad today. There's 140 million poor people in this country – poor or low- income – there's fewer voting rights than there were 50 years ago, there's ecological devastation wreaking havoc on the planet. We have spent 53 cents of every discretionary dollar on the military, and only 15 cents on antipoverty programs.

So we launch it today, 50 years after the 1968 campaign, because people are telling us the time is now for a Poor People's Campaign. If we don't conquer these evils of systemic racism and poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and a distorted moral narrative — that blames people for their poverty, that claims there's not enough, that pits people against each other — that we will never be able to achieve the justice that people need and is possible.

What’s similar and what has changed since 1968?

We do get great inspiration from the Poor People's Campaign 50 years ago. We have conducted this audit where we have found that 60 percent more people are poor today, we have fewer voting rights, these issues that I was talking about. What we have been able to learn from that campaign is that it’s important for grassroots leaders across the country to take hold of a campaign of their own, to engage in 40 days of nonviolent civil disobedience, to start having a national conversation on the issues that are plaguing our society and to build power of people from below.

So when we were in El Paso, Texas, when we were in Youngstown, Alabama, when we were in Grays Harbor, Washington, when we were in Detroit, Michigan, we heard, in these very different places, the same need: To organize and unite poor people and moral leaders, and all people of conscience into a nonviolent intergenerational army of freedom for the poor.

Today, Dr. King is a revered historical figure, whom all sorts of people try to claim. But that was not the case when he died, he was very unpopular and the causes he was working on have remained neglected and marginalized -- especially his work on the Poor People's Campaign. By focusing on a single phrase, "the content of their character," his thought has even been stood on its head.

You've devoted a lot of work to explicating how the same could be said of Jesus as well. His teachings about the poor have been perverted or ignored, especially in the Gospel of Matthew. What were they really saying? What common themes do they have that we need to pay attention to?

This quote from Dr. King — “True compassion isn't tossing a coin to a beggar, it is restructuring an edifice that produces beggars” — I think actually sums up much of what King stood for, and much of what Jesus stood for, in terms of the question of poverty.

It's a structural critique, of how it's not the individual fault of poor people, but that it’s the whole system that impoverishes. It's a critique of Band-aid solutions, of charity over justice. And it talks about how change happens. Change doesn't happen just because you will it into being, or because a couple people in power say it's going to be so. Both King and Jesus were leaders of broad-based social movements of impacted people, moral leaders who had come forward saying that what was happening in that society at the time was a moral crisis.

So what is clear to me from Jesus's life, and message, is that the key concern is lifting up the poor and the marginalized. If you do not see that that is the key concern of the gospel, then you're actually missing the point. That one in four passages in the Bible are about justice. When evangelicals cut the words poor and poverty and oppressed out of the Bible, it literally falls apart. This is very connected to the problem that we’re seeing today, because we’ve gotten a perverted kind of gospel that blames poor people for their poverty, calls poor people sinners, and does not say not that poverty is a sin in the eyes of our sacred tradition.

I think this is true about Jesus, and also when we look at King. You said that King in his last years was a very unpopular man. The day after he comes out against the Vietnam War, in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, 168 newspapers and organizations condemn him for it. And two or three days before he’s killed is the first needing of this minority leaders group, of Native folk and Jewish folk, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans, Appalachian whites and poor blacks from the North and South, where folks come together to think about the Poor People's Campaign. 

They didn't have very much time to try to get people onto the same page about what a Poor People's Campaign could really do. So many people had left and were not supportive of the idea. So it meant that when he was killed, a lot of the energy and vision of what that campaign could be really struggled to go on. Much to this nation’s disgrace, we have paid a huge price for that.

You've written about how Jesus' words have been used to pervert that understanding to blame the poor, or to accept that poverty is just God’s will. How does that connect to what you're doing now?

I've been engaged in antipoverty organizing, grassroots organizing, for 25 years of my life. I got involved in the National Union of the Homeless and the National Welfare Rights Union -- efforts of poor people to come together and win demands and rights for poor people, and for all people.  And in the course of this 25 years, almost every week somebody comes forward quoting that scripture: “The poor will be with you always.” Sometimes to blame the poor and say really cruel, awful things; sometimes to say that poverty is unfortunate, but it's inevitable, and that if God wanted to end poverty, then God would do so.

I believe in reinterpreting this passage, and talking about our sacred traditions and what the Bible really say  about poverty — which is a message of liberation, a message that God is on the side of the poor and marginalized, and that God is with people as they stand up to fight injustice. The Bible is a compilation of stories of poor people coming together to right the wrongs of society, with God on their side.

