***Out In The 1950s Film Noir Night – Joe Spain’s Saga

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

That Dora MacKay, Devil Dora, he called her, must have been something else, must have been a real devil like he called her. The he in question being Detective Sergeant Joe Spain, one of San Francisco’s finest, and that was meant in a couple of ways. For a cop he was a flashy dresser not some off the rack stuff, ill-fitted and rumbled like most of the cops who come into my place, The Last Chance Bar & Grille, the place where I work as the night bartender, and have for the past four years. They come in, come in at all hours, in all conditions, but inevitably all rumbled up since The Last Chance is right across the street from Police Headquarters. Except, like I say, Joe Spain who no matter what the time of day always looked like a guy who could pass for a wise guy, a connected guy, another kind of guy who shows up in my place. Joe said one time when I asked him why he took such pains to dress up in a well-fitted suit, shoes shines, a nice soft hat set at a rakish angle on his head that he wanted to make the wise guys think, think for just a minute, that he could be bought off, could be on the take.

And that brings me to the second way. Joe also had the reputation, a hard- earned reputation for being not for sale, for being not in somebody hip pocket and was ready to fight anybody who differed on that estimation. The first night I worked here I tried to give him a scotch on the house after he broke up what could have been a serious brawl that, big as I am. I would have had trouble squelching and he just put his money plus tip, on the bar counter. He wouldn’t even take an offered pull of beef jerky from me.  Jesus, I can’t remember the last time a cop did that, left a tip that is, or for that matter paid for a drink if he could help it, or didn’t eat everything edible on the counter. But this story is not about Joe’s virtues, sartorial or moral, or just a little, but about this Dora dame that was on his mind a lot when he got in a certain mood.          

See Detective Sergeant Joseph Spain had sent this Dora over about five years before, a while before I got here, so he felt duty-bound to tell me about her. Tell me how he had to send her over. Now most cops, and Joe agreed on this when I pressed him on it one time, do a job, close a case and forget about it. They certainly don’t go on about it five years later but this Dora case, Joe just couldn’t let go. Some nights when he came in and had his usual two scotches, his self-imposed limit, that that would be it. But if he asked for a third then I knew he had Dora on his mind and would tell me, or whoever he could corral sitting at the bar, all about the case. I got so I could almost recite the thing before Joe got the thought out of his mouth. Here it is the way I can tell it, tell it as a guy who was from nowhere on the case, and had never been in Dora’s clutches like Joe almost was at the end. “Almost” he would always say but in the cold sober light of day he played the percentages like everybody else and since Dora had sent three guy to their just or unjust rewards he didn’t want to be number four when Dora got her wanting habits on. But I am getting ahead of myself so let me go back and reconstruct Joe’s saga for you and maybe it will make more sense why he did what he did.          

Joe said he followed up on Dora’s background somewhat after he sent her over and then when the trail got cold, real cold,  he just let it go, let what he knew stand as it was. She came out of England someplace before the war, World War II, which was rough on the English. Dora, like a lot of us including Joe, had come out of some cheap mean streets and once she blew the dust off those streets off she swore she wasn’t going back. She had been involved in a jack-roller scheme with a couple of small-time hoods in Manchester and had received probation since she was a minor when one of the victims complained, complained to the cops. Later she did a little time working in some high- grade whore house in London until she got tired of the wear and tear. Then after the war she headed over here to America landing in New York, and landing in some gangster’s lap at the Kit Kat Club where she worked as a “hostess.” When that connected guy got wasted, got found face down with a couple of slugs in him, in some turf war she blew town and headed to Frisco.

That is really where Joe’s story begins but he insisted on telling her early history to show she was no frail violet who just got mixed up with some wrong gees because she didn’t know better. No, she knew the score, knew it cold, and maybe knew it from day one- get yours while the getting is good She was working in a dime-a-dance joint over in North Beach when she met Frankie, Frankie Murphy the bank robber who is still remembered around this town as very good at his trade.      

Now Frankie Murphy was from the old school, old school as far banks goes, which was to work alone, mainly, grab the dough at the point of a gun and blow the joint. He was also old school as far as women went, when he was out of stir and in the clover.  All his dough would go to keeping his women in style and this is all that Dora needed to hear. Now this Frankie was not anything to look at but he was true to his word on dough, and when that ran out he would just rob another bank. So Dora held her nose and stuck with Frankie, stuck with him up in a nice apartment he provided and with dough for clothes and other expenses. Of course Dora got the taste for fine things as any woman from cheap street, or for that matter any woman from Mayfair, would, and Frankie’s so money got kind of low more quickly carrying her freight and so he needed to put together another heist. This time would be no nickel and dime thing though but a big caper, a big caper indeed, holding up an armored truck when it was vulnerable sitting at bank.

Well one thing you could say for Frankie he certainly knew his stuff because he actually pulled it off, pulled off the biggest heist around, pulled down 400, 000 big ones. Although there were a couple of complications, first, in the melee Frankie killed a guard, killed him dead, and second,  when Frankie got to Dora’s with no dough she started squawking about telling her where the dough was and telling Frankie to get the hell away from her since he was radioactive with a cop killing hanging over his head. She wound up squawking with a little gun when Frankie wouldn’t tell her where the dough was and he tried to attack her. That was her story anyway. So that was guy number one, and that is really where Joe Spain first ran into one Dora Mackay. Ran into her while he was investigating the whole Frankie robbery and killing case.  He wasn’t afraid to admit to anybody who would listen that he was attracted to her right from the first moment he saw her, although he didn’t believe her story for a minute. But when a woman cries self-defense against some big lug known to be a cop-killer and who robs banks for a living who is going to go screwy over the details.   Not Joe, not Joe with the big Dora eyes.                     

Here is where guys are funny though, maybe screwy when it comes to dames because Frankie wanted to make sure that Dora was taken care of , but didn’t trust her enough to tell her where the dough was. Wasn’t sure whether she was two-timing him or not with some other guy, an occupational hazard with crooks, and with guys without good looks. So all he had in his pockets when Dora sifted through them looking for some clue was Vince Malone’s telephone number and address.  She assumed that Vince might have a clue where the money was so she telephoned him, made a date to meet and see what happened. Here is where dames are smart though. At their meeting one night at the Red Hat Club Dora put on her best come hither performance, really outdid herself for Vince. And Vince, nothing but a con man and skirt-chaser in real life, did what every con man not working a con himself does, and bought into her con. Although that part came later after they had slipped under a few sheets and she had him all worked up. After that it was like taking candy from a baby for Dora.

