AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government18 Jul 2013http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA 17 Jul 2013 The Obama administration has won the latest battle in their fight to indefinitely detain US citizens and foreigners suspected of being affiliated with terrorists under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely. These assurances, however, were not enough to keep a group of journalists and human rights activists from filing a federal lawsuit last year, which contested the constitutionality of Section 1021, the particular provision that provides for such broad power. On Wednesday this week, an appeals court in New York ruled in favor of the government and once again allowed the White House to legally indefinitely detain persons that fit in the category of enemy combatants or merely provide them with support. [Oops! MSNBC 'forgot' to cover this one. Yes, 'I Really Hated Bush But Obama Is Actually Worse.']

DHS warns employees not to read leaked NSA information --The US Government may penalize workers for opening a Washington Post article. [Just wow. The fascism is breathtaking. Interesting to note, I see the CIA, DHS, and DIA in the CLG website logs, so I hope they're penalizing *themselves.*] 15 Jul 2013 The Department of Homeland Security has warned its employees that the government may penalize them for opening a Washington Post article containing a classified slide that shows how the National Security Agency eavesdrops on international communications. An internal memo from DHS headquarters told workers on Friday that viewing the document from an "unclassified government workstation" could lead to administrative or legal action. "You may be violating your non-disclosure agreement in which you sign that you will protect classified national security information," the communication said. The memo said workers who view the article through an unclassified workstation should report the incident as a "classified data spillage." [LOL!]

Snowden fears if he returned to United States, he could face torture or the death penalty - lawyer --Moscow experts said that his fears, whatever their merit, could support his bid. --Leaker files for asylum to remain in Russia 17 Jul 2013 Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor on the run from the American authorities, on Tuesday formally requested temporary asylum in Russia, submitting an application that seemed aimed at insulating President Vladimir V. Putin from United States pressure and blame. Mr. Snowden said he feared that if returned to the United States he could face torture or the death penalty, according to a Russian lawyer who helped prepare the documents. At the same time, by seeking temporary -- not political -- asylum, Mr. Snowden is pursuing the easiest path possible under Russian law, technically requiring only an administrative decision by the Russian Federal Migration Service rather than Mr. Putin’s personal approval. If the Migration Service grants his request, Mr. Snowden will be able to live and work in Russia for one year, with the possibility of renewing his status for another year.

Greenwald: Snowden doesn't want to be 'put in a cage' like Manning 17 Jul 2013 On 'NOW with Alex Wagner' Wednesday, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald explained why Edward Snowden had chosen to flee the U.S. and seek refuge in countries with questionable human rights records, saying the intelligence analyst didn't want to "end up in a cage like Bradley Manning." Manning--currently on trial for leaking government documents to WikiLeaks--was held for eight months at a Marine corps base in Quantico, VA, in conditions that the United Nations special rapporteur on torture called "seriously punitive." "He’s going there [other countries] because as Daniel Ellsberg said in a Washington Post Op-Ed, this country is no longer safe for whistle-blowers," Greenwald said.

Snowden's Contingency: 'Dead Man's Switch' Borrows From Cold War, WikiLeaks 16 Jul 2013 The strategy employed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to discourage a CIA hit job has been likened to a tactic employed by the U.S. and Russian governments during the Cold War. Snowden, a former systems administrator for the National Security Agency in Hawaii, took thousands of documents from the agency's networks before fleeing to Hong Kong in late May, where he passed them to Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras... But Snowden also reportedly passed encrypted copies of his cache to a number of third parties who have a non-journalistic mission: If Snowden should suffer a mysterious, fatal accident, these parties will find themselves in possession of the decryption key, and they can publish the documents to the world.

Edward Snowden seeks temporary asylum in Russia --Lawyer for NSA whistleblower submits asylum request to Russia's federal migration service 16 Jul 2013 National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has submitted a request for temporary asylum in Russia, his lawyer has said. Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer who is a member of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory body, said that Snowden submitted the asylum request to Russia's federal migration service. Kucherena told the Associated Press that he met Snowden in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and Snowden made the request after the meeting.

Snowden applies for Russia asylum 16 Jul 2013 Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden applied Tuesday for temporary asylum in Russia, ending three weeks of uncertainty after he arrived from Hong Kong to escape the clutches of US justice [sic]. The United States, which wants to put Snowden on trial for revealing sensational details of its spying operations, rubbished any notion that fugitive was a "dissident" and said he should be sent back home to face his charges. Snowden made the application from the transit zone of state-controlled Sheremetyevo airport where he has been stuck for the last three weeks.