I really believe that looking at the sacred texts — and especially that passage, “the poor will be with you always” — is similar to the work that abolitionists had to do back when they were working to end slavery. Which is that there was a Bible produced back then that didn't include Exodus, that didn't include the prophets, that took out all the passages were Jesus was talking about freedom to the captives. Folks — slaveholders, basically — preached a gospel of “Slaves, obey your masters.”

But you had folks like Harriet “Moses” Tubman, who led the Underground Railroad, or Frederick Douglass or William Lloyd Garrison. So many of those leaders of that movement found great inspiration from their religion, Christianity, to fight slavery and to fight for abolition.

I think today we have a similar battle on our hands. As long as people think the Bible condones poverty, as long as people think God wills poverty to exist, it will be very difficult for us to build the movement to end poverty, and to lift millions of people out of poverty. The Bible actually tell story after story of bringing good news to the poor. What is good news, if not the fact that everyone can have health care, and everyone can have good wages, and everyone can have food, and everyone can have housing. It's there and it's what God wills.

So if we take that message seriously, how should we change how we see America today, and how should it change us?

You might know that when King, the week that he was killed, he calls his mom, and said what his sermon is going to be, that following Sunday, and it was ‘Why America May Be Going to Hell.” If we look now, 50 years later, we have 140 million poor people in this country, with fewer voting rights than we had 50 years ago. There are 4 million homes where, when they turned on the water this morning, poisoned water with lead came out. This kind of crisis that we’re in is so deep, so rooted in immorality. But at this point, so few people of faith are challenging this kind of immorality,

When we were starting the Poor People's Campaign, we mapped out the states that had the highest levels of voter suppression, the 23 states that have enacted voter suppression laws, since 2010, and the we overlaid that with the map of where the states have the highest poverty — the highest child poverty, the lowest wages — the least environmental protection, the least protection of immigrants or the least protection of LGBTQ folks. All these different issues overlapped.

But also overlaid on that map were the highest concentrations of people who consider themselves Protestant evangelicals, and those maps are more or less the same. So we have the Bible Belt and the Poverty Belt being pretty much similar. We have evangelical Christians living in places where there is environmental and racial poverty and injustice happening. We have has silence for too long, especially people of faith. The heart of the gospel is about justice for the poor, justice for the marginalized, justice for children. It's so important for us to do this work, hand in hand, as we travel around the country, and call for this national moral revival.

Today's Poor People's Campaign has been conceived to build from the bottom up. What is the plan for the remainder of the first 40 days, -- and beyond?

The plan is that on Mondays for the next five weeks, folks will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action and building power from the ground up in the states. We have different themes for different weeks: This coming week we're focusing on systemic racism, in particular voter suppression, and the way that is an attack on our democracy and hurts everybody, and the connection to economic justice. We’re also looking at immigration and the mistreatment of Native American indigenous communities, and how all those things are tied to the 140 million poor people in the country.

Week 3 focuses on the war economy and militarism and the proliferation of gun violence. Week 4 focuses on the right to health and a healthy planet, making connections between health care and ecological devastation, The fifth week's focus is that everybody has a right to live, looking at issues of living wages, education and health care -- all the things people need to not just survive, but to thrive. Then, in Week 6, we have all people coming together and rising up and organizing and building.  

From D.C. every week we're doing national televised broadcasts and teach-ins, we're doing cultural events. We will culminate for the last week of the 40 days with an encampment, kind of a vigil, with the mass mobilization on June 23 that is really about next steps -- about people committing to go back into their communities and build deeply-rooted grassroots moral movements based in these different states. We’ll do voter registration, voter mobilization, community organizing, contributing, continuing to build power. Really the vision is that this is a launch of a multiyear campaign that's really about building a grassroots social movement to conquer these moral injustices that are hurting everybody.

What can people do to support your work?

Great, we need everybody. On the Poor People's Campaign website — there is an interactive map, with all the different states are participating in this campaign, that shows where the Monday trainings and actions are taking place, and where the watch parties and different events are happening. This movement needs anybody who sees that were living in a crisis, and that it requires many of us to stand in the gap, to come forward and say people have been hurt for too long, silent for too long, and we're not going to be silent anymore. We're going to put our bodies on the line. We're going to be willing to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and organizing, to move toward building a moral movement that will make this country good for everybody.