Until the other shoe dropped. The other shoe for Vince. Once she had hoodwinked Vince into giving out the spot where the moola was she went rooty-toot-toot on the late Vince Malone, RIP. Nice, right. So naturally Dora’s defense was that Vince tried to attack her, attack her for chrissakes and she had to shoot him in, ah, self-defense.  Joe got that case too and while he, and half the citizens of Frisco town, were more than happy to see the cockroach go down under Joe was getting a little weary of Dora’s explanations. Still he was interested in her, more so when she planted a sweet kiss on his lips in thanks, thanks for who knows what. Yah, he was hooked, hooked bad but that wasn’t the end of it.                           

Dora, no question was a man-trap and being one included grabbing every stray guy who crossed her path in order to pursue her goal of getting that damn dough, that cool 400K even if she had to split it, at least that is what she had talked herself into. Frankie, not trusting a soul, a female soul anyway, had made sure that any two-timing dame was not going to get his money if she wasn’t on the square so he gave the directions to Vince but those directions led to Luther Adler, Luther an old con whom Frankie had known at the Q (San Quentin if you don’t know what Q means). Luther was holding a strong box with the kale in it although he didn’t know what was in the box, at least that is what he told Dora. But being an old con Luther wanted to see the contents of the box to see if he maybe was due a cut for services rendered to his old jailbird pal. Dora, naturally, tried the old come hither approach but Luther wasn’t buying into that trap. It didn’t matter though, didn’t matter at all, since Dora in her frenzy for the money put two right through his heart. Finished, done, all the dough was hers, and well- earned.     

Well, almost done. And here is where Joe Spain comes in as a cop, a good cop, a cop that couldn’t be bought. After the phooey incident with Vince he began to tail Dora (also he wasn’t sure whether she didn’t have another guy on the line despite that big kiss back at Vince’s place) and that led him to Luther’s just after he heard those two shots that Dora blasted him with. Joe knocked on Luther’s door, Dora answered, and as he entered the room he saw Luther sprawled out on the floor. Dead, dead as a doornail. He confronted Dora who at least didn’t try the attack dodge this time. She merely went over to Joe, planted another big kiss on his lips, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Her, her sex, and the dough, simple. Joe hesitated, thinking through his options. He was tempted, strongly tempted until he took another look in Luther’s direction and then said nix.

But Dora Mackay from cheap streets England did not know how to take no for an answer when she had had her wanting habits on. So she tried the rooty-toot-toot on Detective Sergeant Joseph Spain. And that was her last act on this earth as Joe put one right through her heart, or the place where her heart would be if she had a heart. But here again where guys get squirrely over dames. Joe has finished up his story the same way every time since he has been coming in. He always wonders out loud whether he should have just run off with Dora and left everything else behind. Yah that Dora Mackay must have been something else.                   

 

The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc. From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! -Hands Off Syria!

Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.

Every once in a while it is necessary, if for no other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc. From Afghanistan and Iraq! Hands Off Iran And Syria!

BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com

From The Marxit Archives- Proletarian Revolution and the Fight Against War

Workers Vanguard No. 869 28 April 2006 TROTSKY LENIN Proletarian Revolution and the Fight Against War (Quote of the Week) Writing in 1936 for the Workers Party of the United States, as interimperialist World War II loomed on the horizon, then-Trotskyist James Burnham (John West) explained why the struggle against imperialist war is inseparable from the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system. The most common mistake made in the attempted struggle against war comes from the belief that this struggle is somehow “independent” of the class struggle in general, that a broad union of all sorts of persons from every social class and group can be formed around the issue of fighting war, since—so the reasoning goes—these persons may be all equally opposed to war whatever their differences on other points. In this way, war is lifted from its social base, considered apart from its causes and conditions, as if it were a mystic abstraction instead of a concrete historical institution. Acting on this belief, attempts are made to build up all kinds of permanent Peace Societies, Anti-War Organizations, Leagues Against War, etc.... There is no “separate” or “special” struggle against war. The struggle against war cannot be divorced from the day-to-day struggles of the workers so far as, in their historical implications, these lead toward workers’ power. No one can uphold capitalism—whether directly, as an open adherent of the capitalists, or indirectly, from any shade of liberal or reformist position—and fight against war, because capitalism means war. Only a revolutionist can fight against war, because only a revolutionist takes the road to the overthrow of capitalism. To suppose, therefore, that revolutionists can work out a common “program against war” with non-revolutionists is a fatal illusion. Any organization based upon such a program is not merely powerless to prevent war; in practice it acts to promote war, both because it serves in its own way to uphold the system that breeds war, and because it diverts the attention of its members from the real fight against war. There is only one program against war: the program for revolution—the program of the revolutionary party of the workers. —John West, “War and the Workers” (1936) ******** War and the Workers John West War and the Workers II. The Struggle Against War Even such a brief study of the nature and causes of modern war is sufficient to prove that war is an essential part of capitalism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and must lead to war. All Marxists, and in fact many pseudo-Marxists or even liberals, accept (or pretend to accept) this conclusion. Nevertheless, widespread and disastrous misconceptions are held in following out the consequences of this conclusion so far as they apply to the struggle against war. The most common mistake made in the attempted it struggle against war comes from the belief that this exists somehow “independent” of the class struggle in general, that a broad union of all sorts of persons from every social class and group can be formed around the issue of fighting war, since – so the reasoning goes – these persons may be all equally opposed to war whatever their differences on other points. In this way, war is lifted from its social base, considered apart from its causes and conditions, as if it were a mystic abstraction instead of a concrete historical institution. Acting on this belief, attempts are made to build up all kinds of permanent Peace Societies, Anti-War Organizations, Leagues Against War, etc. This kind of attitude is about as effective as it for doctors to treat the high fever in acute appendicitis by putting the patient in an ice-box. The only way actually get rid of the high fever is to remove the cause of the fever – that is, to take out the diseased appendix. The thing is true for war: the only way to get rid of war is to remove the cause of war. War is not the cause of the troubles of society. The opposite is true. War is a symptom and result of the irreconcilable troubles and conflicts of the present form of society, that is to say, of capitalism. The only way to fight against war is to fight against the causes of war. Since the causes of war are part of the inner nature of capitalism, it follows that the only way to fight against war is to fight against capitalism. But the only true fight against capitalism is the revolutionary struggle for workers’ power. It therefore follows that the only possible struggle against war is the struggle for the workers’ revolution. Marxists must be absolutely clear on this point. There is no “separate” or “special” struggle against war. The struggle against war cannot be divorced from the day-to-day struggles of the workers so far as, in their historical implications, these lead toward workers’ power. No one can uphold capitalism – whether directly, as an open adherent of the capitalists, or indirectly, from any shade of liberal or reformist position – and fight against war, because capitalism means war. Only a revolutionist can fight against war, because only a revolutionist takes the road to the over- throw of capitalism. To suppose, therefore, that revolutionists can work out a common “program against war” with non-revolutionists is a fatal illusion. Any organization based upon such a program is not merely powerless to prevent war; in practice it acts to promote war, both because it serves in its own way to uphold the system t at breeds war, and because it diverts the attention of its members from the real fight against war. There is only one program against war: the program for revolution – the program of the revolutionary party of the workers. The workers’ revolution can and will eliminate war be-cause, by overthrowing capitalist economy and supplanting capitalism with a socialist economy, it will remove the causes of war. Under socialism there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war. Artificial economic barriers based on national boundaries will be removed. The expansion of the means of production, under the owner-ship and control of society as a whole, will proceed in accordance with a rational plan adjusted to the needs of the members of society. Socialism will remove the limits on consumption, and hence permit the scientific and controlled development of production. Thus, under socialism, war will disappear because the causes of war will be done away with. Since the victory of socialism, and this alone, will defeat war, every step on the path to socialism is a blow at war. In the struggle against war, properly understood, every militant workers’ demonstration, every broad mass labor defense fight, every well-led strike, and in general every advance of the workers toward power, is worth a thousand “Peace Leagues”. Meanwhile, in carrying on the daily struggle, it is the duty of the Marxists to prepare for the war crisis. To this end, they must constantly expose the war plans of the imperialist powers; they must resist the militarization of the masses; they must make clear to the working class each step in the progress toward war; they must combat the patriotic war propaganda; they must help strengthen, ideologically and materially, the organizations of the workers, so that these will not be crushed at the outbreak of the war. And they must everywhere and at all times expose the misleaders and the betrayers in the fight against war, from whatever camp – those who make ready, by a thousand and one devices, to turn over the workers to the war-makers. But in the war crisis itself, the Marxists do not suspend their struggle. On the contrary, the struggle becomes immensely sharper, the duties infinitely heavier. On the war question, Marxists are not “neutral”; they do not withdraw into a shell until the war disappears into the past. One of the great aims of the revolutionary movement is the elimination of war forever from the world. But, as we have seen, this can be accomplished only by the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism – that is, by the victory of the working class in the class war. This requirement is due not to the wishes of Marxists, but to the actual realities of history. Thus, in struggling against every war undertaken by any capitalist power, Marxists cannot take a merely negative pacifist position of being against “war in general”. They are actively for the victory of the working class in the class war, since only through such victory can war in general be done away with. Therefore it is the business of Marxists not to stand aside, but to support actively, in every possible manner, any armed struggle that is aimed against, and capable of weakening, capitalism: for example, the revolts of colonies against their imperialist oppressors, and the uprisings of all oppressed and exploited races and nations – just as Marxists support strikes or any other manifestations directed against the capitalist class or its governments. And, similarly,. Marxists are not “neutral” in an imperialist war. Their duty is to lead the working class in delaying the outbreak of the imperialist war as long as this is historically possible, since imperialist war, besides murdering millions of the finest of the workers and the youth generally, makes incomparably more difficult the organization of revolutionary struggle. But when the imperialist war nevertheless, in the end (as it must), breaks out, the task of the Marxists is to work to turn the imperialist war, which ranges the peoples of one group of nations on the battlefields against the peoples of another group, into a class war, a war of the masses under the leadership of the working class and its party for the overthrow of the capital-ist state and the establishment of the rule of the working class. The Marxists fight, but within each country they fight not for the victory but for the defeat of their own government – not for its defeat by the opposing capitalist powers, but for its defeat by its own working class. The true enemy is at home: the class enemy and its political representative, the state. This is the enemy to be defeated, in every country. And this is the aim of the Marxists in the coming war – in every country, the overthrow of the class enemy, the setting up of the workers’ state, the joining together with the working class of the entire world for the defeat of finance-capital on an international scale, and the international victory of the working masses. This struggle – the only true struggle against war – requires at every stage the utmost clarity and realism. Any illusion whatever weakens it mortally. Above all, the working masses of every country must understand who their enemy is. They must understand that the enemy is not the people of Germany, or France, or Italy, or Japan, or of any other nation against whom the home government may wage war, but that the real enemy of the masses of every country is the enemy at home – the bourgeoisie and the government of “their own country”. They must understand that any war which “their” country undertakes will be a war to serve the interests of finance-capital, no matter what noble talk about “democracy” or “peace” or “defense” or “collective security” is used to justify it. And therefore they must resist to the utmost any and every conception of patriotism, class peace, national unity, or support of the government for the conduct of the war. To such conceptions must be, at all times, opposed – struggle against the war, struggle to turn the war into a civil war for the defeat of the government and the bourgeoisie, and the achievement of workers’ power. This is the only struggle against the coming imperialist war: the struggle on an international scale for the victory of the workers, for a world socialist society.

The Latest From The Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog

Click on the headline to link to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox blog for the latest from her site.

Markin comment:

I find Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox rather a mishmash of eclectic politics and basic old time left-liberal/radical thinking. Not enough, not nearly enough, in our troubled times but enough to take the time to read about and get a sense of the pulse (if any) of that segment of the left to which she is appealing. One though should always remember, despite our political differences, her heroic action in going down to hell-hole Texas to confront one President George W. Bush in the dog days of 2005 when he was riding high and when many others were resigned to accepting the lies of that administration or who had “folded” their tents when the expected end to the Iraq War did not materialize in 2003. Hats off on that one, Cindy Sheehan.   

Markin comment:

I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.

