50th National Day of Mourning Thursday, November 28 @ 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm Coles Hill, Plymouth, MA

50th National Day of Mourning

Thursday, November 28 @ 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Coles Hill, Plymouth, MA

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:

Please email info@uaine.org and put the word “Volunteer” in the subject line to let us know your availability.

In particular, we often need volunteers in the Boston area in the two or three days before National Day of Mourning to help with food prep. We also need volunteers on November 28 in Plymouth. Thank you!

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Downloads:
2019 National Day of Mourning Flyer
Spanish 2019 National Day of Mourning Flyer
2019 National Day of Mourning Orientation (a PDF for printing and new info for this year).

WHAT IS NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING?
An annual tradition since 1970, Day of Mourning is a solemn, spiritual and highly political day. Many of us fast from sundown the day before through the afternoon of that day (and have a social after Day of Mourning so that participants in DOM can break their fasts). We are mourning our ancestors and the genocide of our peoples and the theft of our lands. It is a day when we mourn, but we also feel our strength in political action. Over the years, participants in Day of Mourning have buried Plymouth Rock a number of times, boarded the Mayflower replica, and placed ku klux klan sheets on the statue of William Bradford, etc.

WHEN AND WHERE IS DAY OF MOURNING?
Thursday, November 28, 2019 (U.S. “thanksgiving” day) at Cole’s Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 12 noon SHARP. Cole’s Hill is the hill above Plymouth Rock in the Plymouth historic waterfront area.

WILL THERE BE A MARCH?
Yes, there will be a march through the historic district of Plymouth. Plymouth agreed, as part of the settlement of 10/19/98, that UAINE may march on Day of Mourning without the need for a permit as long as we give the town advance notice.

PROGRAM:
Although we very much welcome our non-Native supporters to stand with us, it is a day when only Indigenous people speak about our history and the struggles that are taking place throughout the Americas. Speakers will be by invitation only. This year’s NDOM is dedicated to Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls & Two Spirits, and to our thousands of relatives who are migrants and are being abused by ICE and other government agencies, including having their children stolen from them. We didn’t cross the border – The border crossed us! #NoJusticeOnStolenLand

Please note that NDOM is not a commercial event, so we ask that people do not sell merchandise or distribute leaflets at the outdoor program. If you have literature to distribute, you are welcome to place it on a literature table at the social hall following the speak-out and march. Also, we ask that you do not eat (unless you must do so for medical reasons) at the outdoor speak-out and march out of respect for the participants who are fasting. Finally, dress for the weather!

SOCIAL: Important Information about the 2019 National Day of Mourning
READ THIS: We will have the social in a NEW hall this year.* We will be in the Loring Center at 384 Court Street, which is part of the Zion Lutheran Church and is 2 miles away from the Plymouth Rock area. Many thanks to the church for welcoming us and to our allies who helped us to secure this space.*

If you are bringing prepared food for the pot-luck, please drop it off BEFORE going to the 12 noon gathering on Cole’s Hill. Go around to the parking lot in the back, and there will be some people there who will take the food from you. Then you can be on your way to Plymouth Center. When the National Day of Mourning march and rallies are all over, people can travel to the social hall. No one will be seated or served at the social until the rally is over and the caravan is arriving.

Please have in mind that first preference for seating will as always be for elders, young children and their caretakers, people with medical needs or disabilities, pregnant people, and people who have traveled a long distance to be with us (for example, the folks on the buses from Brooklyn and Manhattan). After they have been seated, we will seat others in remaining seats. We follow thousands of years of Indigenous tradition in making sure that those who need to eat first are able to do so.

We have the best kitchen crew in world history and are so grateful for all their work. Be polite to them! We always need volunteers before, during and esp. after the social. Email info@uaine.org if you can volunteer. We reserve the right to press you into service even if you don’t volunteer. ?

TRANSPORTATION:
Please check the Facebook event page for 50th National Day of Mourning for updates on transportation, including buses and carpooling. We do not recommend MBTA service as it is limited on a holiday.

CAN’T ATTEND BUT STILL WANT TO HELP?:
How you can still support the National Day of Mourning even if you can’t come to Plymouth.

DONATIONS:

Monetary donations are gratefully accepted to help defray the costs of the day. Go to gofundme to make a donation. Every donation is greatly appreciated!

WE WILL POST LOGISTICAL AND OTHER UPDATES HERE at uaine.org AND AT OUR FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UAINE/ (ask to join!) and on the Facebook event. 

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In addition to National Day of Mourning and supporting many other important struggles, UAINE works with other organizations to do lots more!

UAINE is providing leadership in the work of IndigenousPeoplesDayMA.org, which has been providing support and strategy for Indigenous Peoples Day campaigns in Massachusetts. Successful campaigns have included Cambridge, Brookline, and more, and we also have a bill before the state legislature. See the website IndigenousPeoplesDayMA.org for more information!

UAINE is also a key component of the Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda, which consolidates the efforts of those working on five important bills involving Indigenous issues that are currently before the MA legislature to make a statewide Indigenous Peoples Day, Prohibit the use of Native sports team names and Mascots, Redesign the State Flag & Seal, Support Native Education, and Protect Native Heritage. To learn more about this important work and how you can help to support it, go to MAIndigenousAgenda.org.

