Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Part II-Sean Connery’s “Thunderball” (1965 )-A Film Review

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Part II-Sean Connery’s “Thunderball” (1965 )-A Film Review

DVD Review

By former Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon    

[I personally do not like the new regime, under Greg Green’s steady guidance, policy of getting rid of titles which were the hallmark of the now safely departed and exiled Allan Jackson who used to run the show here. It took many years for me to get that Senior Film Critic title having come over from the American Film Gazette under the Jackson regime when former Associate Film Critic Alden Riley decided to come over on retiring Senior Film Critic Sam Lowell’s say so and I resent being thrown on the dung heap and placed with everybody else with just their names on the by-line line. For now I will use my old title in the past tense until we go back to titles or Greg make a big deal out of my moniker and tries to shut it down. Then I will go back to being an Everyman like Alden Riley and Si Lannon have mentioned elsewhere. Sandy Salmon]   

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Readers who have read Associate Film Critic Alden Riley’s recent review of Goldeneye posted on this site on December 5, 2017 (and on the on-line American Film Gazette the same day) the first of four films where well-known action actor Pierce Brosnan plays the legendary super-spy Ian Fleming-created Bond, James Bond know that he and I had a dispute over whether to review that film or not. I had insisted that he finish up the original James Bond part of the long running series starring Sean Connery started in the early 1960s of which I had reviewed the first three efforts. He balked saying that being significantly younger than I by a generation that he could not see Sean Connery as his idea of the Bond character and argued that he would prefer to do the Pierce Brosnan series which he felt epitomized the Bond role. Since this dispute underscored a storm which has been brewing among the writers on this site (and to a lesser extent at the on-line Progressive American and American Film Gazette respectively) I conceded the point and challenged him to a “duel” to argue in the public prints over who was the “real” James Bond-Connery or Brosnan. The other post-Connery Bonds like Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton interested neither of us so the chase was on.          

[Since this concession by me to a younger writer is of some importance to the future direction of this site I should explain my view about the real deal which has produced this continual tension (something Sam Lowell, the film critic emeritus on this site and all around gadfly who while surprisingly siding with the younger writers against his old regime site manager friend has called a “tempest in a tea pot” and maybe he was right). This site (and to a lesser extent Progressive American, American Film Gazette and the American Music Annals which all of the older writers have written for at some point) had been tilted as might be expected toward the coterie of writers who came up the ranks with Jackson, a coterie of men which is a separate issue, who were formed one way or another by the turbulent 1960s. Although I have only recently taken over Sam Lowell’s position as film critic, now senior film critic with the addition of Alden and a couple of other stringers I too am of that generation and the “dispute” over the Sean Connery James Bond series with Alden has reflected both my preferences and my sense of where we should put our collective energies.            

According to Sam, and the former site administrator, they saw nothing wrong with tilting toward the 1960s which they saw above all as a defining cultural, political and social moment which has been reflected even now in the long rear-guard actions to fight against what Jackson calls the night-takers. Then several years ago when Markin brought in younger writers like Alden, Zack James, Lance Lawrence, Brad Fox and a few other stringers he, and the older writers, expected somewhat rigidly and erroneously that they would “keep the ‘60s alive” for the next generation. Naturally those younger writers balked not so much about having to cover the 1960s history stuff which they knew was a key the site’s existence but that all subsequent nodal points which informed their lives were down-played if not dismissed.

It was in that content that the Connery-Brosnan fight represented a prime example of the “Old Guard” stifling (Zack James’ word) the “Young Turks.” Alden reminded me during this argument though that it had really come to a head when during an expansive, some said seemingly endless, commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 San Francisco-based explosion when Allan asked everybody to hone in on those events when taking up writing projects. I, and looking back on it, the other older writers took up the cause in a heartbeat. The younger writers with the exception of Zack James whose older brother Alex started the whole thing in 2017 and had been out there in 1967 balked for the most part.

The firestorm really came when I mentioned to Alden that I had done a review of a documentary about the first Monterey Pops Festival also in 1967 where Janis Joplin among others won their spurs in the rock pantheon and he told me that he did not know who Janis Joplin was. I let that pass but somehow Allan heard about it and in a fit of pique ordered over my head Alden to do a review of a bio-pic of Janis: Little Girl Blues. Alden did it but the past several months as I said have been a tug-of-war among those whose sensibilities were established during the 1960s and those whose sensibilities were essentially formed by the Reagan years. Two very different epochs. The net effect though is that now Alden can write about Brosnan’s James Bond and anything else he wants. Allan had decided to retire soon and had brought in Greg Green from American Film Gazette to act as administrator so a different focus should be expected.           