Alert - Lynne Stewart DENIED Compassionate Release by Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Samuels

Alert - Lynne Stewart DENIED Compassionate Release by Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Samuels June 25, 2013-- Lynne Stewart's husband Ralph Poynter was informed by Lynne this morning that she received a three-paragraph letter from Kathleen Kenney, General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C. in which Compassionate Release has been denied on the grounds that Lynne's "health is improving." This claim is at once cynical and false. Lynne Stewart's cancer continues to spread in her lungs. She remains in isolation as her white blood cell count remains so low that she is at risk for generalized infection. She weakens daily. A message from Lynne will be released imminently. We call upon all committed to the effort to secure Lynne Stewart's release and to save her life to stand by for further notice of the response from Lynne, her husband Ralph Poynter, her family and her lawyers – announcing the next actions that we, her supporters, will launch in response to this appalling betrayal of compassion and justice. Keep the pressure on! Rallies for Lynne: July 1 Monday, Foley Sq, Lower Manhattan Courts, 4-7pm And march to. 500 Pearl St July 9 Tuesday Foley Sq, Lower Manhattan Courts, 4-7pm And march to. 500 Pearl St July 12 Friday Washington DC -- 5:30 to 8pm at Columbia Heights Civic Plaza 14th St & Park Rd. NW

***When Radio Ruled The Air-Waves

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin

CD Review

Stardust: The Classic Decca Hits and Standards Collection, various artists, Decca Records, MCA, 1994

I am a first generation child of the television age, although in recent years I have spent more time kicking and screaming about that fact than watching the damn thing. Nevertheless I can appreciate this little compilation of Decca hits and standard tunes from the 1940s and 1950s as a valentine to the radio days of my parents’ youth, parents who came of musical age (and every other kind of age as well) during the Great Depression of the 1930s and who fought, or waited for those out on the front lines fighting, World War II. I am just old enough though, although generation behind them, to remember the strains of songs like the harmonic –heavy Mills Brothers Paper Dolls (a favorite of my mother’s) and The Glow Worm (not a favorite of anybody as far as I know although the harmony is still first-rate) that came wafting, via the local Adamsville radio station WJDA, through our big box living room radio in the early 1950s. It seemed they, or maybe the Andrews Sisters, be-bopping (be-bopping now, not then, you do not want to know what I called it then), on Rum And Coca-Cola or tagging along with Bing Crosby on Don’t Fence Me In were permanent residents of the airs-waves in the Markin household.

I am also an unapologetic child of Rock 'n' Roll but those above-mentioned tunes were the melodies that my mother and father came of age to and the stuff of their dreams during World War II and its aftermath. The rough and tumble of my parents raising a bunch of kids might have taken the edge off it but the dreams remained. In the end it is this musical backdrop, behind the generation musical fights that roils the Markin household in teen times, that makes this compilation most memorable to me. Just to say names like Dick Haymes (I think my mother had a “crush” on him at some point), Vaughn Monroe, The Inkspots (who, truth, I liked even then, even in my “high, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly days, especially on If I Didn’t Care and I’ll Get By-wow), and Louis Armstrong. Or songs like Blueberry Hill, You’ll Never Know, A- Tisket- A Tasket, You Always Hurt The One You Love and so gather in a goodly portion of the mid-20th century American Songbook. Other talents like Billie Holiday, The Weavers, and Rosemary Clooney and tunes like Lover Man (and a thousand and one Cole Porter Billie-sung songs), Fever, and As Time Goes By (from Dooley Wilson in Casablanca) came later through very different frames of reference. But the seed, no question, no question now, was planted then.

Let’s be clear as well going back to that first paragraph mention of television - there something very different between the medium of the radio and the medium of the television. The radio allowed for an expansion of the imagination (and of fantasy) that the increasingly harsh realities of what was being portrayed on television did not allow one to get away with. The heart of World War II, and in its immediate aftermath, was time when one needed to be able to dream a little. The realities of the world at that time seemingly only allowed for nightmares. My feeling is that this compilation will touch a lot of sentimental nerves for the World War II generation (that so-called ‘greatest generation’), including my growing-up Irish working- class families on the shores of North Adamsville. Nice work.

Update 6/25/13: Vivienne Westwood dedicates runway show to Bradley Manning at Milan Fashion Week

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Vivienne Westwood dedicates latest menswear collection to Bradley Manning, US soldier on trial

British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood dedicated her latest menswear collection to Bradley Manning. Her collection was displayed last Sunday at the Milan Fashion Week and featured models wearing T-Shirts with a print image of Bradley Manning and a beret. At the end of the show, the designer herself came out for a runway bow wearing the same badge.

To read more on this story, click here

MDW gets new commander, overseeing courts martial

“On Monday, Maj. Gen. Jeffery S. Buchanan succeeded Maj. Gen. Michael S. Linnington as commander of the Military District of Washington. In the military justice system, court-martial verdicts and sentences can be thrown out or reduced by the convening authority – the commander who ordered the court-martial. Upon a change of command, that authority passes to the new commander.

Buchanan’s last job was as deputy commanding general of I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. Before that, he directed strategic efforts of U.S. forces in Iraq and served as their chief spokesman there from July 2010 to December 2011.

Linnington has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and a Pentagon job as military deputy for readiness in the defense secretary’s office.”

To read more on this article, click here

Free Bradley Manning!

Update 6/24/13: Campaign artwork resources updated in ‘Featured Graphics’

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We’ve updated our “Featured Graphics” page to include nearly all of the campaign graphics we’re currently using. These are being shared freely in the hopes that you will make make your own posters and banners–or use them in ways that have not even thought of. Most of the logo-type images have also been professionally converted to vector PDFs, allowing for huge reproductions with crisp and clean lines.
Featured Graphics

From The Marxist Archives-The Industrial Proletariat and the Fight for Socialism

Workers Vanguard No. 868	14 April 2006

TROTSKY

LENIN

The Industrial Proletariat and the Fight for Socialism

(Quote of the Week)

In his seminal work developing the theory of permanent revolution out of a Marxist examination of tsarist Russia, Leon Trotsky argued that capitalist development had created an industrial proletariat with the historic interest and social power to overturn the capitalist system through socialist revolution. Trotsky’s perspective was verified in practice by the Bolshevik-led October Revolution of 1917.

In order to realize socialism it is necessary that among the antagonistic classes of capitalist society there should be a social force which is interested, by virtue of its objective position, in the realization of socialism, and which is powerful enough to be able to overcome hostile interests and resistances in order to realize it.

One of the fundamental services rendered by scientific socialism consists in that it theoretically discovered such a social force in the proletariat, and showed that this class, inevitably growing along with capitalism, can find its salvation only in socialism, that the entire position of the proletariat drives it towards socialism and that the doctrine of socialism cannot but become in the long run the ideology of the proletariat….