At Guantanamo Bay, genital searches can continue, judge says 17 Jul 2013 The Obama administration wants to continue conducting searches of the genital areas of detainees prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, deeming them essential to the security of the facility, so Wednesday it appealed a ruling of a federal judge who called the practice "religiously and culturally abhorrent." U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth last week ordered guards at Guantanamo Bay to stop using their hands to conduct groin searches and to revert to an earlier method of shaking detainees' pants to dislodge any contraband. But in a declaration to the appeals court seeking a stay of Lamberth's ruling, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who leads the U.S. Southern Command, essentially rebuked the chief judge and said he considers "prohibiting the search of the areas between detainees' waists and knees" an" unacceptable risk to the military personnel under my command." The appeals court granted the stay Wednesday.

NSA Joke: US Military Intervene over Facebook Event 16 Jul 2013 As a joke, a German man recently invited some friends for a walk around a top secret NSA facility. But the Facebook invitation soon had German federal police knocking at his door. They had been alerted by the American authorities. Daniel Bangert, 28, wanted to liven up his Facebook page with something a bit more amusing -- and decided to focus on the scandal surrounding the vast Internet surveillance perpetrated by the US intelligence service NSA. He invited his friends on an excursion to the top secret US facility known as the Dagger Complex in Griesheim, where Bangert is from... Just four days after he posted the invitation, his mobile phone rang at 7:17 a.m. It was the police calling to talk about his Facebook post. Bangert's doorbell rang at almost the exact same time. The police on the telephone told him to talk with the officers outside of his door.

License Plate Readers Track You for Profit 17 Jul 2013 As license plate readers proliferate, law enforcement and private business are pooling surveillance data in light of conflicting guidelines on how long they may retain the data, which often is marketed for profit, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report, "You Are Being Tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used to Record Americans' Movements," paints, for the first time, a broad, Orwellian picture of an often overlooked and growing feature of the surveillance -- one funded, in part, by $50 million in federal grants to local governments during the past five years. Nationwide, the authorities and even private enterprise maintain a trove of locational data on citizens' movements, according to the report.

$2.6m US military drone crashes next to Florida highway shortly after take-off [*Sweet!*]17 Jul 2013 A United States military drone crashed near a Florida highway on Wednesday morning, then went up in flames and reportedly started a ground fire. Highway 98 in the Florida Panhandle highway was closed west of Panama City and east of Mexico Beach after the QF-4 drone, belonging to the nearby Tyndall Air Force Base, crashed during takeoff around 8:20 a.m. No one was injured.

FBI bars Florida from releasing autopsy report in shooting of Todashev, friend of Marathon bombing suspect --FBI and Massachusetts State Police sought Todashev after Marathon bombings, but have refused to release details of shooting 16 Jul 2013 A Florida medical examiner's office said Tuesday that the FBI has ordered the office not to release its autopsy report of a Chechen man fatally shot by a Boston FBI agent in May because of the federal agency's active internal investigation into cover-up of his death. The medical examiner's office said it completed the autopsy report on Ibragim Todashev, a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber, on July 8 and that the report was "ready for release." The agent shot and killed Todashev on May 22 in his Orlando apartment during an interrogation related to the Boston Marathon bombings. The FBI and the Justice Department are conducting an internal inquiry into the shooting, but critics have called for an independent inquiry, questioning the blanket of secrecy surrounding the case.

Gag me with a chainsaw: President Obama eyes NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security --President Obama told Univision that he'd consider hiring Ray Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security if he wanted to make the jump from the NYPD 16 Jul 2013 President Obama says he'd consider hiring NYPD Commissioner [Raymond Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security. In an interview Tuesday with the New York affiliate of Spanish-language network Univision, Obama called Kelly "one of the best there is" in law enforcement.

Texas: Radiation Leak Detected 17 Jul 2013 Investigators have detected radiation in a former nuclear weapons bunker at Fort Bliss and are trying to determine if anyone may have been contaminated, officials said Tuesday. Post leaders said an investigation that began about two months ago revealed low levels of radiation in the igloo-like bunker that was used by the Air Force for assembly and storage of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and '60s. The area was transferred to the Army in 1966.

