This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Happy Birthday Townes Van Zandt- In The Time Of The Time Of An Outlaw Country Music Moment- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Van Morrison At The Movies”
A YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing his classic Into The Mystic.
CD Review
Van Morrison At The Movies , Van Morrison, Exile Records, 2007
The basic comments here have been used, used many times, to review other Van Morrison albums from various points in his long and honorable career.
Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and his funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.
And that brings us to the album under review, Van Morrison At The Movies , and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. But Van Morrison is no one-trick pony as his long and hard-bitten career proves.
If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on his Gloria (although I admit that I did not know that he wrote that one back in the day), a classic rock bluesy number; the thoughtful Brown-Eyed Girl; the pathos of Days Like This ; the John Lee Hooker song Baby Please Don’t Go; and, something out of time,Into The Mystic. The Belfast cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys wore their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves.
In The Matter Of 1950s Rock And Roll Legend One Ricky Nelson (1940-1985)-Yeah, “Poor Little Fool”
By Sam Lowell
You never know what idea will germinate in your head when you need to find a subject to write about after “the boss,” site manager Greg Green, tells you to find some “freaking” thing to write about since I had not written anything in a while (that “freaking” only a for public consumption but gives you the drift of what he really said). Then, as if by magic, an idea came to me as I was driving up to Olde Saco in Maine to see my old friend and comrade Josh Breslin, who also has been remiss about assignments lately but apparently has a golden shield to protect him from Greg’s wrath. Most of the way up U.S. 95 until you hit about Hampton in New Hampshire the local NPR station will get you through the time. Then the signal dies out and for a few minutes you get a mix of that station and another coming out of the University of Southern Maine in Portland. This college station, like all such operations, is really an amateur operation. I remember one time previously the amateur DJ apologized for the quality of his home-made tape which went awry but something had happened to the machine. I yelled out to myself as I was driving along “what the hell this is beautiful.” On the day that I was heading to Josh’s though I was given a chestnut since the DJ that day was playing for some reason I never fully understood because I arrived at Josh’s before the set was over a raft of Rickey Nelson songs from the 1950s.
Of course the 1950s was the now classic age of rock and roll and the time when I came of musical age, began seriously listening to the radio, the rock and roll radio where Mr. Nelson had a number of hits starting with Poor Little Fool which was one of the songs in the set the DJ played that day. I am dating myself, but it cannot be helped I was as likely to watch Rickey as part of the Nelson family on television on the Ozzie and Harriet Show. There he played the younger brother of two of what was supposed to be a model television family for 1950s emulation. A family where all the so-called problems they faced, that were the subject of the program were resolved without trouble by the end of the half hour. As it turned out Ricky also had musical talent and so that is where I want to place the blame.
Yes, place the blame and some fifty plus years I am still ticked off about it. See not only was Ricky on television and out on tour singing his ass off but he was a very good looking 1950s-style suburban boy. In short, a guy girls, suburban girls and Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville where I grew up girls thought was “cute.” And that is where the bone I have to pick with Mr. Nelson, or his memory, starts. Starts with one Teresa Green who was in my class in elementary school and who I had a serious crush on (funny, old-fashioned term isn’t it). And who I tried to take to about seven church or school dances but who would not give me the time of day for one very specific reason. She was “saving herself” not her expression but that was the idea for Ricky Nelson.
That was the start and many grievous nights for a few weeks after until I took Linda Pratt to the school dance I moped about the lost of Teresa and the burning hatred I had for Ricky despite liking some of his songs. Adding insult to injury though when I got back home, I mentioned to my long-time companion, Laura Perkins who writes here occasionally, by the way that is by mutual consent the way we like to speak of our relationship after a combined five divorces, I mentioned hearing Ricky Nelson on the radio on the way to Maine. Suddenly she got swoony, got giddy and told me that she had had a serious crush on Mr. Nelson when she was young. Thought he was cute. Then I mentioned old elementary school flame Teresa and her “saving herself” for Ricky. Laura then said if I had known her then and had asked her for a date she too would probably have said she was “saving herself” for that bastard Ricky. So you can see why I am seeing red when the name Ricky Nelson comes up now.
When The King Of Rock And
Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In
Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It
By Zack James
[Zack James has been on an
assignment covering the various 50th anniversary commemorations of
the year 1968 (and a few in 1967 and for the future 1969 which is to his mind
something of a watershed year rather than his brother Alex and friends
“generation of ‘68” designation they have wrapped themselves around) and
therefore has not graced these pages for a while. Going through his paces on
those assignments Zack realized that he was out of joint with his own
generation, having been born in 1958 and therefore too young to have been
present at the creation of what is now called, at least in the
demographical-etched commercials, the classic age of rock and roll. Too young
too for any sense of what a jailbreak that time was and a shortly later period
which Seth Garth who was deep into the genre has called the ‘folk minute
breeze” that ran rampart through the land say in the early 1960s. Too young as
well to have been “washed clean,” not my term but Si Lannon’s since I am also
too young to have been aware of the import by the second wave of rock, the acid
rock period. Hell, this is enough of an introduction to re-introducing the
legendary writer here. Lets’ leave it as Zack is back and let him go through
his paces. Greg Green, site manager]
Alex James was the king of
rock and roll. Of course he was not really the king, the king being Elvis and
no last name needed at least for the bulk of those who will read what I call a
“think piece,” a piece about what all the commemorations of events a million
years ago, or it like a million years ago even mentioning 50 or 60 year
anniversaries, mean. What Alex was though was the conduit for my own musical
experiences which have left me as a stepchild to five important musical moments, the birth of rock
and roll in the 1950s, the quick prairie fire called the “folk minute of the
early 1960s and the resurgence with a vengeance of rock in the mid-1960s which
for brevity’s sake call “acid” rock, along the way and intersecting that big
three came a closeted “country outlaw moment” initiated by father time Hank
Williams and carried through with vengeance by singers like Willie Nelson,
Townes Van Zandt, and Waylon Jennings, and Muddy Waters and friends blues as
the glue that bound what others who write here, Sam Lowell, in particular calls
the Generation of ’68- a seminal year in many ways which I have been exploring
for this and other publications. I am well placed to do since I was over a
decade too young to have been washed over by the movements. But that step-child
still sticks and one Alex James is the reason why.