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Boston.com 2014 article:
National Day of Mourning Reflects on
Thanksgiving’s Horrific, Bloody History

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Thanksgiving: A National Day of Mourning for Indians, 1998

by Moonanum James and Mahtowin Munro

Every year since 1970, United American Indians of New England have organized the National Day of Mourning observance in Plymouth at noon on Thanksgiving Day. Every year, hundreds of Native people and our supporters from all four directions join us. Every year, including this year, Native people from throughout the Americas will speak the truth about our history and about current issues and struggles we are involved in.

Why do hundreds of people stand out in the cold rather than sit home eating turkey and watching football? Do we have something against a harvest festival?

Of course not. But Thanksgiving in this country — and in particular in Plymouth –is much more than a harvest home festival. It is a celebration of the pilgrim mythology.

According to this mythology, the pilgrims arrived, the Native people fed them and welcomed them, the Indians promptly faded into the background, and everyone lived happily ever after.

The truth is a sharp contrast to that mythology.

The pilgrims are glorified and mythologized because the circumstances of the first English-speaking colony in Jamestown were frankly too ugly (for example, they turned to cannibalism to survive) to hold up as an effective national myth. The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland. They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod — before they even made it to Plymouth — was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians’ winter provisions of corn and beans as they were able to carry. They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.

The first official “Day of Thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who had gone to Mystic, Connecticut to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children, and men.

About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in “New England” were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands, and never-ending repression. We are treated either as quaint relics from the past, or are, to most people, virtually invisible.

When we dare to stand up for our rights, we are considered unreasonable. When we speak the truth about the history of the European invasion, we are often told to “go back where we came from.” Our roots are right here. They do not extend across any ocean.

National Day of Mourning began in 1970 when a Wampanoag man, Wamsutta Frank James, was asked to speak at a state dinner celebrating the 350th anniversary of the pilgrim landing. He refused to speak false words in praise of the white man for bringing civilization to us poor heathens. Native people from throughout the Americas came to Plymouth, where they mourned their forebears who had been sold into slavery, burned alive, massacred, cheated, and mistreated since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

But the commemoration of National Day of Mourning goes far beyond the circumstances of 1970.

Can we give thanks as we remember Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who was framed up by the FBI and has been falsely imprisoned since 1976? Despite mountains of evidence exonerating Peltier and the proven misconduct of federal prosecutors and the FBI, Peltier has been denied a new trial. Bill Clinton apparently does not feel that particular pain and has refused to grant clemency to this innocent man.

To Native people, the case of Peltier is one more ordeal in a litany of wrongdoings committed by the U.S. government against us. While the media in New England present images of the “Pequot miracle” in Connecticut, the vast majority of Native people continue to live in the most abysmal poverty.

Can we give thanks for the fact that, on many reservations, unemployment rates surpass fifty percent? Our life expectancies are much lower, our infant mortality and teen suicide rates much higher, than those of white Americans. Racist stereotypes of Native people, such as those perpetuated by the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves, and countless local and national sports teams, persist. Every single one of the more than 350 treaties that Native nations signed has been broken by the U.S. government. The bipartisan budget cuts have severely reduced educational opportunities for Native youth and the development of new housing on reservations, and have caused cause deadly cutbacks in health-care and other necessary services.

Are we to give thanks for being treated as unwelcome in our own country?

Or perhaps we are expected to give thanks for the war that is being waged by the Mexican government against Indigenous peoples there, with the military aid of the U.S. in the form of helicopters and other equipment? When the descendants of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca flee to the U.S., the descendants of the wash-ashore pilgrims term them ‘illegal aliens” and hunt them down.

We object to the “Pilgrim Progress” parade and to what goes on in Plymouth because they are making millions of tourist dollars every year from the false pilgrim mythology. That money is being made off the backs of our slaughtered indigenous ancestors.

Increasing numbers of people are seeking alternatives to such holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. They are coming to the conclusion that, if we are ever to achieve some sense of community, we must first face the truth about the history of this country and the toll that history has taken on the lives of millions of Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian, and poor and working class white people.

The myth of Thanksgiving, served up with dollops of European superiority and manifest destiny, just does not work for many people in this country. As Malcolm X once said about the African-American experience in America, “We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” Exactly.

	Thank you for joining in solidarity with Indigenous rights!
	Cole Harrison Executive Director Massachusetts Peace Action

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New Hampshire Canvass For Bernie -Sat Dec 7th -Feel The Bern

New Hampshire Canvass For Bernie -Sat Dec 7th -Feel The Bern 

*Happy Birthday Townes -Once Again, Townes Van Zandt- From The Vaults- “In The Beginning”

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Townes Van Zandt performing "Tecumseh Valley".

CD Review

In The Beginning, Townes Van Zandt, Compadre Records, 2003

This main points in this review have been used in reviews of other Townes Van Zandt material.

Whatever my personal musical preferences there is no question that the country music work of, for example, the likes of George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette in earlier times or Garth Brooks and Faith Hill a little later or today Keith Urban and Taylor Swift (I am cheating on these last two since I do not know their work and had to ask someone about them) "speak" to vast audiences out in the heartland. They just, for a number of reasons that need not be gone into here, do not "speak" to me. However, in the interest of "full disclosure" I must admit today that I had a "country music moment" about thirty years ago. That was the time of the "outlaws" of the country music scene. You know Waylon (Jennings) and Willie (Nelson). Also Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Jerry Jeff Walker. Country Outlaws, get it? Guys and gals (think of Jesse Colter)who broke from the Nashville/ Grand Old Opry mold by drinking hard, smoking plenty of dope and generally raising the kind of hell that the pious guardians of the Country Music Hall Of Fame would have had heart attacks over (at least in public). Oh, and did I say they wrote lyrics that spoke of love and longing, trouble with their "old ladies" (or "old men"), and struggling to get through the day. Just an ordinary day's work in the music world but with their own outlandish twists on it.

