*** For Eddie Klementowski And Those Kindred Who Fought For The Republic In The Spanish Civil War-1936-39

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Eddie Clements right up until the day he died in 1997 always said that he left the best part of himself, the part that was generous and not self-serving, in Spain back in his youth, the1930s, specifically 1936 and 1937 when he had served in a POUM (Party Of Marxist Unification in Spanish) battalion on the Lerida front and had fought like seven dervishes to beat back Franco’s forces, and beat them good. For a while. By the way that POUM military organization (all the political parties had their own military arms, at least at first before the command was centralized under the aegis of the Spanish Communist Party, acting as agents for the Soviet Union who were footing the bill, and the only ones providing military aid to the Republican forces at the time) was the same one that George Orwell got dragooned into and wrote about in his famous book Homage to Catalonia. And a further by the way, just so you know, Eddie Clements was not his real name, not back then anyway but he had shortened it and Anglicized it when the deal went south on the Republican forces and it was a lot better, a hell of a lot better, for him to seem to be English when he tried to immigrate to the United States in1939.

Eddie, born Edward Klementowski, a Polish national, was on the run in those days from the Pilsudski regime in Poland and found himself in Spain like many others when they saw that the shades were being pulled down over Europe by one madman or another. Of course in Poland Eddie had been a Polish Communist Party member in good standing until about 1936 when he was expelled from the party for some vague Trotskyite heresy and hence when he tumbled into Spain he joined the POUM militia since the Polish unit of the International Brigades was off limits to him, way off limits to hear him tell over beer or seven at Mike Diceks’s Tavern over in “Little Poland,” Andrew Square in Boston.

That is where Pete Markin who gave me the story had meet him back in the 1970s when somebody that he worked with, also Polish although born in the United States, who knew the newly left-wing politicized Markin was interested in the Spanish Civil War and guys who actually fought there. And so they met, met occasionally, when Markin was in the area and discussed, or maybe that was too polite a word over a few beers (usually on Markin’s tab) the various maneuvers, military and political of that war. And when they finished up any session Eddie would always, always close by saying that he had left the best part of him in Spain back then. It took Markin a long time to understand that, to mull over the politics of it, since he had been way to young, hadn’t even been born yet, when some hearty men not afraid to fight, and to die,became the “premature anti-fascists” in that struggle. He, himself, a military veteran, Vietnam, although kicking and screaming about it, and thus no stranger to war, and rumors of war, could not understand what it was like when men went way out of their various ways to fight in Spain. He was glad that they did, glad that Eddie did so, but still he was perplexed by that commitment.

Moreover he and Eddie would have some friendly battle royales (usually after a few too many of Mike’s Polish imported beers) about the “correct” strategy that should have been applied in the Spanish situation. Eddie adamantly stood on the grounds that after the suppression of Franco’s forces by the Republican forces in the summer of 1936 the Commune should have been declared like in Russia in 1917. The Republican forces had the capacity, at least in the areas they controlled, especially in Catalonia, to do so but were, according to Eddie, hamstrung by the policy of the Communist Party (and behind that organization, the Soviet Union) that it was necessary to win the war against Franco first and then the Commune could be proclaimed and some socialist organization of society attempted.

Pete felt just the opposite, felt under the influence of the communists that he associated with at the time that, given the isolation of the Spanish Republican forces, the attitude of the British and French governments to try and maintain the status quo in Europe in the face of the menace of Hitler and his associates that military victory was the first consideration. Eddie would bring up the May Day events in Barcelona to buttress his case but Pete would counter that, given the precarious military situation those Barcelona actions were counter-productive (actually he said he used the stronger words counter-revolutionary in those days).

And so they would go back and forth, fighting the old political battles like it was just that minute that such questions had to be decided for good. And then Eddie would pull out one his stories, his stories of the personal acts of bravery and bravado in the battles that he had witnessed, had a part in, and the fury of the polemics would wilt before those acts of bravery and devotion. That was the reality of Eddie’s Spain, and such material Peter enhanced long time love affair with the kindred of that fight.

Eddie would tell one story in particular about when his unit was pinned down in some desolate out rock and it looked like curtains for them because the Franco forces had them surrounded on three sides and the other exit was over some tough and exposed rocky terrain. Now his unit was strictly an international unit because at that time the POUM was putting together such units as morale boosters and as signs of internationalism. One guy, an Irishman, Duffy, who had fought the bloody British in the early 1920s when the heat for an independent t nation in Ireland was on, had been a sapper and so he, out of seemingly nowhere had put together a charge to try to block the Francoists from over-running their position. He and Duffy stayed behind in order to set the charge behind as the others cleared out. Then Duffy told Eddie to get the hell out of there. Duffy stayed and blew the charge blocking the Francoists. At the cost of his own blessed life. Yes, it was stuff like that drove Eddie’s memory bank.