This needs a short
explanation. As should be apparent Alex James is my brother, my oldest brother,
born in 1946 which means a lot in the chronology of what follows. My oldest
brother as well in a family with seven children, five boys and two twin girls,
me being the youngest of all born in 1958. As importantly this clan grew up in
the dirt- poor working- class Acre, as in local lore Hell’s Acre, section of
North Adamsville where my mother, under better circumstances, grew up and
remained after marrying her World War II Marine my father from dirt poor
Appalachia which will also become somewhat important later. To say we lacked
for many of the things that others in that now seen “golden age” of American
prosperity would be an understatement and forms the backdrop of how Alex kept
himself somewhat sane with music although we didn’t even have a record player
(the now ancient although retro revival way to hear music then) and he was
forced when at home to “fight” for the family radio to get in touch with what
was going on, what the late Pete Markin his best friend back then called “the
great jailbreak.”
A little about Alex’s
trajectory is important too. He was a charter member along with the late
Markin, Si Lannon, Sam Lowell, Seth Garth and Allan Jackson, the later four
connected with this publication in various ways since its hard copy start in
the 1970s, of the Tonio Pizza Parlor corner boys. These guys, and maybe it
reflected their time and milieu, hung out at Tonio’s for the simple reason they
never had money, or not enough, and while they were not above various acts of
larceny and burglary mostly they hung around there to listen to the music
coming out of Tonio’s to die for jukebox. That jukebox came alive in maybe
1955, 1956 when they first heard Elvis (and maybe others as well but Alex
always insisted that he was the first to “discover” Elvis in his crowd.)
Quickly that formed the backdrop of what Alex listened to for a few years until
the genre spent a few years sagging with vanilla songs and beats. That same
Markin, who the guys here have written about and I won’t, was the guy who
turned Alex on to folk music via his desperate trips to Harvard Square up in
Cambridge when he needed to get out of the hellish family household he dwelled
in. The third prong of the musical triad was also initiated by Markin who made
what everybody claims was a fatal mistake dropping out of Boston University in
his sophomore year in 1967 to follow his dream, to “find” himself, to go west
to San Francisco for what would be called the Summer of Love where he learned
about the emerging acid rock scene (drugs, sex and rock and roll being one
mantra). He dragged everybody, including Alex if you can believe this since he
would subsequently come back and go to law school and become the staid
successful lawyer he is today, out there with him for varying periods of time.
(The fateful mistake on the part of Markin stemming from him dropping out at
the wrong time, the escalation of the war in Vietnam subjecting him later to
the draft and hell-hole Vietnam service while more than the others unhinged him
and his dream.) The blues part came as mentioned as a component of the folk
minute, part of the new wave rock revival and on its own. The country outlaw
connections bears separate mention these days.
That’s Alex’s story-line.
My intersection with Alex’s musical trip was that one day after he had come
back from a hard night at law school (he lived at home, worked during the day
at some law firm as some kind of lacky, and went to law school nights
studying the rest of the time) he went to his room and began playing a whole
bunch of music starting I think with Bill Haley and the Comet’s Rock Around The Clock and kept playing
stuff for a long time. Loudly. Too loudly for me to get to sleep and I went and
knocked on his door to get him quiet down. When he opened the door he had on
his record player Jerry Lee Lewis’s High School Confidential. I flipped out.
I know I must have heard Alex playing this stuff earlier, but it was kind of a
blank before. Background music just like Mother’s listening to 1940s stuff on
her precious ancient RCA radio in the kitchen. What happened then, what got me
mesmerized as a twelve- year old was that this music “spoke” to me, spoke to my
own unformed and unarticulated alienation. I had not been particularly
interested in music, music mostly heard and sung in the obligatory junior high
school music class, but this was different, this got my hormonal horrors in
gear. I stayed in Alex’s room listening half the night as he told me above when
he had first heard such and such a song.