All of the above is an extremely round about way to introduce the "max daddy" of my 'country music moment', Townes Van Zandt. For those who the name does not ring a bell perhaps his most famous work does, the much-covered "Pancho And Lefty". In some ways his personal biography exemplified the then "new outlaw" (assuming that Hank Williams and his gang were the original ones). Chronic childhood problems, including a stint in a mental hospital, drugs, drink, and some rather "politically incorrect" sexual attitudes. Nothing really new here, except out of this mix came some of the most haunting lyrics of longing, loneliness, depression, sadness and despair. And that is the "milder" stuff. Not exactly the stuff of Nashville. That is the point. The late Townes Van Zandt "spoke" to me (he died in 1997) in a way that Nashville never could. And, in the end, the other outlaws couldn't either. That, my friends, is the saga of my country moment. Listen up to any of the CDs listed below for the reason why Townes did.

Townes Van Zandt was, due to personal circumstances and the nature of the music industry, honored more highly among his fellow musicians than as an outright star of "outlaw" country music back in the day. That influence was felt through the sincerest form of flattery in the music industry- someone well known covering your song. Many of Townes' pieces, especially since his untimely death in 1997, have been covered by others, most famously Willie Nelson's cover of "Pancho and Lefty". However, Townes, whom I had seen a number of times in person in the late 1970's, was no mean performer of his own darkly compelling songs.

This compilation, “In The Beginning”, gives both the novice a Van Zandt primer and the aficionado a fine array of his core early works in one place. This material, as the extensive liner notes reveal, was material that Townes performed very early in his career and had mislaid to be released only in 2003 several years after his death. Pay particular attention to some of the lyrics that are harbingers of later work like “Tecumseh Valley” and “Don’t You Take It Too Bad”. For those who thought that Townes merely evolved into his dark lyrics this one will disabuse you of that notion. He was always dark. Stick outs here are: “Black Widow Blues”, Black Jack Mama”, “Colorado Bound”, and “Black Crow Blues”. Blues is the dues, okay.

Waiting Around To Die

townes van zandt

Sometimes I don't know where
This dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can't even see the reason why
I guess I keep a-gamblin'
Lots of booze and lots of ramblin'
It's easier than just waitin' around to die


One time, friends, I had a ma
I even had a pa
He beat her with a belt once 'cause she cried
She told him to take care of me
Headed down to tennessee
It's easier than just waitin' around to die


I came of age and I found a girl
In a tuscaloosa bar
She cleaned me out and hit in on the sly
I tried to kill the pain, bought some wine
And hopped a train
Seemed easier than just waitin' around to die


A friend said he knew
Where some easy money was
We robbed a man, and brother did we fly
The posse caught up with me
And drug me back to muskogee
It's two long years I've been waitin' around to die


Now I'm out of prison
I got me a friend at last
He don't drink or steal or cheat or lie
His name's codine
He's the nicest thing I've seen
Together we're gonna wait around and die
Together we're gonna wait around and die

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-K. L. Lang And His Band

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-Len Chandler

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.

On The 60th Anniversary Defend The Gains Of The Cuban Revolution- Fidel Passes At 90-Films to While Away The Class Struggle By- Bernico Del Toro's "Che"- In Honor Of A Revolutionary Fighter And Hero Of The Cuban Revolution

Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip featuring Che Guevara at the United Nations In 1964. You can link to many others from this one.

In Honor of Anniversary Of The July 26^th Movement

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (2015)

Every leftist, hell, everybody who stands on the democratic principle that each nation has the right to self-determination should cautiously rejoice at the “defrosting” of the long-time diplomatic relations between the American imperial behemoth and the island of Cuba (and the freedom of the remaining Cuban Five in the bargain). Every leftist militant should understand that each non-capitalist like Cuba going back to the establishment of the now defunct Soviet Union has had the right (maybe until we win our socialist future the duty) to make whatever advantageous agreements they can with the capitalist world. That despite whatever disagreements we have with the political regimes ruling those non-capitalist states. That is a question for us to work out not the imperialists.

For those who have defended the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959 under whatever political rationale (pro-socialist, right to self-determination, or some other hands off policy) watching on black and white television the rebels entering Havana this day which commemorates the heroic if unsuccessful efforts at Moncada we should affirm our continued defense of the Cuban revolution. Oh yes, and tell the American government to give back Guantanamo while we are at it.    

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review (2011)

This year is the 58th Anniversary of the July 26th Movement's Moncada attack, the 52nd Anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the 44th anniversary of the death of Ernesto, “Che”, Guevara in the wilds of Bolivia. Defend The Cuban Revolution! Free The Cuban Five!