Eddie was reticent to discuss his life after Spain, how he got to America, and the like but later on a few years before he died he told Markin that he had spent too much time drinking and alley-catting while in America and that he just kind of had a tough time adjusting after the various brushes with death that he undertook gladly back then. And that is when Pete finally realized what Spain had meant to Eddie, and maybe that story about Duffy just kind of put paid to the whole experience. Funny though after Eddie died Pete started thinking about all the times that they had argued and Pete started to see that maybe Eddie had a point about the right strategy in Spain. All he knew was that he had lost his last living connection with Spain and he cursed each time he thought about the fact that he had not even been born then to leave the best part of himself there like Eddie.

CITIZEN ACTIVISTS CONFER WITH US ATTORNEY URGING AN INDICTMENT AGAINST U.S. PRESIDENT, CIA DIRECTOR, AND OTHERS FOR WAR CRIMES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Max Obuszewski 410-366-1637 mobuszewski@verizon.net

Malachy Kilbride 571-501-3729 malachykilbride@yahoo.com

Joy First 608-239-4327 joyfirst5@gmail.com

WHO: Members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) and others have taken action to call attention to, and bring an end to the crimes of the United States government since the Iraq war began in 2003.

WHAT: On Tuesday, May 21 members of NCNR went to the U.S. Attorney’s office at the Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, VA to deliver a criminal complaint and call for an investigation into the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) by the CIA. NCNR maintains that the Obama Administration and the CIA drone program is in violation of U.S. and international law.

They met with Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Rossi who officially received the complaint and will be delivering it directly to his superior US Attorney Neil MacBride. MacBride is responsible for the jurisdiction where the CIA is located in Virginia, and the activists were told by Rossi that MacBride will make a decision on whether to move forward with an investigation.

WHY: Members of NCNR are joining activists around the world calling for an end to U.S. attacks by killer drones, with thousands of documented deaths already in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and other places around the globe, including over 200 children in Pakistan alone. The CIA is directly responsible for many of these extrajudicial killings.

The activists told Rossi that they have contacted members of Congress, The White House, and the Department of Justice in attempts to address their concerns about the violations of the law and the victims of US drone strikes. The activists also told Rossi that the unjustifiable killings are making Americans less safe and will lead to vendettas against them. This is why they went to the US Attorney’s Office they said.

"…I have always taken the responsibilities of "citizenship" seriously...I have always voted; I have always advocated and lobbied for important issues with our elected officials. Today, I, along with other activists, have taken the unprecedented step of filing a criminal complaint at the US Attorney's office in Alexandria, VA against President Obama and CIA Director John Brennan for 'crimes against humanity' in their illegal and immoral targeting through US armed drones of citizens in [other]countries… Our objective is the immediate stop (cessation) of all US armed drone activity." said Jack McHale a Virginia resident and member of the national Catholic peace organization, Pax Christi (Pentagon area chapter).

Code Pink activist David Barrows of Washington, DC said, “People outside of this country are of no less value than we are, and justice must be served.”

McHale and Barrows were joined by NCNR activists Joy First of Wisconsin, Malachy Kilbride of Virginia, Max Obuszewski of Maryland, and Manijeh Saba of New Jersey. NCNR members will be following up with today’s filed complaint and encourages activists in other places to take similar actions.

###

Report from Bradley Manning’s last hearing before June 3 trial

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Today was Pfc. Bradley Manning’s final pretrial hearing, and the judge ruled that some of the government’s witnesses will be allowed to testify in closed sessions. The government dropped a major federal statute from one of its specifications but is still pursuing the remaining 21. The court martial begins June 3, 2013 - see how to attend the proceedings here.
By Nathan Fuller. May 21, 2013.

Bradley Manning supporter protesting at Ft. Meade.