Although the age gap
between Alex and I was formidable, he was out the door originally even before I
knew him since at that point we were the only two in the house all the others
in college or on their own he became something of a mentor to me on the ins and
out of rock and roll once I showed an interest. From that night on it was not
just a question of say, why Jailhouse
Rock should be in the big American Songbook but would tell me about who or
what had influenced rock and roll. He was the first to tell me about what had
happened in Memphis with a guy named Sam Phillips and his Sun Record label
which minted an extraordinary number of hits by guys like Elvis, Warren Smith,
Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee. When I became curious about how the sound got going,
why my hands got clammy when I heard the music and I would start tapping my
toes he went chapter and verse on me. Like some god-awful preacher quoting how
Ike Turner, under a different name, may really have been the granddaddy of rock
with his Rocket 88 and how obscure
guys like Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner and Willie Lomax and their big bop
rhythm and blues was one key element. Another stuff from guys like Hack Devine,
Warren Smith and Lenny Larson who took the country flavor and melted it down to
its essence. Got rid of the shlock. Alex though did surprise me with the thing
he thought got our toes tapping-these guys, Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy
Holly and a whole slew of what I would later call good old boys took their
country roots not the Grand Ole Opry stuff but the stuff they played at the red
barn dances down in the hills and hollows come Saturday night and mixed it with
some good old fashion religion stuff learned through bare-foot Baptists or from
the black churches and created their “jailbreak” music.
One night Alex startled me while
we were listening to an old Louvain Brothers song, I forget which one, when he
said “daddy’s music” meaning that our father who had come from down in deep
down in the mud Appalachia had put the stuff in our genes. He didn’t call it
DNA I don’t’ think he knew the term and I certainly didn’t but that was the
idea. I resisted the idea then, and for a long time after but sisters and
brothers look at the selections that accompany this so-called think piece the
whole thing is clear now. I, we are our father’s sons after all. Alex knew that
early on I only grabbed the idea lately-too late since our father he has been
gone a long time now.
Alex had the advantage of
being the oldest son of a man who also had grown up as the oldest son in his
family brood of I think eleven. (Since I, we never met any of them when my
father came North to stay for good after being discharged from the Marine as
hard Pacific War military service, I can’t say much about that aspect of why my
father doted on his oldest son.) That meant a lot, meant that Dad confided as
much as a quiet, sullen hard-pressed man could or would confide in a youngster.
All I know is that sitting down at the bottom of the food chain (I will laugh “clothes
chain” too as the recipient of every older brother, sister too when I was too
young to complain or comprehend set of ragamuffin clothing) he was so distant
that we might well have been just passing strangers. Alex, for example, knew
that Dad had been in a country music trio which worked the Ohio River circuit,
that river dividing Ohio and Kentucky up north far from hometown Hazard, yes,
that Hazard of legend and song whenever anybody speaks of the hardscrabble days
of the coal mine civil wars that went on down there before the war, before
World War II. I don’t know what instrument he played although I do know that he
had a guitar tucked under his bed that he would play when he had a freaking
minute in the days when he was able to get work.
That night Alex also
mentioned something that hit home once he mentioned it. He said that Dad who
tinkered a little fixing radios, a skill learned from who knows where although
apparently his skill level was not enough to get him a job in that industry,
figured out a way to get WAXE out of I think Wheeling, West Virginia which
would play old country stuff 24/7 and that he would always have that station on
in the background when he was doing something. Had stopped doing that at some
point before I recognized the country-etched sound but Alex said he was
spoon-fed on some of the stuff, citing Warren Smith and Smiley Jamison
particularly, as his personal entre into the country roots of one aspect of the
rock and roll craze. Said further that he was not all that shocked when say
Elvis’s It’s All Right Mama went off
the charts since he could sense that country beat up-tempo a little from what
Smith had been fooling around with, Carl Perkins too he said. They were what he
called “good old boys” who were happy as hell that they had enough musical
skills at the right time so they didn’t have to stick around the farm or work
in some hardware store in some small town down South.
Here is the real shocker,
well maybe not shocker, but the thing that made Alex’s initial so-called DNA
thought make sense. When Alex was maybe six or seven Dad would be playing
something on the guitar, just fooling around when he started playing Hank
Williams’ mournful lost love Cold, Cold
Heart. Alex couldn’t believe his ears and asked Dad to play it again. He
would for years after all the way to high school when Dad had the guitar out
and he was around request that Dad play that tune. I probably heard the song
too. So, yeah, maybe that DNA business is not so far off. And maybe, just
maybe, over fifty years later we are still our father’s sons. Thanks, Dad.
The selection posted here
culled from the merciful YouTube network thus represents one of the key pieces
of music that drove the denizens of the Generation of ’68 and their
stepchildren. And maybe now their grandchildren.
[Alex and I had our ups and
downs over the years and as befits a lawyer and journalist our paths seldom
passed except for occasional political things where we were on the same
wavelength like with the defense of Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning
(formerly Bradley). Indicative though of our closeness despite distance in 2017
when Alex had a full head of steam up about putting together a collective
corner boy memoir in honor of the late Markin after a business trip to San
Francisco where he went to a museum exhibition featuring the seminal Summer of
Love, 1967 he contacted me for the writing, editing and making sure of the
production values.]
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing the title song from the album under review, Back On Top.
CD Review
Back On Top, Van Morrison, Exile Productions, 1999
Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and his funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.
And that brings us to the album under review, Back on Top, and another “outlaw” country music man, the "Belfast Cowboy," Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast cowboy. But he ain't no one-trick pony, no way. This guy is a musical songbook of the late 20th century.
If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on Goin’ Down Geneva, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful The Philosophers Stone; the pathos of High Summer; the title song Back On Top; and, something out of time, something out of a place that few musicians, hell, few people, go Golden Autumn Day. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves.