Che, starring Bernico Del Toro, 2008

The first paragraph and other portions of this review have been used in other DVD reviews of Che Guevara and fit here as well:

"On more than one occasion I have mentioned that "Che" Guevara, as icon and legend, despite his left Stalinist politics (at best) and the political gulf that separated him from those who fought, and fight, under the banner of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International, was, and is, a justifiably appealing revolutionary militant for the world's youth to consider. A number of films have come out over the years that portray one or another aspect of the "Che" personality. Here the central thrust of the film is the creation of "Che" as a revolutionary cadre in the guerrilla warfare movement that dominated much of the radical political action of the 1960s, in the wake of the success and survival of the Cuban revolution in the face of American Yankee imperialism."

Unlike other films of Che`s exploits that have been reviewed in this space this monster, two-disc, four and one half film is strictly a homage to his skills as a revolutionary guerilla fighter out in the bush first in the hills of the Sierra Maestre in Cuba and then, tragically and fatally, in rural Bolivia. Some footage is thrown in, seemingly as relief, from interviews and an occasional speech but the heart of the film, and probably the reason that Che will long be remembered by generations of youth is that fight to turn himself from a "rich kid" doctor to a struggler against imperialism wherever he found it.

That story, whatever, the political differences we might have is appealing. What is not, in a long film, is the concentration on every military maneuver and every action in every campaign in Cuba and Bolivia. This short changes Che as a political man with definite politic views, hard views about the nature of the future communist society, that came to the fore in the period when he was a Cuban state official and responsible for helping to run the government under the guns, real and economic, of American imperial attack.

In that sense this film does not work. Moreover, in contrast to Eduardo Noriega's "Che" in which that actor in his mannerisms, his good and manly looks, and in his earnestness (no pun intended) to free the Americas of the Yankee "beast" was Che. Bernico Del Toro's seems a bit ponderous. However, the film is saved a bit when "Che" and Del Toro are reprieved in the Bolivia-centered second disc when we get a better look at his determination to end up where he started, as a guerrilla fighter extraordinaire fighting against the world's injustices.

That, my friends, today is refreshingly appealing. That said though, Che deserved a better fate that to be caught out in the bush in Bolivia. And here, as I have noted elsewhere, is where the irony (and the political differences) between us comes in. What the hell was he doing in the Bolivian bush, of all places in Bolivia when they was a working class (mainly miners) who had a history of extreme militancy and readiness to do class battles against the state (and have done so since then). Che, mainly deserves his status as icon, as a personal exemplar, but a whole generation of militants in Latin America and elsewhere got torn up to no purpose based on that wrong strategic assumption. That is the real lesson of the film.

On The 60th Anniversary Defend The Gains Of The Cuban Revolution- As Fidel Passes-"One Hundred Years Of Solitude"?- A Guest Review Of A Biography Of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Click On Title To Link To Guest Book Review Of The Life Of Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Commentary

Although I have reviewed a number of novels, political or otherwise, in this space over the past several years the name of the Nobel Literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been mentioned here only in passing as one of the "talking heads" in documentary reviews about his long time friend, the Cuban Revolution's Fidel Castro. This recent biography of Marquez, which I have not read yet, according to the guest book review cited above delves into that relationship. In any case, for those with a bent toward biography this will have to do for now. I will review the few Marquez's novels that I have read, including the magically realistic (whee!) One Hundred Years Of Solitude, at some later time. GGM-RIP-April 2014 

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The Gold-Digger Of 1934- Jean Harlow’s “The Girl From Missouri”-A Film Review

The Gold-Digger Of 1934- Jean Harlow’s “The Girl From Missouri”-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

The Girl From Missouri, starring Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, from a story by Anita Loos, 1934

You know sometimes it is refreshing when a story-line tells it like it is, tells exactly what the main character, or one of the main characters, is up to. Take the lead character in the film under review, The Girl From Missouri, Eadie played by very blonde in an age, maybe every age when very blonde got you many things a brunette, red-head, or black-haired beauty could only dream of Jean Harlow as she came up the Hollywood blonde ranks in the early 1930s. Once Eadie blows the “Show Me” state off after trying to hold off every guy who passed her by in her step-father and her mother’s dime-a-dance clip joint she is single-mindedly determined to marry some rich guy, any rich guy, and get off from hunger and cheap streets. She heads to the capital of the capitalists in New York City, a place she thinks should be easy picking for her to see what is what in that department.  

Practically from day one in the city with seven million stories (I know there are eight now but then, 1934, only seven and that may be on the high side) she is ready, willing and able to throw herself at any off-hand millionaire, bankers and stockbrokers a specialty, who looks her way for more than a few seconds. But a rookie gold-digger has to figure that she will strike out for a while before the next best thing comes along. And Eadie does strike out, does in the face of an intransigent old codger she tries to hook, one T.R. Paige, a high end banker played by Lionel Barrymore of the august acting dynasty last seen in this space holding off the likes of gangster Johnny Rocco down in Key Largo just as a “big blow” is coming through.

Never say the kid for Missouri wasn’t up for trying as she followed that old codger down to his digs in Palm Beach, then as now the wintering water hole of those with the serious kale and with its own set of mores and exclusions. Which no way Eadie fits into. This Paige, this up by the bootstraps Paige, has blonde as can be Eadie down as a tramp, as a fallen women, as a tart, well, as a gold-digger and makes that plain as day even when she tells whoever will listen that she is saving herself for marriage-for the golden apple marriage of her dreams.

