When The Tin Can Bended…. In The Time Of Folksinger/Song-Writer/Folk Historian Dave Van Ronk’s Time

When The Tin Can Bended…. In The Time Of Folksinger/Song-Writer/Folk Historian Dave Van Ronk’s Time

By Bart Webber

I have not much to say that already has not already been said by me or others about the recent shake-up and turn-over of regimes at this site. I am sure that most readers would be more than happy not to see a supposedly bright cohort of writers acting like this was electoral politics and a fight over spoils or worse some fight in academic circles  where there really are no holds barred when somebody get their hackles up. However, I, like Jack Callahan, another old-timer who was both friends with the previous site manager whose name I will not use since there had been a recent mandate to be stop doing so further to be commented on in a minute and a big financial backer of this and several other linked sites are concerned about the drift as exemplified by that “notice” and, more importantly, rumors of dramatic changes in the subject matter and emphasis of this blog away from the original purposes also to be commented on below.

Funny democracy, or the democratic façade, works in mysterious ways-or stops working. During the height of the internal fight which as everybody now should know was a knockdown, drag out fight essentially between the younger and older writers concerning who was in charge and what was to be written about everybody for a period was encouraged to freely write about their takes on the situation under some theory that the yakking out loud might be of interest to the readership about the inner workings of social media sites.  When Greg Green took over day to day operations aided by his hand-picked and some say toady Editorial Board he further encouraged such discussion. Until he, they, that supposedly independent and liberal Board didn’t. Put out the word, the “notice” which everybody young and old took as a “warning” to cease and desist using the old site manager’s name (and accomplishments which were many) in the interest  of “moving on.” So much for democracy, or better democratic façade.

More troubling since even a fair number of the younger writers, including a couple who sit on that august Ed Board, are shocked by the rumors that soon there will be dramatic changes in what is presented here and who will present the material. One of the big complaints that the younger writers had, which in truth had some merit, was that the site was too, way too mired in the past. Specifically that the older writers were tending to crawl back into their nostalgic 1960s coming of age roots reflected in the incredible number of old-time films, books, music, political dreams, and cultural events reported on. That the younger writers were forced to write about stuff that didn’t experience or know about and in the words of more than one in the heat of battle didn’t give a f- -k about. That came to a head with the massive coverage of the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 which most of them were either too young to remember or were not even born yet.

Now the wheel seems to be turning the other way which I with which have just had some direct experience. When I attempted to submit this piece about Dave Van Ronk, a pivotal figure in the early 1960s folk music world, I was told by Greg (who invoked that flunky Ed Board over-filled with his internal fight supporters) that it might not run since the Board was concerned that there had already been too much on this site about that minor musical genre. Moreover I was told to cut it to about three hundred words if they decided to post the piece. I have refused to cut except for some tightening of a few parts suggested by a helpful junior editor. That refusal bought some space for this piece but also another “notice” about “broadening our horizons.” This is, what did Jack Callahan call it, yeah, the opening shot of my campaign to save this important genre on the American and cultural landscape if not so much now then in earlier times.     

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Sure everybody, everybody over the age of say fifty to be on the safe side, knows about Bob Dylan. About how he, after serving something like an apprenticeship under the influence of Woody Guthrie in the late 1950s, became if not the voice of the Generation of ’68, my generation, which he probably did not seriously aspire in the final analysis, then the master troubadour of the age. (Troubadour in the medieval sense of bringing news to the people and entertaining them as well.) So, yes, that story has been pretty well covered. But of course that is hardly the end of the story since Dylan did not create that now hallowed folk minute of the early 1960s but was washed by it when he came East into the Village where there was a cauldron of talent trying to make folk the next big thing, big cultural thing for the young and restless of the post-World War II generations. And one of the talents who was already there, lived there, came from around there was the late Dave Van Ronk who deservedly fancied himself a folk historian as well as musician.    

That former role is important because we all know that behind the “king” is the “fixer man,” the guy who knows what is what, the guy who tells one and all what the roots of the matter were. Dave Van Ronk was serious about that part, serious about imparting that knowledge about the little influences that had accumulated during the middle to late 1950s especially around New York which set up that folk minute.

He told a funny story, actually two funny stories about the folk scene and his part in which will give you an idea about his place in the pantheon. During the late 1950s after the publication of Jack Kerouac’s ground-breaking road wanderlust adventure novel that got young blood stirring, On The Road, the jazz scene, the cool be-bop jazz scene and poetry reading, poems reflecting off of “beat” giant Allen Ginsberg’s Howl  the clubs and coffeehouse of the Village were ablaze with readings and cool jazz, people waiting in line to get in to hear the next big poetic wisdom if you can believe that. The crush meant that there were several shows per evening. But how to get rid of one audience to bring in another in those small quarters was a challenge.

Presto, if you wanted to clear the house just bring in some desperate from hunger snarly nasal folk singer for a couple, maybe three songs, and if that did not clear the high art poetry house then that folk singer was a goner. A goner until the folk minute of the 1960s who probably in that same club played for the “basket.” And so the roots of New York City folk. The second story involved his authoritative role as a folk historian who after the folk minute had passed became the subject matter for, well, for doctoral dissertations of course. Eager young students breaking new ground in folk history who would come to him for the “skinny”. Now Van Ronk had a peculiar if not savage sense of humor and could not abide academia and its’ barren insider language so when those eager young students came a calling he would give them some gibberish which they would duly note and footnote. Here is the funny part. That gibberish would then be cited by some other young and eager student complete with the appropriate footnote. Nice touch, nice touch indeed on that one.       

