YOU DO NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS, PART II

 

BOOK REVIEW

FUGITIVE DAYS, A MEMOIR, BILL AYERS, PENGUIN, 2001

Recently in this space I reviewed the documentary Weather Underground so that it also makes sense to review the present book by Bill Ayers, one of the ‘talking heads’ in that film and a central leader of both the old Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground that split off from that movement in 1969 to go its own way. Readers should see the documentary as it gives a fairly good presentation of the events around the formation of the Underground, what they tried to accomplish and what happened to them after the demise of the anti-war movement in the early 1970’s.

To get a better understanding of what drove thousands of young American students into opposition to the American government at that time the documentary Rebels With A Cause (also reviewed in this space) is worth looking at as well. Between those two sources you will get a better understanding of what drove Professor Ayers and many others, including myself, over the edge. Professor Ayers makes many of those same points in the book. Thus, I only want to make a couple of political comments about the question of the underground here. They were also used in my review of the Weather Underground documentary and apply to Professor Ayers thoughts as well. I would also make it very clear here that unlike many other leftists, who ran for cover, in the 1970’s I called for the political defense of the Weather Underground despite my political differences under the old leftist principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. Moreover, and be shocked if you will, the courageous, if misguided, actions of the Weather Underground require no apology today. I stand with the Professor on that count. Here are the comments.         

“In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company.

One of the paradoxical things about the documentary is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19^th century. If we had we would have found that the above-mentioned fight in 1969 was also fought out by that movement. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the world-wide revolutionary movement to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) have a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx.”  

CRIME DOES NO PAY-THE BIG KNOCKOVER AND OTHER STORIES- DASHIELL HAMMETT

 

 

A Minute Book Review

Dashiel Hammett, along with Raymond Chandler, reinvented the detective genre in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They moved the genre away from the amateurish and simple parlor detectives that had previously dominated the genre to hard-boiled action characters who knew what was what and didn’t mind taking a beating to get the bad guys. And along the way they produced some very memorable literary characters as well. Nick Charles, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are well known exemplars of the action detective. However, on the way to creating these literary works of art Hammett did journeyman’s work at the detective genre in various pulp detective magazines. The Dain Curse seems to be at the tale end of that period.

The unnamed universal Continental Operative who is the central character of the story (and others, as well) is the prototype for Hammett's later named detectives. He has all the characteristics that mark a noir detective-tough, resourceful, undaunted, and incorruptible with a sense of honor to friend and foe alike that sets him apart from earlier detectives. However the plot line here is not as strong as in his latter work. Oh sure, there is murder and other crimes and plenty of sub-plots on the way to the solution and some less than savory although otherwise bourgeois characters to muddle up the Op’s well laid plans. However, unless you are fairly familiar with 1920’s ‘lost generation’ hijinks there is less sympathy here for victims and villains alike than the later work. Religious cults, drugs, ennui, etc. have lost their cutting edge as material for dramatic tension. Still anytime you can get your hands on a Hammett book-do it.

Although the stories are mainly set in San Francisco the Op branches out to other locales in the stories but he keeps those same virtues. If you want mainly well-thought out stories that are also well-written this is for you. Additionally, and this may be as good a reason to read this book is the Introduction provided by Hammett’s long time companion the playwright Lillian Hellman.      

AN ANNIVERSARY OF SORTS-IN DEFENSE OF MARXISM 

COMMENTARY

 

This summer marks my 40ht  year of my commitment to Marxism. Those who have been reading my commentaries for a while know that I try to commemorate, and comment on, important anniversaries in our common working class and leftist history like those of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti or the start of the Paris Commune. Those same readers also know that I have been rather short with bourgeois politicians like John Kerry who have a habit of commemorating every little political action they have taken. The winner for me was Kerry’s very public celebration at historic Fanueil Hall in Boston in 2006 of the 35^th anniversary of his anti-war testimony before Congress in 1971. Christ, I still chuckle over the absurdity of that one. But hear me out on this one.  I want no pat on the back but to just make a comment about why, despite the current historic trend away from socialist solutions to the world’s problems, I still proudly carry the title communist.

I once remarked in a review of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto that the third section of that document where he polemicized against the various other liberal and so-called socialist groups of his day that in my search for political solutions in my early days I had probably held virtually every position that he argued against. And believe me, dear reader, that is no exaggeration-except maybe I did not advocate for feudal socialism. But the rest, liberalism, both tactical and principled versions of pacifism, anarchism, guerilla warfare, well you get the drift. This is probably why when I headed, reluctantly I might add, to Marxism it stuck. And that is the main idea I am trying to get at in this piece. That is the power of Marxism as a tool for looking at and changing the world.  The only other point I would add is that over the past thirty-five years nothing in politics, our few victories and our many, too many defeats at the hands of the capitalists, has made me regret that I took the road back to my working class roots. I have made many a political mistake in my life, that is for sure. But this is not one of them. LONG LIVE THE WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!!!    

From The American Left History Blog Archives(2008) - On American Political Discourse - A MODEST PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS FOR THE 2013 ELECTIONS (Updated)

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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This commentary was edited and updated on February 17, 2013

A MODEST PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS FOR THE 2008 ELECTIONS

IN THIS TIME OF THE ‘GREAT FEAR’ WE NEED CANDIDATES TO FIGHT FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT.

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!

I originally planned to repost the blog below in the summer of 2007. However, two trends have forced me to republish earlier than I planned. The first is the fact that the whole 2008 bourgeois electoral process has gone into warp speed. Yes, yes I know that thinking about electoral politics, or any politics, in the spring of 2007 is only for political junkies and other misbegotten types. I confess to that sin and someday I will turn myself into the appropriate twelve-step program. Nevertheless the campaign season goes full throttle. Thus if we are to have any effect on the 2008 campaign on behalf of our fight for socialism we better get in harness now.

The second trend revolves around the periodic publication of, and commentary on, the not so startling, by now, fact that the wealth distribution gap between the very, very rich here in America and the rest of us has over the last few years has once again become wider, the widest since the 1920s. In response a number of political commentators, especially liberal commentators, have bemoaned this condition noting that part of the problem is the very real ‘class struggle’ by the rich and their minions. One of the better commentators on this subject the Boston Globe Op/Ed writer Robert Kuttner, who is almost always worth reading to gauge the pulse of the Eastern liberal part of the Democratic Party, recently placed the blame on the fight against unionization by the corporations and their political hangers-on. So far, no argument there. Where we part company is over his exclusive and eternal strategy of relying on the political ‘goodwill’ of the ‘friends of labor’ in the Democratic Party to make capitalism fairer. He further argues that this is where labor has found its earlier successes. No, one thousand times no. Despite Kuttner’s obviously truncated reading of labor history (if at all) the way unions were organized, particularly in the 1930’s the heyday of militant action, usually meant hard-fought factory and street actions over and against those so-called ‘friends of labor’. This is the simple truth that we must get out and have labor militant candidates shout to the rooftops. LET OUR CAMPAIGN BEGIN.

A MODEST PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS IN FOR THE 2006 ELECTIONS.

