Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Four Dreams-Finding Whistler’s Mother-Gazing On The Girl With The Bette Davis Eyes-Following Allan Ginsberg’s Flowers-Searching For The Father We Never Knew

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

From The Iran Front Archives-Oh What Might Have Been

From The Iran Front Archives-Oh What Might Have Been-No War With Iran-Jesus, Don’t We Have Enough Troubles In The Middle East Without An Additional Madness In The Endless Wars

By Mercy Malone  

I was not even born when the post-Shah of Iran whoever he was and whatever that meant conflicts between Iran and the United States were never far from the daily news. As a child the only thing I knew about the place was around the ancient Zoroastrian religion and the fabled Whore of Babylon (mentioned recently in a posting in this publication by Laura Perkins about one of James MacNeil Abbott Whistler’s paintings which made me feel good). It was only later as an adult that I found out from my parents that they had known some of the people who were kept hostage by the Iranians in 1979 after the Revolutionary Guard and the masses overthrew that Shah. My father had been some kind of mid-level bureaucrat in the State Department then before he opened up his own consulting firm dealing with the interests of various foreign clients. The only word I ever heard from him about the Iranians were that they were savages and besotted, his term, by some Moslem weirdness, my term and should be blown from the face of the earth.

That was a while back and although my father probably still has the same views my own have veered away from some bloodthirsty revenge motive or calling for yet another war against another Moslem country in the endless wars that have melted down the Middle East (and elsewhere too). I don’t know from my short-list reading of history if diplomacy always is the right step, and how much before the gloves come off but I fully supported what the Obama administration along with other nations attempted to do to forestall Iran’s strong and inevitable push toward joining the nuclear club. Sure there were problems with the agreement as with any negotiations but I breathed a sigh of relief that for a while those efforts were on hold. And especially when after a million inspections by forces not friendly to the Iranians they were abiding by the agreement.  

Along comes one Donald J. Trump and then out of some form of hubris cuts the United States out of the deal leaving the remaining partners with egg on their faces. Leaving, more importantly, Iran in the face of serious gathering war clouds to ramp up their attempts to get nuclear weapons capacity. Leaving me with two pieces of wisdom to finish up. Here diplomacy worked and could continue to work and I’ll be damned, father be damned, that I will support war with Iran-No War.  

On The 60th Anniversary Defend The Gains Of The Cuban Revolution

Defend the Gains of the Cuban Revolution!

(Quote of the Week)

Workers Vanguard No. 1148 8 February 2019 TROTSKY LENIN Defend the Gains of the Cuban Revolution! (Quote of the Week) Sixty years ago, in January 1959, a petty-bourgeois guerrilla movement in Cuba overthrew the Batista capitalist regime and in 1960-61 expropriated the bourgeoisie, creating a bureaucratically deformed workers state. Revolutionaries in the U.S. have a special duty to defend the Cuban Revolution against capitalist restoration and U.S. imperialism. Integral to this defense is the Trotskyist call for proletarian political revolution to establish a regime based on workers democracy and revolutionary internationalism. The excerpt below is from a 1961 internal document submitted by our forebears in the Revolutionary Tendency, a minority in the now-reformist Socialist Workers Party. The SWP majority gave political support to the Castro-led Stalinist bureaucracy, rejecting the necessity of a Leninist-Trotskyist party and the centrality of the proletariat in the fight for socialist revolution. 14. The Cuban workers and peasants are today confronted with a twofold task: to defend their revolution from the attacks of the U.S. and native counterrevolutionaries, and to defeat and reverse the tendencies toward bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution. To confront this task they crucially need the establishment of workers democracy. 15. Workers democracy, for us, signifies that all state and administrative officials are elected by and responsible to the working people of city and country through representative institutions of democratic rule. The best historical models for such institutions were the Soviets of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Workers Councils of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956…. 16. The full victory of every modern revolution, the Cuban revolution included, requires the emergence in a leading role of a mass revolutionary-Marxist party. The small Trotskyist groups, in Cuba and elsewhere, have a vital role as the nucleus of such parties. They can fill this role only if they continually preserve their political independence and ability to act, and if they avoid the peril of yielding to non-Marxist and non-proletarian leaderships their own ideological responsibilities and the historic mission of the working class. — “The Cuban Revolution,” December 1961, printed in Spartacist No. 2 (July-August 1964)

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Phil Och's "Joe Hill"

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

***********

Markin comment:

This is a continuation of entries for folksinger/songwriter Phil Och's who back in the early 1960s stood right up there with Bob Dylan in the protest songwriting category. The entries on this date testify to that. However, early on I sensed something special about Dylan and never really warmed up to Ochs. His singing style did not "move" me and that counted for a lot in those days. The rest just turned on preference.

********

Joe Hill Lyrics

F Fsus F C (open D string/then back on 2nd fret)
Joe Hill come over from Sweden shores
F Fsus F C
Looking for some work to do
F C Am
And the Statue of Liberty waved him by
C (Open D string/place finger on G st. 2nd fret/return)
As Joe come a sailing through, Joe Hill
C G7 C
As Joe come a sailing through.