Bradley Manning returned to Ft. Meade, MD, for a one-day pretrial hearing, the last such session before his court martial will begin on June 3, 2013. Today’s hearing covered various issues surrounding classified information: namely, how it will be handled at trial, and how much of the court martial will be closed off to the press and public.
Rulings on classified information: some trial sessions will be closed
Judge Denise Lind made two rulings based on the previous closed session, on May 8, when Ambassador Don Yamamoto testified in a ‘dry run.’
In that session, she found that the defense’s proposed alternatives to closing trial during testimony that will elicit classified information – such as using code words, redactions, or substitutions – were inadequate, and therefore the court will be closed for the classified portions of 24 more government witnesses. The government is ordered to speedily provide a (likely heavily redacted) transcript of those closed sessions.
Judge Lind also ruled to narrow what the government will be allowed to present when it attempts to prove that Bradley had reason to believe certain classified information could be used to harm the United States if made public.
The government can show more than that the documents in question were merely classified, and it can provide some context for the documents’ content and hypothetical damage it could cause. But it can’t delve too deeply into that context, because the defense will be allowed to challenge that context in court, and Judge Lind doesn’t want the court martial to “devolve into many trials regarding international politics in many regions of world.”
Government drops one CFAA specification
Before those arguments began, almost in passing, the government revealed that it is no longer pursuing the greater charges for Specification 14 of Charge 2. Specification 14 refers to the Reykjavik-13 cable, and the greater offense is violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In February, Bradley pled guilty to a lesser-included offense of that specification, one that carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail. The greater offense carried a 10-year maximum sentence, but the government is dropping that for the Reykjavik cable alone.
In the charge sheet, that cable was separated from the remainder of the Department of State cables, which are contained in Specification 13. It was separated because the government alleged that the bulk of the State Dept. cables were released between March 28, 2010, and May 27, 2010, but that the Reykjavik-13 cable was released between February 15, 2010, and February 18, 2010. The defense challenged the latter dates, and now the government has dropped it.
Stipulation of facts regarding OBL raid
It was also revealed that the defense and government have agreed to enter a stipulation of facts regarding the evidence found from Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound as an appellate exhibit. That document stipulates that during that raid, the U.S. collected digital media which included three items: (1) a letter from Osama bin Laden to a member of Al Qaeda requesting that the member gather defense material posted to WikiLeaks, (2), a letter from the same member of Al Qaeda to Osama bin Laden, attached to which was the Afghan. War Log as posted by WikiLeaks, and (3) Dept. of State information released by WikiLeaks.
The parties stipulating to these facts could remove the need for the government’s classified ‘John Doe’ witness to testify.

***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-The Private Eye Is Out

 

Some guys never learn, yah, they just never learn. Take Robert Streeter, smart. street smart as befits a working private eye, a good looking guy, a guy built for 1950s grey flannel suit action, hefty, actually beefcake would be a better description, barrel-chested, with enough guts to take on some tough stuff but with enough whatever it is that moves dangerous dames to have them all over him like some magnet to make things dangerous (or was it that he was fatally attracted to them, such things are not always what they seem). But in the end he took the fall, took it hard and wound up with plenty of mud on his face in some dusty ditch. But here is where the never learn part comes in, he didn’t get mixed up with just one frosty dame who sent him reeling but two. So, no, we of the fraternity need not bleed, at least not for long, over one Robert Streeter, gumshoe, shamus, peeper, private dick, whatever you happen to  call guys who work for cheap dough and plenty of aggravation tilting at windmills in this wicked old world. But his story might just be a cautionary tale. So listen up.      

Robert Streeter frankly had gone through a rough patch, had had a few cases that fell through the cracks, the customers weren’t satisfied and didn’t pay up, stuff like that,  and therefore had to take on some divorce work, although he usually was loathe to do such peeping in shady motel bedroom work. She, Faith Smythe, had called him up, had told him her requirements, told him of her need to get some stuff on her husband, some scandal to pave the way to that happy future divorce she craved and to be settled with enough dough to head south, maybe Mexico, maybe further down. But here was the catch, and the place where even we of the fraternity had to give Robert some slack, he was in such a tough spot for dough that he took the case sight unseen, sight of her unseen, took it because it sounded, well, sounded like finding money on the street once she said she would have his retainer sent over posthaste. A few days’ work, he figured, maybe stretch it out for a week or so and collect his money. Maybe a bonus since this involved serious money, society money, rather than the usual butcher’s wife thinking her husband had run off with a starlet that the bedroom peepers spoke about. Easy.

And it was easy, easy getting enough material on one Horace Smythe, one wealthy for about five generations wealthy, Los Angeles patron. He openly philandered, even had a suite reserved at the Hilton where the bellhops were eager to help out anybody if the dough was right, so that Mrs. Smythe (it wasn’t Faith at that point) had an open and shut case in the courts. She just had to file, wait her time, and then flee south. Then, bringing her the photographic proof she needed for her divorce over to the house, he got his first look at her. And then he knew, knew right for the moment she opened that damn door that whatever it was that she was looking for beyond that divorce, and she was looking for more as every fiber in her being cried out, was going to put him through his paces.             

There was no need to describe her, young, very young, brunette, brown eyes, slender, wasp-waisted and trouble, trouble the minute he heard that in person metallic money voice in person that spoke of treachery, and guys in grey flannel suits duplicity. Certainly she was not what he had expected, not after having seen old guy Horace, that dirty old man. He had expected some aging gracefully with plenty of help matron and with lots of time on her hands. Maybe too hiding a little tryst or two herself along the way in order to settle scores with old Horace and even things up. She, after opening the door, a drink in hand, scotch, practically swooned in his arms, just to see if he would catch her. He did. Yah, some dames are like that, she was like that. And from then on he knew whatever happened their fates were joined, no rhyme or reason to it, but there it was.  He bedded her that night after some arch banter over a drink or seven (or rather she let him bed her, no resistance, none) right in that old man’s house. He was hooked, hooked bad, but he had to play his hand out, play it to the end.   