As for Van Ronk’s music, his musicianship which he cultivated throughout his life, I think the best way to describe that for me is that one Sunday night in the early 1960s I was listening to the local folk program on WBZ hosted by Dick Summer (who was influential in boosting local folk musician Tom Rush’s career and who is featured on a recent Tom Rush documentary No Regrets) when this gravelly-voice guy, sounding like some old mountain pioneer, sang the Kentucky hills classic Fair and Tender Ladies. After that I was hooked on that voice and that depth of feeling that he brought to every song even those of his own creation which were spoofs on some issue of the day. I saw him perform many times over the years and had expected to see him perform as part of Rosalie Sorrels’ farewell concert at Saunders Theater at Harvard in 2003. He had died a few weeks before. I would note when I had seen him for what turned out to be my last time he did not look well and had been, as always, drinking heavily and his performance was subpar. But that is at the end. For a long time he sang well, sang us well with his own troubadour style, and gave us plenty of real information about the history of American folk music.                   

Howling At The Moon-When Howlin’ Wolf Held Forth

Howling At The Moon-When Howlin’ Wolf Held Forth  

By Jack Callahan

I have been encouraged by fellow older writers in this space to not put my extraneous remarks about the turmoil, the now vaunted internal in-fighting at this blog over the past several months, in brackets but let it flow as part of the narration for the piece. Their idea is that the remarks are more likely not to be famously red-penciled (famous since most editor like to use blue pencil to cut out parts they don’t like for whatever reason) by the current site manager Greg Green who gained his position as a direct result of that faction fight. And it really was a faction fight since it pitted the so-called “Young Turk” younger writers against the old guard around the previous manager whose name I will not use here as an added guarantee that the piece will be posted although my real ace in the hole is my serious financial backing for this site, and on-line American Folk Gazette, American Film Gazette and Progressive Nation. 

This is my opening shot in defense of those older writers who rely on these outlets for their daily bread and to get their material before as Seth Garth always likes to say “a candid world.” I am a very sporadic article contributor here but the latest rumors which are persistent that the “winning” side is planning a “purge” of the older writers (and any other writers who disagree with the direction of the current site manager and his hand-picked Editorial Board created in the wake of the dispute to “guide” the work) and a serious change of direction in the political, cultural, music, film and book material presented has me very concerned both for the older writers and for the direction of the blog. For example the notion which I am not sure how far it has been discussed to eliminate coverage of the classic blues, electirc blues which forms the basis for this short review. My God eliminating one of the central organic Amercian musical forms. I will expand on this more in a review I am writing for the book version of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show. Hopefully this opening shot will get by the more “democratic red pencil of the current regime.

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 Some music you acquired naturally, you know like kids’ songs learned in school (The Farmer in the Dell, etc. in case you forgot) and embedded in the back of your mind even fifty years later. Some reflected the time period when you were growing up but were too young to call the music your own like the music that ran around the background of your growing up house on the mother housewife radio or evening record player which in my case was the music that got my parents through my father’s slogging and mother anxiously waiting World War II. You know, Frank, The Andrew Sisters, Peggy Lee, etc.   Other music, the music of my generation, classic rock and rock came more naturally since that is what I wanted to hear when I had my transistor radio to my ear up in my bedroom. Yeah, Elvis, Chuck, Bo, Buddy, Jerry Lee, etc. again. The blues though, the rarified country and electric urban blues of the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf was an acquired taste.       

Acquired through listening to folk music programs which I had been turned onto by Sam Lowell, another older writer here who sided with the “Young Turks” against his old friend the previous site manager on that very same transistor radio in the early 1960s when they would take a break from down home mountain music, western swing ballads, and urban protest music to play some cuts of country or electric blues. See all the big folkies, Dylan, Tom Rush, Dave Van Ronk, people like that were wild to cover the blues in the search for serious roots music from the American songbook. So somebody, I don’t know who, figured if everybody who was anybody was covering the blues in that minute then it made sense to play the real stuff.

The real stuff having been around for while, having been produced by the likes of Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf, going back to the 1940s big time black migration to the industrial plants of the Midwest during World War II when there were plenty of jobs just waiting. But also having been pushed to the background, way to the background with the rise of rock and roll. So it took that combination of folk minute and that then well-hidden electric blues some time to filter through my brain. What did not take a long time once I got “religion” was going crazy over Howlin’ Wolf when I saw him perform. Once I saw him practically eat that harmonica he was playing on How Many More Years down in Newport and which is now immortalized, immortalized as far cyberspace will be able to accomplish that feat on YouTube clips which will allow younger and future generations to see and hear what it was like when men and women played the blues for keeps.  Played like that was the last chance stance. Yes, that is an acquired taste and a lasting one.    