Oh his clothes were coarse and his hopes were high
As he headed for the promised land
And it took a few weeks on the out-of-work streets
Before he began to understand
Before he began to understand

And Joe got hired by a bowery bar
sweeping up the saloon
As his rag would sail over the baroom rail
Sounded like he whistled on a tune
You could almost hear him whistling on a tune

And Joe rolled on from job to job
From the docks to the railroad line
And no matter how hungry the hand that wrote
In his letters he was always doing fine
In his letters he was always doing fine

Oh, the years went by like the sun goin' down
slowly turn the page
And when Joe looked back at the sweat upon his tracks
He had nothing to show but his age
He had nothing to show but his age

So he headed out for the California shore
There things were just as bad
So he joined the industrial workers of the world
'Cause, The union was the only friend he had
'Cause, The union was the only friend he had

Now the strikes were bloody and the strikes were black
as hard as they were long
In the dark of night Joe would stay awake and write
In the morning he would raise them with a song
In the morning he would raise them with a song

And he wrote his words to the tunes of the day
To be passed along the union vine
And the strikes were led and the songs were spread
And Joe Hill was always on the line
Yes Joe Hill was always on the line

Now in Salt Lake City a murder was made
There was hardly a clue to find
Oh, the proof was poor, but the sheriff was sure
Joe was the killer of the crime
That Joe was the killer of the crime

Joe raised his hands but they shot him down
he had nothing but guilt to give
It's a doctor I need and they left him to bleed
He made it 'cause he had the will to live
Yes, He made it 'cause he had the will to live

Then the trial was held in a building of wood
And there the killer would be named
And the days weighed more than the cold copper ore
Cause he feared that he was being framed
Cause he found out that he was being framed

Oh, strange are the ways of western law
Strange are the ways of fate
For the government crawled to the mine owner's call
That the judge was appointed by the state
Yes, The judge was appointed by the state

Oh, Utah justice can be had
But not for a union man
And Joe was warned by summer early morn
That there'd be one less singer in the land
There'd be one less singer in the land

Now William Spry was Governor Spry
And a life was his to hold
On the last appeal, fell a governor's tear
May the lord have mercy on your soul
May the lord have mercy on your soul

Even President Wilson held up the day
But even he would fail
For nobody heard the soul searching words
Of the soul in the Salt Lake City jail
Of the soul in the Salt Lake City jail

For 36 years he lived out his days
And he more than played his part
For his songs that he made, he was carefully paid
With a rifle bullet buried in his heart
With a rifle bullet buried in his heart

Yes, they lined Joe Hill up against the wall
Blindfold over his eyes
It's the life of a rebel that he chose to live
It's the death of a rebel that he died
It's the death of a rebel that he died

Now some say Joe was guilty as charged
And some say he wasn't even there
And I guess nobody will ever know
'Cause the court records all disappeared
'Cause the court records all disappeared

Say wherever you go in this fair land
In every union hall
In the dusty dark these words are marked
In between all the cracks upon the wall
In between all the cracks upon the wall

It's the very last line that Joe Will wrote
When he knew that his days were through
"Boys, this is my last and final will
Good luck to all of you
Good luck to all of you"

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- In The Beginning Was The Jug- The Jim Kweskin Jug Band

In The Beginning Was The Jug- The Jim Kweskin Jug Band

By Sam Lowell

No question I was, am, a central figure in the still on-going fallout over the purge, and that is exactly the right term although half the writers here who were down and dirty in the fight prefer to tell the tale that the previous site manger “retired.” Like Allan Jackson, yes, I am using his given name despite the notice from new site manager Greg Green that we were in the future in the interest of “moving on” not to mention him by name or speak of his accomplishments (presumably Allan’s down sides are still fair game), would voluntarily retire from something he helped create and loved. I also acknowledge here that although I was Allan closest and longest known friend going back to elementary school that I sided with the young rebel writers, the self-styled “Young Turks” although I hate that term when it came to choosing sides.

Allan was getting more and more wrapped into some 1960s and forget the rest thing that disturbed me no end as I continually told him especially when he went over the edge in that overkill of the 50^th Anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 stuff. So when I “conspired” with the younger writers (some of who had before Allan went hog wild over the situation never heard of the event, were to young to give fuck about the legendary in the mist 1960s) I told everyone straight up that this would have to be a purge-no quotation marks needed. We, he and I, had come up in the rough and tumble of radical 1960s politics so Allan knew that my defection meant only one thing if we were to be successful. He would be out, in exile, although don’t believe all that stuff about him being holed up Utah sucking up to Mitt Romney and that white underwear Mormon crowd or Kansas with the hard-shell flat-landers that is just urban legend stuff he, or somebody at his direction, made up to make this whole thing seem like a Stalinist coup and he, Leon Trotsky-like suffered defeat and exile in some American Siberia for his efforts. I know my Allan and I would not be surprised that a counterattack against me and the blog will come any day.

As part of the change in course and presumably as a safeguard against things going haywire like they began to do under the Jackson regime Greg initiated on his own a seven member Editorial Board to filter ideas and motions through. Some people, some opponents have called the board a group of toadies and “yes” people for whatever Greg has in mind. That is their opinion. In any case I was asked to sit on the board and I have along with several younger writers and one of the older writers who had abstained on the Jackson removal vote (there were several abstentions by older writers which makes me think I was not alone in thinking Allan had gone over the edge but didn’t want to buck him for any number of reasons. I would argue that had any one of them voted for Allan then my “desertion” would have meant nothing except I might have been the guy rumored to be in Utah or Kansas. Such is life.) 

Although the board is up and running for a few months now it has only been asked to approve one item-the “erasing” of Allan’s name from this site in the interest of whatever Greg thought that served. I have been around enough to know that it is beyond poor form to “erase” the past especially on a site dedicated to putting a big shining light on that past particularly the parts that get short shrift in the history books and mainstream media. I voted “no,” the lone dissenter with that one older writer’s abstention which may be his mode of operation on tough questions. Maybe that dissent will put me in better grace with Allan. 