Army probes radiation exposure at Fort Bliss 16 Jul 2013 Army investigators have detected radiation at a former nuclear weapons bunker at Fort Bliss and they're determining whether people on the West Texas post have been exposed, officials said Tuesday. Post leaders said contaminated residue was buried in the 1950s and 1960s, when the base was operated by the Air Force. ...Officials launched an investigation. They found levels of radiation in a bunker at Biggs Army Airfield that, along with other bunkers nearby, is used to store rifles and other weaponry.

H7N9 Bird Flu May Be Developing Drug Resistance 16 Jul 2013 Some strains of the H7N9 bird flu in China are becoming resistant to the only antiviral drugs doctors have left to treat the infection, a new study suggests. The study, which examined the viruses in a single person infected with H7N9, found that a portion of the H7N9 viruses lurking inside the person were resistant to the antiviral drugs oseltamivir (marketed as Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza). About 35 percent of the viruses were resistant to these drugs, while 65 percent were sensitive, the researchers said.

Report: George Zimmerman May Have to Face Molestation Charges 15 Jul 2013 A woman allegedly related to George Zimmerman and his family told investigators that members of Zimmerman's family were boastfully proud racists and that Zimmerman sexually molested her for several years. "It started when I was six," the woman told investigators in 2012. A number of news sources have reported that the woman is a relative of the Zimmerman family, though her exact relationship to Zimmerman was redacted from the interview recording.

14 arrested after Zimmerman verdict protest in L.A. turns violent 16 Jul 2013 Los Angeles police arrested 14 people overnight for failing to disperse after hundreds of protesters splintered off a peaceful demonstration in the Crenshaw district and began stomping cars and breaking windows. About 350 Los Angeles Police Department officers swarmed the Crenshaw district after groups of youths broke away from the demonstration protesting the George Zimmerman murder trial verdict. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck put the public on notice that officers would be taking a more aggressive posture toward protesters beginning Tuesday. "This will not be allowed to continue," he said. [Then the LAPD should stop being violent. The corrupt, violent state that allows Trayvon Martin-style shootings brainwashes the corrupt, violent media which in turn brainwashes the people to *never* resort to violence as a tactic --and, therefore, perpetuates what the state does. See how it works? That way, nothing ever changes. --LRP]

Police vow crackdown after Zimmerman protests flare in L.A., Oakland 16 Jul 2013 As two major California cities spent Tuesday morning assessing damage and tallying arrests from violent protests the night before, officials asked for peaceful behavior -- but promised a crackdown should the demonstrations escalate again. ...The demonstrations in Oakland and Los Angeles morphed into more aggressive outbursts, with marauders [aka LAPD agents provocateur] running through city streets -- smashing windows, lighting garbage fires, assaulting news crews and, in one case, attacking a waiter trying to protect a restaurant damaged two nights prior.

AG Holder: Stand-your-ground laws can 'sow dangerous conflict' in nation's neighborhoods 16 Jul 2013 Stand-your-ground laws that allow a person who believes he is in danger to use deadly force in self-defense "sow dangerous conflict" and need to be reassessed, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday in assailing the statutes that exist in many states. Holder said he was concerned about the Trayvon Martin slaying case in which Florida's stand-your-ground law played a part. But he added: "Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods."

Zimmerman trial juror scraps book plan 17 Jul 2013 One of the six women jurors who cleared George Zimmerman of murdering unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida has scrapped plans to write a book about the trial. The woman, identified only as juror B-37, said she had been shielded from the depth of public "pain" about the racially charged case during her isolation on the jury. After seeing the public mood since Zimmerman's acquittal - which has triggered angry protests across the United States - she had decided not to go ahead with the memoir, the juror said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mega barf alert! Liz Cheney to challenge Enzi for GOP Senate nomination 16 Jul 2013 Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney, will challenge veteran Sen. Mike Enzi in a blockbuster battle for the Republican Senate nomination in Wyoming next year. Cheney will wage a primary bid against Enzi, who was first elected in 1996 and is the 11th-most senior Republican in the Senate. She announced her intention to run in a web video released Tuesday afternoon by her campaign. Cheney has been active in Republican politics as a supporter of her father's, and as an official in the State Department under President [sic] George W. Bush.

House Votes to Delay Two Requirements of the Health Care Overhaul 17 Jul 2013 Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Wednesday passed bills delaying two crucial parts of his health care overhaul insurance cartel giveaway that require most Americans to have insurance and many employers to offer it. Republicans said it was unfair for Mr. Obama to delay enforcement of the employer mandate without granting similar relief to individuals, who may face tax penalties if they go without health insurance next year. Both requirements were scheduled to take effect in January. But the White House announced this month that it would delay the employer mandate to 2015 because of business concerns about the complexity of the requirements.