The Dragon Man Goes Awry- With The Late Singer-Songwriter Merle Haggard’s “Running Kind” In Mind

The Dragon Man Goes Awry- With The Late Singer-Songwriter Merle Haggard’s “Running Kind” In Mind

By Vince Villon

[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Peter Markin was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers solely to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment by Green designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]

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[I am new to writing for this site, post-Allan Jackson who used the moniker Peter Paul Markin when he was in charge before the latest shake-up pushed him out the door to parts unknown new, so that I have no real comment on what happened or why except indirectly through my father-in-law Phil Larkin whose daughter Margaret I am married to. Although I tried several times over the past few year to get some of my articles published on this site and made as many attempts to be taken on as staff through Phil’s intercession Allan would not hear of it. Called it his “fight against nepotism” when Phil asked and was turned down. Here is the funny thing though Allan was more than happy to have Phil and a slew of other older writers known to him from their collective growing up in Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville south of Boston days write whatever came into their heads whenever it came through those portals. The funny part being that since they were not kin, not related, Allan’s words to Phil when he cut me off at the knees he believed that was not nepotism. Yeah, right. V. Villon]             

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Peter Scott, ever since he was a kid known as the Dragon Man, was not in any way, shape or form a reflective man, hadn’t had a clue as to what made him tick or why he had done what he had done in his thirty-four almost thirty-five years on the planet. That reason that I, Jake Jenkins known around the streets as “Five Fingers” know this, know this guy had not one ounce of reflection on why he had done what he had done was he had told me many times, too many times when we shared a cell courtesy of Los Angeles County where he was doing a nickel for his latest burglary binge and I was doing a deuce for trafficking some shit cocaine on the Bunker Hill section streets. 

Maybe it is not important in the great scheme of things, the great mandala as another county jail roommate of my put it when I was doing six months on an assault charge, but a certain event, a certain strange event occurred while the Dragon man and I were doing our time together. In stir, the joint whatever you want to call it for four walls and plenty of bars and nasty bastard guards which turned him around, turned him around the last I heard although cons, serious felony cons like me and him usually don’t stay turned around for long either getting back into the box or being put in a box the usual choices.      

Guys in stir are funny, guys like me don’t say much about ourselves, to other cons figuring the less anybody knows the less likely they are to use what they know to work out some kind of deal with the warden to get themselves out from under, to turn stoolie, to sing with the birdies (and maybe if the guy who they are ratting out finds out exactly who did the deed “sing with the angel band”). Guys like the Dragon Man though whatever their reason will, maybe trying to work through an idea talk unto the wee hours. Yeah, the Dragon Man could talk and maybe that talking is what kept him going, kept him on the wheel.     

Let me give what I know, what he told me, whether it was bullshit or not you will have to figure out yourselves. This Pete, this Dragon Man’s real name was not Peter Scott it was Kim il Soo, something like that. He had been born in Korea, South Korea, to an American G.I., one of the thirty-something thousand that were still in that country some fifty years after the big truce was declared in the early 1950s and a Korean mother who was either a brothel whore, most likely, or some naïve country girl who believed some bullshit a G.I. promised her to get her in the sack, talking about taking her home with him to the states. Whatever the case he was left off as an infant at the International Evangelical Orphanage in Seoul and that was that. That was that until he was about two and through some exchange program he was adopted by an Evangelical farm couple out in Neola, out in Iowa farm country. So here is the set-up as the Dragon Man is growing up he is an illegitimate half-white, half Asian kid being brought up in the heartland of America by strict white as rice Christians in a small community which was if not hostile to foreigners, immigrants, Asians, then uncomfortable around them and so in a way he had a bunch of strikes against him. Always felt he didn’t belong, always being carped on by these nutty Christians trying to make him like them, always being hazed, hassled and haunted by the locals, by the local kids he went to school with who hung that Dragon Man moniker on him in about fourth grade he figured. (He said he hated that nickname at first but later when he turned that wrong fork in the road he embraced it thought it was cool to leave a Dragon imprint after he completed a job, after he committed some burglary.)      

The day, no, maybe it was the next day after Dragon Man finished high school he grabbed a couple of hundred dollars out of the trusting leave the doors open and the cars unlocked heartland naiveté family cookie jar and split for Los Angeles all by himself telling no one and leaving nothing. (One time when he was telling the tale he mentioned that he hated Neola so much that he never finished high school, had left everything and everybody high and dry at sixteen so you figure it out-he left the town anyway.)  He figured that aside from losing him as an unpaid farmhand those pious parents probably were thinking to themselves good riddance since he had already shown signs of being what his adopted mother called a “sinning man” taking dough from her pocketbook, stealing, “clipping,” we called it, stuff from the Woolworth’s on Main Street, ripping off some of his classmates in school. Being pretty good looking for an Asian guy he left a few girls looking for farmland kicks in the lurch, didn’t give a fuck he said if they got pregnant or not, didn’t give a fuck as they used to say if the girls had to leave town for a few months to see “Aunt Emma” when they got too round in the tummy.  

Once he hit LA he got himself a cheap room in that old-time Bunker Hill section, which I know every inch of by heart so I know this part is true, the run down section where many crime stories were hatched by crime novel writers who were using LA as a backdrop.  Short of dough he decided to head out to Santa Anita racetrack to see if he could make some dough gambling, maybe make a mob connection so he thought being just naïve enough to think all that crime stuff on television was for real. That day he made maybe a hundred bucks and figured he was on easy street now. Met a couple of guys and a couple of girls too who were from UCLA who were on some kind of “let’s see who the other half lives” outing looking at the junkies, touts, cons, losing ticket picker-uppers when he spotted them. Figured they were young and he could hang with them. And he did as they assumed that he was also some kind of student (which he said he was once he knew the play). They wound up taking him back to UCLA and he stayed there a couple of days. (He would spend many “couple of days” there not drawing any suspicion when asked about his class schedule-or anything).