I took this jug band, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band assignment because I am still crazy about this kind of music and because at least three of the original members of the band, Jim, Geoff, Maria are still performing occasionally together but usually individually and over the past several years I have seen them in various admittedly small venues around Greater Boston. I was surprised though when Greg mentioned to me that he no longer wanted to see pieces about “f—king” jug band music in the future and that this would be the last time he would let it pass since nobody under about the age of sixty gave a damn about this kind of music anymore.

Since Greg is considerable younger than I am I could see where it did not mean anything to him when he was growing up in Westchester County in New York but to cancel out in advance any reference to an important part of Americana in the 1920s and the revival in the 1960s seems short-sighted. Allan who also was crazy for jug music and who turned me onto the stuff in high school when he took me and our dates to the Unicorn Coffeehouse in Back Bay Boston to hear the legendary Harper Valley Boys do their jug, washtub, wringer magic. I will be bucking Greg a little on this one if I can find a spot to sneak a jug piece in.

Finally, and this part has nothing directly to do with jug music or anything else that has been presented here over the past almost fifteen years of this blog’s existence and prior to that the hard copy of it and it predecessors. I, like a number of irritated readers and a not a few writers have grown tired of seeing more than enough coverage of the internal crisis of the past few months here leading to the new regime. This new mandate by Greg with the majority of the Ed Board’s approval of “erasing” Allan Jackson’s name and work is kind of a watershed making me think the whole public airing has gone too far. Moreover the story is all over the place depending on who has their hackles up. This must stop and a return to ordinary commentary and reviews is in order.  

As a decisive member of the Editorial Board I have been able to negotiate with Greg a truce, an “armed truce” as one older wag put it which seems strange since the majority of personnel here have some very strong anti-war views. The “truce” has two parts. The first- all articles now in the pipeline, about fifteen, can carry whatever commentary about the internal dispute the writer wants to talk about. In return after that amnesty lot is posted there will be no overt references to the previous site manager or his achievements or failures. The second is that I will write as probably the most knowledgeable person around about all aspects of this publication and its personnel a full history of the site and of the internal dispute to be after it completion referenced in the archives as such for anybody to cite and refer others to -either writer or scholar. No guidance was given about how to do this task but I have decided to cut it up among the various parts of the American Songbook series which the jug band piece below is one example and then post the whole thing with comments from the two Ed Board members Greg has assigned to me for this work.              

********

Who knows how it happened maybe somebody in the band looked up some songs in the album archives, or found some gem in some record store, an institution that sustained many for hours back then in the cusp of the 1960s folk revival when there were record stores on almost every corner in places like Harvard Square and you could find some gems if you searched long enough and found Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (although sometimes the search was barren or, maybe worse, something by Miss Patti Page or Tennessee Ernie Ford stared you in the face). From there they found, maybe Cannon’s Stompers, the Mississippi Sheiks or the Memphis Jug Band, saw they could prosper going back to those days if they kept the arrangements simple, and that was that.

See, everybody then was looking for roots, American music roots, old country roots, roots of some ancient thoughts of a democratic America before the robber barons and their progeny grabbed everything with every hand. And that search was no accident, at least from the oral history evidence having grown up with rock and roll and found in that minute that genre wanting.  Some went reaching South to the homeland of much roots music and found some grizzled old geezers who had made a small name for themselves in the 1920s when labels like RCA and Paramount went out looking for talent in the hinterlands.

So there was history there, certainly for the individual members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim, Geoff Mulduar, Mel Lymon, Maria Muldaur, Fritz Richmond , all well-versed in many aspects of the American Songbook (hell, I would say so, even old tacky Irving Berlin got a hearing), history there for the taking. All they needed was a jug, a good old boy homemade corn liquor jug giving the best sound and so they were off, off to conquer places like Harvard Square, like the Village, like almost any place in the Bay area. And for a while they did, picking up chimes, kazoos, harmonicas, what the heck, even standard guitars and they made great music, great entertainment music, not heavy with social messages but just evoking those long lost spirits from the 1920s when jug music would sustain a crowd on a Saturday night. Yeah, in the beginning was the jug…    

From The Archives Of The Struggle Against Climate Change And Animal Preservation-West Coast Version-Professor Johnny Allan-Climate Guru And Con Artist-Part 3

From The Archives Of The Struggle Against Climate Change And Animal Preservation-West Coast Version-Professor Johnny Allan-Climate Guru And Con Artist-Part 3                

By Bart Webber

The word scallywag had very precise historical connotation about low-lives, drifters, medicine show junkies, card sharks, fornicators, adulterers not covered by the previous designation, bowling addicts, hell, maybe bocce too, grifters, a class different from con men and three card monte artist, midnight shifters and every kind of fixer, bag man and demon holy goof. Maybe all of those terms fit a son of the South from whence the term came when all hell, according to the residents anyway, when the South met it righteous defeat back in the 1860s and every such type descended on the old Confederacy lands. All of this historical extra to place one Professor Johnny Allan in context before we go through another battle royale with that ill-gotten brother.          