Updated April 2007. In the summer of 2006 I wrote a commentary about writing in workers party candidates based on a program for the fall 2006 elections. With the hoopla already starting for the 2008 election cycle I repost that commentary below with that same intention of getting thoughtful leftist to use the 2008 campaign to further our propaganda needs.

All “anti-parliamentarian”,“anti-state”, “non-political” anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist brothers and sisters need read no further. This writer does not want to sully the purity of your politics with the taint of parliamentary electoral politics. Although I might remind you, as we remember the 70^th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, that your political ancestors in Spain were more than willing to support the state and enter the government when they got the chance- the bourgeois state and the bourgeois government. But, we can fight that issue out later. We will, hopefully, see you on the barricades.

As for other militants- here is my modest proposal. Either recruit fellow labor militants or present yourselves as candidates to run for public office, especially for Congress, during the 2006 election cycle. Why? Even a quick glance at the news of the day is calculated to send the most hardened politico screaming into the night. The quagmire in Iraq, immigration walls, flag-burning amendments, anti- same-sex marriage amendments, the threat to separation of church state raised by those who would impose a fundamentalist Christian theocracy on the rest of us, and the attacks on the hard fought gains of the Enlightenment posed by bogus theories such as ‘intelligent design’. And that is just an average day. Therefore, this election cycle provides militants, at a time when the dwindling electorate is focused on politics, a forum to raise our program and our ideas. We use this as a tool, like leaflets, petitions, meetings, demonstrations, etc. to get our message across. Why should the Donkeys, Elephants, and Greens have a monopoly on the public square?

I mentioned in the last paragraph the idea of program. Let us face it if we do not have a program to run on then it makes no sense for militants to run for public office. Given the political climate our task at this time is to fight an exemplary propaganda campaign. Our program is our banner in that fight. The Democrats and Republicans DO NOT RUN on a program. The sum of their campaigns is to promise not to steal from the public treasury (or at least not too much), beat their husbands or wives or grossly compromise themselves in any manner. On second thought, given today’s political climate, they may not promise not to beat their husbands or wives. You get the point. Damn, even the weakest neophyte labor militant can make a better presentation before working people that that. In any case, this writer presents a five point program that labor militants can run on (you knew this was coming, right?). As point five makes clear this is not a ‘minimum’ program but a program based on our need to fight for power.

1. FIGHT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST NOW (OR BETTER YET, YESTERDAY)! U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD! VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET!

The quagmire in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East (Palestine, Iran) is the fault line of American politics today. Every bourgeois politician has to have his or her feet put to the fire on this one. Not on some flimsy ‘sense of the Congress’ softball motion for withdrawal next, year, in two years, or (my favorite) when the situation is stable. Moreover, on the parliamentary level the only real vote that matters is the vote on the war budget. All the rest is fluff. Militants should make a point of trying to enter Congressional contests where there are so-called anti-war Democrats or Republicans (an oxymoron, I believe) running to make that programmatic contrast vivid.

But, one might argue, that would split the ‘progressive’ forces. Grow up, please! That argument has grown stale since it was first put forth in the ‘popular front’ days of the 1930’s. If you want to end the war in Iraq fight for this no funding position on the war budget. Otherwise the same people (yah, those progressive Democrats) who unanimously voted for the last war budget get a free ride on the cheap. Senator Hillary“Hawk” Clinton desperately needs to be opposed by labor militants. Closet Republican, Democratic Senator Lieberman of Connecticut should not take his richly deserved beating on the war issue from a dissident Democrat. By rights this is our issue. Let us take it back.

2. FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE AND WORKING CONDITIONS-UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.

It is a ‘no-brainer’ that no individual, much less families, can live on the minimum wage of $5/hr. (or proposed $7/hr). What planet do these politicians live on? We need an immediate fight for a living wage, full employment and decent working conditions. We need universal free health care for all. End of story. The organized labor movement must get off its knees and fight to organize Wal-Mart and the South. A boycott of Wal-Mart is not enough. A successful organizing drive will, like in the 1930’s, go a long way to turning the conditions of labor around.

3. FIGHT THE ATTACKS ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT.

Down with the Death Penalty! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants who make it here! Stop the Deportations! For the Separation of Church and State! Defend abortion rights! Down with ant-same sex marriage legislation! Full public funding of education! Stop the ‘war on drugs’, basically a war on blacks and minority youth-decriminalize drugs! Defend political prisoners! This list of demands hardly exhausts the “culture war” issues we defend. It is hard to believe that in the year 2006 over 200 years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution we are fighting desperately to preserve many of the same principles that militants fought for in those revolutions. But, so be it.

4. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS PARTY.

The Donkeys, Elephants and Greens have had their chance. Now is the time to fight for our own party and for the interests of our own class, the working class. Any campaigns by independent labor militants must highlight this point. And any campaigns can also become the nucleus of a workers party network until we get strong enough to form at least a small party. None of these other parties, and I mean none, are working in the interests of working people and their allies. The following great lesson of politic today must be hammered home. Break with the Democrats, Republicans and Greens!

5. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS AND XYZ GOVERNMENT.

THIS IS THE DEMAND THAT SEPARATES THE MILITANTS FROM THE FAINT-HEARTED REFORMISTS. We need our own form of government. In the old days the bourgeois republic was a progressive form of government. Not so any more. That form of government ran out of steam about one hundred years ago. We need a Workers Republic. We need a government based on workers councils with a ministry (I do not dare say commissariat in case any stray anarchists are still reading this) responsible to it. Let us face it if we really want to get any of the good and necessary things listed above accomplished we are not going to get it with the current form of government.

Why the XYZ part? What does that mean? No, it is not part of an algebra lesson. What it reflects is that while society is made up mainly of workers (of one sort or another) there are other classes (and parts of classes) in society that we seek as allies and could benefit from a workers government. Examples- small independent contractors, intellectuals, the dwindling number of small farmers, and some professionals like dentists. Yah, I like the idea of a workers and dentists government. The point is you have got to fight for it.

Obviously any campaign based on this program will be an exemplary propaganda campaign for the foreseeable future. But we have to start now. Continuing to support or not challenging the bourgeois parties does us no good now. That is for sure. While bourgeois electoral laws do not favor independent candidacies write-in campaigns are possible. ROLL UP YOUR SHEEVES! GET THOSE PETITIONS SIGNED! PRINT OUT THE LEAFLETS! PAINT THOSE BANNERS! GET READY TO SHAKE HANDS AND KISS BABIES

IN DEFENSE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION

 

COMMENTARY-BOOK REVIEW

END THE U.S. BLOCKADE!-U.S. OUT OF GUANTANAMO!

THE REAL FIDEL CASTRO, LEYCHESTER COLTMAN, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW HAVEN, 2003

This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Cuban July 26^th movement, the 54th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 46^th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see July archives, dated July 5, 2006). The Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of 68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against United States imperialism.  Thus, it is fitting to review a biography of Che’s comrade and central leader of that revolution, Fidel Castro. Obviously, it is harder to evaluate the place in history of the disabled, but still living, Fidel than the iconic Che whose place is secured in the revolutionary pantheon.  The choice of this biography reflected my desire to review a recent biography. As always one must accept that most Western biographers have various degrees of hostility to the Castro regime and the Cuban Revolution and one would expect that to be particularly true of a former British Ambassador (who has since died). After reading this biography I find that it gives a reasonable account of the highlights of Fidel’s life thus far and for those not familiar with the Fidel saga a good place to start.