Enter young Tom Paige, T.R.’s son, played by Franchot Tone who while he was the cat’s meow to movie audience women back in the day nevertheless has not been reviewed in this space by me. He makes a big play for Eadie and she has eyes for him but before they can tie that marriage knot she has been dreaming about the old man tries about six ways from Sunday to give her the heave-ho and Tom the kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth buys the old man’s story for a while. Goes back and forth before finding she is for him even if she hasn’t got three quarters to rub together. The thing that I learned from this little flick, a thing I probably knew but had kind of forgotten about of late, was that very blonde busty young women are going to get taken care of one way or another, going to have a soft landing in life. Make of that what you will.           

On The 60th Anniversary Defend The Gains Of The Cuban Revolution- On Moncada- A Documentary View of Fidel Castro

In Honor of Anniversary Of The July 26^th Movement

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (2015)

Every leftist, hell, everybody who stands on the democratic principle that each nation has the right to self-determination should cautiously rejoice at the “defrosting” of the long-time diplomatic relations between the American imperial behemoth and the island of Cuba (and the freedom of the remaining Cuban Five in the bargain). Every leftist militant should understand that each non-capitalist like Cuba going back to the establishment of the now defunct Soviet Union has had the right (maybe until we win our socialist future the duty) to make whatever advantageous agreements they can with the capitalist world. That despite whatever disagreements we have with the political regimes ruling those non-capitalist states. That is a question for us to work out not the imperialists.

For those who have defended the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959 under whatever political rationale (pro-socialist, right to self-determination, or some other hands off policy) watching on black and white television the rebels entering Havana this day which commemorates the heroic if unsuccessful efforts at Moncada we should affirm our continued defense of the Cuban revolution. Oh yes, and tell the American government to give back Guantanamo while we are at it.   

DVD REVIEW

Fidel Castro: An American Experience, PBS Productions, 2004

This year marks the 55th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 49th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 41st anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerrilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see July archives, dated July 5, 2006). The Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of '68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against American imperialism.

Thus, it is fitting to review a biography of Che’s comrade and central leader of that revolution, Fidel Castro. Obviously, it is harder to evaluate the place in history of the disabled, but still living, Fidel than the iconic Che whose place is secured in the revolutionary pantheon. The choice of this documentary reflected my desire to review a recent post- Soviet biographic sketch. As always one must accept that most Western biographic sketches have various degrees of hostility to the Castro regime and the Cuban Revolution. The director here, Ms. Borsch, is apparently a second generation Cuban exile in America. Nevertheless, after viewing this sketch I find that it gives a reasonable account of the highlights of Fidel’s life thus far and for those not familiar with the Fidel saga a good place to start. To get a more detailed analysis one, as always, then goes to the books to get a better sense of the subject.

Let us be clear about two things. First, this writer has defended the Cuban Revolution since its inception; initially under a liberal- democratic premise of the right of nations, especially applicable to small nations pressed up against the imperialist powers, to self-determination; later under the above-mentioned premise and also that it should be defended on socialist grounds, not my idea of socialism- the Bolshevik, 1917 kind- but as an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution nevertheless. That prospective continues to be this writer’s position today. Secondly, my conception of revolutionary strategy and thus of world politics has for a long time been far removed from Fidel Castro’s (and Che’s) strategy, which emphasized military victory by guerrilla forces in the countryside, rather than my position of mass action by the urban proletariat leading the rural masses. That said, despite those strategic political differences this militant can honor the Cuban Revolution as a symbol of a fight all anti-imperialist militants should defend.

Ms. Borsch obviously differs with my political prospective. Nevertheless she has presented interesting footage focusing on the highlights of Fidel’s career; the early student days struggling for political recognition; the initial fights against Batista; the famous but unsuccessful Moncada attack; the subsequent trial, imprisonment and then exile in Mexico; the return to Cuba and renewed fight under a central strategy of guerrilla warfare rather than urban insurrection; the triumph over Batista in 1959; the struggle against American imperialist intervention and the nationalizations of much of Cuba’s economy; the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs in 1961; the rocky alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the various ups and downs in the Cuban economy stemming from reliance on the monoculture of sugar; the various periods of Cuban international revolutionary support activity, including Angola and Nicaragua; the demise of the Soviet Union and the necessity of Cuba to go it alone along with its devastating hardships; and, various other events up through the 1990’s.

All of this is complete with the inevitable ‘talking heads’ experts interspersed throughout the documentary giving their take on the meaning of various incidents. There is plenty of material to start with and much to analyze. As mentioned before Che’s place is secure and will be a legitimate symbol of rebellion for youth for a long time. Fidel, as a leader of state and a much more mainline Stalinist (although compared with various stodgy Soviet leaderships that he dealt with over the years he must have seemed like their worst Trotsky nightmare) has a much less assured place. Alas, the old truism holds here - revolutionaries should not die in their beds.

On The 60th Anniversary Defend The Gains Of The Cuban Revolution- *In Defense Of Cuban Revolution- In Memory Of Celia Hart -A Daughter Of The Revolution

Click on the headline to link to a "Defense Of Marxism" Website 2004 commentary by Alan Woods on some of the politics, and political controversy, of the late Celia Hart.