When The King Of Rock And Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It
When The King Of Rock And
Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In
Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced Wild Child Part Of It -On
That Old Hill-Billy Father Moment
By Zack James
[Zack James has been on an
assignment covering the various 50th anniversary commemorations of
the year 1968 (and a few in 1967 and for the future 1969 which is to his mind
something of a watershed year rather than his brother Alex and friends
“generation of ‘68” designation they have wrapped themselves around) and
therefore has not graced these pages for a while. Going through his paces on
those assignments Zack realized that he was out of joint with his own
generation, having been born in 1958 and therefore too young to have been
present at the creation of what is now called, at least in the
demographical-etched commercials, the classic age of rock and roll. Too young
too for any sense of what a jailbreak that time was and a shortly later period
which Seth Garth who was deep into the genre has called the ‘folk minute
breeze” that ran rampart through the land say in the early 1960s. Too young as
well to have been “washed clean,” not my term but Si Lannon’s since I am also
too young to have been aware of the import by the second wave of rock, the acid
rock period. Hell, this is enough of an introduction to re-introducing the
legendary writer here. Lets’ leave it as Zack is back and let him go through
his paces. Greg Green, site manager]
Alex James was the king of
rock and roll. Of course he was not really the king, the king being Elvis and
no last name needed at least for the bulk of those who will read what I call a
“think piece,” a piece about what all the commemorations of events a million
years ago, or it like a million years ago even mentioning 50 or 60 year
anniversaries, mean. What Alex was though was the conduit for my own musical
experiences which have left me as a stepchild to fiveimportant musical moments, the birth of rock
and roll in the 1950s, the quick prairie fire called the “folk minute of the
early 1960s and the resurgence with a vengeance of rock in the mid-1960s which
for brevity’s sake call “acid” rock, along the way and intersecting that big
three came a closeted “country outlaw moment” initiated by father time Hank
Williams and carried through with vengeance by singers like Willie Nelson,
Townes Van Zandt, and Waylon Jennings, and Muddy Waters and friends blues as
the glue that bound what others who write here, Sam Lowell, in particular calls
the Generation of ’68- a seminal year in many ways which I have been exploring
for this and other publications. I am well placed to do since I was over a
decade too young to have been washed over by the movements. But that step-child
still sticks and one Alex James is the reason why.
This needs a short
explanation. As should be apparent Alex James is my brother, my oldest brother,
born in 1946 which means a lot in the chronology of what follows. My oldest
brother as well in a family with seven children, five boys and two twin girls,
me being the youngest of all born in 1958. As importantly this clan grew up in
the dirt- poor working- class Acre, as in local lore Hell’s Acre, section of
North Adamsville where my mother, under better circumstances, grew up and
remained after marrying her World War II Marine my father from dirt poor
Appalachia which will also become somewhat important later. To say we lacked
for many of the things that others in that now seen “golden age” of American
prosperity would be an understatement and forms the backdrop of how Alex kept
himself somewhat sane with music although we didn’t even have a record player
(the now ancient although retro revival way to hear music then) and he was
forced when at home to “fight” for the family radio to get in touch with what
was going on, what the late Pete Markin his best friend back then called “the
great jailbreak.”
A little about Alex’s
trajectory is important too. He was a charter member along with the late
Markin, Si Lannon, Sam Lowell, Seth Garth and Allan Jackson, the later four
connected with this publication in various ways since its hard copy start in
the 1970s, of the Tonio Pizza Parlor corner boys. These guys, and maybe it
reflected their time and milieu, hung out at Tonio’s for the simple reason they
never had money, or not enough, and while they were not above various acts of
larceny and burglary mostly they hung around there to listen to the music
coming out of Tonio’s to die for jukebox. That jukebox came alive in maybe
1955, 1956 when they first heard Elvis (and maybe others as well but Alex
always insisted that he was the first to “discover” Elvis in his crowd.)
Quickly that formed the backdrop of what Alex listened to for a few years until
the genre spent a few years sagging with vanilla songs and beats. That same
Markin, who the guys here have written about and I won’t, was the guy who
turned Alex on to folk music via his desperate trips to Harvard Square up in
Cambridge when he needed to get out of the hellish family household he dwelled
in. The third prong of the musical triad was also initiated by Markin who made
what everybody claims was a fatal mistake dropping out of Boston University in
his sophomore year in 1967 to follow his dream, to “find” himself, to go west
to San Francisco for what would be called the Summer of Love where he learned
about the emerging acid rock scene (drugs, sex and rock and roll being one
mantra). He dragged everybody, including Alex if you can believe this since he
would subsequently come back and go to law school and become the staid
successful lawyer he is today, out there with him for varying periods of time.
(The fateful mistake on the part of Markin stemming from him dropping out at
the wrong time, the escalation of the war in Vietnam subjecting him later to
the draft and hell-hole Vietnam service while more than the others unhinged him
and his dream.) The blues part came as mentioned as a component of the folk
minute, part of the new wave rock revival and on its own. The country outlaw
connections bears separate mention these days.
That’s Alex’s story-line.