I am not a particular fan of genealogy in arguing against some great injustice as here when one Johnny Allan is trying to still hold me up for some serious money for “defaming” him about his past as a con man and fraud to the detriment of his crumb bum business, basically a stall in the Olde Town market in San Diego filled with derelict objects and moth-eaten clothing, especially the serapes as he had tried to pass himself off as some Tex-Mex refugee seeking the golden road in Estados Unidos. According to a couple of biographical exposes of Johnny was born not in Texas as now claimed but in Greenville, South Carolina. Most importantly his roots in the South go back to a scalawag great-grandfather who headed South after dodging the Union draft in the Civil War. Headed south for one very obvious reason about ten proud Yankee farmers were ready to string him up, ready to hang him high for stealing their pigs. The subsequent generations were no better except once they got through to the 20^th century they had established themselves in various South Carolina town where the con man, the studied drifter, the two-bit grifter, the local grafter and the ten percent shavers had some cache. (With the proviso that the cache was more urban legend than fact and that pleased crowd were not victimized like those long-ago Yankee farmers)

So these are Johnny Allan’s bloodlines as we yet again go mano a mano over some legal dispute which thus far is all smoke and mirrors since everything I have written is true and Johnny and his lawyer just think they have a fish to fry. Frankly I thought that the last “exchange” would have ended our relationship. That is when I published a photograph taken of Johnny and his coterie playing golf at a swanky Carmel resort he was supposed to be in Africa saving some endangered species. He had set up a fund based on his recognized work in that area and pocketed most of the dough himself. Clearly criminal behavior which the government wanted to pursue but the various environmental organizations affected preferred to let it go rather than hurt their own revenues from such donations.      

This should be the show-stopper, the thing that gets Johnny and that damned illiterate lawyer off my back. A friend of mine from U/Cal-San Diego at my request went to see Johnny’s so-called business in Olde Town. She reported back that if there were a settlement between us to avoid court it should be for about three dollars, US since his stall was from nowhere. I thought the photo expose of Johnny and cronies on the golf course would do the trick so I didn’t think about this until later. The whole set-up was a front, was a front for Johnny’s drug-dealing, white slavery trade, fake antique hustling in short what you would expect somebody like the good professor to do. How do I know. Well that good friend spent several hours for a couple of days observing what was going on in that stall and it wasn’t tourists seeking knickknacks. This should set Johnny back on his heels a bit. Yeah, every bit a son, a grandson, a great-grandson of scalawags.         

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-*The Roots Of The Roots- The Old Country (Somebody’s) Roots Music of Scotland’s Jean Redpath

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-*The Roots Of The Roots- The Old Country (Somebody’s) Roots Music of Scotland’s Jean Redpath

CD Review

Jean Redpath, Jean Redpath, Philo Records, 1975

Not every roots artist that I review in this space as part of my task of doing my part to preserve and keep alive some of those traditions is on my A-list. Nor is every such artist someone who I have taken notice of from my own personal researches or predilections. That is the case with the Scottish balladeer under review, Jean Redpath. Of course I knew her name, as one must who knows something about the origins of the Child Ballads that form the basis of the music that was brought over to American in the initial WASP waves of immigration, especially after the victory in the American revolution. I also, vaguely, remember hearing her back in the days on those woe begotten Sunday nights when I scrumptiously listened to those folk radio shows I that became addicted to in my youth. What got me thinking about reviewing her work now, however, was a little more indirect, as sometimes happens in tracing the roots of American music.

I have just finished up reviewing a six series set (two one hour shows per set) of Pete Seeger’s 1960s black and white television folk show “Rainbow Quest”. The format of that show was, aside form some stellar solo performances by Pete, to bring in a guest, or guests, from some up and coming “rediscovered” traditional music genre. On one particular show he featured the legendary Kentucky mountain music banjo/guitar/vocalist Roscoe Holcomb (then recently discovered by Pete’s half-brother, the late Mike Seeger, I believe). Old Roscoe put on one hell of a show doing old time, but seemingly familiar, mountain tunes.

Familiar in the sense that one knew the lyrics (or some part of them) or the melody, or something about the songs. And then Pete brings out Jean Redpath who then proceeds to sing the same kind of songs as old Roscoe. You see that part of the American songbook that he was singing from came from his old country, the Scottish/Irish tradition reflecting the backgrounds of those who long, long ago came over stopped for a minute on the crowded coast then moved on and started their westward treks. In a sense then, as you will note here, Ms. Redpath is singing part of the American songbook. Or Roscoe was singing part of the Scottish songbook. Either way this is good stuff. Listen up.

Barbara Allen-Child Ballad-Variation

In Scarlet town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling
And every youth cried well away
For her name was Barbara Allen


Twas in the merry month of May
The green buds were a swelling
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen


He sent a servant unto her
To the place she was dwelling
Saying you must come to his deathbed now
If your name be Barbara Allen


Slowly slowly she got up
Slowly slowly she came nigh him
And the only words to him she said
Young man I think you're dying


As she was walking oer the fields
She heard the death bell knelling
And every stroke it seemed to say
Hardhearted Barbara Allen


Oh mother mother make my bed
Make it long and make it narrow
Sweet William died for me today
I'll die for him tomorrow


They buried her in the old churchyard
They buried him in the choir
And from his grave grew a red red rose
From her grave a green briar


They grew and grew to the steeple top
Till they could grow no higher
And there they twined in a true love's knot
Red rose around green briar

From The Archives -The Spirit Of Supporting "Taking The Knee" -Boston Version From MLK To Malcolm X

From The Archives -The Spirit Of Supporting "Taking The Knee" -Boston Version From MLK To Malcolm X

By Allan Jackson


A while back a well-known professional football player, a quarterback, a San Francisco 49er’s quarterback Colin and who knows how to spell his last name I seen it about six different ways from the Times to Modern News Kaepernick and take no offense since no offense intended but admiration, “took the knee.” Took that knee during the playing of the National Anthem at the beginning of some Sunday football game. Took it not as a quirky, knee-jerky thing but to highlight what everybody now knows, or should know, that blacks (and others as well but today we are concerned about the history and fate of black people who did not immigrant here, no way) since almost the first day the European settlers came off the boats have been at the back of the bus, have been given a raw deal in ever way the white majority could give a raw deal, and some we don’t even know about.     