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

The Ambassador obviously differs with my political prospective. Nevertheless he hits also the highlights of Fidel’s career; the early student days struggling for political recognition; the initial fights against Batista; the famous but unsuccessful Moncada attack; the subsequent trial, imprisonment and then exile in Mexico; the return to Cuba and renewed fight under a central strategy of guerilla warfare rather than urban insurrection; the triumph over Batista in 1959; the struggle against American imperialist intervention and the nationalizations of much of Cuba’s economy; the American sponsored Bay of Pigs; the rocky alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the various ups and downs in the Cuban economy stemming from reliance on the monoculture of sugar; the various periods of Cuban international revolutionary support activity, including Angola and Nicaragua; the demise of the Soviet Union and the necessity of Cuba to go it alone along with its intendent hardships; and, various other events up until 2002. There is plenty of material to start with and much to analyze. As mentioned before Che’s place is secure and will be a legitimate symbol of rebellion for youth for a long time. Fidel, as a leader of state and a much more mainline Stalinist (although compared with various stodgy Soviet leaderships he must have seemed like their worst Trotsky nightmare) has a much less assured place. Alas, the old truism holds here - revolutionaries should not die in their beds      

 

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2009 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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SUMMER RERUNS, SUMMER SOLDIERS, SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS

COMMENTARY

There is an old saying that no news is good news. Whatever the validity of that statement is there is no denying that it is hard to get a focus what to make of latest political news as summer bears down on us. However, here are a few comments –

SHEEEE’S BACK

In May I commented on the decision of courageous anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan to ‘resign’ as the face of the anti-war movement noting that her frustration at the Democratic failure to reverse the direction of the war ‘as advertised’ in the 2006 midterm Congressional elections  had driven her to despair. Apparently now she is back and ‘on the low’ is traveling and preparing, if necessary, to oppose herself as a congressional candidate to House Speaker Pelosi in the 2008 elections. The dilemma of Ms. Sheehan graphically illustrates the tremendous political problems associated with the long time dependence on the ‘good’ offices of the Democratic Party, the other party of capitalist, in order to bring about social change. Or in the case of Iraq to even stop the imperialist madness. Militants should not only redouble their efforts to change things but also take a harder look at ways to defeat this Democratic behemoth. That is where the fight is in America.

WAITING FOR GODOT

Part of Ms. Sheehan’s dilemma stems for the chronic inability to break out from the parliamentary cretinism that we have been confronted with as the solution to the Iraq question. Right now, as Republican office holders, with the apparent bizarre exception of Arizona Senator McCain, are fleeing the U.S.S. Bush like rats from a sinking ship the Democrats are trying to cobble yet another resolution to ‘redeploy’ the troops out of  Iraq. But hold on, Dems- we still have the July 15^th interim report of the interim report to wait on to see if the situation in Iraq has improved. Of course, that is just the icing on the cake.  Everyone is really waiting (delaying) until General Petraeus’ report in September. Hear this now- forget these bogus reports- this Bush Administration will see enough ‘light’ in these documents to continue the current strategy until January 20, 2009. My suggestion to Ms. Sheehan and others is that they get on board and fight for a workers party. That is a great lesson to be learned from all of this.

 

REQUIEM FOR A SUMMER SOLDIER

We have just passed the celebration of the 4^th of July and the usual patriotic hoopla. Readers of this space know of my great, if rather belated, admiration for the winter soldiers at Valley Forge and elsewhere who kept the democratic faith through think and thin. As if to mock such devotion there has been a recent spate of conservative commentary on old time notions of patriotism expressed by ritual display of the flag. Locally this has been expressed in a commentary in the Sunday Boston Globe of July 8, 2007 by Op/Ed contributor Jeff Jacoby. Mr. Jacoby and I have locked horns before but here apparently he is in a lather about the lack of flags displayed in his neighborhood. The inference to be drawn is that those who do not display the flag are not patriotic. Of course, Mr. Jacoby is well known locally as one of the last of about seven supporters in Massachusetts of the current Iraq War. He, on more than one occasion, has expressed his willingness let some other father’s son fight on his behalf in this worthless cause. On the other hand he apparently will be more than happy to wave the flag in the front of his house. Forget this flag thing, here is the ‘skinny’- until further notice we stand on this idea- yes we love this country- no, we do not love this government. Enough said

THE CLASH OF THE TITANS

Of course no commentary by this writer would be complete without at least a little swipe at that other party of capitalism, the Democrats. If there is one thing that has become apparent this summer it is that the real battle for the Democratic presidential nomination is down to the intergenerational fight between Hillary and Obama ‘The Charma”. In recognition of this the first ‘blood’ was drawn in Iowa last week. Hillary with her man Bill in tow barnstormed through Iowa spreading the Old Gospel news that the good old days of the Bill Clinton Administration were pretty good. Well yes, Bill you were probably better than George Bush. I would not, however, deem that as high praise under the circumstances since George W. Bush makes Millard Fillmore, another accidental president, look good by comparison.  As the campaign progresses the “golden age” of the Clintons will be discussed further here. Obama is the new kid on the block and strictly a New Gospel guy and in a not so veiled way has declared that the Emperor (or currently the Empress) has no clothes. Stay tuned to see how this fight develops. It will not be pretty, especially if the race gets closer than it is now. Yes, youth must be served but these ‘guys’ are already old news.   

From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2009 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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THE ‘CLASS-WAR’ DEMOCRATS

COMMENTARY

ON THE DEMOCRATIC ‘ANTI-POVERTY’ CAMPAIGN

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

This week, the week of July 16, 2007, we have seen the spectacle of the leading Democratic presidential candidates former North Carolina Senator and 2004 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards and Illinois Senator Barack Obama squaring off to see who is the ‘better’ advocate of ‘class war’ in defense of the downtrodden or in the parlance of polite society, the “have-nots”. Of course, in response the leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has also chimed in on this theme. What is unusual about all of these doings is that the central electoral strategy of the Democrats for at least the past thirty years has been to deny that the class struggle, despite all the evident of relative decline in the standard of living of the working class to the contrary, even existed.  The Democrats were content to struggle along with their version of “trickle down’ theory by arguing that a ‘robust’ economy would help float ‘all boats’. Well, we knew, and now know differently and there is no satisfaction in these quarters that these bourgeois politicians have taken up the issue, for the moment. Why? Their ‘solutions’ are more of the same. Tinker a little with the system to ‘redistribute’ the wealth (a very little from what I have read of these plans) by tax schemes or public works but to keep the system fundamentally as is. Even with the best of intentions this is a plan for failure for working people, especially the marginal working poor. Not only is it necessary to throw much more money at the problem than any bourgeois candidate would dream of doing but the whole thrust is wrong. The culture of poverty, of being poor and without resources to compete in a ‘rich’ society, not only requires money to get out from under but a whole different way of looking at life. In short, to be empowered. This is not our society. We live in it yes but we do not control it. And the way to get empowered is through a workers government. This, dear reader, is the hard reality.