After that first day Dragon Man really did believe that he was “blessed” (using an old religion term learned from his adopted mother and it stuck), believed he could beat the odds and make a nice little living out of being a gambling man, a guy who carried no stones. For a while he was but like most gambling not matter what the betting scheme he started losing. And started on a serious wave of crime to keep himself in clover-starting with ripping off those UCLA students who never suspected until he was caught the first time that they had been ripped off. Dragon Man was not subtle about his mode of action. He would climb into stores through any opening he could find and rob the inviting register or cashbox (got so good he could figure out the easier way just by ad-libbing and being lucky since nobody including the cops figured that one young guy could be so audacious). Would do five six places a night leaving his tell-tale dragon imprint on something soft. Then head to UCLA or some girl’s place, girls who like those Iowa naiveté girls were into something exotic in their leafy suburban lives would share their beds with him. (These girls. Co-eds, young women being a little more sophisticated that their Iowa sisters took the necessary precautions to avoid pregnancies and Dragon Man was not aware of any children he might have fathered on the Coast.)             

Then one night, one night when he was particularly stubborn about getting dough he got cocky, decided to hit a place that he had hit the previous night, a Chinese choy suey joint. The owner was staying over and when he spied Dragon Man winged him with a revolver. That was the first time. They could only pin that one robbery on him and since he had no record he got six months, served four. Prison was hard for the kid, hard because the older cons tried to make him their “girl” and for the sheer fact that he had not really lost that gambling addiction. Wouldn’t lose it until he got in some twelve-step gambling program after more stretches and figuring out that the percentages were against him. That twelve step stuff, bogus as far as I am concerned, Dragon Man started while we were cellmates to I thought make the time more easy passing and maybe get a few months off the mounting sentences. 

But hold on don’t think that it was those four stretches that got him thinking about going straight. No way, not a big part anyway. What got him thinking a little differently was the time that hard-headed ex-con Merle Haggard, the country singer, who made it out of prison and made a career, although even he said it was a close thing, gave a concert in the prison cafeteria. Sang one country kind of song that somehow hit this loner bastard Dragon Man right between the eyes. The song Running Kind. A song whose lyrics (see below) exactly expressed to him what his whole fouled-up, fucked up life had been about. About that instinct he had to run and run and not think about anything except the running. Funny, huh. Like I said the last I heard Dragon Man was running straight but you never know with the running kind. Enough said. 

Merle Haggard Lyrics

Play "Running Kind" on Amazon Music

"Running Kind"

I was born the running kind
With leaving always on my mind
Home was never home to me at anytime
Every front door found me hopin'
I would find the back door open
There just had to be an exit
For the running kind

Within me there's a prison
Surrounding me alone
As real as any dungeon with walls of stone
I know running's not the answer
But running's been my nature
And a part of me
That keeps me moving on

I was born the running kind
With leaving always on my mind
Home was never home to me at anytime
Every front door found me hopin'
I would find the back door open
There just had to be an exit
For the running kind

*From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L’s-In Honor Of Karl Liebknecht-Revolutionary Socialism in Germany(1916)

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  

Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
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Karl Liebknecht
Revolutionary Socialism in Germany

Source: The Social Revolution in Germany, by Louis C. Fraina, The Revolutionary Age Publishers, 1919
Transcription: Sally Ryan for Marxists Internet Archive
Markup: John Wagner for Marxists Internet Archive
Online Version: Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002

Note: Karl Liebknecht was sent to prison by the government of the Kaiser for four and one-half years because of propaganda against the war. Released from prison by the Revolution, Liebknecht is now the dynamic individual expression of the Revolution.

On August 4, 1914, the representatives of the Social-Democratic Party in the Reichstag, speaking through their official spokesman, Hugo Haase, approved and voted for the first war credit. On the second credit, Karl Liebknecht voted "No!" On December 21, 1915, eighteen Social Democratic representatives, the Haase-Ledebour Group, voted against the fifth war credit, and on March 21, 1916, they voted against a special credit. This created a storm, the eighteen were expelled from the Social Democratic Party.

Many Socialists considered that these eighteen represented revolutionary Socialism, that they voted against the war because of revolutionary convictions. This was not the fact, as Karl Liebknecht makes amply clear in this article to the comrades, written after March 21, almost two years ago.

The eighteen of the Haase-Ledebour group subsequently organized the Independent Socialist Party. This party was neither one thing nor the other; it was against the war, but not on definite Socialist issues; it wanted to go back to the days before August 4, instead of forward to the new tactics and the new International. Liebknecht and other revolutionary Socialists in Germany attacked this party; and today the Independent Socialist Party, by its wavering and essentially counter-revolutionary policy, is confirming the analysis Liebknecht makes in this article of their tendency. The intellectual expression of this party is Karl Kautsky, the moderate and compromiser, the man who manufactured one theoretical justification after another for the Social Democratic Party's abandonment of Socialist principles, the man who declared four years ago that all Socialists were justified in supporting their governments since all nations were on the defensive.

This article of Liebknecht's is an historic document and deserves the serious study of every Socialist.


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What was the meaning of March 24, 1916? The eighteen delegates who finally decided on December 21, 1915, to vote against the first war credit, voted on March 24th openly against the proposed special war budget. While in December they issued a "declaration," they now gave the motives for their vote in a speech. The content of this speech, however, did not go beyond the declaration of December. Even the excuse that Germany was safe against invasion was again brought forward. What was it then that caused a sensation on March 24th? It was the wild uproar of the Socialist majority, together with the bourgeois parties, the infamous attitude of the president, the expulsion of the eighteen from the official party parliamentary group. But in this action, the eighteen were "object" and not "subject"; this action was forced upon them and they disliked a rupture so much, that they tried their best to avoid, still in January, 1916, an open break with the treacherous majority, as well as tumultuous scenes against bourgeois parties. And even now on March 24, 1916, they play the part of offended innocence rather than that of showing the clenched fist of rebellion.