I would like to add since Lance Lawrence of the younger writer set snidely brought something of the dispute up in a round-about way when he was doing a light commentary, posted December 5, 2017 here (and on the 6^th on the on-line American Folk Gazette and Progressive American websites) on a recent book by a Harvard professor about 1960s folk king icon Bob Dylan arguing that he, Dylan, belong right up there in the Western Civilization literary pantheon with the classic lyric poet like Homer and Virgil. In his public take on this internal site storm Lance mentioned that Dylan was another one of the causes for the bad feelings among the staff since Allan had assigned him to do a review of Volume 12 of what even I consider never-ending the Dylan Bootleg series.

Lance balked after listening to the six CD set and accompanying booklets saying that it was just mishmash of bullshit and outtakes and not worthy of consideration. Allan flipped out and this too brought matters to a head. Allan after heated arguments about direction and emphasis on the site told the collective audience that he was bringing in Greg Green as acting administrator and that he planned to retire. Lance’s implication: Allan had been purged, “purged like his buddy Trotsky” is the way he put it. Yes, a vote of confidence was taken and Allan was on the short end of the stick when Sam Lowell unexpectedly considering they had grown up together sided with the “Young Turks” but he was not purged, was not in any way in put in Trotsky’s position of having to defend his place in the Russian Revolution, in the Bolshevik Party when Uncle Joe pulled the hammer down, and eventually laid down his head for his belief when all was said and done. Allan will have like Sam emeritus status and can write, or not write, whenever something interest him.]            

Alden is right that in the now 20 something Bond, James Bond, films whether directly inspired by Ian Fleming’s novels or merely on the developed character that a certain familiar formula has kept the series running through several Bonds. Everybody knows that there will be plenty of high tech gadgetry provided by the ever present and resourceful Q who really should retire if he has not already, plenty of physically over-the-top action and plenty of sexy women either chasing or being chased by any actor who plays Bond. Additionally something that Alden did not pick up since he was a baby during the heyday of the big Cold War rivalry between the West, America centrally and the now long gone Soviet Union, that in the fight against the bad guys by British intelligence although they are given names like SPECTRE and Janus they are really stand-ins for the opponent bad guy countries of the moment like Russia and China.

All of this goes with the territory even though this first Pierce Brosnan Bond vehicle was not created out of Fleming’s stockpile. It most clearly in present in the early Connery films as he is something of a dashing one man avenging angel for the good guy Western values that guys like Doctor No and Gold-finger threaten. Connery uses his handsomeness, not “pretty boy” demeanor as a way to make his work easier since there is a toughness that shows whether he is in stilted work suit or casual clothes.  Brosnan only brings a “pretty boy” charm and over the top, and at times unbelievable physical manifestation to the role against Connery’s dashingly handsome demeanor. Sean also plays the role with more cheek, more sense that this whole thing is just an arduous task to get through to keep the lights burning.

As to the actual plot-line of Thunderball here as Sam Lowell likes to say the short skinny since as has already been suggested about other parts of this long-running Bond series there is a certain set formula. The bastards at SPECTRE are at it again as they as per Number One are responsible for hijacking through the usual nefarious means two atomic weapons to be used as bargaining chips for a big payoff of $100 million a lot then but chicken feed now for not destroying a major city. The city turned out to be Miami which now has its own problems to confront with climate change but then was a mecca for the sun-drenched tourists and plenty of mobster and ex-pats from all over Latin America after being giving the boot from their home countries. Bond is put on the case first to find the hiding place of the two bombs and then shutting down as much of the SPECTRE operation as possible for a single avenging angel to do. Along the way he snags the inevitable beauty who turns up in his path, succumbs to his charms and helps get the bomb situation under control. I wish I could say that would be the end of the bad guys but the world and slew of future Bond movies including ‘Pretty Boy” Brosnan’s portion tell us otherwise.   

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The German Spartacist Fighters of 1919

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the Spartacist Uprising of 1919.

Markin comment:

These Spartacists are the comrades-in-arms of our beloved rose of the revolution, Rosa Luxemburg, and revolutionary militant, Karl Liebknecht.

very January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Bizarre Doings In Veteran Peace Action (VPA) Land-A Cautionary Tale With Emphasis On The Tail

Bizarre Doings In Veteran Peace Action (VPA) Land-A Cautionary Tale With Emphasis On The Tail

By Sam Eaton, Executive Board, Veterans Peace Action (VPA)  

Perhaps he is out of fashion now, although once long ago when we were looking for answers out of the impasse of capitalism and imperialism we checked him out with a certain admiration, but Karl Marx once said that history while it does not repeat itself it sometimes presents itself in certain historical circumstances first as tragedy and then flips, goes wild, and turns into farce. That is a somewhat appropriate signpost for what has been happening in our beloved Veterans Peace Action chapter here in Augusta of late. As I have noted in a couple of recent postings under my cyber-signature, Lenny Lawlor, the times are out of sorts. There are some bizarre turns of events which have occurred of late which I alluded to in those posts. Of course even putting the proposition in such a light has the wily and careful readers of  VPA chomping at the bit to find out what the hell is going on. Not about our important political tasks ahead in this Year II of the reign of one Donald J. Trump when the war clouds are more ominous than they have been in the past several years. No, indeed, but about the all-important, all-pressing organizational questions which are burning issues that even the most callous and marginal members live and die to explore ad infinitum.         