Playing out that hand meant nothing but murder, murder one, plain and simple when she got under his skin. Oh sure, once she saw him at the door and maybe later in bed she had it figured that Robert would have no trouble with the old man, taking him down and then they, yah, he was in the sunny sky of Mexico scenario now, could be off to the southland and sipping high- grade tequilas. And, at first it could have worked out just that way, they had set it up so perfect. An ‘accident’ with Horace’s car, and some wayward young thing beside him, after some drunken night out. Then the poor bereaved and jilted widow and all. But then one night, a few nights before their plan was to become operational, they got sloppy. They had been drinking heavily all afternoon and evening and he had, in the heat of the moment, carried her up to her bedroom for a frolic.

Unfortunately about nine o’clock Horace showed up at her bedroom door, pretty drunk himself, and yelled bloody hell. Yelled that there was no way she was getting any dough now that he had the goods on her, now that he knew she was just another tramp. He called her that many times practically ready to throw her out the window in his rage. Robert, very drunk and a little wobbly, tried to defend her, they tussled and Horace went down quickly, out for the count, but not before clubbing Robert with a fireplace iron which sent him tumbling as well. When he regained consciousness and he checked on the prostrate Horace he had already gone to meet his maker. And then the madness started, the closing off of their plans had left them with no out except to flee, no matter what Robert’s condition. They had to flee to Mexico where she had a stash of cash that could carry them for a while. Just enough dough until they could figure out what they could do next. But she persuaded him that they had to move just then or else. That was the way she played it, played it to an addled love- smitten fall guy with a big bump on his head and a massive headache.         

And then the madness really accelerated. Faith started acting a little erratically, making wrongs decisions since Robert was still reeling from his head injuries and was not able to think things through, heading south. They had also stopped at a doctor’s place in some podunk town in the high desert going east out of L.A. and then fled when he became suspicious after viewing Robert’s injuries. The doctor reported that visit to the police who had been alerted to the couple by an all- points bulletin put out by the Los Angeles police and who then began the final massive manhunt that a few days later that would corral them near the border. As they approached the border Faith, really freaked out and showing signs of extreme duress, drew a gun from her purse and was ready to put one in Robert when he said that they should surrender. She shot blindly wounding him in the shoulder as she tried to make a run for border alone. Once cornered she let go with the last of her ammo. A police sniper brought her low as she stumbled to make those last few steps to the Mexican side and freedom. She never made it.           

Robert only learned the following information later. Later after the guns had stopped blazing and Robert had been cleared of any wrongdoing, legal wrong-doing anyway. It seemed that Faith had been married previously to some insurance guy from Fresno but when Horace started courting her, spying her in an LA hotel, that guy found himself as what the police called a “suicide” after Horace bought some hefty police cooperation. As it turned out she had snuffed the poor guy out one night with a pillow. Here is the beautifully ironic part though. Robert hadn’t killed Horace at all. He died of asphyxiation. Faith, after Robert had gone in his coma had done her signature work with a pillow and had convinced him that he had done it. Obviously she was more than ready to let him take fall if there was any backsplash over Horace’s death. As it also turned out, and this is when Robert finally understood why Horace was running around with other dames, Faith had been in and out of half the private mental institution in California. She had turned out in the end to be a very expensive and dangerous trophy wife.

So that was indeed a close call and one would have thought that Robert would have learned a serious lesson, maybe retired into monkhood or something but not our Quixote, not our windmill chaser. After a few months recuperation, needing dough, needing it badly now that Faith had gone to the great beyond and there was no easy street in his future, he put his shingle back up-open for business, come on in. No divorce work though although after what was to happen later that might actually have been a better course, maybe just confine himself to a clientele made up of butcher’s wives or something like that. It seems that Kirk Stevens, yes, that Kirk Stevens, the big mobbed up guy who ran all the action in Reno sent one of his men down to fetch Robert for a certain delicate job that involved a wayward dame. Kirk had heard about his tangle with Faith and was impressed. Kirk figured Robert would not be burned twice by some twist with brown eyes and bedroom dream ideas with the next available man. Go figure.

What Kirk  needed was to get a certain Jane Stevens, his wife, back from where ever she was, and more importantly, a certain two hundred thousand dollars that she fled with, fled south to Mexico from what he knew of her movements. Robert licked his chops, no, not for the come hither dame, but that resolving Kirk’s problem would make him well, well in the bank, well in his profession. He also knew from the picture that Kirk showed him of his fleeing wife that this one would be easy, a month’s work (he wanted to really get well in the bank), and he would have her corralled. And that picture told him she was definitely not his type. This was like finding money on the ground. Besides you do not turn Kirk Stevens down when he sends one of his boys down to fetch you. Thanks Kirk, thanks for the business.