Workers Vanguard No. 922
10 October 2008

Celia Hart, 1963 - 2008

On September 7, Cuban leftist Celia Hart, along with her brother Abel, died in a car accident in the Cuban capital of Havana. Their parents, Armando Hart and Haydée Santamaría, were two historic leaders of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, which laid the basis for the overthrow of capitalist rule on the island and establishment of the Cuban deformed workers state.

Celia Hart regarded herself as a Trotskyist. But this stood in contradiction to her unwavering support for Fidel Castro’s Cuban Stalinist regime and her support to the bourgeois-populist regime of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, with which Cuba is currently allied. The eclectic and self-contradictory “trotsko-guevarist” politics she espoused were at a great distance from the revolutionary program embodied in Trotsky’s permanent revolution. But Hart did not ooze with the odious anti-Communism of the social-democratic left that liked to parade her around at their international conferences, like the recent Socialist Action-organized Toronto event, “A World in Revolt—Prospects for Socialism in the 21st Century” (see “ICL’s Trotskyism vs. Socialist Action Reformism,” WV No. 917, 4 July). Celia Hart was feisty and sharp, always willing to engage in open political debate. We always enjoyed our discussions with her. We are sorry that she’s gone.

Dancing Cheek To Cheek- Again-Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s “Top Hat” (1935)- A Film Review

Dancing Cheek To Cheek- Again-Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s “Top Hat” (1935)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

Top Hat, starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, music by Irving Berlin, 1935

No, I will not start this review of what even to me seems like a never-ending series of dance films by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire reminding me of the never-ending Bob Dylan concert tours (and bootleg CD volumes) or the William Powell and Myrna Loy Nick and Nora Charles The Thin Man series going on and on about the superiority of Mr. Astaire’s dancing and grace compared to Mr. Gene Kelly based on the latter’s performance in the Gershwin-etched An American In Paris. Doing so would be merely overkill since once again in this film Mr. Astaire shows what grace, style and athleticism (the one attribute in which Mr. Kelly has an edge over Mr. Astaire) combined looks like when the hammer goes down. My understanding is the film under review Top Hat was one of the ten that this well-known dance pair did together although it seems like I did many more reviews than that already rather large number.

Since the real deal in these Astaire-Rogers pairings is the dancing this review can be mercifully short and sweet. After all nobody has ever accused the screenwriters of these frilly things of writing Oscar-worthy material to back up the dancing and the music by the likes of Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter or as here Irving Berlin. Here is the “skinny,” very skinny as my old friend and colleague Sam Lowell is fond of saying. Top Broadway musical showman Jerry, Fred Astaire’s role, is in London to bail out some producer’s musical when along the way he meets, well who else, Dale, played by Ginger Rogers, who seems to be some kind of model for an upscale high society Italian fashion designer. Naturally Jerry goes bug-eyed when he spies Dale and makes his big play. She somewhat guardedly is intrigued by him (after out of nowhere doing a serious pair dance with him out in the park which either meant something was in the water or that the dance indicated in an unspoken way that they were kindred spirits-you figure it out).

   

All well and good although this would be an extremely short film with basically nothing else but dancing and singing if it was left to that. What keeps the thing moving along a bit is a case of mistaken identity. Dale is led to believe that Jerry is the producer who just so happens to be married and therefore nothing but a cad and ne’er-do-well even if he can dance up a storm. Moreover, supposedly married to a good friend of hers. This miscue business takes them eventually to Italy where the thing gets played out and resolved in Jerry’s favor after a few more songs and a few more dances. The dancing by Astaire making obvious that he was the one you could not keep your eyes off of with his moves and not Ms. Rogers. End of story as they go dancing into that good night. See this one mainly for the great dance scene when they go Dancing Cheek to Cheek.

Once Again On The Great Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Heist-With Plenty of Speculation And of With No Apologies

Once Again On The Great Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Heist-With Plenty of Speculation And of With No Apologies

By Sam Lowell

If you have been on the planet for more than a few minutes now you know two things-one, I am through the vehicle of commemorating Rembrandt’s 350^th birthday linking that event up to speculation about the “who and how did they do it” of the famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist which hauled away some of Rembrandt’s works still allegedly missing.  (Maybe “infamous” is a better word but I will stick with famous for my purposes since I admire such works of imaginative con artistry and pluck by parties unknown and who in my youth I would have idolized like we did Pretty James Preston, the single-handed legendary motorcycle bank robber who captured the attention of a bunch of desperately poor working class kids for his bravado acts until the day they laid him low, maybe kept our attention after he fell down as well.)    

I have shared my speculations with the likes of Seth Garth whose addiction to private eye film noir and books is loaded up with speculations and inside jobs waiting to be uncovered by stealthy investigators who usually get their “man,” usually solve whatever got then a hundred a day plus expenses. I have also shared my ideas, and this is important here, with fellow writer and amateur art critic Laura Perkins (she insists on the “amateur” part since she is in a running battle with a professional art critic Clarence Dewar from Art Today who has made it clear that he loathes what he calls “citizen critics,” apparently a sub-species not worthy of  listening to) since she too has been fascinated by the scope of the heist and its remaining unsolved after all these years.