The importance of the proletariat depends entirely on the role it plays in large-scale production. The bourgeoisie relies, in its struggle for political domination, upon its economic power. Before it manages to secure political power, it concentrates the country’s means of production in its own hands. This is what determines its specific weight in society. The proletariat, however, in spite of all co-operative phantasmagoria, will be deprived of the means of production right up to the actual socialist revolution. Its social power comes from the fact that the means of production which are in the hands of the bourgeoisie can be set in motion only by the proletariat. From the point of view of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat is also one of the means of production, constituting, in conjunction with the others, a single unified mechanism. The proletariat, however, is the only non-automatic part of this mechanism, and in spite of all efforts it cannot be reduced to the condition of an automaton. This position gives the proletariat the power to hold up at will, partially or wholly, the proper functioning of the economy of society, through partial or general strikes. From this it is clear that the importance of a proletariat—given identical numbers—increases in proportion to the amount of productive forces which it sets in motion. That is to say, a proletarian in a large factory is, all other things being equal, a greater social magnitude than a handicraft worker, and an urban worker a greater magnitude than a country worker. In other words, the political role of the proletariat is the more important in proportion as large-scale production dominates small production, industry dominates agriculture and the town dominates the country….

All this leads us to the conclusion that economic evolution—the growth of industry, the growth of large enterprises, the growth of the towns, and the growth of the proletariat in general and the industrial proletariat in particular—has already prepared the arena not only for the struggle of the proletariat for political power but for the conquest of this power.

—Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906); Pathfinder Press (1969)

*******

Leon Trotsky

Results and Prospects

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IV. Revolution and the Proletariat

Transcribed and HTML markup for the Trotsky Internet Archive, a subarchive of the Marxists’ Internet Archive, by Sally Ryan in 1996.

Revolution is an open measurement of strength between social forces in a struggle for power. The State is not an end in itself. It is only a machine in the hands of the dominating social forces. Like every machine it has its motor, transmitting and executive mechanism. The driving force of the State is class interest; its motor mechanism is agitation, the press, church and school propaganda, parties, street meetings, petitions and revolts. The transmitting mechanism is the legislative organization of caste, dynastic, estate or class interests represented as the will of God (absolutism) or the will of the nation (parliamentarism). Finally, the executive mechanism is the administration, with its police, the courts, with their prisons, and the army.

The State is not an end in itself, but is a tremendous means for organizing, disorganizing and reorganizing social relations. It can be a powerful lever for revolution or a tool for organized stagnation, depending on the hands that control it.
Every political party worthy of the name strives to capture political power and thus place the State at the service of the class whose interests it expresses. The Social-Democrats, being the party of the proletariat, naturally strive for the political domination of the working class.
The proletariat grows and becomes stronger with the growth of capitalism. In this sense the development of capitalism is also the development of the proletariat towards dictatorship. But the day and the hour when power will pass into the hands of the working class depends directly not upon the level attained by the productive forces but upon relations in the class struggle, upon the international situation, and, finally, upon a number of subjective factors: the traditions, the initiative and the readiness to fight of the workers.
It is possible for the workers to come to power in an economically backward country sooner than in an advanced country. In 1871 the workers deliberately took power in their hands in petty-bourgeois Paris – true, for only two months, but in the big-capitalist centres of Britain or the United States the workers have never held power for so much as an hour. To imagine that the dictatorship of the proletariat is in some way automatically dependent on the technical development and resources of a country is a prejudice of ‘economic’ materialism simplified to absurdity. This point of view has nothing in common with Marxism.
In our view, the Russian revolution will create conditions in which power can pass into the hands of the workers – and in the event of the victory of the revolution it must do so – before the politicians of bourgeois liberalism get the chance to display to the full their talent for governing.
Summing up the revolution and counter-revolution of 1848-49 in the American newspaper The Tribune, Marx wrote:

‘The working class in Germany is, in its social and political development, as far behind that of England and France as the German bourgeoisie is behind the bourgeoisie of those countries. Like master, like man. The evolution of the conditions of existence for a numerous, strong, concentrated and intelligent proletarian class goes hand in hand with the development of the conditions of existence for a numerous, wealthy, concentrated and powerful middle class. The working-class movement itself never is independent, never is of an exclusively proletarian character until all the different factions of the middle class, and particularly its most progressive faction, the large manufacturers, have conquered political power, and remodeled the State according to their wants. It is then that the inevitable conflict between the employer and the employed becomes imminent, and cannot be adjourned any longer ...’ [1]

This quotation is probably familiar to the reader, for it has been considerably abused by the textual Marxists in recent times. It has been brought forward as an irrefutable argument against the idea of a working class government in Russia. ‘Like master, like man.’ If the capitalist bourgeoisie is not strong enough to take power, they argue, then it is still less possible to establish a workers’ democracy, i.e., the political domination of the proletariat.