My intersection with Alex’s musical trip was that one day after he had come
back from a hard night at law school (he lived at home, worked during the day
at some law firmas somekind of lacky, and went to law school nights
studying the rest of the time) he went to his room and began playing a whole
bunch of music starting I think with Bill Haley and the Comet’s Rock Around The Clock and kept playing
stuff for a long time. Loudly. Too loudly for me to get to sleep and I went and
knocked on his door to get him quiet down. When he opened the door he had on
his record playerJerry Lee Lewis’s High School Confidential. I flipped out.
I know I must have heard Alex playing this stuff earlier, but it was kind of a
blank before. Background music just like Mother’s listening to 1940s stuff on
her precious ancient RCA radio in the kitchen. What happened then, what got me
mesmerized as a twelve- year old was that this music “spoke” to me, spoke to my
own unformed and unarticulated alienation. I had not been particularly
interested in music, music mostly heard and sung in the obligatory junior high
school music class, but this was different, this got my hormonal horrors in
gear. I stayed in Alex’s room listening half the night as he told me above when
he had first heard such and such a song.
Although the age gap
between Alex and I was formidable, he was out the door originally even before I
knew him since at that point we were the only two in the house all the others
in college or on their own he became something of a mentor to me on the ins and
out of rock and roll once I showed an interest. From that night on it was not
just a question of say, why Jailhouse
Rock should be in the big American Songbook but would tell me about who or
what had influenced rock and roll. He was the first to tell me about what had
happened in Memphis with a guy named Sam Phillips and his Sun Record label
which minted an extraordinary number of hits by guys like Elvis, Warren Smith,
Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee. When I became curious about how the sound got going,
why my hands got clammy when I heard the music and I would start tapping my
toes he went chapter and verse on me. Like some god-awful preacher quoting how
Ike Turner, under a different name, may really have been the granddaddy of rock
with his Rocket 88 and how obscure
guys like Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner and Willie Lomax and their big bop
rhythm and blues was one key element. Another stuff from guys like Hack Devine,
Warren Smith and Lenny Larson who took the country flavor and melted it down to
its essence. Got rid of the shlock. Alex though did surprise me with the thing
he thought got our toes tapping-these guys, Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy
Holly and a whole slew of what I would later call good old boys took their
country roots not the Grand Ole Opry stuff but the stuff they played at the red
barn dances down in the hills and hollows come Saturday night and mixed it with
some good old fashion religion stuff learned through bare-foot Baptists or from
the black churches and created their “jailbreak” music.
One night Alex startled me while
we were listening to an old Louvain Brothers song, I forget which one, when he
said “daddy’s music” meaning that our father who had come from down in deep
down in the mud Appalachia had put the stuff in our genes. He didn’t call it
DNA I don’t’ think he knew the term and I certainly didn’t but that was the
idea. I resisted the idea then, and for a long time after but sisters and
brothers look at the selections that accompany this so-called think piece the
whole thing is clear now. I, we are our father’s sons after all. Alex knew that
early on I only grabbed the idea lately-too late since our father he has been
gone a long time now.
Alex had the advantage of
being the oldest son of a man who also had grown up as the oldest son in his
family brood of I think eleven. (Since I, we never met any of them when my
father came North to stay for good after being discharged from the Marine as
hard Pacific War military service, I can’t say much about that aspect of why my
father doted on his oldest son.) That meant a lot, meant that Dad confided as
much as a quiet, sullen hard-pressed man could or would confide in a youngster.
All I know is that sitting down at the bottom of the food chain (I will laugh “clothes
chain” too as the recipient of every older brother, sister too when I was too
young to complain or comprehend set of ragamuffin clothing) he was so distant
that we might well have been just passing strangers. Alex, for example, knew
that Dad had been in a country music trio which worked the Ohio River circuit,
that river dividing Ohio and Kentucky up north far from hometown Hazard, yes,
that Hazard of legend and song whenever anybody speaks of the hardscrabble days
of the coal mine civil wars that went on down there before the war, before
World War II. I don’t know what instrument he played although I do know that he
had a guitar tucked under his bed that he would play when he had a freaking
minute in the days when he was able to get work.
That night Alex also
mentioned something that hit home once he mentioned it. He said that Dad who
tinkered a little fixing radios, a skill learned from who knows where although
apparently his skill level was not enough to get him a job in that industry,
figured out a way to get WAXE out of I think Wheeling, West Virginia which
would play old country stuff 24/7 and that he would always have that station on
in the background when he was doing something. Had stopped doing that at some
point before I recognized the country-etched sound but Alex said he was
spoon-fed on some of the stuff, citing Warren Smith and Smiley Jamison
particularly, as his personal entre into the country roots of one aspect of the
rock and roll craze. Said further that he was not all that shocked when say
Elvis’s It’s All Right Mama went off
the charts since he could sense that country beat up-tempo a little from what
Smith had been fooling around with, Carl Perkins too he said. They were what he
called “good old boys” who were happy as hell that they had enough musical
skills at the right time so they didn’t have to stick around the farm or work
in some hardware store in some small town down South.
Here is the real shocker,
well maybe not shocker, but the thing that made Alex’s initial so-called DNA
thought make sense. When Alex was maybe six or seven Dad would be playing
something on the guitar, just fooling around when he started playing Hank
Williams’ mournful lost love Cold, Cold
Heart. Alex couldn’t believe his ears and asked Dad to play it again. He
would for years after all the way to high school when Dad had the guitar out
and he was around request that Dad play that tune. I probably heard the song
too. So, yeah, maybe that DNA business is not so far off. And maybe, just
maybe, over fifty years later we are still our father’s sons. Thanks, Dad.