What, then, is the meaning of March 24th? A true opinion can only be formed in connection with the general situation. The new Arbeitsgemeinschaft are the same eighteen, the "neither flesh nor fish" policy of whom proved a failure in December and again in the submarine issue on March 22nd, and again in discussions March 23rd. Could you expect the lambs of yesterday to become all of a sudden lions?

Just now the so-called Losenblätter (loose leaflets) are published by comrades affiliated with the group of the eighteen. These leaflets do not even mention the important fundamental problems which are at stake. Direct taxes instead of indirect ones are about the highest wisdom of the program of taxation of the eighteen in the midst of the world war! They do not show any deeper insight into the problem of taxation. They do not even see as was stated in the resolution of the Convention in Chemnitz, that direct taxes can as well be saddled upon the masses and that the decision as to what part of the burden will rest on each class, finally is a problem of political power, not a problem of tax reform; that it depends upon the political and economical situation as a whole, the tax policy being an organic part of the general policy. They do not even see, that the best possible direct tax on top of a system of indirect taxes may easily become a fig leaf of the system and a barrier against a thorough reorganization of the system of indirect taxes. Under the heading "How long will it last," the loose leaflets of the eighteen talk about war in sentimental language, without saying a word about the imperialistic causes of the war. The war is considered due to stupidity of the rulers! They give as highest wisdom the theory that Imperialism has led to a deadlock out of which the Governments cannot find an escape, so that they need the advice of the loose leaflets...a pitiable mixup indeed!

And what about the stand of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft in the first test in the budget committee? Two days prior to the expulsion, this group did not take any decisive stand on the submarine issue. Now the delegate in the budget committee argued, on humanitarian declarations about the horror of the war, against the sinking of vessels without warning. No understanding was shown that the submarine issue is first of all decided by the ultimate aim of the war, as the result of a struggle of groups of capitalists for the control of the war-policy according to the sharpening of the war political situation, and a fight for political power in home policy, in which the scene was carefully prepared to stage Bethman-Wollweg as a liberal and moderate Imperialist, in order to facilitate the treacherous policy of the leaders of the party and labor unions. The delegate of the eighteen even went so far as to advocate again the abolition of the right of confiscation, to attack the English capitalists instead of the German Government at a moment in which this latter Government capitulated before the most unscrupulous war fanatics and needed the most energetic opposition. This policy means a continuance of the Baralong policy of Ledebour on January 15th.

Whether all of the eighteen and all of the "official" opposition in Berlin accept the responsibility for the loose leaflets and the policy of their delegates or not — a group, leaders of which express such opinions, are very far from a policy on principles, although they may claim so loudly. The formal combination of all kinds of indefinite oppositional feelings and motives is always a great danger, especially so in a time of world changes. This means confusion and dragging along on old lines, it sterilizes and kills the militant elements which get into this mixed company. What must be the conclusion from all this?

The warning against uncritical overestimating of the action of the eighteen and of the events on March 24th. The warning, to keep your eyes open, not to forget that if we should join the eighteen unconditionally, this would mean the surest way to make the new group a shield to cover the governmental policy, and to make the 24th of March a mere phantom, just as December 21st has already become a ghostly historic event. In so far as March 24th means progress, this is to a great extent due to the uncompromising critics of all half-heartedness; it confirms the efficiency of these critics on the strengthening of the oppositional spirit.

The tactic of endless consideration and avoiding of conflicts and decisions is damned by the events on March 24th. In the turmoil of a world war all compromising breaks miserably together. Whoever tries to move around between warring armies will be shot from both sides, unless he saves his life in time by joining one party or the other, where, however, he will be received not as a hero, but as a fugitive. The way of the eighteen was a round about way, and not a pleasant one either. Not one advantage worth while to a serious man in this serious period has been gained by this delay.

The masses were ripe for the test already at the beginning of the war. They would not have failed. The only result of the hesitation and doubt has been the strengthening of poisonous opportunism.

Clear cut principles, uncompromising fighting, whole-hearted decision!

Uncompromising Socialist action against the war, against those who caused it, who profit by it, who want to continue to support the war! Also against the supporters of those who slander the name of Social Democrats. Against the policy of the majority, against the National Committee and the Executive Committee of the party, against the Central Committee of the labor unions and all instances of the party and the unions that carry this treacherous policy. To counteract this policy with all means is now the main issue of the war against war. A struggle to gain the majority against the party, misrepresented by the demagogues of the majority. A struggle for democracy in the party, for the rights of the masses of the comrades, against the failing and treacherous leaders, who form the main supporters of the war. Against all of those who in peace time have played into the hands of militarism by opposing mass action in favor of law and order, and who now hang around in the waiting rooms of the army headquarters and the imperial ministers.

Now is the moment to throw away all formal considerations. The party machinery is used ever more and more without scruple by the bureaucrats to enforce their policy. Autocratic decisions are standard features in the party. After the methods of von Puttkamer, power is used to force the opposition, the meanest methods of Prussian-Russian policy brutality are used by the party leaders against the minority. The independence of the party press is disregarded with growing brutality by the so-called party majority. Even the censorship of martial law is beaten by the docile scholars of the military terror of the official Socialist party. War against this party all along the line, to conquer the party for the party! War against the traitors and usurpers, who must be driven from their jobs by mandates laden with the disgust of the workers!