When MoveOn met the Tea Party

What if you had the opportunity to understand the perspective of someone you vehemently disagree with politically? Would you invite them in for dinner? That’s exactly what Joan Blades, the co-founder of MoveOn.org, and Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party patriots, did. Blades joined “Salon Now” to detail how it all went down and why the positive interaction inspired her nationwide project “Living Room Conversations,” which creates a framework for people to set up in-person or video chats with people holding opposite viewpoints on dozens of social and political issues. “We keep forgetting that science has shown us that most people make their decisions 90 percent of the time by gut or heart,” Blades told Salon. “So we keep thinking that we can argue people, rationally talk people into a different point of view. The reality is that the most likely way people change their views is when they make a real connection.” Blades and the project are also featured in the new PBS documentary, “American Creed,” hosted by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Watch the video above to find out what Blades learned from Meckler. And tune into SalonTV's live shows, ["Salon Talks"]( https://video.salon.com/p/lzcPCDNc) and ["Salon Stage"]( https://video.salon.com/p/5n0BV6Ub), daily at noon ET / 9 a.m. PT and 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT, streaming live on [Salon]( https://video.salon.com/), [Facebook]( https://www.facebook.com/pg/salon/videos/) and [Periscope]( https://www.pscp.tv/Salon).

 

PAUL ROSENBERG

Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg.

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Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)

Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)

Comment by Lance Lawrence

A number of people in the Greater Boston area, many having worked on political prisoner campaigns from freeing Black Panthers in the old days (and a few who still inside the walls all these years later putting emphasis on the FBI vendetta against that organization and other militant black organizations as well) to more recently Mumia, Leonard Peltier, Chelsea Manning and Reality Leigh Winner have over the past couple of years decided to form a Committee for International Labor Defense. If those last three words ring a bell it is because this group consciously is trying to model itself after the organization started many years ago back in the 1920s initiated by the American Communist Party and led at first by founder James P. Cannon and others like Big Bill Haywood and his fellow anarchists who saw the need for the labor movement to defend its own and others who were being persecuted by the capitalist state. In all an honorable tradition including stalwart defenses of the martyred immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti and the Alabama Scottsboro Boys cases.

In practice what the original ILD (and now the CILD) attempted to do was make sure that those class-war prisoner not all of them necessarily in political agreement with the Communist Party or any party were not forgotten. That those inside were treated with the same dignity as those outside the wall (outside for the present anyway given the ups and downs of capital existence that can be a very close thing). For those who have spent time behind bars knowing that there are others outside looking after your interests has been a tremendous morale booster. That along with taking care of families, providing stipend to prisoners to purchase items inside, providing legal defense funds and personnel, writing letter to those inside are just some of the things that the ILD (and now the CILD) was committed to seeing done. Not as charity or social work as Cannon made very clear but as acts of hard solidarity with those inside. Read the statement, check out the website listed, and if possible support with anything from writing letters to donating legal fund in order to get our class-war prisoners freed as quickly as possible. Thank you   

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website-Never Forget The Sacco and Vanzetti and Troy Davis Cases

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website-Never Forget The Sacco and Vanzetti and Troy Davis Cases

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

************

Frank Jackman comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy when last minute stay and appeal to the United States Supreme Court went for naught) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.
Here is another way to deal with both the question of the death penalty and of political prisoners from an old time socialist perspective taken from a book review of James P. Cannon's Notebooks Of An Agitator:

I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.

The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.

It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.

I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.

Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.

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Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears."

last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan
, 1963

Frank Jackman comment immediately after the execution of Troy Davis (posted September 22, 2011):

Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.

On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.

Additional Jackman comment posted September 23, 2011:

No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!

Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-A Not Beatles "Anna"

Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-A Not Beatles  "Anna" 

A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject from the original recorder Arthur Alexander which is where the Beatles heard it first.
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. And those songs provide our movement with that combination entertainment/political message that is an art form that we use to draw the interested around us. Even though today those interested may be counted rather than countless and the class struggle to be whiled away is rather one-sidedly going against us at present. The bosses are using every means from firing to targeting union organizing to their paid propagandists complaining that the masses are not happy with having their plight groveled in their faces like they should be while the rich, well, while away in luxury and comfort.  