Republicans win demand for different Dem nominees for National Labor Relations Board --DemocRATs surrender to their GOP/Wall Street overlords, as *always* 16 Jul 2013 The Senate dodged a constitutional showdown Tuesday with a bipartisan pact to confirm several nominees to run agencies overseeing Wall Street and labor relations, stopping the Democratic effort to change filibuster rules on a party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the key GOP negotiator, announced the deal minutes before a scheduled vote on President Obama's choice to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, paving the way for acting director Richard Cordray's full confirmation to lead the new agency. Republicans won their demand for different Democratic nominees for the National Labor Relations Board but gave assurances of a speedy confirmation that would make the board fully operational by next month.

Senate reaches tentative deal to end filibuster standoff 16 Jul 2013 Senators have reached a tentative agreement that will avoid a Democratic move to change Senate rules and eliminate the power of a minority to block action on executive branch nominations, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Tuesday. "It is a compromise. I think we get what we want and they get what they want. Not a bad deal," Reid said in a brief speech on the Senate floor, shortly before the first of seven votes he had scheduled on long-delayed presidential nominations that were designed to force the issue.

Reward increases for info in turtle beating 06 Jul 2013 (WI) Authorities are still looking for suspects in the death of a snapping turtle found bludgeoned on a Delevan golf course last month. And a reward for information in the case is now more than $10,000. The Janseville Gazette reports that authorities believe someone attacked the female snapping turtle with a golf club on June 10. The turtle later died at a wildlife rehabilitation center.

'No dog should die alone': Photographer promotes senior pet adoption 17 Jul 2013 Photographer Lori Fusaro is lavishing affection on the most recent addition to her family, a sweet-natured 17-year-old dog named Sunny... Fusaro decided to launch a photography project called "Silver Hearts" to show how much senior pets have to offer. "My hope is to inspire people to not overlook the old ones," Fusaro said. While doing volunteer photography work to help animals get adopted from jam-packed shelters in Los Angeles, Fusaro grew increasingly alarmed by how many senior dogs were languishing because no one wanted them. And when she learned that many pet owners surrender their dogs near the end of the animals' lives, she was appalled.

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Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government18 Jul 2013http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

*****

CLG needs your support.

http://www.legitgov.org/donate.html

Or, please mail a check or money order to CLG: Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG)
P.O. Box 1142
Bristol, CT 06011-1142
Contributions to CLG are not tax deductible.

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 when many others were resigned to accepting the lies of that administration or who “folded” their tents when the expected end to the Iraq War did not materialize. Hats off on that one, Cindy Sheehan.

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-In Honor Of The Frontline Defenders Of The Working Class!-Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up!”

An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The International Working Class Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off Syria! U.S. Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people! Quality Free Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

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

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

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

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Markin comment:

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

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Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up Lyrics

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Preacher man, don't tell me,

Heaven is under the earth.

I know you don't know

What life is really worth.

It's not all that glitters is gold;

'Alf the story has never been told:

So now you see the light, eh!

Stand up for your rights. come on!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Most people think,

Great god will come from the skies,

Take away everything

And make everybody feel high.

But if you know what life is worth,

You will look for yours on earth:

And now you see the light,

You stand up for your rights. jah!

Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )

Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )

Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )

Don't give up the fight! (life is your right! )

Get up, stand up! (so we can't give up the fight! )

Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )

Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )

Don't give up the fight! (yeah! )

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -

Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.

We know when we understand:

Almighty god is a living man.

You can fool some people sometimes,

But you can't fool all the people all the time.

So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),

We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )

So you better:

Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )

Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )

Get up, stand up!

Don't give up the fight! (don't give it up, don't give it up! )

Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )

Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )

Get up, stand up! (... )

Don't give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )

Get up, stand up! (... )

Stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up!

Don't give up the fight! /fadeout/

Out In The 1950s Film Noir Night- The Twisted Sister-With Night Editor In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Tim Corcoran, Detective Timothy Corcoran to the assorted scumbags and low-lifes that he had to deal with most of the time on the Homicide Squad, really should have known better, should have known, should have DNA-etched known, that she was poison, that no good could come of what they had together. Jesus, he had the sweetest set-up, the damn sweetest set-up with a straight as an arrow pretty little brunette of a wife, Lorna, and a growing boy, Benji, all decked out in a nice ranch house with a garden. Then she, Georgia Palmer, Mrs. Paul Palmer to give her full name and to give a prime reason for why he should have known better, blonde, all blonde poison, although he had had known such poisons to come in brunette and red hair, came along and fouled everything up for him. Put him right behind the eight ball, or maybe the whole rack.