Of course “taking the knee” in a football crazed country during an event when half the patrons are boozed up by showtime and who expect no drama from the “gladiators” while drinking said booze, especially not over the “sacred” anthem which nobody can sing in any case caused more than a little controversy. Caused a lot of controversy from those who want to duck at all costs and in every way dealing with the bedrock racism issues that have racked this country since that settler time mentioned early. Caused the “big cheese” in the White House to foam at the mouth about tired old patriotism, about look what we have done for our “n’s” and the like. (Now the deal, the real deal, what that blather was all about is “ship then back to Africa, Spain, Morocco, Somalia, somewhere, hell Mexico even if they don’t like it here” if anybody gets too uppity)         

Sometimes you have to take sides; get Rosa Parks off the back of the bus, get dirt poor sharecroppers the right to vote, get Doctor King out of dusty Birmingham jail, sent Mister James Crow and his oppressive laws into oblivion, and the like. Yeah, duck your heads if you want but this was another such moment. You can use lots of reasons to have supported Colin but here is the simple way to put it. If you want to keep your eyes on the prize you had better keep your ass on the gas. Better assume that without an upfront accounting this race question can never go away, nor should it.   

Now a number of whites, white football fans included freaked out, decided to burn Colin-endorsed products, were ready to get the return voyage slave ships ready for immediate departure. Some of those though, some whites and one Fritz Taylor in particular supported Colin with all arms. Now this is important once you get Fritz’s story because you would have thought this football-crazed guy would have been ready to yell bloody murder. See Fritz is, or was, nothing but a good old boy from Fulton County down in Georgia where they practically invented the “n” word. Moreover whatever other later wars they might have fought for national patriotic reasons all men on both sides of Fritz’s family tree fought, fought and died in some cases, for the Confederacy back when whites were confronted big time about the race question. Fritz said some of his forbear’s own slaves, worked them to death on the plantations.     

Fritz himself knew nothing but the “n” word before we met him back in the late 1970. Said he had reveled in the advantages Mister James Crow gave his poor white trash people. But get this Fritz “got religion,” got it long and hard even if it took a long time in a place called Vietnam where he went after another group of non-whites who wanted to be left alone. Learned there after being around black guys, being saved a couple of times by black guys from stupid ideas he had about bravery and getting “Charlie.” Learned that the old ways had to go, that he had to see things a little differently. What do you think about that.      

The Transformation Of Jedidiah Donne-With Singer-Songwriter Greg Brown’s Phrase “…our prayers was in English, but we was all just speaking in tongues” in Mind

The Transformation Of Jedidiah Donne-With Singer-Songwriter Greg Brown’s Phrase “…our prayers was in English, but we was all just speaking in tongues” in Mind    

SPEAKING IN TONGUES LYRICS

A wild high cry flew up out of our brother
He was moaning and shaking, shining like the sun
He fell down like a dead man, Some people helped him up
He was all right, He was just speaking in tongues

When someone was sick we gathered all around them
And lay our hands upon them, all of us, old and young
We prayed that God Almighty would heal them
Our prayer was in English, but we was all just speaking in tongues

When I really feel my way back to that church and them people
The little hairs stand up all over me
And I hope that this nation like that congregation
Will give it up and pray for our soul, which is in misery

And that one day we may lay our hands on one another
And seek the healing for ourselves, this earth and our young
And sing that old song of many colors, many rhythms
And listen with our hearts to the speaking in tongues

By Bradley Davis

Jedidiah Donne made it out of the hills and hollows around Hazard, Kentucky, you know down in Appalachia, down in old time coal country by the skin of his teeth. Got his ass, go his “hinny,” his expression reflecting something of the old time religion he got bathed in and that stuck with him when words like ass, hell, bitch, fuck got thrown around in his presence. Not that he was a prude, or rather he did not know that for guys, rough-hewn guys from the cities, from farms, hell, probably from anywhere except down in the “burned over” hills and hollows around Hazard, Kentucky and a few other places such talk was everyday guy talk so that maybe he did not know that such objections were, hell, prudish.            

Let me get to Jed’s story and maybe it will make sense that in the year 1998 that a perfectly good and sane guy would be fretting about words like ass, damn, fuck, and hell, hell. See I met Jed, by the way it is okay, okay at least for me to call him Jed although everybody who knew him when we first met called him “hick” and ‘hayseed” right in front of him when we were in basic training down in Fort Dix in New Jersey, a place where they still train Army recruits in the basics of Army life. My reason, hey by the way my name is Fred Kelly in case anybody is asking, Frederick on the birth certificate but nobody called me Frederick since that would immediately refer to my father, Frederick Kelly, Senior, for being down in Dix was that I had been caught stealing about ten automobiles for a guy running a “hot car” ring and the judge in the Stoughton, Massachusetts gave me the “choice”-three to five at the state pen at Cedar Junction where he assured me that I would be somebody’s “bitch” from day one, assured me right in open court, or “volunteer” for the military. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn, his term, which branch just that I got my young ass in there, ass also his term. I checked it out and my best deal what with my education and time to serve so I headed to the Army Recruitment station on I think it was Tremont Street in Boston to sign up.