(On my speculation that it was the well-known late Whitey Bulger or one of his kindred as will be noted below she was totally fixated to the extent of having something of a “crush” on him. Strangely some well-brought up gentile women, maybe men too, are attracted to the dangerous types, at least from afar. I will never forget the day one of my high school friends was sitting with Minnie Murphy, who by everybody’s account was the prettiest girl in our school and the legendary Pretty James Preston came by, nodded for her to get on the back of his motorcycle and off they went without a murmur. We never saw nor heard of Minnie again except a rumor that she was on the opposite corner, assumed to be a look-out, the day Pretty James tried to single-handedly knock over the Granite National Bank and through some rent-a-cop fuck up wound up face down with a few public copper slugs in him for his last efforts.)           

Of course, Laura’s interests have been somewhat, no, very divided over the past few months, what she has called “gone dark” on the Gardner business, the Rembrandt commemoration business either since she does not as a rule like the 16^th and 17^th century Dutch and Flemish art epitomized by that master with sour-faced if prosperous bourgeois printed forever on our poor brains along with their forlorn wives and broods. She, as she has explained in a recent article on the amazing “discovery” of 26 presumed lost or destroyed works by the pioneer German Abstract Impressionist Raybolt Drexel, had a small research part in that adventure. And now has some contractual arrangement with the now former Abstract Impressionist curator at the Met to do a book on the long-winding road to finding these treasures brought to American soil clandestinely rather than having been burned at the stake during the “night of the long knives” against so-called “degenerate art” when the Nazis ran the show in Germany in the 1930s and later most of Europe.       

The reason I am referencing that article is that in that piece she pointedly made references to the various theories that she claimed I had concerning the Gardner heist. Called my speculations –

“Sam Lowell’s on-going battle, shadow boxing really, about the fate of the masterpieces that were stolen in the heist of the century (20^th) at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston some thirty years ago. Sam’s main beef, no, point, no, admiration, having been nothing but a charter member corner boy in his desperately poor youth so always on the lookout for the easy score and always just a little East of Eden on the legality question, was how easy the heist had been.

“Certainly to his eyes and ears with plenty of inside help and he didn’t mean the silly rent-a-cops who were supposed to protect the crown jewels but probably some well-positioned curators and volunteer tour guides. You know the cubby hole knowledge of some exotic artist for which some well-placed curators have written a seamless 66-page essay on as part of some exhibition and the suburban matrons who thrill to jabber their six-sentence knowledge of say, well, Rembrandt. Or as likely among those “volunteer” art students from the Museum School and Mass Art who facing the prospect of garret life for the next few decades decided to find a benefactor like the old artists, like Rembrandt if I am not mistaken, did in the courts and chanceries of Europe back in the day. If the reader will recall at least one curator, a Holbein the Younger expert and a couple of art students (not sure from which school) left the staff shortly after the theft never to be heard from again after a light FBI grilling…

“More importantly than who qualified as prime suspects for the job on the inside for the actual thefts though, the thirty-year question really, was how the various agencies investigating the whereabouts of the stuff have come up mainly with egg on their faces. Sam, even today has a certain amount of glee when he describes the lightweight work done by the FBI and Boston Police  to recover the masterpieces even with the so-called big rewards available (although really chump change compared to the value of the art today at half a billion maybe more today so you know that missing curator and those so-called art students are not giving up squat, Sam’s word, not playing ball with the law, also Sam’s, else find themselves in stir. What a laugh.)    

“Frankly, Sam, and through Sam, me have had a few so-called theories about the fate of the works, where they are, who had them and who has them now. It did not take old Seth Garth long to figure out where such stuff would be in the Greater Boston area once he and Sam put their heads together. So it was no surprise, made perfect sense to me to have known that the works had been stored in the Edward McCormick Bathhouse, or really the shed where they keep the tools and trucks,  over on Carson Beach for years so Whitey Bulger, complete with pink wig and paper bag beer sitting on the adjacent seawall or the seats around the bocce courts could eye them at his pleasure while he was on the run. “The key link was one guy, a career criminal mostly but with a François Villon poetic heart, who claimed to be the President of Rock and Roll, Myles Connors, who did the detail work (and also did as far as we know some very good preservation and protective work to keep the “Big 13” from the elements coming off of Dorchester Bay).

Probably had things worked out Whitey’s way the artworks would still be over in the bathhouse, still be a one-man museum exhibition. But all of that art for art’s sake that a painter named James McNeil Abbot Whistler laid on an unsuspecting world back in the 19^th century with his moody color schemes passing off as art  went in the trash barrel because once Whitey needed dough for his defense in a fistful of murder and mayhem charges he sold all the good stuff, sold everything I believe except those hazy sketches nobody would really want today except museum curators desperate to fill up their artist retrospectives with enough material to not leave any empty spaces. Probably that old clunky Chinese urn or whatever the damn thing was or that silly Eagle from some regiment that Napoleon led to defeat around 1814.

Sold the lot minus the above-mentioned loss-leaders to a guy, I think his name is Tom Steyers, something like that, not the guy running for President I don’t think but who knows, a hedge fund guy who has some social consciousness,  who has the good stuff locked up somewhere in order to peep at them on occasion but mainly to leave his kids with some start-up dough if they too wanted to be socially conscious billionaires. The second-rate stuff for all I know may still be in the bathhouse garage but don’t quote me on that or I’d be thrown in Dorchester Bay if the heat was on.” 