Funny, Lorna, if she had known about Georgia, known for sure since he suspected that she suspected about his affair with her well before the other shoe dropped, would have had had the whole thing scoped out for him. She would have made him see that Georgia, married, married to a rich guy, a stockbroker, that Paul Palmer that had given Georgia her full married name, was poison, was some femme fatale out of the 1940s film noir stuff Lorna was addicted to when they went to a show. Hell, their first date was at the Bijou where they saw Lana Turner and John Garfield in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice where Lana, all blonde and dressed to kill in white, led poor hobo tramp John down the garden path to perdition. Yah, Laura would have had had a cinematic doctoral dissertation field day with Tim’s sins, his easy rider adultery.

And, funny too, Tim was sure that would come back on Lorna and say that Lana was from nowhere, was scratching her way to the top anyway she could, over anybody she could and John just got in the way. Not like Georgia, not like Georgia at all who came from money, married money, and so did lots of things for kicks, kicks and just for the hell of it. He, Timothy Corcoran, a guy born on the wrong side of the tracks, way on the wrong side of the tracks, who just flat- out like the attention when Georgia gave him her best come hither come-on. He was one of her kicks, her jones she called it. Then, all kidding aside, he finally knew what it meant in a story that he had read in the library one time back in the 1930s when he just a snot-nosed kid, a story in the Saturday Evening Post by Scotty Fitzgerald, about how they, the rich, were different from you and me. Damn, Lorna, would have another field day, another doctor’s degree with that one. But what was a guy to do when a woman, a woman not his wife, had her wanting habits on, just had to get her kicks, and maybe too he was looking for something more than a future with a quiet retirement and that foolish garden.

As he thought that last thought, that last candid thought, Tim’s mind reeled back to that time a couple of years ago when it all started, all officially started anyway. Things had been slow, mercifully slow in Homicide and so he and his partner, Jake, had been assigned to help out in an investigation of a high-end sophisticated robbery spree of the swells over in the exclusive Pine Point neighborhood. That’s when she first appeared on his horizon. Georgia and her husband had been the latest victims of the spree. Nothing came of that, the stuff stolen, mostly jewelry and some expensive, very expensive, silverware and that would have been that. Then one night Georgia showed up at his local watering hole, the place where a lot of Frisco cops hung their hats after work, The Bluelight Lounge over on Market Street across from the station. She showed up all come hither looking for him. And he liked what he saw, liked it a lot.

That “chance” meeting started the madness, started the road downhill. He made up every excuse in the book, and some not in the book, to Lorna, to the captain, to Jake, to be with Georgia, to be with her if only for a few hours. The thing was taking its toll though, he looked like hell, and everybody, everybody on the force, and even some newspaper guys, and they usually don’t find out stuff until a few days after it happens, noticed that his work ethic was getting a punching-bag workout. Something had to give but it didn’t seem like there was any way out.

Then the real madness started, the part where he was hooked, hooked bad, all twisted up with nowhere to go. Nowhere except to follow that perfume scent, that expensive gardenia something, of hers all the way to the end. Tim had been a cop, a good cop for fifteen years, ten in Homicide and before Georgia got her tender hooks into him he was the “go to” guy, the last guy standing guy in the department. One night though that all went up in smoke, or it might as well have. They, he and she, decided to drive to the ocean, over the other side of the bridge toward Daly City, to take some of the sudden sultry city heat off their shoulders for a while. While there, while in a little lovers’ lane parking area they, he and she, witnessed a guy in a convertible come by, park and the guy waylaid the girl he had come into the spot with. They, he and she, froze for just that one minute one minute too long, worrying about the ramifications of what would happen if they did anything, anything to disturb their little love nest. The guy got away, got away with their blessing.

Wouldn’t you know it though Tim, Tim the “go to” guy in the recent past was assigned to the case, assigned to find that damn assaulter, that guy who attempted to murder that poor girl in the car. Tim and Georgia just left her there after seeing that she was still alive, they didn’t even call the cops to get her some help. Yah, no good could, or should, have come of their inaction.