That brings up my signpost remark about the fate of history in the raw. This organizational business, mainly about who, and who is not, a member of VPA and why, or why not, and the desperately urgent question seething in the chapter causing a hue and cry to go out throughout the land about paying, certain specific exceptions noted, VPA chapter dues. The whole thing reminded me of a faint echo of the famous disputes in 1903 in the Russian Social-Democratic Party between what became the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks about who was and who was not a true member of that organization. We all know through the dress rehearsal Revolution of 1905 and the real thing in February-October 1917 that little difference turned into something like a tragedy. Our little organizational brouhaha of late takes its proper place as farce.

Here is the way the thing is playing out (playing out is the correct term since the issues are far from resolved and in some aspects may not be short of court action but that is the wave of the future and need not detain us in presenting obliquely to the curious what the hell is going on).       

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Suggestion: While we are in the nomination process-The need for an Inquisitor-General (I-G) for the Smedley Butler Brigade-A FABLE

By Sam Eaton

Okay, okay I know that we are in the tail-end of the nomination process and that hopefully we will have ample “real” veteran   candidates for the various officers. (That “real” in quotation marks to emphasize that by VPA by-laws every candidate must be a veteran in good standing of VPA complete with a real DD214 showing they are in fact veterans.) One would assume that that verification process would be the task of the sitting Executive Committee and that they would use due diligence in this matter. As well as other delicate matters like who is a “real” member of National VPA or local and/or both and insure that every living and breathing VPA current member or membership aspirant, except those skimmers who can show hardship or other extenuating circumstances, has paid his or her local dues.

What I am proposing though since such tasks are of the utmost importance given the demonstrated incapacity of ordinary mortal members of any executive committee, is that in addition to, and separate from, the traditional Executive Committee positions we institute the office of Inquisitor-General. Okay, you don’t like that title since it smacks of the old-time Inquisition in Spain and throughout medieval Europe under the auspices (nice word, right) of the Holy Mother Apostolic Roman Catholic Church (and maybe the Eastern Church as well but I don’t know about that). How about this instead since all “real” veterans will be familiar with the term-Inspector-General which also has the virtue of using the same letters.     

Yeah, I also know what I am proposing is properly addressed to the amendment process. You know bring your motion to a General Meeting and… oh hell, let me just quote the relevant part of the process:

“Individual members may also initiate By-Law changes by submitting a written proposal to the Coordinator for distribution with a notice and agenda for the next General Meeting. Notice of amendment to the By-Laws, in writing, shall be presented for discussion to the monthly General Meeting before the meeting in which the amendment is to be voted on. Amendments must be approved by two-thirds (2/3) of the members present at the monthly General Meeting in which they are voted on.”  

Maybe I will do that but what I am on a tear about today is while we are in the nominating process mood I want to make some propaganda for due consideration for this position if not now for in the future. Such a position as I-G (you decide which I-G term you prefer so I will just use I-G) is desperately needed in these troubled times since the local, hell maybe National too, needs somebody who will ferret out the truth no matter what. No matter what the facts are since, and I hope I am not telling tales out of school, this chapter, VPA is rift with what do they call it, oh yeah, alternate facts. I won’t go into each and every detail but if you can believe this some of our VPA members do not belong to National. Yes, I know the chapter by-laws and long precedent has permitted such egregious and organization-threating practice which a persevering I-G will deal with in short order after a short bout of auto-de-fe loosens up a few tongues.

Worse, worse than your previously innocent nightmares is that “hard” fact that an infinite number of potential members, and not a few current members, have bitterly complained that they were threatened denial of VPA membership because they didn’t fork up the measly thirty bucks to get on the team. This wide-spread abuse of power has been swept under the carpet from what I can gather from my usually reliable sources. A hue and cry should go out through the land unless and until a trusty I-G can work magic and slip them onto the rolls.            

Worst of all though and the strongest reason we need an I-G is the wide-spread indifference, dare I say cover up, by previous Executive Committees and maybe the current one too in checking the DD214s of each and every member who claims to be a veteran. I don’t want to insinuate anything but I have heard cases where Executive Committee members after superficially checking out a DD214 have just let the person get in our organization.  Why haven’t they dotted every “t” or crossed every “I” or is it the other way around on examining each form maybe use a little technology, maybe carbon-dating if that is still done. Jesus, can you believe that malfeasance.

I have also heard, and this is just rumor so take it for what it is worth, that money, filthy lucre has changed hands, hundreds of dollars, maybe more, from guys without “real” DD214s to get in so they can claim to their non-veteran buddies, girlfriends, wives, employers and who knows who else they are veterans on the cheap. Not exactly ‘stolen valor” but close.  Scandalous. 