Reconquering of the party from the bottom up through revolt of the masses, who will have to take their organization into their own hands! Not only words, but deeds! Away with all doubt and cowardice! Away with half friends, feeble lily of the swamp! Away with half friends, feeble mindedness and sentimentalists! Those are out of place where the fight is heart against heart. The struggle for a decision in the party is on! It must be fought without and consideration for the sacrilegists, the traitors, the deserters from Socialism.

To the present system of party politics, not a man and not a cent, but a fight to a finish. Those who are not with us in this fight will be considered against us!

On The 80th Anniversary-The Travails Of Single Motherhood-Barbara Stanwyck’s “Stella Dallas” (1937)-A Film Review

On The 80^th Anniversary-The Travails Of Single Motherhood-Barbara Stanwyck’s “Stella Dallas” (1937)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

(This is another film that was in the pipeline in 2017 but got pushed back due to the internal in-fighting on this site so 80^th anniversary is appropriate. Greg Green)

Stella Dallas, starring Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, directed by the legendary King Vidor, 1937  

In a recent film review of Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Roger’s Stage Door I mentioned, apparently out of turn, that I was grateful to the new site manager Greg Green for taking me on as a regular writer in this space. That part was okay according to him. The part that was not okay was when I mentioned that I had known the previous site manager Allan Jackson for many years beginning with an initial connection with my then companion Josh Breslin in the 1980s who had met Allan out in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, 1967. Allan had refused to give me a regular by-line then at the hard copy version of this site, although he hired me as a stringer, freelance-writer for a while until I got a regular by-line at The Eye. Allan’s reason back then was that hiring me would be an act of nepotism, would look like he was stockpiling the place with his friends their friends and cronies. Strange because in the end he would as he got older and more nostalgic surround himself with a mother lode of just such people. Gave them titles and all everything that they abhorred back in their mainly 1960s youth.          

Thinking about the matter recently I am more inclined to go with my feelings at the time of rejection that he really did not like women

working alongside him in his various publishing efforts. A look at the archives has pretty much confirmed that. The surprising part is that in person, and the politics he and the blog stood for, stand for, he, if not actually a feminist, none of the guys at this site, including Josh, could be classified that way then he was far forward on what he called “the women question” than most of the men that I worked in the industry with later. And I have made that statement on a number of occasions including that previously mentioned review. That is what got me in hot water with Greg. He told me that he was trying to get rid of Allan’s still very strong “presence” here despite his physical distance in, I think, Utah. I am not sure what to make of the statement but others have told me they have received the same “warning.” In short, except as a passing reference to some negative aspect of Allan’s regime, don’t write about him during the course of a review. Since this film review was already in the pipeline Greg has told me he will not “red-pencil” any such references here.           

That brings us to the film under review Barbara Stanwyck’s Stella Dallas which deals with some women’s issues that could not get addressed in Stage Door although that was a very strong women’s film as well. (I hope that I am wrong, and I probably am, but I would be very unhappy if I was the token women here and hence will be given all the so-called “chick-flicks,” all the women-oriented films since that would both be a serious step back from what this site is supposed to stand for and drive me crazy as well since my attitude toward most women’s films, especially of late is that they should never have been produced for lots of reasons which I will get into sometime when I get another such assignment).     

It is only recently, maybe the last few years, the combination of sex and class have begun to get a serious work-out in the body politic and its reflection in film. So it is rather surprising to see such issues, intentionally or not and maybe not is closer to the grain, in a 1930s Hollywood film, a melodrama, a tear-jerker to boot. Stella Dallas (nee Martin) is from minute one of the film all about getting out from under her banal mill-town working class upbringing. She wants the American rags to riches dream but via her sexual charms and feminine wiles to grab an eligible rich man and not through        

her own education and acumen. Well once she put her claws out she hooks an up and coming guy, not rich but with prospects, Steve Dallas, played by 1930s rich and handsome leading man character John Boles, who on the rebound marries her quickly, too quickly for either party in the end.      

The result of this union is a young daughter, Laurel, played by Anne Shirley as she ages, as she gets to be a good-looking young woman. But well before that the well-mannered Dallas-rough and tumble Martin class differences portent a marriage not made in heaven. Before long the paths separated with Stella in charge of the daughter on a set allowance from Stephen who was off to New York to make a ton of money. That situation goes on for years with Laurel periodically off with father and very different kind of lifestyle among the upper crust whom her father is associating with as he again rises in society.        

Such a situation could not go on forever especially as Laurel is attracted to that high society life, although finally made aware that her ill at ease mother can’t keep up with that crowd, no way. In the best interest of the child though Stella finally agrees to divorce Stephen, an extremely hard thing to have to do in that time, and let Laurel go and soak up the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Stella’s sacrifice, although it turned out she couldn’t quite make that class jump herself, paid off when Laurel married some scion of the Mayfair swells as Josh always liked to call them. Sex, class, single motherhood, sacrifice a better than average melodrama from that period. Except Josh will also squash things a bit when he reads this review and start yelling about Ms. Stanwyck’s role as the femme fatale in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity la and the hell with the frumpy housewife she plays in this film.     

I Hear The Voice Of My Arky Angel-Once Again-With Angel Iris Dement In Mind

I Hear The Voice Of My Arky Angel-Once Again-With Angel Iris Dement In Mind

By Fritz Taylor 

SWEET FORGIVENESS (Iris DeMent)

(c) 1992 Songs of Iris/Forerunner Music, Inc. ASCAP

Sweet forgiveness, that's what you give to me

when you hold me close and you say "That's all over"

You don't go looking back,

you don't hold the cards to stack,

you mean what you say.