And it didn’t, as things started to crumble right away. First, the girl, Ellen Sargent, after several days, recovered enough to identify her assailant, at least with a description since she had just picked him up at an Embarcadero, and didn’t know much about him, except he was cute. (Tim thought “real cute” when he heard that). She also said that she had noticed a car, a heap she called it, parked down the lane from her car before the lights went out on her. Then it turned out that Georgia knew the victim, knew her from the tramp high society circuit where the women get their kicks from one night stands and then rolled over the next morning with hubby, the rich hubby who foots the bills. Jesus, Tim knew Georgia had a strange way to get her kicks but he didn’t know they were all like that. To complicate matter more Georgia also knew the assailant a, friend of her husband’s, Lloyd Little, a guy from old money who had his own ways to get kicks. The more Tim found out though, the more he realized what a fool he had been, although he had no intention, none, of turning his new found information over to anybody, any coppers.

That didn’t stop him from getting his ears boxed though. See Jake had the whole thing scoped out once he knew the Georgia connection to the victim and the assailant. He gave Tim a chance, no, several chances to square himself but Tim could not see it that way. Once Jake was able to quiz Ellen about that other car and check the tire tracks left in the hard sand he was convinced Tim was implicated. Tim was going down, going down with the ship he decided to go down with. Lloyd was picked up, grilled, and started singing, singing like a bird, about that car with passengers that didn’t a damn thing while he throttled Ellen. So the whole lot of them went downtown, including one ex-cop named Tim, Timothy Corcoran to the scumbags and lowlifes he dealt with, or had dealt with.

And what happened to our crowd of criminals? Well, Lloyd got one year’s probation and a chance to see a shrink about his violent outburst. Georgia, ah, Mrs. Paul Palmer, walked, walked on an obstruction of justice charge when dear Paul pulled every connection he had to keep her out of the slammer, and that was that. Well, almost, Lorna, was still trying to decide whether her love for Tim was greater than his betrayal. And she has time, a couple of years, to make that decision. See Detective, oops, ex-Detective, Tim Corcoran is doing a deuce in the San Francisco House of Corrections on his own obstruction of justice charge. Yah, he should have known, DNA-known she was poison.

Out in the 1940s Crime Noir Night –Raymond Chandler’s The High Window

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Book Review

The High Window, Raymond Chandler, Vintage Crime Books, New York, 1942

Yah, like the man said one time the rich are different from you and me. They try , try very hard, to not let anything untoward come into their radar dust on the furniture to murder to mayhem if that what turns out to be the case when they go off the deep end. They just let the hired help pick up the mess and sort things out the best they, the help, can. And if you were trying to keep murder and mayhem away from your door in the 1940s night and if you resided in the precincts of Southern California around Los Angeles , L.A, the city of angels (and angles) then Raymond Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe was your man. And the reason that he was your man was because he fixed up your messes, fixed it up with bandages if he had to but he fixed them, and they stayed fixed until or unless you strayed from the reservation again.

So, yah, if you needed a man you could trust, needed a guy who worked the both the seamy side and the high side and didn’t miss a beat, needed a guy who didn’t mind taking a punch or two, a slug or two, for good of the cause, needed a guy who for his own private reasons chased after windmills then old Marlowe was your man. Your man at twenty-five a day and expenses. Cheap at any price. Just ask the Murdocks in the tale in The High Window reviewed here, although like a lot of stuff with the rich (and maybe not just the rich) they probably have forgotten how close they came to perdition.

See the Brasher Doubloon was missing, a rare old coin, from the late Mr. Murdock’s collection. So dear rich inebriated (for her asthmatic condition, okay) old, to be kind, bitch Mrs. Murdock sent for one Philip Marlowe to find the damn thing. Find it on the cheap and quietly, if possible. Problem was that the prime suspect in the theft was her beloved doted on pampered son who was into a local mobster for some serious gambling debt dough. But well before that hard fact was established some people who got in the way would up dead, very dead, for their efforts. Part of the body pile-up was due to the greed of a number of people trying to make imitation copies of the coin, part of the pile-up was due to knowing too much about the operation and part was just people getting in the way for no good reason, what would be now called collateral damage.