I am here to tell you that vetting process is utterly superficial. An I-G would have that situation squared away in a couple of weeks after letting every member of the organization, high or low, take a few peeps at each and every DD214 to see what shenanigans have been going on. (Veterans anyway I am not sure on supporters but will take a friendly amendment on that if there is a groundswell of support. In any case not every stray member of the local Left after all every supplicant has a right to a little privacy no matter what they are hiding.)      

Of course the I-G position since it would be almost full-time given the endemic corruption abroad in the chapter would be excused, despite the looming war clouds hovering in the near future and a thousand other pressing social issues that need every person we can put into the breech, from actually having to go out and spread the words of peace. I know this I-G idea is all music for the future but now is the time to begin to sanitize this out-off- hand local chapter. Clear out the driftwood. Come on now can’t a man have a FABULOUS dream.  

Once Again –Sam Eaton

Of course everybody knows that my “suggestion” for creating an Inquisitor-General (or Inspector-General your choice although the more I think about the matter the more I like the former) was a spoof, a parody, a fable, hell if you want a cautionary tale. You know, and most of you have been at this peace and social justice business as reflected in our demographics for as long a time as I have, that you cannot go through these long and sometimes lonely struggles without a sense of humor, without some levity to take away the dark nights. However no spoof, parody, fable, what the hell cautionary tale is created from scratch. Without something in mind. At least my staid old lawyer’s “nothing but the facts, Jack” mind does not have enough imagination to do something out of the pure clothe. But sometimes bizarre things happen, as have happened recently in our chapter, maybe reflecting the age of Trump alternate fact, “if you repeat something enough it will stick” mentality seeping into our chapter, that cry out for comment. Hence the Inquisitor -General spoof.

Frankly even if I was serious I cannot think of one single Smedley who is mean enough, is full-time zealous enough, is driven by the quest for alternative facts again that allegedly over-rated truth enough to qualify for the job. Or who I would trust enough either to do the scorched-earth policy outlined in the spoof.  Moreover our little chapter is in not in need of such an extraordinary overlord figure since over the past period we have been building a collective leadership to carry the heavy work of peace and social justice in front of us forward. That being done even with all our little quirks, all our listening to a different drummer which makes the local what it is as a leading chapter in VPA. So count me as a real time theoretical “no” on creating that silly position.  

But enough of that because, as my addition to the headline notes, this is a shout-out to the divine, intrepid, heart-in-the-right-place long-time important VPA supporter Alice Carson for setting me straight on something that I left as an open-ended question in my “suggestion.”  She noted via a reference to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov that beyond Spain, beyond the Holy Mother Apostolic Roman Catholic Church the Russian Orthodox Church too had it Grand-Inquisitor. The model I had in mind was not taken from Dostoevsky though but from a film called Goya’s Ghost where Brother Lorenzo Casamares, played by evilly and chillingly handsome Javier Bardem, does the Spanish Inquisition’s dirty work in the midst of the French Revolution. He was no stranger to a little auto-de-fe to loosen a few tongues. Of course in the time-honored traditions of such bureaucrats when the tide turned and France occupied Spain he flipped sides as easily as changing his socks once he saw what the new national landscape looked like. And paid the price when the tide turned again. I didn’t expect this to turn to a literary discussion but are there any other religious organizations I am not aware that had Inquisitors-General.           

“And The Choir Kept Singing Of Freedom”- Birmingham Sunday-1963-A Reflection After Viewing "Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project"Photograph Display At The National Gallery Of Art

“And The Choir Kept Singing Of Freedom”- Birmingham Sunday-1963-A Reflection After Viewing "Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project"Photograph Display At The National Gallery Of Art

Richard Farina's Birmingham Sunday 

Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project

September 12, 2018 – March 24, 2019

West Building, Ground Floor

Dawoud Bey, Mary Parker and Caela Cowan, 2012, 2 inkjet prints mounted to dibond, overall: 101.6 x 162.56 cm (40 x 64 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee and the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund

For more than 40 years photographer Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) has portrayed American youth and those from marginalized communities with sensitivity and complexity. Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project marks the National Gallery of Art's recent acquisition of four large-scale photographs and one video from Bey's series, The Birmingham Project, a tribute to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Coinciding with the 55th anniversary of this tragedy, the exhibition focuses on how Bey visualizes the past through the lens of the present, pushing the boundaries of portraiture and engaging ongoing national issues of racism, violence against African Americans, and terrorism in churches.

On September 15, 1963, four girls were killed in the dynamiting of the church, and two teenaged boys were murdered in racially motivated violence. Each of Bey’s diptychs combines one portrait of a young person the same age as one of the victims, and another of an adult 50 years older—the child's age had she or he survived. Alongside these photographs, the exhibition features Bey's video 9.15.63. This split-screen projection juxtaposes a re-creation of the drive to the 16th Street Baptist Church, taken from the vantage point of a young child in the backseat, with slow pans that move through everyday spaces (beauty parlor, barbershop, lunch counter, and schoolroom) as they might have appeared that Sunday morning. Devoid of people, these views poeticize the innocent lives ripped apart by violence.