That is the crux of the matter and something none of these well-educated, well fed parliamentary types have a clue about. Even the patently reformist Chicago social activist and community organizing guru Saul Alinsky whom Hillary admiringly wrote her senior thesis on at Wellesley and whom Obama admired knew that much. Moreover what I do not hear about from these born-again ‘class-warriors’ is any talk about the necessary first step in raising the ‘boats’ of the poor-unionization. I have hammered away elsewhere on the importance of organizing the South and the desperate need to organize Wal-Mart. That, rather than 'make work' and easily evaded tax schemes would go a long way toward breaking this cycle of poverty.

One final point on John Edwards. Much has been made of the fact that Edwards is the son of a Southern mill worker. Also, he more than other candidates has taken this ‘two Americas’ concept as his theme both in 2004 and now. Yes, John Edwards is a son of the working class. However, his career is a very good case study in why those of us who propagandize for a workers party have been stymied for so long. In the normal course of events if there had been in place even a small viable mass workers party Mr. Edwards in his youth might very well have been attracted to such a formation. In the absence of such a formation he saw his main chance as the Democratic Party. Such are the ways of politics. However, until we can break this vicious cycle our work will continue to be that of unceasing propaganda for a workers party and a workers government. Be assured though that in the end we will get our share of real class war fighters.

The Trail Of One Thousand Tears-With Val Kilmer’s Thunderheart In Mind

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

They were waiting on a sign. That news had been given to them by an ancient tribal elder, Sammy Eagle Feathers, before he passed to the next life, given to the desperately spiritually poor (and every other which way too) Lakota Sioux who were waiting, waiting on a sign that the avenger of ancient wrongs was to come among them. Waiting for a few generations now impatiently for a leader, a righteous shaman to take their hurts away. Waiting always in forlorn hope in the rugged rural squalor of the reservation that they had been pieced off on by the‘great white father.Always waiting sitting in half-baked trailers and make-shift lean-tos. Places almost as primitive as those ancient dream teepees and sweet peyote hogans. Old wrecks of automobiles carelessly strewn around their sacred land like they were the new totem. Waiting on the side of the road, fellahin waiting on their haunches, looking for rides into town to buy the white man’s liquor (firewater for those addicted to those old time black and white cowboy and injun movies), some cheap untaxed cigarettes (useful for a little black market trade with the white man), and some super-processed food to fill tired and worn-out stomachs. Waiting too at Jimmy Two Feathers’ Gas Station for some major job to be finsihed on that broken down 1961 Chevy truck that needed to get a few thousand more miles on it. Waiting any way you described it.

The list of hurts in need of avenging, white man hurts, was endless from the time he set foot on the sacred land but they were looking for more immediate revenge for modern hurts, the killing of their tribal leaders, the jailing of their militants, and the grinding down of their slender hopes into powered dust. And always, always that unforgotten festering hurt of Wounded Knee told to every child almost before he or she understood any other ways of the world. As so one day Billy Three Crows came thundering into Red Cloud.That is a town in the nowhere Western tablelands on the reservation just east of Rapid City in the Dakotas, up in high Lakota Sioux country, country where the native population made the white man cry his fill for a while, before he then took exterminating angel revenge.

Billy Three Crows came to town though not as the shaman avenger but just on a routine job working for the dreaded Bureau of Indians Affairs. What did they call him in the BIA office in Rapid City, oh yah, a cigar store Indian. Even he laughed at that one, laughed to think that a quarter red skin would be able to solve the civil wars going on among the tribal factions exploding on the scene now that high grade shale, shale that sweet gas could be pulled out of making everybody, even the injuns, rich just as long as they saw it the big company extractors’way and granted the drilling rights to plunder the land once again (or somebody granted the drilling rights, maybe Sammy Eagle’s Nest, one the white man’s favorite kept Indians, and his confederates). And so Billy was to be the new sheriff in town, if he lived long enough.

But a funny thing happened to Billy once he got among his people, got to see that he had denied his heritage for the white man’s pot of porridge, denied his Native American heritage to say it properly these days, and little by little as he saw and heard what had happened he went “native.” That turn of events came to a point of no return one night, one moonless night, at the tribal dance of the new moon, a most sacred rite in timeless lore. An old medicine man, a man who had seen it all on the reservation since about Wounded Knee to hear the elders tell it, slipped a couple of peyote button into the new sheriff’s coffee. And that was when he had his vision, his previously denied connection to his past.

Now in the time of Billy Three Crows, the time we are talking about, the late1970s, these tribal dances were attended by all kind of people who were encouraged to be there by the elders as source of revenue for the tribe, a big source then. Especially at the summertime Dance of the New Moon which was held over several days (until that new moon came). So the night in question along with most of the Lakota Sioux who could get there, there were white garbacho tourists and a slew of hippies who had deserted the cities to go back to nature living in rural communes all over the West. And they, mainly young, as young will do, brought their own instruments to play along with the tribal drums, beads and sticks. A couple of guys, one calling himself Captain Midnight and the other Black Jack, had flutes and fiddles. Everybody was gathering around the huge camp fire which had an important symbolic presence in the dance as it lit up the canyon walls behind the crowds.

Once the tribal drums started, slowly and in synch at first, getting louder a little later, some strange images started to appear to Bill Three Crow against the multi-layered canyon walls. Strangely several others commented on them, including Captain Midnight and Black Jack who started playing their instruments, at first a little out of synch with the tribal drums but then catching up. Billy Three Crows then got up, got up as if possessed, and starting dancing like the images on the walls. As the music droned on those images got clearer and one and all, one and all who wanted to see, could see the outlines of some ancient warriors preparing for battle, getting their courage up, getting their spiritual affairs in order before their ancestors by a collective dance.

The music picked up, and Billy went into a trance around the camp fire. The walls appeared to become one great fire dance. Then a few moments later almost as quickly as they had appeared the images vanished into the canyon night. Billy kept on dancing for a bit, then suddenly stopped. At that moment he knew, knew as the on-looking elders knew, that he was the avenging shaman that his people had been warrior waiting for. And wherever that knowledge might lead, whatever hell was ahead, just that moment Billy Three Crows knew what it was like when fearless ancient warriors roamed those hills.