Needless to say Old Marlowe gets to the bottom of the whole thing, takes his usual fair share of lumps, takes his fair share of abuses from the cops when he tries, as he always does, to protect, rightly or wrongly, his client, and takes his fair share of abuse from his dear client along the way. As a bonus he also plays Sir Galahad to the rescue to Mrs. Murdock’s secretary, a frail high strung young woman who was made the patsy for Mrs. Murdock’s murder of her first husband out that high window of the title. All for twenty-five a day. Yah, the rich are different from you and me.

Oh, about Raymond Chandler, about the guy who wrote the book. Like I said in another review he, along with Brother Dashiell Hammett, turned those dreary gentile drawing room sleuths who dominated the reading market way back in the day on its head and gave us tough guy blood and guts detectives we could admire, could get behind, warts and all. Thanks, guys.

In Chandler’s case he drew strength from his seemingly starling use of language to describe Marlowe’s environment much in the way a detective would use his heightened powers of observation during an investigation, missing nothing. Marlowe was able to size up, let’s say, a sizzling blonde, as a statuesque, full-bodied and ravishing dame and then pick her apart as nothing but a low-rent gold-digger. Of course that never stopped him from taking a run at one or two of them himself and then sending them off into the night, or to the clink, to fend for themselves. He also knew how to blow off a small time chiseler, a grifter, as so much flamboyance and hot air not neglecting to notice that said grifter had moisture above his upper lip indicating that he stood in fear of something if only his shadow as he attempted to pull some caper, or tried to pull the wool over Marlowe’s eyes.

The list of descriptions goes on and on -sullen bartenders wiping a random whisky glass, flighty chorus girls arm in arm with wrong gee gangsters, Hollywood starlet wannabes displaying their wares a little too openly , old time geezers, toothless, melting away in some thankless no account job, guys working out of small-time airless no front cheap jack offices in rundown building s on the wrong side of town doing, well, doing the best they can. And cops, good cops, bad cops, all with that cop air about them of seen it all, done it all, blasé, and by the way spill your guts before the billy- club comes down (that spill your guts thing a trait that our Marlowe seems organically incapable of having). He had come from them, from the D.A.s office in the old days, had worked with them on plenty of cases but generally he tried to treat them like one might a snake not quite sure whether it is poisonous or not.

At the same time Chandler was a master of setting the details of the space Marlowe had to work in- the high hill mansions and the back alley rooming houses (although usually not the burgeoning ranchero middle class locales since apparently that segment of society has not need of his services and therefore no need of a description of their endless sameness and faux gentility). He has a fix on the museum-like quality of the big houses, the places like General Sternwood’s in The Big Sleep or Mrs. Murdock’s in The High Window reflecting old wealth California. And he has a razor sharp sense of the arrivisite, the new blood all splash and glitter, all high- ceiling bungalow, swimming pools, and landscaped gardens.

But where Chandler made his mark was in his descriptions of the gentile seedy places, the mansions of old time Bunker Hill turned to rooming houses with that faint smell of urine, that strong smell of liquor, that loud noise that comes with people living too close together, too close to breath their simple dreams. Or the descriptions of the back alley offices in the rundown buildings that had seen better days populated by the failed dentists, the sly repo men, the penny ante insurance brokers, the con artists, the flotsam and jetsam of the losers in the great American West night just trying to hang on from rent payment to rent payment. Those denizens of these quarters usually had a walk on role, or wound up with two slugs to the head, but Chandler knew the type, had the type down solid.

Nor was Chandler above putting a little social commentary in Marlowe’s mouth. Reflections on such topics as that very real change after World War II in the kind of swarms that were heading west to populate the American Western shore night. The rise of the corner boys hanging, just hanging, around blasted storefronts, a few breaking off into the cranked up hot rod hell’s highway night. The restless mobsters for broken back East looking to bake out in the southern California sun while taking over the vast crime markets. The wannabe starlets ready to settle for less than stardom for the right price. The old California money (the gold rush, gold coast, golden era money) befuddled by the all new waves coming in. And above all a strong sense of the rootlessness, the living in the moment, the grabbing while the grabbing was good mentality that offended old Marlowe’s honor code.

And of course over a series of books Chandler expanded the Marlowe character, expanded his range of emotions, detailed his growing world-weariness, his growing wariness, his small compromises with that code of honor that he honed back in the 1930s . Yes, Marlowe the loner, the avenging angel , the righter of wrongs, maybe little wrongs but wrongs in this wicked old world. The guy who sometimes had to dig deep sometimes in his office desk drawer to grab a shot of whiskey to help him think things through. Marlowe the guy of a thousand punches, the guy of a hundred knocks on the head, the guy who had taken a more than one slug for the cause, the guy who was every insurance company’s nightmare and a guy who could have used some Obamacare health insurance no questions asked . Yah, Marlowe.