This exhibition is curated by Kara Fiedorek, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

By Seth Garth

Sometimes things, events, ideas, and such lead into one another. Recently I had written a short piece based on hearing a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where the reporter was ruminating about the effect that folk-singer/songwriter Bob Dylan’s “anthem” The Times They Are A-Changin’ had on her and the Generation of ‘68 when it first hit the airwaves in 1963. That reportage got my attention since I have spent plenty of cyber-ink throughout my journalistic career highlighting various aspects of the tremendous push on my generation, that Generation of ’68 or the best part of it, of events in the early 1960s which were harbingers of what we expected to have occur that would change the world, would turn the world upside down. I thus need not go into detail here about my notion that Bob Dylan’s song set him up as the “voice” of a generation whether he wanted to be that or not. Nor about what effect that song, and songs like his had on us, gave us our marching orders.          

As part of her presentation the reporter mentioned that some events, some events down South around the black civil rights movement against one Mister James Crow like the beatings, the water-hosing and the unleashing of the vicious dogs by the police on innocent protestors had on her growing political consciousness, her desire to work for social change. Although she did not specifically mention Birmingham Sunday, the bombing of a black church killing four innocent children and wounding others that event triggered the activism button of many young people, including myself. 

I have detailed elsewhere some of the events like the black civil rights struggle down South, the fight for nuclear bomb disarmament, the emerging struggle against the escalating Vietnam War as acting as catalysts to action. Also tried to convey a more general sense of the mood of the times among young people that the world, a world then on the brink, on as one song had it on the “eve of destruction” was not responding to their needs, was not changing in ways that we could understand. Most of all that we had no say, had not been asked about what had been created in our names. And nobody in power seemed to think that they needed to consult us.  

All of this came to mind as well by a recent visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. where on the ground floor there was a small photographic exhibit centered on that Birmingham Sunday bombing. A kind of what if, or rather what would those who were killed or maimed look like today if they had been permitted to live out their precious lives. That got me to thinking the thoughts I expressed in that “voice of a generation” commentary and about the changes in people who did survive, who now have aged, gracefully or not, and who are thinking about, are summing up their lives and what they did, or did not do. Powerful stuff although when one realizes what is what in the world today one has to be very circumspect about the little changes we have made. Not profound but something to think about whatever generation designation.

In The Blessed Age Of #MeToo-The Case Of Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Allan Jackson Former Head Of The American Left History Blog   

By Laura Perkins

Nobody was happier than I was when all the brave, mostly younger women, younger than I am in any case, started the deluge of “outings” of rich, powerful and sexually manipulative men at first Hollywood makers and shakers and then a whole row of dominos in every major cultural, media, and political institution. A tsunami which even drew a coveted “person” of the year nod from Time magazine for the symbolic #MeToo although as my long-time companion and now, once again fellow writer here, Sam Lowell, such notice usually is the “kiss of death” for the cover bearers. That is the good, and will always remain the good part of what developed over the past several months. Behind that breath of fresh air enlightenment though is a situation, a problem if you will, about the line between those righteous “outings” and a witch hunt, which hunt atmosphere anyway. And as with original which hunts from the Inquisition to the Salem witch trials to the 1950s Cold War travails overkill and damages to reputations and livelihoods when the net goes astray.  

That “astray” is the reason that I, as both a woman and as a person who has known the “accused” for a very long time, have been assigned by our new site manager Greg Green to speak about something that has surfaced recently concerning the ouster, “purge” as Sam and the younger writers he was associated with in the process called it plain and simple, of the previous site manager Allan Jackson. As both a woman and as a long-time acquaintance of Allan’s, I wouldn’t say friend since we have seldom touched base over the past decade or more, I felt compelled to take up his cause around the allegations of sexual improprieties. Allan, an old high school growing up neighborhood friend of Sam’s, having been ousted recently during this whole international expose of sexual harassment and sexual crimes has been falsely accused by innuendo of such conduct as part of the reason for his removal.

I had to laugh, a sardonic laugh unfortunately, as did Sam, when we heard this rumor going around the “water cooler” as I like to call such gossip. As to be expected it is hard to trace the origins of such speculations but as far as I, we, could tell it was the girlfriend of one of the younger writers who caught up in the turmoil of the sexual harassment exposes almost naturally, although without proof, assumed anybody, any male who was on the chopping block these days was being removed for that reason. Sam, who has known Allan the longest and has been part of their collective publishing experiences is right now putting together a history of those efforts concluding with the power struggle that actually was the reason, or were the reasons for his removal. I won’t go through that here except the certain snippets which will shed light on how ludicrous those sexual allegations really are.