 

 

***Out In The Tinsel Town Night–With Lana Turner’s The Bad And The Beautiful In Mind

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Bad and the Beautiful, starring Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Barry Sullivan and Dick Powell

Kirk Shields, yes that Kirk Shields, the one who had more Oscars on his mantle than he knew what to do with and the one who was the genius behind that film classicThe Girl From Faraway Mountain, wished he had a dollar for everybody in Tinsel Town that he had given a break to, had made in to something they never thought possible. (Actually his wished he had a million dollars for each one.)He, Kirk Shields, head of Waterworld Studios, a guy who had carried weight in that glittering burg, who had made guys and gals jump every time he made some move just that minute though had run into a dry spell, a dry spell that could have happened to anyone. That dry spell entailed three big flops in a row, first, that money pit From Here To Romethat had everything, everything except a box office, then, going back to his first days in the town a comedy with Sid Kidder, The World Goes Round, that busted flat when Sid’s slapstick humor went out of style before they could release the damn thing. This last one took the cake though, Irma Combs, the siren of the ages, starring in Women Talk, a sure winner that took his last dollars, his last line of credit, a hefty mortgage on his place, Mont Pied, and his last tinsel town credibility when the younger audience decided that there was not enough sex, or suggestion of sex on those forlorn Saturday night movie dates. Christ, Irma and her no-name male co-star almost burned up the screen in one bedroom scene where she, practically naked, went mano y mano with her lover boy. Damn fickle audience .

Fickle audiences or not Kirk was busted, busted flat, busted six ways to Sunday if such a thing was possible, busted worse that when he had started out producing newsreels to keep the wolves from the door until he got his big break, his big break with Harry Smith’s Westward Bound. At least then he could have slid in anonymous obscurity, maybe sell shoes or something, but now he had his reputation, his life’s work, hell, he knowledge that he had some more great films in him, at least a few anyway. But the way the system worked, as he well knew, was that one bust could happen to anybody, two, well, maybe the times were not right for the vehicles but three, three was the kiss of death. So Kirk Shields with all those Oscars gathering dust at Mont Pied could not raise five dollars, if that, on his next picture idea, a remake of Eric Von Ronk’s classic She Stoops To Conquer, updated of course, with the works, plenty of close quarters sex, plenty of bingo bongo be-bop action between sex scenes and a totally different ending in case a sequel came out of it. But he needed that dough, that upfront dough, which could get him past the idea stage. And he had an idea of how to get that dough, an iffy proposition but he was desperate.

Here’s the “skinny.” He called Harry Smith, still the head of production at Waterworld and a master at getting people to do things that they under no circumstances wanted to do. Yah, Harry had that old time Hollywood charm that went out of fashion in about 1950s but had a certain cache with the arty types. Here is what he figured Harry could do for him. Kirk needed a director of note and he wanted Harry to call Fred Dean. Yes, Fred Dean the director who had a couple of years back won that beautiful Oscar for The Tempted , and rightfully so for it not only was a great art-house type film that he wished he had make but it made a ton of money. He and Fred had started out on Jump Street together making art films at night that nobody watched and soft-core porno films to keep the wolves away from the door which everybody watched.

He also needed a great woman actress to play Clarissa, the enchantress, siren, earth mother combination and since Irma Combs would not answer his calls, and had threatened to have him arrested for fraud over that last film, he sought out Harry to call Lanna Day. Lanna Day who after Irma was the siren de jus, all blond and curves for the guys and really misunderstood little miss innocent for the gals. Jesus, he had given Lanna her start in pictures, built her up big from some bit player doing tricks on the street on the side to make ends meet, and to support that growing smack habit that would have consumed her. He had taken a chance on her and it paid off. Now she couldn’t go anywhere without a mob following her, mainly young women who figured that maybe they could get the glitter by being around her. Nothing but money in the bank.

Finally, damn it, he needed somebody to round that She Stoops To Conquer script into shape, to make it sexier, to make the innuendoes of the old- time film more explicit while passing the code standard. Frankly he had expected to do that task himself but he was in a dry spell in that department as well so he wanted Harryto call Dick Sullivan his old writer, and the guy who just won the Bookends Award for his novel Daisy Buchanan. Dick also had a couple of Oscars sitting in his office over at UCLA where he was teaching screenwriting to the eager kids courtesy of one Kirk Shields’ faith that he could write for Hollywood and not just for eager kids.

So Harry, kicking and screaming, made those three dutiful calls and reported back to Kirk on the results a few days later.Nada, no go, nothing, get lost, go on welfare, go jump in the ocean. And that was just the stuff that could be printed here. See Kirk in his overweening passion, and it was a passion, to make great films, or at least moneymakers, stepped on many, many toes. Many of the same give a break to toes that he wished he had a dollar for (or really a million dollars for). See he had cut Fred Dean out when he made his first big deal with Harry Smith to do that first feature- length film and so Fred was still a little sore (we are being nice here). And Lanna, well, Lanna had it in for Kirk on two scores. First, he realized that she had star power, star power plus, but only if she was on the needle. And so Lanna had Kirk to thank for that junk habit, that jones, which took her years and plenty of dough to cure. Second, she had fallen in love with him during that first production together. But like a lot of successful men (maybe women too) he did not mix work and pleasure. Moreover his pleasure ran not to blonde junkies but low dive brunettes with curvy bodies, no brains, and plenty of sexual energy. Dick, well, Dick had a little problem with Kirk since Kirk in order to keep Dick on board writing great scripts had connections with people who put in the word not to pick one of Dick’s books when it came Pulitzer time. Later it took Dick many years to get that award, an award that he coveted above else.

So the last time anybody took note there was a For Sale sign on Mont Pied and somebody had sighted Kirk selling shoes in a Hollywood men’s clothing store …

Note: If some enterprising Hollywood director (or producer for that matter) had decided to do a film version of Kirk Shields’illustrious life they would have had all three called performers begging to do that film that Kirk had tried to corral them on and it would have been a great success and all that. But Tinsel Town is a place that has this funny little habit of devouring its own and so we will leave Kirk selling his Florsheim shoes and leave it at that.

***Johnny Prescott’s Itch- With Kudos To Mister Gene Vincent's Be-Bop-A-Lula

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He had the itch. John Prescott had the itch and he had it bad, especially since his eyes flamed up consumed with hell-bend flames when he saw Elvis performing live on the Ed Sullivan Showone Sunday night. And he had it so bad that he had missed, unbeknownst to his parents who would have been crestfallen and, perhaps, enraged, his last few piano lessons. Sure, he covered his butt by having saxophonist Sid Stein, drummer Eddie Shore, and bass player Kenny Jackson from his improvisational school jazz combo, The G-Clefs (yah, I know, a well-thought out name for a musical group) come by his house to pick him up. While standing at the Prescott door parents and sidemen went through the “well aren’t things looking up for you boys,” and “they seem to be” scene without missing a beat. But as soon as Kenny’s 1954 Nash Rambler turned the corner of Walnut Street Johnny was a long-gone daddy, a walking daddy, real long-gone. And where he was long-gone but not forlorn to was Sally Ann’s Music Shop over on the far end of West Main Street.

Now the beauty of Sally Ann’s was that it was, well, Sally Ann’s, a small shop that was well off the main drag, and therefore no a likely place where any snooping eyes, ears or voices that would report to said staid Prescott parents when Johnny went in or out of the place. Everyone, moreover, knew Sally Ann’s was nothing but a run-down, past its prime place and if you really wanted all the best 45s, and musical instrument stuff then every self-respecting teenager hit the tracks for Benny’s Music Emporium right downtown and only about a quick five-minute walk from North Clintondale High where Johnny and the combo served their high school time, impatiently served their high school time.