I thought I was going to go crazy, I hear Seth was after Laura’s head as well, when she published that material as an off-hand way to blow off my so-called major insights into that old art news Gardner heist against her “very real” part in the discovery of  the missing Raybolt Drexel masterworks which she claims has added to our current sense of human culture and not some Dutch soiled dark bourgeois noise about a guy who had no real colors in his palette even if he could draw like crazy. Here is the blow-off exactly-    

“Frankly though, especially now that Whitey has taken the fall, has gone to sleep with the fishes, that is all old news, speculation and macho guy talk like Sam and Seth get into when they need some hot air-time and not worthy of my time. Not worthy of my time as an acknowledged and proud amateur art critic…”

That may be but what has me crazed out in how wrong she has gotten a lot of what I have discussed, discussed many times with her and others about the truly logical way to look at the art heist of the 20^th century done right in the backyard so to speak. She has balled it up so badly that I think somebody, the public coppers and the FBI might think I had some inside information on the case. Believe me if I had that solid information then I would be down on the Fenway this minute picking up that juicy check for a few million that those wayward, volunteer guides, and broke art students turned their noises up at for much more filthy lucre. I would figure out some way to get by with such funds, no question. What has me exercised though is to get the story strange to tidy up the loose ends and maybe the reader will understand why I was pissed off at Laura not for balling the whole thing up but for not getting what the real story was.

No question the late Whitey Bulger’s fingerprints are all over this heist as was everything that moved, legally or illegally, in Boston when he was king of the hill back in the day, so-called on the run or not. Don’t ask me why he wanted the culture stuff, why he wanted some artwork (as opposed to a few tons of cocaine or heroin to move like clockwork) that is up to him, and now his maker. The mix of materials clipped against what could have been grabbed makes it obvious that whoever pulled the caper was doing it as an amateur art theft and not some systematic looting. Except maybe that loss-leader Napoleonic regimental standard that might have struck Whitey’s oversized fancy. The idea, if it came from him, or if somebody was looking for Rembrandts and he used the junky stuff to throw the authorities off as a cover in any case I remember as a kid that the rumor around the neighborhood, around the Acre was that Whitey had sent a couple of his boyos in dressed in cop uniforms but in a civilian car to waste some malcontents. Bingo the same idea for the heist-low visibility, low attention around the be-bop Fenway.

Here’s the beauty though-the stuff where I shine in all my speculations. This is where the classic inside job comes in, where the missing and long gone curator (since identified as Holbein the Younger scholar Ethel Blaine), that head volunteer guide for the Rembrandts (since identified as Lois Devine) and the two art student volunteers (one since identified as Adam Ball, the other still not identified so perhaps not an art student after all) come in. All four after short and incomplete interviews with the BPD and FBI “vanished.” It is possible Whitey left no traces but probably the big pay-out to his accomplices was left to do its work. In any case that night the deed was done, the works squirreled away-someplace.

This is where I really am speculating although not by as much as I had thought when I first figured out that Whitey was not on the so-called run but daily sitting by the Edward McCormack Bathhouse (named after the famous 1960s Speaker of the House John McCormack’s nephew who was connected with Whitey’s brother Billy I believe) wearing some disguise. (I have described it in humor as wearing a pink wig and carrying a brown bag for his beer but that is only a joke, okay.) So it figured the goods were nearby, especially since most of the guys who worked the adjacent garage, the public works area were Billy’s boys. The clincher, for me, although the coppers say no, for their own reasons, was that sometime in the mid-1990s a big section of the garage was turned over to a secured box area. Hum!           

      

That idea had all the hallmarks of one Myles Connor who was probably the overall architect of the plan, of the heist and of what to do about storing such material since he had been something of a budding artist in his time before he decided to cover himself as President of Rock and Roll and do felonies for a living. Myles would have known how to preserve the goods against those god-awful winds that came off the bay periodically. Would have known that no guys with peeking eyes were going to bother the operation once they knew the deadly Whitey interest (knowing the short road to the granite quarries in Quincy, the graveyard for old automobiles and loose bodies). Knowing that at some point Whitey was probably going to have to bail out, to get fresh cash for some deal and at least sell some of the works.

This really is where the rubber meets the road though. I do not believe that Whitey thought he would be caught, captured really out in California and thus in need of a

ton of money to dig himself out of a very big hole. This is where things can get tricky. Probably did. I mentioned, casually, to Laura that I thought Whitey probably sold off the whole lot except the obvious loss-leaders at one time. Now I am not so sure. I still believe that the loss-leaders, that urn, those sickly sketches, that silly Eagle, are over in Southie, probably still in that garage but that Whitey only sold what he needed to sell and something that would bring a quick return. Nobody should be foolish enough to believe that guys and dames with serious money and a serious arts jones wouldn’t move heaven and hell to get their hands on a Rembrandt, a Gardner one to boot.

The gloomy black market in such materials is legendary. The question is how much to pay and not where to store the damn thing from prying eyes in those cases. My guess is you can kiss off at least one Rembrandt for several generations, maybe more.

   

That is the basis of my notion, a more solid one than how many items have been sold off as of today, that Whitey did a quick sale to some hedge-fund guy named Steyers, something like that although I am informed that it is not the guy running forlornly at this point for POTUS to raise the needed cash. Beyond that we are a still seekers, still would like to know for example whether the inside jobbers were paid off with works of art and not hard cash at the time. That would lead to a whole new road of inquiry-and a major hunt for the whereabouts of those four so-called bad boys and girls. More later, from me or Seth but Laura has promised to keep hands off -and her eyes on the Drexels.