The hard, hard fact is that despite three wives, a parcel of nice kids, and many girlfriends at least according to Sam, Allan is afraid of /doesn’t understand women. Hasn’t, and Sam at times can be entered into the same category, for a lot of reasons going back to growing up times in their working poor neighborhood in the Acre section of North Adamsville where they grew up and “learned” about girls, women along with several other older writers here. By the way, and it may help explain a few things about those growing up influences that “three wives” thing is hardly a solo Allan phenomenon since all the older writers, except beautiful true blue Jack Callahan, also an Acre boy, with his eternal Chrissie, his eternal highs school sweetheart who have been hitched at the hip since high school, have had at least two wives and various sums of kids, who have taken as Cole Porter, the old-time popular lyricist wrote in another context, “all the gold of more than one man.”

Including my companion Sam coming at in three and a parcel as well which is one reason that we have never married. In the interest of transparency I have had two myself so it was by mutual self-interest and saving lawyer’s fees that we have lived together without the albatross of marriage around our necks.                   

Whoever spread that “water cooler” rumor which, and this has driven Sam to distraction and has made him more isolated from the group, the younger writers to this date have not done anything to dispel that falsehood. Despite their knowing better during the internal struggle. Have in their youthful ignorance not learned the difference between a truthful straight down in the mud political “purge” which is what Sam, and Allan, knew occurred having nothing to with personal problems, idiocrasies, or nasty sexual attitudes. They, veterans of the hard scrabble Acre streets and later of the hard-core radical political waves of the late 1960s when things got kind of tight, knew what the younger writers were clueless about except they had defeated the old guard and unceremoniously ousted the leader.

Moreover these young writers and whoever it was they hung around with who first threw the mud didn’t know a simple fact. The older Acre writers, and in this I include Josh Breslin who grew up in the same set of circumstances up in Olde Saco, Maine looked at girls, women from a very different perspective than all the corrupt bastards from Hollywood, the media and Capitol Hill. Allan and Sam’s crowd of unconscious streetwise budding intellectuals with no dough and plenty of Roman Catholic religion carrying them down. And plenty of larceny in their hearts led, as Allan and Sam will endlessly tell one and all, especially after a few drinks, by the late crazy guy Peter Paul Markin.         

According to Sam there was something like a code of honor that the Acre corner boys, that is what a few generations of such Acre boys called themselves, that if you were rebuffed by a girl, if a girl was “going steady” or if a girl showed no interest you moved on. (That “going steady” ban honored according to Sam more in the breech than the observance but the play was still the same-if rebuffed even there then move on.) None of this high pressure “do it or else” stuff which reflected the also hard fact that these guys had nada, nothing in the way of power to make or break any young woman. More importantly and Sam has tried to explain this to me but since I grew up a Methodist where we did not venerate Mother Mary as in the Catholic Church they were so ignorant of using power tactics to take sexual advantage it was laughable. At least in their crowd. That funny little clot of guys who hung out at some woe begotten pizza parlor and later the bowling allies when they didn’t have dough for dates half the time as Sam would say. A very different ethos even if from the same gender and in not a few instances out of the same age group.

All of that youthful Acre cultural gradient would not absolve anybody, Allan or otherwise, from later corrupting sexual charges except this other decisive hard fact which I have saved until the end for his defense although it did affect me indirectly. With the exception of his first wife, Josie Davis, in the early days, of Leslie Dumont when she was Josh Breslin’s companion and wrote here before moving on to a big byline in Women Today , and of myself when I first started to date Sam Allan never had any women writers, women anything to “harass,” sexually or otherwise working here. And he did not do such things to any of us which we all will gladly swear to. He was just not that kind of guy. Like I said he “loved” women but he really was afraid of them. I know Josie said that she had to “pursue” him or she would never have met him back in the Oakland days. There were a few female stringers back then for a while but for a long time now maybe fifteen years this has been until the recent changeover when Leslie and I came back on board under Greg Green’s leadership this has been a “good old boys” club. Allan wherever he is now took his beating for letting that happen but that is all.  The other stuff is just venom, pure venom.   

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-HONOR LENIN, LUXEMBURG AND LIEBKNECHT-THE THREE L’S-Honor Rosa Luxemburg- The Rose of The Revolution!-"The Political Mass Strike (1913)"

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-HONOR LENIN. LUXEMBURG AND LIEBKNECHT- THE THREE L’SHonor Rosa Luxemburg- The Rose of The Revolution!
Markin comment:

EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR, LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT. HERE’S WHY WE HONOR ROSA LUXEMBURG
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Rosa Luxemburg The Political Mass Strike/1913)

First Spoken: July 22, 1913 to the Fourth Berlin constituency.
First Published: Vorwärts, July 24, 1913.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker.
Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf.
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions.
Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.