The selection posted here
culled from the merciful YouTube network thus represents one of the key pieces
of music that drove the denizens of the Generation of ’68 and their
stepchildren. And maybe now their grandchildren.
[Alex and I had our ups and
downs over the years and as befits a lawyer and journalist our paths seldom
passed except for occasional political things where we were on the same
wavelength like with the defense of Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning
(formerly Bradley). Indicative though of our closeness despite distance in 2017
when Alex had a full head of steam up about putting together a collective
corner boy memoir in honor of the late Markin after a business trip to San
Francisco where he went to a museum exhibition featuring the seminal Summer of
Love, 1967 he contacted me for the writing, editing and making sure of the
production values.]
Everybody Loves A Con, Con
Artists Unless TheyAre The Dreaded Con-
Steve Martin and Michael Caine, Oops And, Oh Yeah, Glenne Headly “Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels” (1988)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Leslie Dumont
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,
starting Glenne Headly, Steve Martin, Michael Caine, 1988
One of the virtues of
coming back to work at this publication occasionally after I retired from my
daily by-line at Women Today is to
hear the stories from some of the older writers about various characters,
mainly but not exclusively male con artists and armed robbers, they knew when
they were growing up. That includes my old flame and now fellow writer Josh
Breslin who along with one Sam Lowell live by the headline above that
“everybody loves a con artist except the conned.” That idea will come in handy
as I review the film Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels because the whole film, every waking minute, is spent
documenting a series of interrelated cons. Cons coming out of your ears before
the last frame. (By the way in case some other writer has betrayed a water
cooler thought the relationship between Josh and I these days is well, murky.
After my two failed due to the press of work marriages and his three due the
press of work failed marriages murky is good, very good.)
One day around the water
cooler on another occasion not related to the discussion mentioned above Sam,
Josh, Fritz, Frank and maybe Laura Perkins were talking about the legendary
Eddie Riley from Sam and Frank’s old neighborhood who pulled the biggest con
they had heard of on a New York banker who was looking tomake some easy money to get out from under
some Ponzi scheme he was running that was starting to go awry and he would
listen to anything that sounded like a life-saver. (Rule number one by cynical
Sam make sure your mark is desperate then it is like finding money on the
ground to take whatever you want.) Nobody was still sure of all the details
since the gaff had happened a couple of decades ago but basically Eddie set up
a fake stock brokerage house complete with agents and all putting up numbers for
stocks especially around say the Acme Toy Company. A sure thing, especially
when Eddie said he had inside information (illegal I know but goes on all the
time just be smart about it). So Mr. Investment Banker forked over a cool 100
thou and the game is on. Two or three days later the stock jumped from say ten
to fifteen dollars, a good rise with Eddie’s assurance that it was just the
start. Another 100 thou, no two hundred thou since Mr. Big was in a very deep
hole. Stock goes from say fifteen to twenty-two and Mr. Big is almost hooked.
Another couple of hundred thou to make a half million and the stock goes to
thirty then thirty-five in a short time.
Mr. Big is breathing a sigh
of relief. So he goes another two hundred thou. Eddie makes his smart move here
by not being too greedy and starts to wind the con up although he knew for
certain he could have gotten to a million no sweat. Of course on all of this
Eddie, really Mr. Big, is buying on margins, grabbing stock for say ten percent
down with the expectations that it will generally keep going up for a while
even with some blips. The blips start and eventually just to add salt to the
wound the stock goes low enough that margin calls come into play and Mr. Big
has to folk up another couple of hundred thou to cover his margins. Done. From
there the stock takes a slow nosedive all along Eddie “calming” the guy with a
new upturn soon. Never came as the stock when to about twenty cents and Eddie
wrote the guy a check for about a thousand dollars to close out the account. I
don’t think the guy committed suicide but I do believe that Sam said that he
fled the country. Here is the beauty-there is, was no Acme Toy Company, no
stock was ever issued-t was all mirrors-beautiful, even I can see the beauty of
the thing. And everybody else, well, except Mr. Big probably could as well.
That was the high side but
of course that requires some skill and a deep understanding of human greed only
a greed-head could understand and work through. Mostly, and after Eddie’s
exploits got a serious airing at the water cooler that day, they began to talk
about small time grifters starting from street guys hustling blind routines or
from hunger stuff. Probably started with guys like this hustling their fellow
student out of their milk money or throwing counterfeit slugs in change
machines, stuff like that. That latter point is important because that idea,
that grifter business enters into the plot of the film under review via small
time Freddy, played by Steve Martin, whose idea of a big score is hustling some
passenger on a train for dinner and carfare. Kids’ stuff. But Eddie, you
remember Eddie of the big score, also enters the scene as the fast company for
the big-time scam artist, Lawrence, played by million film Michael Caine, bilking
rich widows and bored wives of enough money to keep his mansion and his
expensive appetites afloat. The rubber will hit the road when these two go mano
a mano as the action progresses.