Well he found Jane alright about a week later down in sultry, sweaty Sonora. Found her in the shadowy Tres Pesos cantina that she visited every night looking, looking for something, maybe kicks with the natives, who knows. She had enough dough for a lot of things, lots of kicks, kinky or not. So he waited for her one night once he had tracked her down. Then she showed.

Maybe it was the way she came in the door, all fresh as dew in the sweltering night, wearing a summer dress topped off by a fashionable wide- brimmed hat. Maybe it was her walking right in and sitting down at his table and asking for a match when he could see she had matches tucked the cellophane wrapper of her Camels. Maybe, it was because a close up look of her told him that that photo Kirk showed him did not do her justice, especially her dancing eyes and big kissable ruby red lips. And maybe, just maybe, it was that gardenia perfume or whatever she was wearing that said seamy adventure did him in. All he knew even before they said word one to each other was that Kirk would freeze in hell before he got his money, or her, back. So it started, started like a million things start. He followed her to her room after a few half-hearted drinks, bedded her and decided that whatever the hell happened this was the hand he had been dealt and he would play his hand out until the end.

And for about a month Robert’s hand looked pretty good, looked very good. Then Kirk got antsy, got to wondering why an ace gumshoe was getting nowhere fast on his search according to his reports. That set Kirk, no fool toward men, if a little off-balance with women, decided  to pay an unannounced visit to old Sonora, accompanied by a couple of his gunmen. And as luck would have it Kirk and the boys were going into the Tres Pesos cantina as Robert and Jane were leaving. Bad karma, bad karma indeed. Robert turned around trying to run for the back door. No good, no good at all. Maybe with his injuries, maybe being dame-addled, maybe just realizing that he was a goner he stopped before that back door. The boys grabbed him, grabbed him roughly. You know the rest. Most of it. He was found in a dusty back alley a couple of days later with a couple of well-placed slugs in him. Case unsolved according to the Federales, figuring probably just some busted gringo drug deal. Jane, well, Jane was sitting up in Reno playing the devoted wife of one mobbed up Kirk Stevens. Maybe too waiting for that next click to come. Yah, so the next time someone asks you to go looking for some frail, some freshly perfumed femme fatale run, run like hell the other way. Yah, and Robert Streeter RIP.                    

 

***Blowing In The Wind - With Bob Dylan Song In Mind

 

Scene: Girls’ Lounge, North Clintondale High School, Monday morning before school, late September, 1962. Additional information for those who know not of girls lounges, for whatever reason. The North Clintondale High School girls’ lounge was reserved strictly for junior and senior girls, no sophomore girls and, most decidedly, no freshmen girls need come within twenty feet of the place for any reason, particularly by accident, under penalty of tumult. It was placed there for the “elect” to use before school, during lunch, after school, and during the day if the need arise for bathroom breaks, but that last was well down on the prerogatives list since any girl can use any other “lav” in the school. No queen, no lioness ever guarded her territory as fiercely as the junior and senior girls of any year, not just 1962, guarded the aura of their lounge. Needless to say the place was strictly off-limits to boys, although there had been talk, if talk it was, about some girls thinking, or maybe better, wishing, that boys could enter, after school enter. That possibility was in any case much more likely than entry by those sophomore and freshman girls, lost or not.

Now the reasoning behind this special girls’ lounge, at least according to Clintondale public school authority wisdom established so far back no one remembered who started it, although a good guess was sometime in the Jazz Age, the time of the “lost generation,” was that junior and senior girls needed some space to attend to their toilet and to adjust to the other rigors of the girl school day and, apparently, that fact was not true for the younger girls. So for that “as far back as can be remembered” junior and senior girls have been using the lounge for their physical, spiritual, demonic, and other intrigue needs.

Now the physical set- up of the place, by 1962 anyway, was that of a rather run-down throne-ante room. Remember as well this was situated in a public school so erase any thoughts of some elegant woman’s lounge in some fancy downtown Clintondale hotel, some Ritz-ish place. Within that huge multi-windowed space there were several well-used, sagging, faded couches, a few ratty single chairs, some mirrors in need of some repair and a good cleaning and a few wastepaper baskets of various sizes. Attached to this room was a smaller room, the bathroom itself with stalls, sinks, mirrors, etc. the same as found in any rest room in any public building in the country. The “charm” of the place was thus in its exclusivity not its appearance.