In Germany, the problem of the political mass strike was earlier discussed under the mighty pressure of the great Russian Revolution of 1905, a revolution in which the application of the mass strike brought both defeat and victory to the Russian proletariat. The resolution of the Jena Party Congress [September 1905] was the outcome of this discussion. This resolution declared the political mass strike to be a weapon of the proletariat also applicable in Germany. There followed a period when debate on this problem subsided. Then in 1910 there was a further spirited discussion of the political mass strike in connection with our action to secure the right to vote in Prussia. The mass actions were deliberately suspended and our attention was directed towards the Reichstag elections of 1912. The mass strike again vanished from discussion. Now we see that the issue is again being discussed in meetings and at regional and district conferences. Even the party congress will not be able to avoid adopting a serious position on the question. When it is seen that the mass strike arouses the active interest of party comrades, no one will be able to assume that the entire discussion has been raised by only a few supporters of the mass strike. It is rooted in the economic situation. Such discussions always originate when the party feels the need to impel the movement to take a significant step forward, and when the party comrades become aware that we cannot make any headway with the critics who would write off the whole discussion as a sham perpetrated by a few cranks.

How and when did this discussion start? In the Wilmersdorf meeting? That is an error, but one which can be forgiven those who read only Vorwärts. For it has admittedly made out that Comrade Frank instigated the discussion on the political mass strike in the Wilmersdorf meeting. Long before the mass strike was discussed in Berlin, party comrades in many other places were concerned with it. If it is certain that the elemental power of the masses has now, for the third time, placed the question of the political mass strike on the agenda, then we must welcome it and see in this a symptom of the fact that we cannot avoid any longer applying this most valuable method to the class struggle. This is why it is necessary to examine the mass-strike issue in all its aspects. The question is far from being settled. It must still be discussed at length so that the masses are familiarized with the way in which this new form of struggle is to be applied.

If we consider the present discussion, we see on the one hand ardent advocates of the mass strike who are in favour of the party conference, in consultation with the General Commission of the trade unions, empowering the Party Executive to prepare the way for the mass strike. Indeed, they also demand that we should begin to educate the workers for the mass strike. They further advise the preparation of the mass strike according to the Belgian model. These are the demands made by one group. Another group immediately expressed the strongest reservations against any ‘flirting with the idea of the mass strike’. They said that this is extremely dangerous to our party life, for we in Germany are far from ready to participate in a mass strike. The party would suffer a defeat, their argument continued, from which it would not recover for decades.

The advocates of an application of the mass strike as soon as possible belong to various political currents. Comrade Frank, who has come out for the mass strike, represents the school of political opportunism. In Baden, he advocates the formation of a grand coalition with the National Liberals. His policy is very simple. One pursues grandiose politics in parliament with all the methods of statesmanlike tactics, one comes to terms with the bourgeois parties, one fashions a great block of the entire Left. However, when this policy fails, as it is bound to do, to advance the cause of the proletariat one step further, ah! then workers come into the streets and start a mass strike. Frank’s proclamation is a perfect example of how not to arrange a mass strike.

The mass strike is not something that one can make whenever the parliamentary tricksters’ policy breaks down. A mass strike brought about under such circumstances is a lost cause from the outset. The political tricksters who believe that they can conjure up a mass strike and then terminate it with a wave of the hand are in error. This cannot be done. Mass strikes can only take place when the historical preconditions for them are at hand. They cannot be made on command. Mass strikes are not an artificial method that can be applied whenever the party has bungled its politics, in order to extricate us overnight from the morass. When the class conflicts have become so pronounced and the political situation so tense that parliamentary means are no longer sufficient to advance the cause of the proletariat, then the mass strike is urgently necessary, and then, although it may not bring unconditional victory, it is immensely useful to the cause of the proletariat. Only when the situation has become so extreme that there is no more hope for co-operation with the bourgeois parties, especially with the liberals, does the proletariat obtain the impetus necessary for the success of the mass strike. Accordingly, the mass strike is not reconcilable with a policy centred around parliamentarism.

The Belgian movement is a storehouse of information on the problem of the mass strike. After they had abolished the plural vote by means of the mass strike, our Belgian comrades centred their efforts on parliament. This meant that the mass strike was put on ice. All proletarian actions were suspended as part of an overall plan to combine with the bourgeois Left in order to achieve universal suffrage. But the election of 1912 brought about the complete collapse of liberalism, and what remained of it went over to the camp of reaction. Then a storm of indignation broke out. Immediately following the elections the question of the mass strike reappeared. But the leaders of Belgian Social Democracy, who had based their policy on co-operation with the liberals, endeavoured to placate the masses by promising to arrange for the mass strike later. Then began the systematic postponement of the mass strike. Instead of an elemental eruption, a new tactic was begun; preparations were made for a new mass strike to be held in one month. After preparations lasting nine months, the masses could no longer be restrained. The strike finally broke out and for ten days was carried on with admirable discipline. The result was this: the strike was discontinued upon the first illusory concession made, a concession which represented a gain of virtually nothing. The Belgian comrades did not feel that they had achieved a victory. We see then, that the mass strike, employed in conjunction with the policy of a grand coalition resulted in nothing but set-backs. In view of this, we will reject any possible recommendation that we form a grand coalition in the south while at the same time starting a mass strike in Prussia.