That was how I got to Dix. How Jed got there is quite another story. See his family since about the 1800s, since they found coal in the hills and hollows down in Appalachia, rich veins from what Jed said, had been coalminers one way or another all the way back to Jed’s great-great grandfather, also a Jedidiah. But back in his father’s generation the mines were beginning to play out and the coal companies started closing the mines and heading west, or someplace where they could mine coal on the cheap and avoid union wages and benefits. (Actually from one night when we were talking the mines had begun to play out in Jed’s father’s generation so any number of Donnes, including his grandfather Prescott were more than happy to sign up for the military the day after the Japs dropped the shit on Pearl Harbor. Jed said Grandfather Prescott had told him before he passed away that between the cancerous “black lung” mines and the Nips, Japanese, he would take his chances in the Pacific). So all Jed had going for him since he had as most of the male members of the family had going back generations dropped out of school at sixteen to work at something. That something never really materialized and so one day Jed just up and left to head to Lexington (Kentucky) to sign on the dotted line at the Army Recruitment Station there.

It was hard for me, a city boy and maybe too wise to the ways of the world, maybe better to say the underworld to see such a naïve and backward guy. Hell, according to the drill sergeant who met us from the transports at the Basic Training Center at Dix later after he had put us through hell and back Jed didn’t even had shoes, store bought shoes anyway when he got off the bus. Didn’t know squat about much except that he would get clothes and three square meals a day. Wasn’t looking for much more than that. My own father when I told him that was shocked to hear that information because back in the 1960s, back in Vietnam War days, his war, he would also run into guys from places like Hazard (and places even more down at the mouth like Bridgeton also in Kentucky) who were getting their first pair of serious shoes and who thought they had died and gone to heaven when they saw the “delights” of three square meals a day for the first times in their lives in the mess hall. Jesus.                 

While we are on the subject of Jesus, the subject of what I want to tell you about Jed you should know that he came from a very strange church background, one that baffled me, still does, when I think about the matter as I am doing now. He was a rock solid member of a church called the Church of the Everlasting Brethren, an old time religion church which Jed said went back to the old country, to England in the 1600s and was still going strong in places like Hazard. My own church background was sort of a formal Catholic but I didn’t think about it much once stealing fast cars for some serious money, serious money to me became my religion. That and getting into my girlfriend Jenny Martin’s pants (or having her give me a blow job which she was more amenable to doing since she was always fretting about getting pregnant so she pieced me off by “playing the flute” she called it having gotten that expression from her older brother). So I didn’t think anything of it after he told me his basic story.

Then one night, maybe after midnight so one morning

I “learned” first-hand about his religion, about his mania is a better way to say it. I had been up late having a few brews with some other trainees at the Enlisted Men’s Club the first time we were allowed to do after six weeks in Basic so it must have been a Saturday night, early Sunday morning. The way the barracks were set up was that four men would sleep to a room, two sets of bunk beds one on one side of the room and one on the other. I had the bottom bunk on the left hand side of the room as you entered which meant all I really had to do was almost fall down into bed. Eventually I dozed off without realizing that Jed was in his bunk above me.

After a while, don’t ask me how long, maybe half an hour I began to hear what sounded to me like gibberish in a semi-musical kind of voice. The words sounded like no words I had heard before and while I never learned any other language but English I had a feeling when I heard Spain, French or one of those languages even though I would not have been able to tell you word one about what the speaker was talking about. It was then that I noticed that it was Jed speaking that foreign language, speaking it in very soft flowing almost religious way, the way in my Roman Church the choir would sing on some special holy day like during Lent. Was doing this act with only his trousers on, bare-chested and with what looked like his eyes closed like he was singing to some unknown space. I kept thinking that maybe I would pick up what he was talking about if I listened enough. The only phrase I was able to pick up was “aloo, aloo, oni sacke aloo”, something like that when I mentioned it to Jed about fifteen minutes later after he stopped (and done with what he called his trance state later when he told me what he had been up to).         

Once Jed stopped, opened his eyes and smiled at me as I was sitting upon my bunk perplexed and awestruck I asked him what the “fuck” was going on, was he a crazy man. Calmly he answered, “I was just speaking in tongues, speaking to my people back home in our little Brethren church.” I asked what language he was speaking in and how did a kid who dropped out of school in rural Kentucky learn some foreign language when he could barely pass the English literary test (that according to Jed’s own testimony since he told me he was scared that he would flunk the entrance exam). Still with a smile he said he did not know any foreign language, any heathen language he might have called it, I forget, Jed said “I was singing to the angel choir when I heard the noise of wings as they approached my bed and called me to their own.”

What did it all mean, what did “aloo, aloo, oni sacke aloo” mean. His answer was in the negative, he was clueless about what any of it meant. Except to say that Preacher Roe, the leader of that little Brethren congregation, said they might be speaking in English but the Lord in his wisdom allowed them angelic speech in tongues. I roomed with Jed for the rest of Basic and later in Advanced Infantry Training for a few weeks before they shipped him out to parts unknown but I stayed as far away from him as possible. Jesus, speaking in tongues.             