They start as strangers on
a train to the French Rivera and Lawrence once he meets Freddy and find out
that he is planning on squatting on his turf tries to move heaven and earth to
get him out of town, and away from endangering his profit margins. And it
works, well, almost works as you could figure since Freddy on his way out of
town runs into one of those rich ladies Lawrence has been bilking based on his
being an exiled prince in need of funds to get his kingdom back, or something
like that. In order to avoid exposure as a fraud Lawrence agrees reluctantly to
tutor Freddie on the high-side economics and style of the con game. And he
doesn’t do badly but in a place like the Rivera only one king can survive.
Enter the con between cons,
always a good watch when titans go at each other no holds barred. The object
here is one Judy, really, Judy Colgate of the Colgate fortune they think. The
bet $50,000 but the real stakes are the first guy to bed her wins, the other
guy leaves sad sack out of town and back to cheap street and hustling winos for
beer money. For a good while the battle of the titans is something to watch as
they cut and feign, slash and burn and still get nowhere near a bedroom until
finally Freddie makes a score, or think he has. Faking the old cripple routine
that has melted many a woman’s heart her “love” has allowed him to walk, to
walk right up to the bed.Success. Well
almost, well no actually. See Judy is from hunger or rather is a con artist on
her own, the notorious Jackal that every con artist stays up late trying to
emulate (to no success). After she cons Freddy into taking a shower before
love-making she blows town. Or rather she heads over to Lawrence’s mansion
where he, suddenly soft after finding she was no heiress and from hunger
herself, gives her the 50K and she really does blow town after blowing the boys
off and sending them back to school chastised. Nice, and in a real twist on her
next caper to show no hard feeling she brings a boatload of suckers Freddie and
Lawrence’s way as they head off into the sunset. Nice, yeah, everybody loves a
con, no question, none whatsoever.
Frank Jackman comment on founding member James P. Cannon and the early American Communist Party taken from a book review, James P. Cannon and the Early American Communist Party, on the “American Left History” blog:
If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past mistakes of our history and want to know some of the problems that confronted the early American Communist Party and some of the key personalities, including James Cannon, who formed that party this book is for you.
At the beginning of the 21st century after the demise of the Soviet Union and the apparent ‘death of communism’ it may seem fantastic and utopian to today’s militants that early in the 20th century many anarchist, socialist, syndicalist and other working class militants of this country coalesced to form an American Communist Party. For the most part, these militants honestly did so in order to organize an American socialist revolution patterned on and influenced by the Russian October Revolution of 1917. James P. Cannon represents one of the important individuals and faction leaders in that effort and was in the thick of the battle as a central leader of the Party in this period. Whatever his political mistakes at the time, or later, one could certainly use such a militant leader today. His mistakes were the mistakes of a man looking for a revolutionary path.
For those not familiar with this period a helpful introduction by the editors gives an analysis of the important fights which occurred inside the party. That overview highlights some of the now more obscure personalities (a helpful biographical glossary is provided), where they stood on the issues and insights into the significance of the crucial early fights in the party.
These include questions which are still relevant today; a legal vs. an underground party; the proper attitude toward parliamentary politics; support to third- party bourgeois candidates;trade union policy; class-war prisoner defense as well as how to rein in the intense internal struggle of the various factions for organizational control of the party. This makes it somewhat easier for those not well-versed in the intricacies of the political disputes which wracked the early American party to understand how these questions tended to pull it in on itself. In many ways, given the undisputed rise of American imperialism in the immediate aftermath of World War I, this is a story of the ‘dog days’ of the party. Unfortunately, that rise combined with the international ramifications of the internal disputes in the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International shipwrecked the party as a revolutionary party toward the end of this period.
In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? I would argue that the period under study represented Cannon’s apprenticeship. Although the hothouse politics of the early party clarified some of the issues of revolutionary strategy for him I believe that it was not until he linked up with Trotsky in the late 1920’s that he became the kind of leader who could lead a revolution. Of course, since Cannon never got a serious opportunity to lead revolutionary struggles in America this is mainly reduced to speculation on my part. Later books written by him make the case better. One thing is sure- in his prime he had the instincts to want to lead a revolution.
As an addition to the historical record of this period this book is a very good companion to the two-volume set by Theodore Draper - The Roots of American Communism and Soviet Russia and American Communism- the definitive study on the early history of the American Communist Party. It is also a useful companion to Cannon’s own The First Ten Years of American Communism. I would add that this is something of a labor of love on the part of the editors. This book was published at a time when the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was in full swing and anything related to Communist studies was deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America. Now is the time to study this history.
*********
BOOK REVIEW
NOTEBOOK OF AN AGITATOR- JAMES P. CANNON, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1971
If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you.
This book is part of a continuing series of the writings of James P. Cannon that was published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.
In the introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation, especially after his long collaboration working with Trotsky. The period under discussion- from the 1920’s when he was a leader of the American Communist Party to the red-baiting years after World War II- started with his leadership of the fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and then later against those who no longer wanted to defend the gains of the Russian Revolution despite the Stalinist degeneration of that revolution. Cannon won his spurs in those fights and in his struggle to orient those organizations toward a revolutionary path. One thing is sure- in his prime which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.
I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.
The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.
It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.
I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.
Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.
I also suggest a close look at Cannon’s articles in the early 1950’s. Some of them are solely of historical interest around the effects of the red purges on the organized labor movement at the start of the Cold War. Others, however, around health insurance, labor standards, the role of the media and the separation of church and state read as if they were written in 2014 That’s a sorry statement to have to make any way one looks at it.