Marxism is above all a method of analysis – not analysis of texts, but analysis of social relations. Is it true that, in Russia, the weakness of capitalist liberalism inevitably means the weakness of the labour movement? Is it true, for Russia, that there cannot be an independent labour movement until the bourgeoisie has conquered power? It is sufficient merely to put these questions to see what a hopeless formalism lies concealed beneath the attempt to convert an historically-relative remark of Marx’s into a supra-historical axiom.
During the period of the industrial boom, the development of factory industry in Russia bore an ‘American’ character; but in its actual dimensions capitalist industry in Russia is an infant compared with the industry of the United States. Five million persons – 16.6 per cent of the economically occupied population – are engaged in manufacturing industry in Russia; for the USA the corresponding figures would be six million and 22.2 per cent. These figures still tell us comparatively little, but they become eloquent if we recall that the population of Russia is nearly twice that of the USA. But in order to appreciate the actual dimensions of Russian and American industry it should be observed that in 1900 the American factories and large workshops turned out goods for sale to the amount of 25 milliard roubles, while in the same period the Russian factories turned out goods to the value of less than two and a half milliard roubles. [2]
There is no doubt that the numbers, the concentration, the culture and the political importance of the industrial proletariat depend on the extent to which capitalist industry is developed. But this dependence is not direct. Between the productive forces of a country and the political strength of its classes there cut across at any given moment various social and political factors of a national and international character, and these displace and even sometimes completely alter the political expression of economic relations. In spite of the fact that the productive forces of the United States are ten times as great as those of Russia, nevertheless the political role of the Russian proletariat, its influence on the politics of its own country and the possibility of its influencing the politics of the world in the near future are incomparably greater than in the case of the proletariat of the United States.
Kautsky, in his recent book on the American proletariat, points out that there is no direct relation between the political power of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the level of capitalist development on the other. ‘Two states exist’ he says, ‘diametrically contrasted one with the other. In one of them there is developed inordinately, i.e., out of proportion to the level of the development of the capitalist mode of production, one of the elements of the latter, and in the other, another of these elements. In one state – America – it is the capitalist class, while in Russia it is the proletariat. In no other country than America is there so much basis for speaking of the dictatorship of capital, while the militant proletariat has nowhere acquired such importance as in Russia. This importance must and undoubtedly will increase, because this country only recently began to take a part in the modern class struggle, and has only recently provided a certain amount of elbow room for it.’ Pointing out that Germany, to a certain extent, may learn its future from Russia, Kautsky continues: ‘It is indeed most extraordinary that the Russian proletariat should be showing us our future, in so far as this is expressed not in the extent of the development of capital, but in the protest of the working class. The fact that this Russia is the most backward of the large states of the capitalist world would appear’, observes Kautsky, ‘to contradict the materialist conception of history, according to which economic development is the basis of political development; but really’, he goes on to say, ‘this only contradicts the materialist conception of history as it is depicted by our opponents and critics, who regard it not as a method of investigation but merely as a ready-made stereotype.’ [3] We particularly recommend these lines to our Russian Marxists, who replace independent analysis of social relations by deductions from texts, selected to serve every occasion in life. Nobody compromises Marxism so much as these self-styled Marxists.
Thus, according to Kautsky, Russia stands on an economically low level of capitalist development, politically it has an insignificant capitalist bourgeoisie and a powerful revolutionary proletariat. This results in the fact that ‘struggle for the interests of all Russia has fallen to the lot of the only now-existing strong class in the country – the industrial proletariat. For this reason the industrial proletariat has tremendous political importance, and for this reason the struggle for the emancipation of Russia from the incubus of absolutism which is stifling it has become converted into a single combat between absolutism and the industrial proletariat, a single combat in which the peasants may render considerable support but cannot play a leading role.
Does not all this give us reason to conclude that the Russian ‘man’ will take power sooner than his ‘master’?

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There can be two forms of political optimism. We can exaggerate our strength and advantages in a revolutionary situation and undertake tasks which are not justified by the given correlation of forces. On the other hand, we may optimistically set a limit to our revolutionary tasks – beyond which, however, we shall inevitably be driven by the logic of our position.

It is possible to limit the scope of all the questions of the revolution by asserting that our revolution is bourgeois in its objective aims and therefore in its inevitable results, closing our eyes to the fact that the chief actor in this bourgeois revolution is the proletariat, which is being impelled towards power by the entire course of the revolution.
We may reassure ourselves that in the framework of a bourgeois revolution the political domination of the proletariat will only be a passing episode, forgetting that once the proletariat has taken power in its hands it will not give it up without a desperate resistance, until it is torn from its hands by armed force.
We may reassure ourselves that the social conditions of Russia are still not ripe for a socialist economy, without considering that the proletariat, on taking power, must, by the very logic of its position, inevitably be urged toward the introduction of state management of industry. The general sociological term bourgeois revolution by no means solves the politico-tactical problems, contradictions and difficulties which the mechanics of a given bourgeois revolution throw up.
Within the framework of the bourgeois revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, the objective task of which was to establish the domination of capital, the dictatorship of the sansculottes was found to be possible. This dictatorship was not simply a passing episode, it left its impress upon the entire ensuing century, and this in spite of the fact that it was very quickly shattered against the enclosing barriers of the bourgeois revolution. In the revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century, the direct objective tasks of which are also bourgeois, there emerges as a near prospect the inevitable, or at least the probable, political domination of the proletariat. The proletariat itself will see to it that this domination does not become a mere passing ‘episode’, as some realist philistines hope. But we can even now ask ourselves: is it inevitable that the proletarian dictatorship should be shattered against the barriers of the bourgeois revolution, or is it possible that in the given world-historical conditions, it may discover before it the prospect of victory on breaking through these barriers? Here we are confronted by questions of tactics: should we consciously work towards a working-class government in proportion as the development of the revolution brings this stage nearer, or must we at that moment regard political power as a misfortune which the bourgeois revolution is ready to thrust upon the workers, and which it would be better to avoid?
Ought we to apply to ourselves the words of the ‘realist’ politician Vollmar in connection with the Communards of 1871: ‘Instead of taking power they would have done better to go to sleep’ ...?

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Notes

1. Marx, Germany in 1848-50, Russ. trans., Alexeyeva edition, 1905, pp.8-9. – L.T. [i.e. Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, Ch.1; Selected Works of Karl Marx, 1942 edition, Vol.II, p.46.]

2. D. Mendeleyev, Towards the Understanding of Russia, 1906, p.99. – L.T.

3. K. Kautsky, American and Russian Workers, Russian translation, St. Petersburg 1906, pp.4 and 5. – L.T.

***“First Let’s Kill All The Lawyers”-Not

DVD Review

The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tormei, based on the novel by Michael Connelly, Liongate, 2011

Yes, I know, everybody, everybody hates lawyers including Richard III, I think, who uttered some variation of the idea, the moldy old idea of let's get rid of the lawyers and the earth will again go back to some edenic time, in William Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Hates them until old justice time comes along and everyone, including this writer, hopes to high heaven that their lawyer is up to the task of representing them zealously, and in some desperate cases more than zealously. And that combination of sentiments, that hate/love thing, is what drives this film which according to my usually reliable sources follows the Michael Connelly novel pretty closely.

Needless to say, except for the thugs, pimps, dope dealers, hellish motorcycle angels, bail bondmen, public servant grifters and grafters and a bewitching lawyer ex-wife (played by Marisa Tormei) nobody, no viewer anyway, is suppose to like the Lincoln lawyer at the outset. (Named the Lincoln lawyer, by the way, not for his ethical resemblance to Father Abraham but because he rides around in a chauffeur-driven Lincoln.) His wheeling and dealing just this side of the law is what makes him the darling of that rogue’s gallery of characters listed above (except, of course, the fetching ex-wife, and maybe her a little too) and the bane of the District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Police Department establishment.

That deft and ruthless maneuvering is what also draws him to the attention of a vicious killer of women, women of the night to use a quaint phrase, and a surefire way to commit the “perfect murder” and like so many before him said murderer thought he was scot-free as is the usual case once the Lincoln lawyer was on the case. But see, said Lincoln lawyer “got religion” along the way after he and those around him were slated to take the fall if that vicious killer (a mommy’s boy to boot) got tripped up.