Come Monday morning, any school day Monday morning, the ones that count, and the place was sure to be jam-packed with every girl with a story to tell, re-tell, or discount as the case may be. Also needless to say, and it took no modern sociologist, no sociologist of youth culture, post-World War II youth culture, to figure it out in even such an elitist democratic lounge there was a certain pecking order, or more aptly cliques. The most vocal one, although the smallest, was composed of the “bad” girls, mainly working- class, or lower, mostly Irish and Italian, cigarette-smoking, blowing the smoke out the window this September day as the weather was still good enough to have open windows. As if the nervous, quick-puff stale smells of the cigarettes were not permanently telltale-etched on the stained walls already, it would take no bloodhound to figure out the No Smoking rule was being violated, violated daily. Oh yes, and those “bad” girls just then were chewing gum, chewing Wrigley’s double-mint gum, although that ubiquitous habit was not confined to bad girls, as if that act would take the smell of the cigarette away from their breathes. One girl, Anna, a usually dour pretty girl, was animatedly talking, without a seeming hint of embarrassment or concern that others would hear about how her new boyfriend, a biker from Adamsville who to hear her tell it was an A- Number One stud, and she “did it” over on the Adamsville Beach (she put it more graphically, much more graphically, but the reader can figure that out). And her listeners, previously somewhat sullen, perked up as she went into the details, and they started, Monday morning or not, to get a certain glean in their eyes thinking about the response when they told their own boyfriends about this one.

Less vocal, but certainly not more careful in their weekend doings talk, were the, for lack of a better term, the pom-pom girls, the school social leaders, the ones who planned the school dances and such, and put the events together in order to, no, not show their superior organizing skills, but to lure boys, the jock and social boys, into their own Adamsville beach traps. And not, like Anna and her biker, on any smelly, sandy, clamshell-filled, stone-wretched beach, blanket-less for christ sakes. Leave that for the “bad” girls. They, to a girl, were comfortably snuggled up, according to their whispered stories, in the back seat of a boss ’57 Chevy or other prestige car, with their honeys and putting it more gingerly than Anna (and less graphically) “doing it.”

And, lastly, was the group around Peggy Kelley, not that she was the leader of this group for it had no leader, or any particular organized form either, but because when we get out of the smoke-filled, sex talk-filled, hot-air Monday morning before school North Clintondale junior and senior girls’ lounge we will be following her around. This group, almost all Irish girls, Irish Catholic girls if that additional description is needed, of varying respectabilities, was actually there to attend to their toilet and prepare for the rigors of the girl school day. Oh yes, after all what is the point of being in this exclusive, if democratic, lounge anyway, they too were talking in very, very, very quiet tones discussing their weekend doings, their mainly sexless weekend doings, although at least one, Dora, was speaking just a bit too cryptically, and with just a little too much of a glean in her eyes to pass churchly muster.

And what of Peggy? Well Peggy had her story to tell, if she decided to tell it which she had no intention of doing that day. She was bothered, with an unfocused bother, but no question a bother about other aspects of her life, about what she was going to do with her life , about her place in the world to than to speak of sex. It was not that Peggy didn’t like sex, or rather more truthfully, the idea of sex, or maybe better put on her less confused days, the idea of the idea of sex. Just this past weekend, Saturday night, although it was a book sealed with seven seals that she was determined not to speak of, girls’ lounge or not, she had let Pete Rizzo “feel her up,” put his hands on her breast. No, not skin on skin, jesus no, but through her buttoned-up blouse. And she liked it. And moreover, she thought that night, that tossing and turning night, “when she was ready” she was would be no prude about it. When she was ready, and that is why she insisted that the idea of the idea of sex was something that would fall into place. When she was ready.

But as she listened to the other Irish girls and their half-lies about their weekends, or drifted off into her own thoughts sex, good idea or not, was not high on her list of activities just then. Certainly not with Pete. Pete was a boy that she had met when she was walking at “the meadows,” For those not familiar with the Clintondale Meadows this was a well-manicured and preserved former pasture area that the town fathers had designated as a park, replete with picnic tables, outdoor barbecue pits, a small playground area and a small restroom. The idea was to preserve a little of old-time farm country Clintondale in the face of all the building going on in town. But for Peggy the best part was that on any given day no one was using the space, preferring the more gaudy, raucous and, well, fun-filled Gloversville Amusement Park, a couple of towns over. And so she could roam there freely, and that seemed be Pete’s idea, as well one day. And that meeting really set up what was bothering Peggy these days.

Pete was a freshman at the small local Gloversville College. Although it was small and had been, according to Pete, one of those colleges founded by religious dissidents, Protestant religious dissidents from the mainstream Protestantism of their day, it was well-regarded academically (a fact also courtesy of Pete). And that was Pete’s attraction, his ideas and how he expressed them. They fit right in with what Peggy had been bothered by for a while. Some things that could not be spoken of in the girls’ lounge, or maybe even thought of in there. Things like what to do about the black civil rights struggle that was burning up the television every night. (Pete was “heading south” next summer he said.) Things like were we going to last until next week if the Russians came at us, or we went after the Russians.