Free The Class-War Prisoners-Support Those Inside From Those On The Outside During The Holiday Season-Join The Committee For International Labor Defense (CILD)
Comment by Lance Lawrence
A number of people in the Greater Boston area, many having worked on political prisoner campaigns from freeing Black Panthers in the old days (and a few who still inside the walls all these years later putting emphasis on the FBI vendetta against that organization and other militant black organizations as well) to more recently Mumia, Leonard Peltier, Chelsea Manning and Reality Leigh Winner have over the past couple of years decided to form a Committee for International Labor Defense. If those last three words ring a bell it is because this group consciously is trying to model itself after the organization started many years ago back in the 1920s initiated by the American Communist Party and led at first by founder James P. Cannon and others like Big Bill Haywood and his fellow anarchists who saw the need for the labor movement to defend its own and others who were being persecuted by the capitalist state. In all an honorable tradition including stalwart defenses of the martyred immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti and the Alabama Scottsboro Boys cases.
In practice what the original ILD (and now the CILD) attempted to do was make sure that those class-war prisoner not all of them necessarily in political agreement with the Communist Party or any party were not forgotten. That those inside were treated with the same dignity as those outside the wall (outside for the present anyway given the ups and downs of capital existence that can be a very close thing). For those who have spent time behind bars knowing that there are others outside looking after your interests has been a tremendous morale booster. That along with taking care of families, providing stipend to prisoners to purchase items inside, providing legal defense funds and personnel, writing letter to those inside are just some of the things that the ILD (and now the CILD) was committed to seeing done. Not as charity or social work as Cannon made very clear but as acts of hard solidarity with those inside. Read the statement, check out the website listed, and if possible support with anything from writing letters to donating legal fund in order to get our class-war prisoners freed as quickly as possible. Thank you
From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website-Never Forget The Sacco and Vanzetti and Troy Davis Cases
Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.
http://www.mcadp.org/
************
Frank Jackman comment:
I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy when last minute stay and appeal to the United States Supreme Court went for naught) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences. Here is another way to deal with both the question of the death penalty and of political prisoners from an old time socialist perspective taken from a book review of James P. Cannon's Notebooks Of An Agitator: I note here that among socialists, particularly the non-Stalinist socialists of those days, there was controversy on what to do and, more importantly, what forces socialists should support. If you want to find a more profound response initiated by revolutionary socialists to the social and labor problems of those days than is evident in today’s leftist responses to such issues Cannon’s writings here will assist you. I draw your attention to the early part of the book when Cannon led the Communist-initiated International Labor Defense (ILD), most famously around the fight to save the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti here in Massachusetts. That campaign put the Communist Party on the map for many workers and others unfamiliar with the party’s work. For my perspective the early class-war prisoner defense work was exemplary.
The issue of class-war prisoners is one that is close to my heart. I support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, New York, N.Y 10013, an organization which traces its roots and policy to Cannon’s ILD. That policy is based on an old labor slogan- ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ therefore I would like to write a few words here on Cannon’s conception of the nature of the work. As noted above, Cannon (along with Max Shachtman and Martin Abern and Cannon’s long time companion Rose Karsner who would later be expelled from American Communist Party for Trotskyism with him and who helped him form what would eventually become the Socialist Workers Party) was assigned by the party in 1925 to set up the American section of the International Red Aid known here as the International Labor Defense.
It is important to note here that Cannon’s selection as leader of the ILD was insisted on by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) because of his pre-war association with that organization and with the prodding of “Big Bill’ Haywood, the famous labor organizer exiled in Moscow. Since many of the militants still languishing in prison were anarchists or syndicalists the selection of Cannon was important. The ILD’s most famous early case was that of the heroic anarchist workers, Sacco and Vanzetti. The lessons learned in that campaign show the way forward in class-war prisoner defense.
I believe that it was Trotsky who noted that, except in the immediate pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods, the tasks of militants revolve around the struggle to win democratic and other partial demands. The case of class-war legal defense falls in that category with the added impetus of getting the prisoners back into the class struggle as quickly as possible. The task then is to get them out of prison by mass action for their release. Without going into the details of the Sacco and Vanzetti case the two workers had been awaiting execution for a number of years and had been languishing in jail. As is the nature of death penalty cases various appeals on various grounds were tried and failed and they were then in imminent danger of execution.
Other forces outside the labor movement were also interested in the Sacco and Vanzetti case based on obtaining clemency, reduction of their sentences to life imprisonment or a new trial. The ILD’s position was to try to win their release by mass action- demonstrations, strikes and other forms of mass mobilization. This strategy obviously also included, in a subordinate position, any legal strategies that might be helpful to win their freedom. In this effort the stated goal of the organization was to organize non-sectarian class defense but also not to rely on the legal system alone portraying it as a simple miscarriage of justice. The organization publicized the case worldwide, held conferences, demonstrations and strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. Although the campaign was not successful and the pair were executed in 1927 it stands as a model for class war prisoner defense. Needless to say, the names Sacco and Vanzetti continue to be honored to this day wherever militants fight against this system.
***************
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Bury the rag deep in your face For now's the time for your tears."
last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan , 1963
Frank Jackman comment immediately after the execution of Troy Davis (posted September 22, 2011):
Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.
On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.
Additional Jackman comment posted September 23, 2011:
No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