Sweet forgiveness, you help me see

I'm not near as bad as I sometimes appear to be

When you hold me close and say

"That's all over, and I still love you"

There's no way that I could make up for those angry words I said

Sometimes it gets to hurting and the pain goes to my head

Sweet forgiveness, dear God above

I say we all deserve a taste of this kind of love

Someone who'll hold our hand,

and whisper "I understand, and I still love you"

AFTER YOU'RE GONE (Iris DeMent)

(c) 1992 Songs of Iris/Forerunner Music, Inc. ASCAP

There'll be laughter even after you're gone

I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn

'cause I've memorized each line in your face

and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me

I'll miss you, oh how I'll miss you

I'll dream of you and I'll cry a million tears

but the sorrow will pass and the one thing that will last

is the love that you've given to me

There'll be laughter even after you're gone

I'll find reason and I'll face that empty dawn

'cause I've memorized each line in your face

and not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me

Every once in a while I have to tussle, go one on one with the angels, or a single angel is maybe a better way to put it. No, not the heavenly ones or the ones who burden your shoulders when you have a troubled heart but every once in a while I need a shot of my Arky angel, Iris Dement. Every once in a while when I am blue, not a Billie Holiday blue but maybe just a passing blue I need to hear a voice that if there was an angel heaven voice she would be the one I would want to hear.    

I first heard Iris DeMent doing a cover of a Greg Brown tribute to Jimmy Rodgers, the old time Texas yodeller, on Brown's tribute album, Driftless. I then looked for her solo albums and for the most part was blown away by the power of Iris’ voice, her piano accompaniment and her lyrics (which are contained in the liner notes of her various albums, read them, please). It is hard to type her style. Is it folk? Is it Country Pop? Is it semi-torch songstress? Well, whatever it may be that Arky angel is a listening treat, especially if you are in a sentimental mood.

Naturally when I find some talent that “speaks” to me I grab everything they sing, write, paint, or act I can find. In Iris’ case there is not a lot of recorded work, with the recent addition of Sing The Delta just four albums although she had done many back-ups or harmonies with other artists most notably John Prine. Still what has been recorded blew me away (and will blow you away), especially as an old Vietnam War era veteran her There is a Wall in Washington about the guys who found themselves on the Vietnam Memorial probably one of the best anti-war songs you will ever hear. That memorial containing names very close to me, to my heart and I shed a tear each time I even go near the memorial when I am in D.C. It is fairly easy to write a Give Peace a Chance or Where Have All the Flowers Gone? type of anti-war song. It is another to capture the pathos of what happened to too many families when we were unable to stop that war. The streets of my old-time growing up neighborhood are filled with memories of guys I knew, guys who didn’t make it back, guys who couldn’t adjust coming back to the “real world,” or could not get over no going into the service to experience the decisive event of our generation.

Other songs that have drawn my attention like When My Morning Comes hit home with all the baggage working class kids have about their inferiority when they screw up in this world. Walking Home Alone evokes all the humor, bathos, pathos and sheer exhilaration of saying one was able to survive, and not badly, after growing up poor, Arky poor amid the riches of America. (That may be the “connection” as I grew up through my father coal country Hazard, Kentucky poor.)  

Frankly, and I admit this publicly in this space, I love Ms. Iris Dement. Not personally, of course, but through her voice, her lyrics and her musical presence. This “confession” may seem rather startling coming from a guy who in this space is as likely here to go on and on about Bolsheviks, ‘Che’, Leon Trotsky, high communist theory and the like. Especially, as well given Iris’ seemingly simple quasi- religious themes and commitment to paying homage to her rural background in song. All such discrepancies though go out the window here. Why?

Well, for one, this old radical got a lump in his throat the first time he heard her voice. Okay, that happens sometimes-once- but why did he have the same reaction on the fifth and twelfth hearings? Explain that. I can easily enough. If, on the very, very remotest chance, there is a heaven then I know one of the choir members. Enough said. By the way give a listen to Out Of The Fire and Mornin’ Glory. Then you too will be in love with Ms. Iris Dement.

Iris, here is my proposal, once again. If you get tired of fishing the U.P., or wherever, with Mr. Greg Brown, get bored with his endless twaddle about old Iowa farms or going on and on about Grandma's fruit cellar just whistle. Better yet just yodel like you did on Jimmie Rodgers Going Home on that Driftless  CD.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken-The Music OF The Carter Family (First Generation)

Will The Circle Be Unbroken-The Music OF The Carter Family (First Generation)

By Sam Lowell

I am not enjoying my so-called retirement from the day to day operation of the film review section of  this site. For many years I was at first film critic, small letters, and later when the then site manager Allan Jackson brought in some younger writers Senior Film Critic, capital letters, in the days when he got the bright notion that we needed a heriarchy here between the older writers and the younger writers and such designations did the trick. Well Allan found out to his later regret that such silly formal divisions and as well only permitting the younger writers to essentially have our leavings, leaving which included and oversized amount of material reflecting on the growing up times of the older writers, the 1960s, that frankly the younger writers could give a f- - k, pardon my English, about was part of his undoing. Brought a full-scale rebellion which eventually led to his downfall.