*From The Archives -As We Enter Year 3 Of The Anniversary Of WWI-From The Pen Of V.I. Lenin In 1914- "Dead Chauvinism And Living Socialism"

Click on title to link to V.I. Lenin's 1914 article "Dead Chauvinism And Living Socialism"

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-***Poet's Corner- Mad English Poet William Blake - "And did those feet in ancient time"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for visionary English poet William Blake's Europe A Prophecy

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Novelist And Thorn In The Side Of Bourgeois Society Gore Vidal Passes-An "American Left History" Repost

Click on the headline to link to a The New York Times obituary for the American novelist Gore Vidal.
***********
From the American Left History blog, April 4, 2009

Honor Gore Vidal's Abraham Lincoln On His 200th Birthday Anniversary Year

http://www.isebrand.com/Gore_Vidal_Lincoln_1981.htm

Click on title to link to Gore Vidal note on Abraham Lincoln

BOOK REVIEW

Lincoln: A Novel, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1984

This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal’s’ output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, unlike many such efforts in this genre when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value).

Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible. That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the old bourgeois historical novelist, Norman Mailer nemesis and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics are somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.

Vidal, as is his format in this series of expositions on the American experience, combines fictional characters and situations with the makings and doings of real characters and events in American history, here the hard Civil War days of decision of the Lincoln administration. Here the narrator is actually a real character from that history, John Hay, one of Lincoln’s two personal secretaries who later became Secretary of State in the Republican McKinley administration near the turn of the 19th century (and who appears in a the later Vidal novel Empire in that very different role). The virtue of this selection of Hays as the narrator is that one is given a bird’s eye view of the daily goings on (fictional or not) at the Lincoln White House and a very chose vantage point to observe the kind of things that weighted heavily on Lincoln’s mind and on his agenda for preserving the Union.

Interestingly, although the Lincoln persona has been viewed from every possible perspective and from every possible political view by now Vidal has contributes a very fast moving rendition of the story with his little twist. His central premise, one shared by the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her fairly recent book on Lincoln and his Cabinet "Team Of Rivals", is that only a sage and driven personality like Lincoln’s could have held all the diverse and generally antagonistic personalities on the coalition that he put together among pro-Unionist forces in order to save the Republic. His feigns and thrusts in all directions, seemingly after much agonizing reflection keeps one on one’s toes as one turns the pages every though the outcome is known. Certainly the main alternate contenders for power (that 1864 republican nomination was always lurking in the background) Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase evidently did not have that capacity and in the end seemingly reconciled themselves to that secondary role (Chase got bought off by the Supreme Court Chief Justiceship).


Vidal wrote this novel in the early 1980’s at a time that I was reading Carl Sandburg’s volumes of biography on Lincoln. If I am not mistaken Vidal owns some debt of gratitude to the Chicago poet for the musical sense of his novel. Many of the little scenarios, such as the incessant clamor for jobs from every Tom, Dick and Harry that might have voted for Lincoln in 1860 that filled the time of Hay (and Nicolay, the other Lincoln secretary) and that make this novel so compelling I remember in reading Sandburg’s Lincoln biography. Also the treatment of Lincoln’s homespun humor and proverbial storytelling powers (always with some political point on the edge of the blade). As well as Lincoln’s reactions to his household tragedies and the massive tragedies unfolding on the battlefields.

Finally, for those who like their history in capsule form, with a sweetener if you will, this is a very good place to begin your Lincoln or Civil War studies. In quick succession you will learn about the tribulations of physically getting Lincoln inaugurated, the first reactions from the South to that fact by the various acts of secession, the South Carolina incidents, the fact of two states existing where one had been previously as far as foreign recognition was concerned, the military problems on the union beginning with Manassas and the question of competent leadership, Lincoln’s frustrations with a series of military commanders, the stalemate on the battlefield, the struggle to determine the nature of the conflict- solely for the preservation of the Union or that and the abolition of slavery, the decisive battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg and the change in concept to “total war” with the accession of Grand and McClellan to military leadership, military victory and then assassination of Lincoln. And along the way enough political intrigue, maneuvering, cowardice and heroics by some well-known historical characters to write many novels. But that is for another day.

From The Maine Peace Walk Archives-Listen To Mother Nature

From The Archives -“Stop the War$ on Mother Earth”  2016 Maine Peace Walk-Build The International Peace Front

By Fritz Taylor

[For several years some social and political activists in Maine have gathered together to sponsor peace walks throughout the state highlighting that state’s tight relationship with the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Particularly its relationship to notorious Portsmouth Naval Base and the infamous Bath Iron Works. These walks have lasted for a couple of weeks each fall and have highlighted a particular theme as the marchers walk down the highways and byways of that great and oversized state. Generally they are led by organizers from the Maine chapter of Veterans for Peace assisted by recruits from other chapters including Massachusetts.

Enter Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris who have coordinated the other chapters contingents and who apparently think nothing of hunkering up and down the Maine roads for the cause. One day they needed a ride up to Bath to help plan the two weeks’ events with the Maine folk and I volunteered since I was a little curious about the preparations and logistics of keeping a civilian caravan going for that period of time. What I learned that day was that these “mainiacs” had planned an almost two-hundred-mile trek starting in something called Rangeley where a military drone operation was located with the idea of heading south all the way the notorious Portsmouth Naval Base already mentioned above to hand the commander there a document outlining an environmentally-friendly alternative to the current use of building war ships. Peaceful conversion in other words so the workers would have some serious gainful employment to keep them busy. Along the route they would pass out leaflets explaining the terms of the march. Each evening after a communal supper as well there would be a program around some aspect of the theme in whatever town they were stopped.