Now while everybody respected old Sally Ann’s musical instincts she was passé , old hat when it came to the cool blues coming out of Chicago, and the be-bop doo wop that kids, white kids, because there were no known blacks, or spanish, chinese, armenians, or whatever, in dear old Clintondale were crazy for ever since Frankie Lyman and his back-up guys tore up the scene with Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (She had been the queen of the jitterbug night in the 1940s, had been on top of the be-bop jazz scene with Charley, Dizzy and the guys early on, guys whom the G-Clefs covered, covered like crazy, and nixed, nixed big time that whole Patti Page, Teresa Brewer weepy, sad song thing in the early 1950s.) But her greatest sin, although up until a few weeks ago Johnny would have been agnostic on that sin part, was that she was behind, way behind the curve, on the rock ‘n’ rock good night wave coming through and splashing over everybody, including deep jazz man, Johnny Prescott.

But Sally Ann had, aside from that secluded locale and a tell-no-tales-attitude, something Johnny could use. She had a primo Les Paul Fender-bender guitar in stock just like the one Gene Vincent used that she was willing to let clandestine Johnny play when he came by. And she had something else Johnny could use, or maybe better Sally Ann could use. She had an A-Number One ear for guys who knew how to make music, any kind of music and had the bead on Johnny, no question. See Sally Ann was looking for one more glory flame, one more Clintondale shine moment, and who knows maybe she believed she could work some Colonel Parker magic and so Johnny Prescott was king of the Sally Ann day.

King, that is, until James and Martha Prescott spotted the other G-Clefs (Kenny, Sid, Eddie) coming out of the Dean Music School minus Johnny, minus a “don’t know where he is, sir,” Johnny. And Mr. Dean, Johnny’s piano instructor, was clueless as well, believing Johnny’s telephone story about having to work for the past few weeks and so lessons were to be held in abeyance. Something was definitely wrong if Mr. Dean, the man who more than anyone else recognized Johnny’s raw musical talent in about the third grade had lost Johnny's confidence.

But the Prescotts got wise to Johnny’s whereabouts in a hurry because flutist Mary Jane Galvin, also coming out the school just then and overhearing the commotion about Johnny’s whereabouts, decided to get even with one John Prescott by, let’s call a thing by its right name, snitching on him and disclosed that she had seen him earlier in the day when she walked into Sally Ann’s looking for an old Benny Goodman record that featured Peggy Lee and which Benny’s Emporium, crazed rock ‘n’ rock hub Benny’s, would not dream of carrying, or even have space for.

The details of the actual physical confrontation with Johnny by his parents (with Mr. Dean in tow) are not very relevant to our little story. What is necessary to detail is the shock and chagrin that James and Martha exhibited on hearing of Johnny’s itch, his itch to be the be-bop, long-gone walking daddy of the rock ‘n’ roll night. Christ, Mr. Dean almost had a heart attack on the spot when he heard that Johnny had, and we will quote here, “lowered himself to play such nonsense,” and gone over to the enemy of music. As mentioned earlier Mr. Dean, before he opened his music school, had been the roving music teacher for the Clintondale elementary school and had spotted Johnny’s natural feel for music early on. He also knew, knew somewhere is his sacred musical bones, that Johnny’s talents, his care-free piano talents in particular, could not be harnessed to classical programs, the Bachs, Beethoven, and Brahms stuff, so that he had encouraged Johnny to work his magic through be-bop jazz then in high fashion, and with a long pedigree in American musical life. When he approached the Prescotts about coordinating efforts to drive Johnny’s talents by lessons his big pitch had been that his jazz ear would assure him of steady work when he came of age, came of age in the mid-1950s.

This last point should not be underestimated in winning the Prescotts over. James worked, when there was work, as a welder, over at the shipyards in Adamsville, and Martha previously solely a housewife, in order to pay for those lessons (and be a good and caring mother to boot) had taken on a job filling jelly donuts (and other donut stuff) at one of the first of the Dandy Donuts shops that were spreading over the greater Clintondale area. Christ, filling donuts. No wonder they were chagrined, or worse.

Previously both parents were proud, proud as peacocks, when Johnny really did show that promise that Mr. Dean saw early on. Especially when Johnny would inevitably be called to lead any musical assemblage at school and later when, at Mr. Dean’s urging, he formed the G-Clef and began to make small amounts of money at parties and other functions. Rock‘n’ rock did not fit in, fit in at all in that Prescott world. Then damn Elvis came into view and corrupted Johnny’s morals, or something like that. Shouldn’t the authorities do something about it?

Johnny and his parents worked out a truce, well kind of a truce, kind of a truce for a while. And that kind of a truce for a while is where old Sally Ann entered in again. See, Johnny had so much raw rock talent that she persuaded him to have his boys (yes, Kenny, Sid and Eddy in case you forgot) come by and accompany him on some rock stuff. And because Johnny (not Sally Ann, old Aunt Sally by then) was loved, loved in the musical sense if not in the human affection sense by the other boys they followed along. Truth to tell they were getting the itch too, a little.

And that little itch turned into a very big itch indeed when at that very same dime-dropper, Mary Jane Galvin’s sweet sixteen party concert (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), the G-Clefs finished one of their covers, Dizzy’s Salt Peanuts with some rock riffs. The kids started to get up, started dancing in front of their seats and to the shock of the parents and Mary Jane (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), including the senior Prescotts, were crazy for the music. And Johnny’s fellow G-Clefs noticed, noticed very quickly that all kinds of foxy frails (girls, okay), girls who had previously spent much time ignoring their existences, came up all dream-eyed and asked them, well, asked them stuff, boy-girl stuff.

Oh, the Sally Ann part, the real Sally Ann part not just the idea of putting the rock band together. Well, she talked her talk to the headmaster over at North Clintondale High (an old classmate, Clintondale Class of 1925, and flame from what the boys later heard) and got the boys a paying gig at the upcoming school Spring Frolics. And the money was more than the G-Clefs, the avant guarde G-Clefs made in a month of jazz club appearances, to speak nothing of girls attached to them. So now the senior Prescotts are happy, well, as happy as parents can be over rock‘n’ roll. And from what I hear Johnny and the Rocking Ramrods were going, courtesy of Aunt Sally, naturally, to be playing at the Gloversville Fair that summer. Be-bop-a-Lula indeed.