But not all life is political, or rather not all music lends itself to some kind of explicit political meaning yet speaks to, let’s say, the poor sharecropper at the juke joint on Saturday listening to the country blues, unplugged, kids at the jukebox listening to high be-bop swing, other kids listening, maybe at that same jukebox now worn with play and coins listening to some guys from some Memphis record company rocking and rolling, or adults spending some dough to hear the latest from Tin Pan Alley or the Broadway musical. And so they too while away to the various aspects of the American songbook and that rich tradition is which in honored here.   

This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up. 

As We Pass The 1st Anniversary Of The “Cold” Civil War In America-A Tale Of Two Boston Resistance Events –Join The Resistance Now!

As We Pass The 1^st Anniversary Of The “Cold” Civil War In America-A Tale Of Two Boston Resistance Events –Join The Resistance Now!

By Si Lannon

The headline to this piece is something of a misnomer as the “cold” civil war in America as I have been calling the great expanding divide between left and right, the oppressed and the oppressor (and its hangers-on including, unfortunately, a not insignificant segment of the oppressed), the haves and have nots and any other way to express the vast gulf, getting wider, between those siding with white rich man’s power and the rest of us, since this cold civil war has been building for a couple of decades at least. The Age of Trump which started officially one year ago though is a pretty good milestone to measure both how far we of the left, of the oppressed, have come and to measure the responses by the oppressed (the ones not hanging on to the white rich men) a year out in Year I of the Age of Trump Resistance.

Two local signposts, let me call them, stick out this weekend of January 20^th. One, the Women’s Rally on Cambridge Common on the 20^th organized to commemorate the anniversary of the historic Women’s mega-rally and march in Washington and it’s gigantic satellite event on Boston Common, The other a cultural/political event organized by Black Lives Matter and its allies held in the historic Arlington Street Universalist-Unitarian Church in Boston on the 21^st.

Those two events which I attended in person in my capacity as a member Veterans Peace Action (VPA, an organization which my old friend Sam Lowell who will take the spotlight below got me involved in as fellow Vietnam War veterans) while they share some obvious over-lapping political perspectives to my mind represented two distinct poles of the resistance as it has evolved over the past several years.

No one, including I assume the organizers of the Women’s Rally, expected anything like the turnout for the 2017 Inaugural weekend event on the Boston Common or else they would have had the event on the Common so I did not expect a tremendous turnout. That event could not be duplicated and moreover over the year some of the anger over the Trump victory, etc. and maybe just plain horror and discouragement would have sapped some energies. However the several thousand who showed up represented a good turnout to my mind.

What I didn’t expect was the rather celebratory feeling that I got from the crowds as the poured into Cambridge Common from the nearby Harvard MBTA subway stop. I was positioned along with a number of my fellow VPAers as volunteers to insure the safety of the crowds and any threaten action by the Alt-Right who were said to be “organizing” a counter-rally at the Common as well. (In the event that small clot of people were isolated and protected by the Cambridge police without incident. We kept our side cool as well.)

That celebratory spirit, rather unwarranted given the defeats on our side over the previous year from Supreme Court justice to DACA to TPS to a million other injustices, flowed into the main thrust of the rally. Get Democrats, get women Democrats, elected to public office and “scare” the bejesus out of Donald J. Trump and his hangers-on. In other words the same old, same old strategy that the oppressed have been beaten down by for eons. Like things were dramatically better for those down at the base of society, down where everybody is “from hunger” with Democrats. Worse though than that pitch for the same old, same old was as the younger radicals say “who was not in the room, who had not been invited.” Who didn’t show up for the “lovefest” if it came to that. The representation on the speaker platform, always a key indicator of whose agenda and whose buttons are being pushed, looked like the old-time white middle-class feminist      cabal that has been herding these women-oriented political events for years to the exclusion on the many shades (and outlooks) of people of color. Not a good sign, not a good sign at all a year out when we are asking people in earnest to put their heads on the line for some serious social change.

Fast forward to the very next day at Arlington Street U-U Church in Boston where a Black Lives Matter event, co-sponsored by Veterans Peace Action, was held to a infinitely smaller crowd around black cultural expression and serious political perspectives. The cultural events were very fine, rap, music, poetry slam put on by skilled artists in those milieus. Interspersed in between those performances was very serious talk, egged on by the moderator, about future political perspectives, about the revolution, however anybody wanted to define that term, In short a far cry from what was being presented and “force-fed” in Cambridge the previous day.             