So you know damn well pretty early on that our trusty Lincoln lawyer is not taking the fall and, moreover, is going to see that an actual piece of real justice occurs in the process by the freeing a framed man who was sitting in stir through his negligence (and disbelief in innocence) by seeing that that vicious killer gets his jolt up at Q. Therefore you see we had it all wrong. There is some rough justice in the world. And one had better not kill off all those lawyers if there is going to be even that amount. The twists and turns getting there, although fairly well-worn by now in movie-dom, are what make this film one to see.

***In The Matter Of The Zen Western

DVD Review

Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp, Robert Mitchum, eerily edgy music by Neil Young, Miramax 1995

Sure, I have taken plenty of shots at variations on the great American West, past and present, from Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove to The Last Picture Show from The Wild Bunch to Crazy Hearts and everything in between. As well, I have always been glad, glad as hell, to review any movie starring Johnny Depp that might come my way. So here we have the combination of Johnny Depp as, well, Johnny Depp as usual (except maybe for those seemingly endless Pirate sequels) taking on an edgy role that less talented or more timid male actors would have walked away from, way away from.

No one doubts that the old Hollywood (and dime store novel) vision of the old John Wayne "howdy, partner" American West is long gone. And with the ground-breaking work of The Wild Bunch back in the 1970s we have seen, well we have been treated to let's face it, more plausibly views of that old time West, including some pretty unsavory characters in search of fame and fortune around the edges of the great frontier before it melted at the turn of the 20th century (as per the famous land's end thesis of Professor Frederick Jackson Turner. That pasting of the frontier, of course, did not stop anybody with the least carefree spirit or who was just plain tired of the “civilized” East from heading by any way they could to the great expanses of the old-time West. And that is where William Blake (played by Johnny Depp), no not the 18th century mad man English poet visionary and supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution (although that mistake plays a part in the plot), but an accountant, for god’s sake, enters the story.

William Blake’s transformation into a man of the West complete with notches on his revolver, seemingly in slow-motion at times and all in black and white, is what drives this curious film. We have an educated “savage," Native American, savage white man bounty-hunters, a twisted rich land-owners (played by the late Robert Mitchum) and every mangy "old dog" who made it, or did not make it in the West. And every pathology known to humankind showed its face in this fierce portrayal of the West but also a very surprising positive portrayal of Native American culture and its demise with the advance of the white man. William Blake, accountant, is one of Johnny Depp’s edgier performances, no question, and if you can stay with the zen aspect of the thing a very well done performance. Not for everyone, and certainly not for those who might still be clinging to some John Wayne The Searchers idea of the West.

***The Road To…., The Corner Boys Of The 1930s

DVD Review

The Road To Perdition, starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, based on the graphic novel by Max Allan Collins, Dreamworks, 2002

I have spent a lot of time in this space writing about my corner boy experiences growing up in my old Irish and Italian ethnic mix (or not mix as occurred quite often when it was time to see who was king of the hill, who had what, who had cojones) working-class neighborhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s in a town, North Adamsville just outside Boston. I have also spent some time writing about the corner boys who just immediately preceded us in the early 1950s, our role models and advisors in the ways of the streets who learned what they knew from their corner boy forebears and so on back to Adam and Eve, maybe before, actually now that I think about it, definitely before. Pretty tame really, mainly hanging off the walls of some storefront, dreaming although we would not have dignified our thought by such an elegant term. Unless of course you were on the receiving end of a vicious beating, reason given or not, got your money stolen in some back alley ambush (got jack-rolled in the inelegant term of the time), or had your personal household possessions ransacked or stolen by some midnight shifter looking to find esy street the easy way your perspective might not be so romantic. The “corner boys,” Irish and Italian mainly, of 1930s Great Depression Chicago though, as portrayed in the film under review, The Road to Perdition, make all that other stuff seem “punk” by comparison.

Of course the motives to join a gang of lumpenproletarians in all cases were the same then, and today. That is “where the money was” to paraphrase the old-time famous bank robber, Willy Sutton. No question all those guys in the 1930s and later were (and are) from hunger, from hunger meaning they had big wanting habits at all times and under all conditions. But they were also looking for the quick dollar and the “no heavy lifting” life not associated with steady working- class factory every day values. Equally true is the fact that there are always more “hungry” guys looking ot cash in on easy street than the market can bear which leads to two things-external “turf wars” between gangs and internal turf wars over who controls what within gangs. And that is the heart of this story.

The problem for Tom Hanks, a trusted, very trusted, enforcer (read: “hit man”) for Irish mob boss Paul Newman (he of many such corner boy roles going back to Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler and before) is that Newman's psychotic son wants his share of the goodies as befits a son and heir apparent. Needless to say that things get dicey, very dicey as they maneuver to the top, including the gangland-style execution of Hanks’ family that was suppose to include a son, the narrator of the film, who is forced to help Hanks’ seek the inevitable revenge required by the situation. In the end though Tom Waits is right in the opening line from Jersey Girl- “Ain’t got no time for the corner boys, down in the streets making all that noise.” A nice cinematically-pleasing 1930s period piece and what turned out to be a great farewell performance by the late Paul Newman.

Bradley Manning Trial -Day Nine

Collateral Murder’s contents, Reuters’ FOIA request, and other evidentiary debates: trial report, day 9

digg

Today the government and defense asked the court to take judicial notice of several items, including evidence that could rebut the claim that the Collateral Murder video exposed sensitive tactics. Tomorrow we’ll resume with the government’s witnesses. See all previous courtroom reports here.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 25, 2013.

Defense lawyers Thomas Hurley (left) and David Coombs. (Sketched by Debra Van Poolen — click for source)