 

***Out In The American Neon Wilderness Night- Josie’s Story

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

This is the way Josie, Josie Little, an old flame, told her story late one bluesy, rainy Cambridge bar stool Saturday night in the late 1970s, the Miller Hi-Life sign flickering on and off in the background, a story of a trip she had taken with her first love up north in the early 1970s when their love was still in early bloom. A story out in the neon wilderness.
*******

… Allan [that first love] was crazy to go to Neil’s Harbor and Peggy’s Cove up in Cape Breton and could hardly wait to get on the road out of Halifax and push north. We were however also somewhat behind in our schedule, our rough schedule, to try to head west to California and then south to Mexico before the winter set in. But we had been taken by the beauty, the hills rising above the ocean along the road that encircled the whole place ,and the separate circle that enveloped Cape Breton, Nova Scotia beyond that Arcadia French exile notion further south, and also the provincial parks, unlike the local parks in the states were cheap, were well kept-up, provided firework and hearths, and had decent showers facilities except in the few “primitive” sites we were confronted with at certain points where you had to backpack in and take your chances, ugh. Not taken in though so much by the ocean view aspect, we were both heartily getting tired of endless seas, endless looking at seas, although not of walking them, sitting and listening to the ocean, or making love as the waves rolled in when we had the chance. His thing was to chart things like the furthest point in all directions we hit on the trip, how many of this and that we saw, how many that and this things we did, he was a real numbers and geography guy. Not where those places were in the world , no, so he could said, sometimes brag, brag a little, but mostly say, well, he had been this far in case somebody might think he was a rube if he hadn’t been far enough from home.

That notion was funny too because Allan’s politics made him definitely not a rube, his political passions that he was suppressing a little on the trip for my sake. He was always talking, and doing something about which is where we were beginning to differ, about the struggle against the American government in Vietnam, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the fate of the Palestinians, the one major point where I, a half-hearted Zionist, daughter of Zionists, and he would have a few blow-ups including one night back in Boston before the trip when we, drunk and stoned, were at some party which was being attended, although neither of us knew that was it who they were , by something like the central committee of the Zionist movement in Boston. They were raising money for something in Israel, and he started talking his liberation talk, talking about the Irgun gang, about the King David Hotel, about Deir Yessin, Jesus, stuff even I didn’t know about. He got heated, got heated at me, most of all, for half-defending the infidels at the party, or just their right to support Israel, something like that, so when we got to my place, we weren’t living together then he was living in commune down the road, I threw him out, after we probably woke up half of the student ghetto in Boston.

Then around four o’clock I was missing my sweet walking daddy [her pet name for Allan]and called him up to come back over, he said he didn’t want to, didn’t want to because he was sleepy, and we had another row over that. He, when I propositioned him, propositioned him with a little secret thing that I did to him in bed, a thing that as he said he had heard on some blue song, maybe David Bromberg, maybe Muddy Waters I don’t remember, that “curled his toes,” he came over, but it was not a good night, not a good omen at all.

It’s funny on that rube thing too because I was, and he later admitted that he was too, very provincial, not in the sense of being some hayseed thing out in Iowa but provincial in the way we interpreted Saul Steinberg’s funny New Yorker cover, the one where his map of America started in Manhattan big and then the rest of America was put in about one inch of space. I related to that and would tell him, at his request, endless things, odd-ball things, about the vagaries of growing up in Manhattan, about what I had seen there, and done. He said he felt the same about Boston and maybe that is why he had to have charts and lists and a stuff like that, his stuff in the world.

My thing in Peggy’s Cove though was, besides the great view and friendly huge immense rocks we could sit on and get splashed by the sea and feel clean, that since that was the eastern most point of our trip (and we thought at the time it would be the northernmost as well) we could stay in a bed and breakfast place. Indoors with an indoor shower, private, not wait in line, or anything like that like out in the woods. And we did, did find one, just off the main road, Mrs. Miller’s Bed and Breakfast. And if thename of that place and the name of the woman who ran it sounded like something out of about 1947 then you would be right because that is exactly what it was like, and what she was like. Of course out in the provinces, the gentle provinces, among the folk who live in the little off-the-road places, the places where times stands still, they depend on the travelling peoples of the world who want to see great natural beauty, and relax against the craziness of the world to make their, what did Allan call it, their harsh lonely winter tide-me-over money, in season. But these people, and we ran into many, on the outskirts of civilization have their toleration limits, and have their own mores, and good for them.

Except not good for us, almost. Mrs. Miller wanted to know if we were married, and we, thinking we were in Boston or New York, said, well no, and, essentially, what of it. She kind of flipped out and did not want to let us stay in her “home.” So we, tired from a long day on the road, some time spent in the rock-bound sea sun, and not sure where the next B&B was, if any, started back-tracking, started talking about our travels, about our tires, about our using this trip to see if we should get married. (That contribution was by me so you could see Allan’s blarney side rubbing off.) She didn’t like it but, as a good Christian woman, she had to welcome us. It was close though, very close. See too though we intended that this indoor scene would allow us to have a freshen up shower, have a nice dinner, maybe some wine to get a little high (we had no intention of doing pot, no way), and then some serious gentle sex. We were both tired of hard-scrabble dirt, of rocks, of fleas, gnats and every other bug taking the edge off our love-making. So we had to debate whether to do this deed in this good Christian woman’s house. We did but we did it so quietly that I thought that this was the way that they are forced to do it in Chinese villages and working- class neighborhoods where everybody was packed in together. But here is the best part, the next morning Mrs. Miller made the best pancake-waffle-eggs-anyway you wanted them-ham-hash-home fries- muffins-juice-and whatever for us the best breakfast we had ever had we both agreed. And to top it off a big old fresh-baked blueberry pie for us to eat on our travels. A good Christian angel woman, indeed, she has her place reserved in heaven, if such a place is worthy.

Although I lived the island of Manhattan growing up I never had an occasion to ride the Staten Island ferry which people who don’t come from Manhattan don’t understand, especially since it was only a nickel. Allan said that his mother told him when she was a girl that she would take boat from Boston down to New York via the Cape Cod Canal and the two things he remembered that she went on and on about were the cheap jack Automat, the cafeteria where you inserted coins and got your food via the cubicles, a far out thing in the 1930s I guess, and the ride on the cheap Staten Island ferry (and a grand view of downtown Manhattan from the Staten Island side). So he told me that first time we went down to New York City together to face the fireworks from my parents about us living together and me having a goy boyfriend and they wouldn’t, no way, let us stay together in my room he actually spent the night riding the ferry back and forth, a very cheap way to keep out of the cold and away from harm and cops' eyes. So when we made the turn past Neil’s Harbor and headed west, the first real west move we made the trip he said let’s take the ferry over to Prince Edward Island and so we did and while it was interesting to be on the water with our funny old Datsun it wasn’t anything like the big deal he made of it. Let’s put it this way I still haven’t taken the Staten Island ferry. Now Prince Edward Island certainly had its charm, small fishing and farming villages dotted the highway around the island, but even I was getting a little antsy about moving on to see some different scenery from the boats and cows.

The one thing that sticks out though was this incredible beach on the north side of the island, this Brackley Beach which extended from miles jutting out into the Saint Lawrence River, and which, if you can believe this, that far up north had no qualms about allowing nude bathing. We were kind of shocked but I said to Allan I was game, although I had a swim suit along. Allan was kind of funny about that though, some Irish Catholic working-class hang-up about public exposure, or something. He used to hang around the various water spots we landed on with a light weight long sleeve shirt, his jeans and sandals, he refused to wear a bathing suit, and as it turned out didn’t even have one with him. This all-purpose get-up thing was he said because of the bugs that really did seem to draw a bee-line to him. That day though I coaxed him out of his jeans and all when I whispered in his ear that I was kind of horny, horny like down in Maine and maybe I was up for giving him a little something to “curl his toes.” That perked him up as we headed to some private area of the dunes, put down a big towel, maybe a small blanket and I went to work on him. See I knew how to get to him, although it wasn’t all tough to do, not then.