There are persistant rumors that Allan did not retire as is the formal reason given for his no longer running the show here but that he was purged, was unceremoniously driven into exile in Utah where he is hustling the Mormons for a by-line in some third-rate newspaper hard as that is to believe of guy who mocked the hell out of Mitt Romney when he was running for President in 2012 what with his five wives great-grardfather and white underwear. As a long time friend of Allan’s I had thought the former reason, that retirement stuff,  rather suspicous since no way would Allan have retired on his own volition. This place was his baby. Of course as the one older writer who sided with what are now around the office called the “Young Turks” I am concerned that these victorious writers are not going to leave well enough alone and are ready according to another strong rumor to purge the lot of older writers.

I have no regrets, except the probable loss of a friend of fifty years standing if it proves that he is not out in hell-hole Utah but holed up somewhere near-by licking his wounds, about casting that decisive vote agaisnt him since the site really was turning into a lonely-hearts club for nostagic generation of ’68 veterans. Especially last year when Allan  went crazy early on about the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 which formed a number of us from the old growing up neighborhood’s baptism of fire into that newer world we thought we were getting caught up in.

Allan got in such a frenzy about the matter that say you wanted to submit an article about the 1940s classic private detective Dashiell Hammett novel-inspired movie The Maltese Falcon you had to connect the dots somehow so that that San Francisco era of the film somehow linked up to the Summer of Love which was also centered in Frisco town. He had a big red-pencil out eagle-eyed looking for anything which he could “edit” toward that goal. (By the way to give a graphic example of how tilted Allan’s mind had become about linkage none of the younegr writers who gave it a try could make a conenction between the two, none. It took wily Phil Larkin to do the deed. The link? Miles Archer, one of the detective on the case, was killed, was murdered on Post Street and that street is located not far from the Fillimore where plenty of ‘acid rock” was performed and also near the epicenter of the whole thing, the Haight-Ashbury section of town. He went on to speculate about whether Sam Spade would have gotten caught in the Summer of Love or would he have hired himself out to search for missing kids for their distraught parents. Allan was delighted.) 

The younger writers could have given a f - - k about that distant time but he made it a litmus test. I assumed that the frenzy would only get worse as the various 50^th anniversaries, good and bad, for 1968 in 2018 came up. He had to go.

It did not help personally, although I have kept pretty quiet about it and did not let it get used for ammunition in the fierce internal fight which raged throughout most of the latter part of 2017, that due to my persistant nagging about the erroneous direction the site was taking that I was “forced” to retire from the day to day operations once he brought Sandy Salmon over from the American Film Gazette (as he did with current site manager Greg Green later in the year). He gave me so-called emertitus status and told me that I could now write whatever I wanted and submit whenever I wanted. And then crabbed every time I wanted to write about something not Summer of Love-related or not film related. So the short reminscence piece below is something that I had done a draft on, got red-penciled to death by Allan and threw in a desk drawer until recently I asked Greg Green about resurrecting the damn thing. In a flick he sure go to it. Yeah, although I am worried about purge talk both for Allan’s sake and the rest of us older writers, the old bastard had to go.            

**********              

You know it took a long time for me to figure out why I was drawn, seemingly out of nowhere, to the mountain music most famously brought to public, Northern public, attention by the likes of the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, and the folklorists the Seegers and the Lomaxes who brought a ton of this stuff to the waiting arms of 1960s kids who were looking for “roots” whatever that might mean to any particular kid. Kids who would pay serious college cheap date money to see some of the survivors like Buell Ezell or Hobart Smith go through their paces. 

As a kid I could not abide it but later on I figured that was because I was so embroiled in the uprising jail-break music of my generation, rock and roll, that anything else faded, faded badly by comparison. Later in high school and after that in college when I too joined the cheap date night crowd in the days when I hung around Harvard Square and would pursue girls, young women, only if they were willing to but into my cheap date routine I would let something like Gold Watch And Chain register a bit, registering a bit. That then meaning that I would find myself occasionally idly humming such a tune. But again more urban, more protest-oriented folk music was what caught my attention more when the folk minute was at high tide in the early 1960s.           

Then one day not all that many years ago as part of a final reconciliation with my family, going back to my own roots, making peace with my old growing up neighborhood, I started asking many questions of family, old school mates and old friends like Phil Larkin and Bart Webber who have written in this space as well about how things turned so sour back when I was young. More importantly asking questions that had stirred in my mind for a long time and formed part of the reason that I went for reconciliation. To find out what my roots were while somebody was around to explain the days before I could rightly remember the early days. And in that process I finally, finally figured out why the Carter Family and others began to “speak” to me.         

The thing was simplicity itself. See my father hailed from Kentucky, Hazard, Kentucky long noted in song and legend as hard coal country. (The L&M Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Going Back To Harlan)When World War II came along he left to join the Marines to get the hell out of there. During his tour of duty he was stationed for a short while at the Portsmouth Naval Base and during that stay attended a USO dance held in Portland where he met my mother. Needless to say he stayed in the North, for better or worse, working the mills in Olde Saco until they closed or headed south for cheaper labor and then worked at whatever jobs he could find. All during my childhood though along with that popular music that got many mothers and fathers through the war mountain music, although I would not have called it that then filtered in the background on the family living room record player.

But here is the real “discovery,” a discovery that could only be disclosed by my parents. Early on in their marriage they had tried to go back to Hazard to see if they could make a go of it there. This was after my older brother Prescott was born and while my mother was carrying me. Apparently they stayed for several months before they left to go back to Olde Saco before I was born since I was born in Portland General Hospital. So see that damn mountain was in my DNA, was just harking to me when I got the bug. Funny, isn’t it.