Now it has been a very long time since, except in closed circle socialist groups, that I have heard about the necessity of revolution (again whatever that might mean to the speaker), so it was like a breath of fresh air to hear such talk in Arlington Street Church, a place where legendary revolutionary abolitionist John Brown spoke, to drum up support for his Kansas expeditions and the later Harpers Ferry fights against slavery. Listening to the responses, as Sam Lowell who attended with me noted later, the missing links to the 1960s generation, to our generation, the last time a lot of people seriously used the word revolution, have left the younger activists in various states of confusion. That will be worked out in the struggle as long as people keep the perspective in mind. What bothered Sam, and me as well although I could not articulate it like him, were two points that seemed to have been given short shrift by the various talkers.

I was going to enumerate them but why don’t I let my recollection of what Sam said (edited by him before posting so very close to what he actually meant) to the gathering after listening to some things that as Fritz Taylor from the South, another VPAer and Vietnam vet used to say- “got stuck in his craw.” Sam had not intended to speak since he, we, thought the event was to be totally a cultural one so he kept it short but also to the point, to our collective agreement point:

“Hi, I am Sam Lowell for Veterans Peace Action (VPA), a co-sponsor of this great event. I didn’t expect to speak since I thought this would be solely a cultural event. But some comments here have got me thinking. First a quick bio point or two-like one of the sisters who performed I grew up in “the projects,” a totally white one, although still “the projects” with all the pathologies that entails and I have remained very close to those roots my whole life whatever successes I have had in breaking out of those beginnings. Early on, don’t ask me how or why, I came to admire John Brown, the white righteous avenging angel revolutionary abolitionist who fought slavery tooth and nail out in Kansas and later, more famously, at Harpers Ferry slave insurrection. He was, is, my hero, my muse if you can use such a term for avenging angels.      

A couple of points. One speaker mentioned a litany of oppressions which had to be eliminated by us, by society, by us as the most conscious of things like patriarchy, racism, classism, gender-sexual preference phobia for lack of a better term, a term that I could use anyway, capitalism and so on. What I have noticed though as people here have tried to struggle with all of that and come up with some kind of strategy is what Lenin, and others, have called imperialism, our American imperialism, which means against all the oppressed of the world we are “privileged” Americans privileged no matter what oppressions we face in this society.   

On this point I will bring back from the dead two important quotes from the legendary revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara-“it is the duty of revolutionaries to make the revolution.” We cannot spent our precious lives “purifying” ourselves of all the oppressions and all the ways we, in turn act as oppressors, so we are “worthy” of the revolution while the world outside this room suffers from our wrong-headed sense of liberation struggle. Second “we who are in the heart of the beast,” who are in America have a special obligation to bring the monster down. To fight the fight now and to be there when the masses rise up in righteous indignation.    

Second and last point. One speaker a few minutes ago mentioned that it seemed impossible that we could win against, 

I assume she meant the American ruling class, through the route of violent revolution so she projected by non-violent alternative which seemed to my ears rather utopian. She mentioned that the other side, the ruling class, had the heavy military advantage and so that route was precluded. That statement showed a lack of “imagination” which is the theme of this event. No question right now an armed uprising would be ruthlessly crushed. But when the masses rise and are determined a funny thing happens at least if you read history. The military splits along officer and soldier lines, the fighters of the war, the grunts, either go over to the people or go home. The cops go into hiding. 

 I would use the example of the Vietnam War which a lot of Veterans Peace Action members are very familiar with. At some point around 1968, 1969 the troops, the grunts on the ground in Vietnam, hell, here at home too began to essentially “mutiny” against the war in fairly big numbers. That army became unreliable, was in many ways broken both by the futility of fighting a determined enemy and vocal opposition at home. And that was not even close to a revolutionary situation but will give you an idea what that situation would look like as the masses rise. If it ever happened where will you be? Thank you.        

*From The Pen Of Ernest Hemingway-Bullfighting 101- "Death In The Afternoon"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the great American writer, Ernest Hemingway.

BOOK REVIEW

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

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

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

*****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

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino’s “High Sierra”- A Film Review

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino’s “High Sierra”- A Film Review

DVD Review

High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941

Okay, okay one more time- and this is for you, Roy “Mad Dog” Earle the “hero” of the film under review, High Sierra, crime does not pay. Some guys, some guys like brother Earle wind up learning that “hard knocks” lesson the hard way- lying face down at the bottom of some foreboding sierra canyon and no one , well, not no one, but hardly anyone to weep over their bones. And that, my friends, is the rough sketch lesson behind this classic Bogie gangster portrayal (and classic down-at-the heels dime-a-dance portrayal as faithful Marie, played by, well, an amazingly fetching Ida Lupino).