Although the theme, stop the militarization of the seas, meaning using the long Maine coast as a dumping ground for waste, seemed interesting I told Sam and Ralph I would pass, thank you. That “pass” stemming from those days in Vietnam and elsewhere where I walked my ass off promising myself that I would avoid that situation again at all costs. Of course Ralph and Sam thought nothing of marching through Maine in all weathers, the fall being particularly unpredictable, for the good of the cause. They planned to start right in Rangeley even though when I asked neither could tell me where the place was. That did not stop them however from badgering me to walk some of the route. They eventually conned me into picking up the walk in Brunswick, up at Bowdoin College. And still conned me all the way to Kittery where the notorious Portsmouth base is located. Damn, my feet were sore.   

Recently in a short archive caption about the Bath Iron Works in Maine where many of the top-of-the line and billion-dollar expensive destroyers are built I mentioned, as a little background for knowing about the place that I am a Vietnam Veteran. I also mentioned in an earlier archive caption while I hate the NRA I favor my Second Amendment right to bear arm. But whatever vestiges I have of my growing up in Fulton County, Georgia I “got religion” on the questions of war and peace through the hellhole of Vietnam experience. Not right away, certainly not right away since I come from a long, a very long line of military people and not completely at first since I initially mistook being anti-war with pacificism which I was, am uncomfortable with. Now though I am comfortable with the twenty plus years I have spent screaming (if necessary) against the endless wars, the bloated military budgets and the glorification of the fog war creates in the public, and among soldiers and politicians.

Now I was strictly Army, Fourth Division so you know I saw some hellish action in Vietnam, particularly when we were sent to re-enforce up in the Central Highland and I can tell you plenty about that branch of the service, the waste and the like. You can always learn sometime new though in this struggle against war and endless budgets. I certainly did the year I went up to Maine to walk the walk Peace Walk then held annually about quiet Bath and its well-oiled shipbuilding capacity.  Each year they organizers, more about them in a minute, try to gather in a theme that speaks to the militarization of our country, of the world, the particular role Maine plays in that process and of course from our perspective some alternatives.

In 2016 that was around creating the environment for a sustainable future, very much more in doubt in the few years since that walk, which meant a serious frontal attack on the role the military plays in not making the future world sustainable. Sustainable may today mean livable, as in livable planet, from the dire news just in the headlines about the huge Artic and Greenland melts, record high temperatures in placed not know for some levels, more and more endangered species falling off the chart since they could not adapt to the dramatically changed environment fast enough and many more strange doing if you read a new book called Inhabitable Earth along with the attention to the bad news days. Meanwhile in the White House and places like Houston and the Dakotas they are drinking their champagnes out of fossil fuel container and secretly making sure they have their places many miles from the coasts and high above the projected water table lines.

I knew in Vietnam about the various defoliate programs to search out the so-called enemy most famously Agent Orange and about the incredible number of unexploded bombs that plague that country forty years later but I was unaware how much material the Navy (and maybe other branches as well) in their everyday functions spew into the world’s oceans including the coast of Maine. I knew of the climate change effect maybe ten years ago when I would go to Maine beaches and note that the new high tide marks were eating severely into the wetlands in places like Ogunquit. I should have mentioned before that leaflets are passed out with messages along that line of thought, along the military  waste  along the line of march, the sites selected like Bath Iron Works where things need to be changed and evening programs at the various nightly stopping points dealing with the overall theme message.

I noted in the last archival caption that I have been doing these walks for a few years even though I had my fill of marches in the Army. Moreover, I had my doubts whether such a walking program over a couple of weeks would do anything for the cause, still have some questions. Enter the great equalizers.  I started, kicking and screaming at first about doing this trek once my friends and fellow members Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris went up to Maine to help out in the annual Maine Peace Walk sponsored by the Maine chapter of Veterans for Peace and other local activist peace groups. Ralph and Sam pointed out that even a few VFP dove-encrusted flags on the march would ensure that some message was getting through. Having seen that flag business work a million times before I bought in -for part of the trek.  

Of course if you had read the previous caption you know that “helping out” entailed walking half the freaking state of Maine at least on the oceanside, the side where U.S. Route One slithers down the coast. Over a period of several days. I had started up in Brunswick, up at Bowdoin College where I met walkers who had started up I believe in Rangeley which I do not have a clue where that is except it is pretty far north in Maine with plenty left before you reach the Canadian border. (As it turned out Sam and Ralph who started their own treks there were clueless when I asked where the place was except the military has a tracking station there which links that nowhere Maine town with the American’s military’s globalization of their forces in many fields. I said good work brothers for starting there, yes, good work indeed.    

Ralph Morris and I are Vietnam veterans, Sam didn’t serve because he was the sole surviving son of a mother who had four young daughters to raise after Sam’s drunken father passed away of a heart attack in 1965. It took me a while, took me a while as it did to “get religion” on the issues of war and peace, and to get over the false division between anti-war activity and working with avowed pacifists to accept Sam as a brother. Hell as a winter soldier although I already knew from Ralph that as early as 1971 in Washington on May Day where they “met” after being arrested in Robert F. Kennedy football stadium where they had with their respective groups attempted to stop the war by stopping the government that Sam was some old righteous Puritan angel avenger out of the John Brown mold. Took a while but knew deep in my bones that this guy was for real, that when he said something you could depend on him. Yeah, now in 2019 we are in desperate need of winter soldiers. And if you don’t know, are not familiar with that term then think about that small band of stalwarts was held firm at Valley Forge come fight against the British and their hirelings. The defenders of the republican idea when that was very dicey indeed. Like now.