“Flow river flow, down to the sea,” a phrase from The Ballad Of Easy Riderby the Byrds, I think, is what Allan kept practically chanting as we drifted down the Saint Lawrence River headed to Quebec City. But along the way we stopped at seemingly twenty different towns, Trois this and that kind of towns, three river places, all the same as far as I was concerned, but one I will give you as my little road story because it really could stand in for all of them. See all these river towns had, like a lot of towns we had seen, a small main street, a few stores, maybe a library, a school showing here and there, and all had churches, but not the New England big steeple white simple church gathering in the pious brethren on Sunday to hear some big top theology from some learned Harvard-trained minister, something like that but stone-etched imposing cathedral like edifices with plenty of artwork , devotional stuff, and dank, dark, and smelling of death, or really the readiness for death that the Catholics are always hankering for. Really though just like the New England pine-box churches once you have seen one you have pretty much seen all you need to see about the damn things.

And I would have left it at that but something about the whole sanctified, sacred, scented scene, kind of took Allan off his moorings. Like I said before he was off the church thing but like he also said such things when so intense die hard, die out only after some kind of sacred exorcism, and so that is how he schemed (schemed in the good sense of planning something out) to do a mock exorcism at the church in Trois Rivieres, a couple of hundred miles from Quebec City. Now this was not some churchy thing he was thinking of but rather as was our thing then, a little sexual escapade. See his idea was that we would do some hanky-panky in that dark church (dark, like the white steeple churches because the brethren were deep in work on the farms or in the cotton mill that provided some work for the town folk). So we snuck over to the chapel I guess you call it, Allan did know what it was like maybe he knew that was the best place , although he swore, swore after we were done that he had never done it there, or even though about it until the ride down the Saint Lawrence.

I was afraid to take my clothes off, and I said I wouldn’t so we settled on me giving him some head, but he said that for once we would use a condom and leave it there as a burnt offering for the sins of the world. I don’t usually like condoms (rubbers) in my mouth because they taste funky but this time I kind of didn’t notice it some much because frankly, as we got started I got so turned on by the idea we were doing it in church, a sacred place, that I just went about my work, and I could tell by his little moanings that Allan was appreciating my efforts, although after a bit I started thinking about how maybe we should “do the do” (our little term for our love-making courtesy of a Howlin’ Wolf song) and I suggested that to him but once he got into my head thing that usually was what he wanted. Well, he came, after I had given him the best blow job I think I had ever given him until then, and least he had a big grin on his face after I took the condom off and we placed it carefully in front of the altar. I told him I was still turned on and so we went back to that secluded area and did our “do the do,” twice. I would tell you more, a couple of little extra things we did, but I can tell you are getting turned on a little and so I will leave it at that.

After the farms, fields and rivers coming down the Saint Lawrence all of a sudden out of the river mist, out of the river turn around Ile de Orleans there came into view the great fortress city of Quebec City, a city that we both confessed that we knew about mainly from the Plains of Abraham, bloody deaths of Montcalm and Wolfe in some 18^thcentury part of the world- wide battle between the British and French for world supremacy, for the ports, the commercial ports of entry. Quebec to me though was mainly a matter of about ten million churches, Gallic Roman Catholic churches fit for the lame, halt and crippled it seemed by their names or names associated with each parish, with all grey stone, all gothic, all forbidding, foreboding and frankly hostile, hostile to whatever Jewish identity I felt, felt being among those who not that long ago (and maybe they still did) called my people Christ-killers and did stuff about it. Allan, a long lapsed Catholic ,lapsed since about fourteen when he started reading some stuff , some stuff by Jews like Karl Marx and Sartre, and feeling out of sorts and oppressed by the Catholic-ness of the place (except for those bloody plains of Abraham alongside the Saint Lawrence that were really beautiful), for his own reasons, stated categorically that he would defend me, my honor, the bones of my forbears, even my fussy parents, if anybody, anybody under cloak of clerical authority, or just any lay person who got crazy, tried any rough stuff on me and mine, and that kept me in check (and made me love him even more, and ready then to show him some decidedly non-Catholic loving out of wedlock, and out of procreation’s way too).

Also despite the architectural beauty of the city, the gothic old time sense of some very much earlier age, some age when men and women were not afraid to come out and face the wilds, the hostile Indians, the even more hostile wildlife and stake their claim to new world riches and pay homage to the providence that spared those who survived put paid to that good wind by those incredible churches, nunneries and chapels (and the vast number of personal to service them), the current crop of French-Canadians who just then dominated the very nationalistic scene were short with Anglos, including sympathetic Anglos like us. This was the heyday of the Quebec independence movement and the tensions were still in the air against the Anglo government which had at one point declared martial law in the province. The way this feeling came out was when we would go into restaurant in Old Town and try to order lunch or something (admittedly my high school and first year of college long past French and later Allan’s Spanish in Mexico were too Anglo to fake anybody out that we were anything but Americanos) and be snubbed at every turn, deliberately snubbed by waiters, slumming while students like was almost universal then, maybe now too, who you could overhear speaking perfectly usable English among themselves when they wanted to make some obscure point. Allan would get on his high horse with me and while he wasn’t happy about snubs, or any other of the small change hurts of people, people like his Irish forbears, who couldn’t respond to their oppression any other way was more tolerate than I was toward what he called his fellahin brethren .

I asked him, asked him seriously one time when we were driving out of Quebec City toward Montreal, what he meant by fellahin. Had he heard or seen the word in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road where he wrote about it as part of his trip in southern California in describing the people in the night after hard day fields places, the mex places, where he and his lady of the time, his little mex whore, their mores, his kindred? Allan said no he had learned it in seventh- grade at Hull Junior High School when some history teacher, a Jewish guy if he remembered correctly, held the class in awe with stories about the struggles on th eland in the Middle East with the Palestinians, including labor Zionists, and he had held the word like a lot of odd-ball words that interested him in his head since then. What he meant, maybe like Kerouac, and like that history teacher too, was life’s dispossessed, those left behind in the dust who, until their judgment day (not that foolish religious one) when they were liberated, maybe generations later, would forget that bondage times but until then he wanted to be very indulgence toward them, even if we got poor wait staff service, ouch.

*******

After that last piece Josie then said she was getting tired, she had had too many scotches and had previously taken a few too many puffs off a proffered joint and didn’t want to talk about Allan anymore that night. She asked if I wanted to take her home. In the cab she ruefully whispered that the trip was their beginning, the real beginning, and every once in a while although she could no longer be with him, no way, there was just too much sorrow between them, on wind-swept nights, or when she was near some ocean, or some raggedy scruffy guy selling some left-wing newspaper passed by her she would get misty about her sweet walking daddy. She said I would have to know that, know that up front on that rainy, sad, bluesy night. And that was our beginning…