On the other hand, it is said that we would be acting prematurely were we to propagate the mass strike in Germany, for we are less ripe for it than the proletariat of other countries. We in Germany have the strongest organizations, the fullest coffers, the largest parliamentary party, and yet we, alone among the whole international proletariat, are not supposed to be ripe? It is said that, despite its strength, our organization is only a minority of the proletariat. According to this notion, we would be ripe only when the last man and the last woman had paid their dues to their constituency associations. This is one wondrous moment for which we need not wait. Whenever we instigate an important action, not only do we count upon those who are organized, but we also assume that they will sweep the unorganized masses along with them. What would be the state of the proletarian straggle if we counted only on the organized!

During the ten-day general strike in Belgium, at least two-thirds of the strikers were not organized. Of course one must not conclude from this that the organization was of no significance. The organization’s power lies in its understanding of how to draw the unorganized into the action at the right time. The exploitation of such situations is a method of bringing about a huge growth in the organizations of the party and trade unions. Recruitment to the strong organizations must be based on a large-scale and forward-looking policy; otherwise the organizations will quietly decay. The history of the party and the trade unions demonstrates that our organizations thrive only on the attack. For then the unorganized flock to our banner. The type of organization that calculates in advance and to the nearest penny the costs necessary for action is worthless; it cannot weather the storm. All this must be made clear, and the dividing line must not be drawn so nicely between the organized and the unorganized.

If it is demanded that the party executive, in conjunction with the General Commission, should prepare for the mass strike, then it must be said that mass strikes cannot be made. But it is necessary to recognize that in Germany we are approaching a situation in which mass strikes are inevitable. We have just witnessed another victory of imperialism in the passing of the enormous military bill. After many in our ranks had so hoped to co-operate with the liberals, we see that these same liberals are hand-maidens of imperialism. If regrettably our parliamentary party supported property taxes in the fiscal covering bill, then this was nothing more than an intent to combine with the progressives and National Liberals to eliminate the Blue-Black Block. But the liberals, in league with the Blue-Black Block, eliminated us and, behind the backs of the Social Democrats, bungled miserably the property tax. Our parliamentary party’s final covering bill evoked powerful reactions in the Social-Democratic press abroad and in our own meetings. We shall have lively debates on this subject at the party congress.

The triumph of imperialism in the military bill brought home once more the painful lesson that we can no longer rely on the liberals. For this reason it is necessary to open the masses’ eyes. It is a fact that our parliamentarians lived in the illusion that they could form a coalition with the liberals against the Blue-Black Block, and that this illusion resulted in a miserable fiasco. This victory for imperialism was a new step towards the heightening of the class conflicts. We live at a time in which no more advantages can be gained in parliament for the proletariat. This is why the masses themselves must enter the theatre of action. Developments have taken such a turn that the mass strike will not disappear from the agenda in Germany. It is not a matter of preparing the mass strike; instead, we must ensure that our policy expresses the utmost strength necessary in the present situation.

The latest phase of our party’s policy dates from our electoral victory of 1912. We had set our greatest hopes upon it. An article by Kautsky, printed in Vorwärts, mentioned that a new liberalism was emerging. That was a disastrous illusion, but explicable on the basis of the slogan of moderation issued for the run-off ballots.

Moderation is an unacceptable policy. As a result of moderation we had vague hopes of a new liberalism and then the exuberant anticipation attached to the possibility of a Social Democrat being chosen President of the Reichstag. All these hopes have been dashed, and they show that our policy and tactics are outmoded. We have now witnessed the tumult of the Jubilee celebrations and the visit of the Bloody Tsar to the Berlin Court. This opportunity should have been used to instigate some kind of republican action. Do we have four million Social Democrats only so that we can crawl into a mousehole when the Bloody Tsar comes for a visit? How many supporters we could have won if we had organized a demonstration!

If we want to prove ourselves worthy of the great coming events then we must not begin at the wrong end by attempting to make technical preparations for the mass strike. When the situation is ripe, the tactic of the mass strike will present itself. Let us not rack our brains about supporting it at the right time. What is necessary is that you watch the party press to ensure that it is your instrument and expresses your opinion and your mood. You must also see to it that our parliamentarians feel a mass pressing them from behind, so that they do not chart such a disastrous course as in the case of the military bill. Shape the organization so that you need not wait until the command is given from above, but so that you have the reins of command in your own hands. You must not lose yourselves in technical details such as the reorganization of the dues-paying social evenings and of the delegate system. This is all very important, but your attention must be directed above all to the general guiding principles of our policy in parliament and throughout the country. Policy must not be formulated in such a way that the masses are always confronted with faits accomplis. Above all you must see to it that the press is a sharply honed weapon that cuts away the darkness from the people’s minds. The masses must make themselves heard in order to propel the party ship forward. Then we will be able to face the future confidently. History will do its work. See that you too do your work.