Also things like why was she worried every day about her appearance and why she, like an addiction, always, always, made her way to the girls’ lounge to “make her face” as part of the rigors of the girl school day. And that whole sex thing that was coming, and she was glad of it, just not with Pete, Pete who after all was just too serious, too much like those commissars over in Russia, although she liked the way he placed his hands on her. And she was still thinking hard on these subjects as she excused herself from the group as she put the final touches of lipstick on. Just then the bell rang for first period, and she was off into the girl day.

Scene: Boys’ “Lav,” Second Floor, Clintondale High School, Monday morning before school, September, 1962. (Not necessarily the same Monday morning as the scene above but some Monday after the first Monday, Labor Day, in September. In any case even if it was the same Monday as the one above that coincidence does not drive this story, other more ethereal factors do.) Additional information for those who know not of boys’ lavs, for whatever reason. The Clintondale High School boys’ rest rooms, unlike the girls’ lounge mentioned above at North, or where a similar rule applied to the girls’ lounge at Clintondale, was open to any boy in need of its facilities, even lowly, pimply freshmen as long as they could take the gaffe. Apparently Clintondale high school boys, unlike the upperclassmen girls needed no special consideration for their grooming needs in order to face the schoolboy day.

Well, strictly speaking that statement about a truly democratic boys’ lav universe was not true. The first floor boys’ lav down by the woodworking shop was most strictly off limits, and had been as far back as anyone could remember, maybe Neanderthal times, to any but biker boys, bad-ass corner boys, guys with big chips on their shoulders and the wherewithal to keep them there , and assorted other toughs. No geeks, dweebs, nerds, guys in plaid shirts and loafers with or without pennies inserted in them, or wannabe toughs, wannabe toughs who did not have that wherewithal to maintain that chip status need apply. And none did, none at least since legendary corner boy king (Benny’s Variety version), “Slash” Larkin, threw some misdirected freshman through a work-working shop window for his mistake. Ever since every boy in the school, every non-biker, non-corner boy, or non-tough had not gone within fifty yards of that lav, even if they took shop classes in the area. And a “comic” aspect of every year’s freshman orientation was a guided finger to point out which lav not to use, and that window where that freshman learned the error of his ways. No king, no lion ever guarded his territory as fiercely as the “bad” boys did. Except, maybe, those junior and senior Clintondale girls of any year, and not just 1962, as they guarded their lounge lair.

That left the boys’ rooms on the second floor, the third floor, the one as you entered the gymnasium, and the one outside of the cafeteria for every other boy’s use. A description, a short description, of these lavs is in order. One description fits all will suffice; a small room, with stalls, sinks, mirrors, etc. the same as found in any rest room in any public building in the country. Additionally, naturally, several somewhat grimy, stained (from the “misses”) urinals. What draws our attention to the second floor boys’ room this day are two facts. First, this rest room is in the back of the floor away from snooping teachers’ eyes, ears and noses and has been known, again for an indeterminate time, as the place where guys could cadge a smoke, a few quick puffs anyway, on a cigarette and blow the smoke out the back window, rain or shine, cold or hot weather. So any guy of any class who needed his fix found his way there. And secondly, today, as he had done almost every Monday before school since freshman year John Prescott and friends have held forth there to speak solemnly of the weekend’s doing, or not doings. To speak of sex, non-sex, and more often than seemed possible, of the girl who got away, damn it.

Of course, egalitarian democratic or not, even such drab places as schoolboy rest rooms have their pecking orders, and the second floor back tended to eliminate non-smoking underclassmen, non-smokers in general, serious intellectual types, non-jocks, non-social butterflies, and non-plaid shirt and loafer boys. And Johnny Prescott, if nothing else was the epitome of the plaid shirt and loafer crowd. And just like at that up-scale North Clintondale girls’ lounge come Monday morning, any school day Monday morning, the ones that count, and the place was sure to be jam-packed with every plaid-shirted, penny-loafered boy with a story to tell, re-tell, or discount as the case may be.

Also needless to say, and it took no modern sociologist, no sociologist of youth culture, post-World War II youth culture, to figure it out in even such a smoky democratic setting there was a certain standardized routine-ness to these Monday mornings. And that routine-ness, the very fact of it, is why on John Prescott draws our attention this day.

And if Johnny was the king of his clique for no other reason than he was smart, but not too smart, not intellectual smart, or showing it any way, that he was first to wear plaid and loafers and not be laughed at, and he had no trouble dating girls, many notched girls, which was the real sign of distinction in second floor lav, he was a troubled plaid-ist.

No, not big troubled, but, no question, troubled. Troubled about this sex thing, and about having to have the notches to prove it, whether, to keep up appearances, you had to lie about it or not when you struck out as happened to Johnny more times than he let on (and as he found out later happened to more guys more often than not). Troubled about political stuff like what was going on down in the South with those black kids taking an awful beating every day as he watched on television every freaking night. And right next store in Adamsville where some kids, admittedly some intellectual goof kids, were picketing Woolworth’s every Saturday to let black people, not in Adamsville because there were no blacks in Adamsville, or Clintondale for that matter, but down in Georgia, eat a cheese sandwich in peace at a lunch counter and he thought he should do something about that too, except those intellectual goofs might goof on him.