A little plot line is in order to show why, why, naw, skip that, we already have had our noses rubbed since childhood in the whys and why nots of crime doesn’t pay but why Brother Earle in the end took a bullet rather than be captured alive (even with his doll moll, Marie, ready to visit him every Sunday at some off the road prison locale).

See Earle is a three-time loser (or at least more than once) having been sprung from a full-book (okay, okay life) prison sentence (via an Indiana pardon) by an old-time gangster boss on his last legs. Apparently the talent pool of hard boys has dried up and an old pro that is not afraid to take heat and give some (without losing his head) is required for the caper the old don has in mind. A big jewelry heist in the Sierras (that’s in non-seaside California for the geography-challenged) at a watering hole for the well off. Easy stuff for Earle, as long as he keeps his head and the hired help don’t panic.

Now strictly as filler Roy, having had enough of the inside, and is planning to retire after he gets his cut from the heist. And for a while the film moves along with a little off-hand, oddball romance (no not Ida, not Ida yet). He befriends, on his road west, an old has-been farmer down on his uppers with a pretty crippled (oops, disabled) young granddaughter who he has ideas of marrying. Ya, I know, old Roy had been away for a while so maybe he is secretly skirt crazy, but this combination is strictly no go, no go on about seven counts, including that said granddaughter has enough sense to brush Roy the Boy off. Although not before Roy had sprung for a leg fixing operation. Roy, believe me, it never would have worked out. She would have run off with some Hollywood soda jerk or fast-talking garage mechanic and then where would you have been?

What works, and works like magic, is drop dead foxy, been around the block, been knocked around but is still taking the eight count, Marie. She had blew into town with a couple of what passed for hard boys in the hills of California night ( as boss man Big Mac said the talent ain’t like it used to be) and while they waste their time fighting over her favors she lights on our boy Roy. And after the granddaughter flame-out and some soft-soap sparring Marie wins the prize.

Naturally, yawn, the heist goes awry when some well-heeled dame screams and the bullets start to fly. And as the cops bear down through of series of narrower and narrower possibilities Roy is headed to that high sierra canyon, and death. No, Marie had it right. Like she had a lot of things right. He crashed out and was free, free as a three-time loser was ever going be.

5/26 Green-Rainbow Party annual state convention (Sat)

Matthew Andrews

12:57 PM

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Members of the Greater Boston Chapter of the Green-Rainbow Party will be
car pooling to our annual state convention in Worcester this Saturday. 
If you would like to come, please register and email me if you need a ride.

Saturday, May 26th

9:00am - 4:15pm

First Unitarian Church of Worcester
90 Main St
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
Google map and directions
<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=90+Main+St%2C+Worcester%2C+MA+01609%2C+United+States>

*Keynote Speaker: Cindy Sheehan*

Cindy Sheehan is a peace and social justice activist who became
internationally known after her son Casey was killed in Iraq and she
subsequently set up a peace camp outside then president George Bush's
vacation home in Crawford Texas. Sheehan is the author of seven books
and host and executive producer of CindySheehan's Soapbox podcast.
Currently Cindy is lead organizer for the Oct 21st action: Women's March
on the Pentagon.

*Paul Popinchalk Address: /Hope for Our Climate Future: Technical
& Political Mitigation Efforts/*

*//*

People everywhere are experiencing the growing crisis of climate change.
Images of drought, forest fires and melting glaciers are all too
familiar. Despite inaction by the US, the world's second largest CO2
emitter, there are hopeful developments in technology, financial
investment and political action globally as individuals and nations rise
to the call for environmental responsibility.

Preregister here
<http://www.green-rainbow.org/2018_state_convention_rsvp>

Meet the candidates for state reps, State Auditor, Treasurer and
Secretary of the commonwealth

Workshops:

* Coalition Building
* Organizing a political alternative: How to be a player in the
political process
* Rank Choice Voting - Coming soon to Massachusetts?
* Puerto Rico: Belongs to the United States But is not part of the
United States!

*And more:*

* Silent auction
* Tables for vendors and like minded orgs.
* Awesomely delicious vegan & vegetarian lunch included in the
convention fee

Reserve your spot today
<http://www.green-rainbow.org/2018_state_convention_rsvp>

Green-Rainbow Party
http://www.green-rainbow.org/
<http://www.green-rainbow.org/?e=b343cce5fcd7197669e5be3505002201&utm_source=greenrainbow&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=convention_4&n=4>

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