Bradley Manning’s ninth day of court-martial proceedings at Ft. Meade, MD, was brief, with less than two hours of oral arguments over defense and prosecution motions for judicial notice.
The defense asked the court to take judicial notice of several items, starting with Rear Admiral Donegan’s letter to the Secretary of the Army claiming that the Apache (Collateral Murder) video didn’t include Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs). This directly rebuts earlier testimony, from former Apache pilot John LaRue, who said the unclassified video did contain TTPs. Prosecutors objected, contending that Rear Adm. Donegan’s letter constituted his opinion, not fact, and that the purpose of the letter was to discuss the classification status of the video. The defense responded that regardless of the purpose of the letter in full, that portion directly contradicts testimony from government witnesses, and thus should be taken into consideration.
The government stated and then later withdrew its objections to the defense’s proffering of a transcript of the Apache video, Reuters’s FOIA request for the video and subsequent investigation, and U.S. Central Command’s response to the FOIA request.
Prosecutors asked the court to take notice of WikiLeaks’ major releases: the Iraq and Afghan war logs, the diplomatic cables, an Army counterintelligence report, the Apache video, and Guantanamo detainee assessment briefs. The defense countered that what WikiLeaks did with the documents was irrelevant to what Bradley Manning did with them. In Specification 1 of Charge 2, Bradley is accused of “wrongfully and wantonly caus[ing] to be published on the internet intelligence belonging to the United States government,” so the government contends that whether the documents were published is relevant to that element. The defense said its argument was similar to that for the “aiding the enemy” charge, for which it argued that “receipt” by the enemy was not relevant to whether the transmission had occurred. Here, lawyers said, whether WikiLeaks published the files doesn’t prove that Bradley transmitted the information or prove anything about the way it was transmitted.
Next, the government asked Judge Lind to take notice of the salaries of the military service members who created Guantanamo detainee assessment briefs and the Global Address List. They said these salaries were relevant to prove that Bradley had stolen government property that was worth more than $1,000. Defense lawyers objected, saying that the government had failed to show exactly how much time had been spent into creating those files, and that yearly salaries was insufficient to determine their work products’ monetary value.
Prosecutors moved for the court to take notice of paragraphs of Army Regulation (AR) 25-1, even though Bradley is charged with violating AR 25-2. The 25-1 paragraphs discuss government ownership of property and why it should be kept secret and to issues of authorized access, so prosecutors want Judge Lind to take them into account when ruling on 25-2 violations. The defense objected that the paragraphs weren’t relevant to the charges.
Judge Lind will rule on these items likely sometime this week, as well as on the admissibility of the WikiLeaks tweets and ‘Most Wanted Leak’ list that the government produced with Google Cache and the Internet Archive. Tomorrow, we’ll proceed with the government’s witnesses.

Out In The British 1950s Film Noir Night- The Shadow Man

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Nobody could figure out why the Lamo Kid did it, why he wasted the best friend he ever had, male or female, Delores Rios. Why in some fit of rage from what the autopsy report said he cut her up six ways to Sunday and not even some hell-bent funeral home cosmetologist could make her look beautiful again. Some, after he caught the bastard, put a sexual spin on the subject as usual when a man and woman are involved in murder. They figured the Kid maybe tried to go a little too far with Delores in that area, that sex habits wanting that will make a man, or half a man, go crazy, wanted to go beyond being friends, and she put the no go on his face. Like had happened to the Kid a million other times in his short brutish life, although the butt of some joke, and taking it, taking it year after year.

Others said he had always been unbalanced from when he was a kid and had been run over by a truck, thereafter, having been busted up something awful physically  he walked  haltingly and with no style, no breezing walk around like the other neighborhood boys and earned the name Lamo Kid for his efforts.  The newspapers had played the story of the drunken truck driver running over Master George Swanson (the Kid’s real name) for days since it was touch and go whether he would pull through or not. Thereafter from that time until this he would bother anybody who would listen, and many who would not, with the gory details of  his plight waving a copy of the yellowing threadbare Daily Telegraph with his name in it as proof. Most ignored or brushes him off as so much yesterday’s news.  

Still others, well, others, the Mayfair swells, the uptown night life crowd, the amateur sociologists, the preachers and teachers out to set an example to the young, as always as well, blamed it on the neighborhood, the dregs of East End London, blamed it on his station in life, and on the poor morals of the lower classes for whence he came. A few, well let’s forget that few, okay. Maybe we had better take a step back, a couple of steps back, to try and figure this one out because just maybe the pundits and wise guys had it all wrong, or mostly wrong about the Kid’s reasons.

The Kid, due to his disabilities, his lameness could only do the best he could. And the best he could was as a gofer and all-around handyman and fixer for Diego Cortez, the big low-end London casino owner. This casino, hardly worthy of the name when compared with Monte Carlo, or Vegas, was the poor man’s version of those more famous or elegant places. Strictly penny ante stuff for the rubes and back alley dweller. So the Kid made change, fixed things up with the cops making sure they got what they got and no more, washed floors after closing, and cleaned dishes when the regular pearl-diver was off on a three day drunk.  Oh yah, and was the close confidante of Senor Cortez. This Cortez by the way just so you know was nothing but an ex-boxer who got out of the ring before he got all his brains scrambled and invested his dough in the casino a venture which in pent-up post World War II London was like manna from heaven with both hands.

Now Cortez, being in the chips and having the wherewithal to make sure the cops got what they got and no more, was a citizen of some standing. And through Senor Diego Delores enters the picture. Diego liked his women dark, Spanish, and young, especially young as he grew older. This Delores fit the bill, fit it to a tee, except for one problem. She had roving eyes, had eyes for plenty of guys, young guys, sailors a specially, and did something about it. Old guys like Diego were strictly walking daddies, nothing more. Delores did enough about it, and not discreetly, to allow Diego to give her the toss, to brush her off without a thought, when his next best thing, a young low-rider society dame looking for kicks and looking to get out from under a burdensome husband solely interested in a trophy wife, came along.                                  

But see the Lamo Kid was also interested in Delores, had been for the first time the boss brought her around and she flashed those sparkling brown eyes at him. So when the boss had other business, or another dame on the line, the Kid‘s job was to squire Delores around, keep an eye on her. He was happy to do that since he had his own enflamed notions about her. And she was friendly enough toward him, and that was enough for him while she was the boss’ girl. Once Diego dumped her though the Kid felt he had certain rights, rights of friendship or whatever you want to call it. As it turned out Delores didn’t see it that way and belittled him, tricked him really. Then one night when Delores showed up at the casino a little drunk with some sailor the Kid flipped out at the sight. Later that night the Kid snuck up to her room in Mrs. Lamp’s rooming house and waylaid her with one of Diego’s knives. The Kid figured to let Diego take the fall; she had been his girl after all.     

Needless to say after some routine police work, and a couple of close calls for Diego, they were able to trap the Kid in a series of lies and collar him, collar him good. Had him nailed for the big step-off.  That still begs the question though about why he did it, beyond that spurned love business. That was just a small part of it, as was putting the frame on the boss. When the Kid confessed, hell, spilled his guts, laughing, he said he did it really just to get his name, his real name, like when he had had his accident as a kind and they called him by his real name then, Master George Swanson, in the newspapers. Had it on the front page like he was somebody, a swell. He had done it so finally someone would show him some respect. Go figure.