And big, big issues like whether we were going to live out our lives as anything but mutants on this planet what with the Russian threatening us everywhere with big bombs, and big communist one-size-fits- all ideas. Worst, though were the dizzying thoughts of his place in the sun and how big it would be. Worst, right now worst though was to finish this third morning cigarette and tell his girl, his third new girl in two months, Julie James, that he needed some time this weekend to just go off by himself, “the meadows” maybe, and think about the stuff he had on his mind.

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Scene: Clintondale Meadows, late September 1962. The features of the place already described above, including its underutilization. Enter Johnny Prescott from the north, plaid shirt, brow loafers, no pennies on this pair, black un-cuffed chinos, and against the winds of late September this year his Clintondale High white and blue sports jacket won for his athletic prowess in sophomore year. Theodore White’s The Making Of A President-1960 in hand. Enter from the south Peggy Kelly radiant in her cashmere sweater, her just so full skirt, and her black patent leather shoes with her additional against the chill winds red and black North Clintondale varsity club supporter sweater. James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain in hand. Johnny spied Peggy first, makes an initial approach as he did to most every girl every chance he got, but noticed, noticed at a time when such things were important in Clintondale teen high school live the telltale red and black sweater, and immediately backed off. Peggy noticing Johnny’s reaction puts her head down. A chance encounter goes for not.
****
That is not the end of the story though. Johnny and Peggy will “meet” again, by chance, in the Port Authority Bus Station in New York City in 1964 as they, along with other recent high school graduates, “head south.”

 

 

***The Red Flag (Bandiera Rossa) Is Starting To Fly In Europe Again- Fight For Workers Governments Now

 

Markin comment:

In parts of Europe, defensively for now, I have been seeing more red flags than I have since before the demise of the Soviet Union some twenty plus years ago as the working classes see a little more clearly that they are to be the collective "fall guy" for the capitalists' rotten, outmoded system. The class struggle rages on, as always. We have to even out the odds, make it less one-sided (with us on the short end) than it has been thus far. The clear point right now is to instill the need to fight, and fight to the death if need be, for workers governments. Still it is nice, if only for a moment, to see those red flags becoming more prominent in Italy, Greece and Spain and elsewhere, if not in the United States. Yet. Forward!

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Bandiera Rossa

Avanti o popolo, alla riscossa,

Bandiera rossa, Bandiera rossa.

Avanti o popolo, alla riscossa,

Bandiera rossa trionferà.

Refrain:

Bandiera rossa la trionferà

Bandiera rossa la trionferà

Bandiera rossa la trionferà

Evviva il comunismo e la libertà.

Literal Translation

 

Forward people, to the revolt

The red flag, the red flag

Forward people, to the revolt,

The red flag will triumph

Refrain:

The red flag will triumph,

The red flag will triumph,

The red flag will triumph,

Long live communism and liberty

FromThe Archives -The Latest From The “Occupy Oakland” Website-This Is Class War-We Say No More-Take The Offensive- Defend The Oakland Commune!- A Five Point Program For Discussion

http://www.occupyoakland.org/

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<b>An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

</b>

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<b>Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!</b>

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<b>A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

</b>

*<b>Jobs For All Now!</b>-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work.

The basic scheme, as was the case with the early days of the longshoremen’s and maritime unions, is that the work  would be divided up through local representative workers’ councils that would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work.

Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as to implement “30 for 40”  so that it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.            

Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy.   

Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier  to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought. 

Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more Wisconsins, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, courts or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.  

* <b>Defend the independence of the working classes!</b> No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to the 2012 presidential election cycle) that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the- back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.

The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer (2011) when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits.  That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments period for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.     

This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go. And not on recall elections, like in Wisconsin, as substitutes for class struggle    

*<b>End the endless wars!</b>- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006).  As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya and other proxy wars) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!

U.S. Hands Off Iran!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war  well before the dust has settled  on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in Iran in our own way in our own time.          

U.S. Hands Off The World!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another  of their  junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.    

Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets  (let’s see, right now winding up Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.

*<b>Fight for a social agenda for working people!</b>. Free Quality Healthcare For All!  This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs.

Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards! 

This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle class as well.

Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis. 

Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while services have not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!  

Stop housing foreclosures now! Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want.  We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.      

*<b>We created the wealth, let’s take it back.</b> Karl Marx was right way back in the 19^th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to beat down, beat down hard in all kinds of ways the mass of society for the benefit of the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite  and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.          

Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.    

Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power.  We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.   

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As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):

“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.” 

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Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!