From the Archives of Marxism-V.I. Lenin on the State

Workers Vanguard No. 893	25 May 2007

From the Archives of Marxism-V.I. Lenin on the State

The question of the class nature of the state is a decisive dividing line between revolutionary Marxists and reformists. The understanding that the capitalist state—which at its core consists of the cops, military, prison system and courts—is the instrument for organized violence to ensure bourgeois rule over the proletariat, and that it must be smashed through socialist revolution, is elementary to Marxism. We reprint below key passages on the state from Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin’s The State and Revolution (1917)—written shortly before the October Revolution—and The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918) as well as the “Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” drafted by Lenin and adopted by the founding congress of the Communist International in March 1919.

In these works, Lenin defends the Marxist understanding of the state against Social Democratic leaders, particularly Karl Kautsky, who obfuscated and falsified Marxism in the service of parliamentary reformism. Stripping bourgeois democracy of its class character—i.e., portraying the capitalist state as representing the interests of the classless “people”—inevitably leads to political support to the capitalist class and bourgeois nationalism. The German Social Democracy graphically demonstrated this when, except for a revolutionary minority, the party supported its “own” bourgeoisie during the interimperialist First World War of 1914-18.

In his writings on the state, Lenin draws upon key works, such as Friedrich Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) and Marx’s writings on the 1871 Paris Commune. After France under the regime of Napoleon III was defeated by Prussia in 1870, a right-wing government was formed, acquiring a “democratic” sanction through the electoral support of the mass of peasant petty proprietors, then the majority of the populace. When that government sent the army into Paris to disarm the predominantly working-class National Guard, the proletarian forces drove out the army. This led to the formation of the Commune, which governed the city for nearly three months before the army crushed it, slaughtering over 20,000 people. Marx and Engels described the Commune as the first historical expression of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

* * *

Engels elucidates the concept of the “power” which is called the state, a power which arose from society but places itself above it and alienates itself more and more from it. What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command….

A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power. But how can it be otherwise?...

Civilised society is split into antagonistic, and, moreover, irreconcilably antagonistic, classes, whose “self-acting” arming would lead to an armed struggle between them. A state arises, a special power is created, special bodies of armed men, and every revolution, by destroying the state apparatus, clearly shows us how the ruling class strives to restore the special bodies of armed men which serve it, and how the oppressed class strives to create a new organisation of this kind, capable of serving the exploited instead of the exploiters….

The state is a special organisation of force: it is an organisation of violence for the suppression of some class. What class must the proletariat suppress? Naturally, only the exploiting class, i.e., the bourgeoisie. The working people need the state only to suppress the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can direct this suppression, can carry it out. For the proletariat is the only class that is consistently revolutionary, the only class that can unite all the working and exploited people in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, in completely removing it….

The petty-bourgeois democrats, those sham socialists who replaced the class struggle by dreams of class harmony, even pictured the socialist transformation in a dreamy fashion—not as the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting class, but as the peaceful submission of the minority to the majority which has become aware of its aims. This petty-bourgeois utopia, which is inseparable from the idea of the state being above classes, led in practice to the betrayal of the interests of the working classes, as was shown, for example, by the history of the French revolutions of 1848 and 1871, and by the experience of “socialist” participation in bourgeois Cabinets in Britain, France, Italy and other countries at the turn of the century….

The essence of Marx’s theory of the state has been mastered only by those who realise that the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for every class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from “classless society,” from communism. Bourgeois states are most varied in form, but their essence is the same: all these states, whatever their form, in the final analysis are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to communism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat….

To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament—this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics….

From this capitalist democracy—that is inevitably narrow and stealthily pushes aside the poor, and is therefore hypocritical and false through and through—forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly, towards “greater and greater democracy,” as the liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists would have us believe. No, forward development, i.e., development towards communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do otherwise, for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way.

And the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists.

—The State and Revolution

* * *

Marxists have always maintained that the more developed, the “purer” democracy is, the more naked, acute, and merciless the class struggle becomes, and the “purer” the capitalist oppression and bourgeois dictatorship. The Dreyfus case in republican France, the massacre of strikers by hired bands armed by the capitalists in the free and democratic American republic—these and thousands of similar facts illustrate the truth which the bourgeoisie is vainly seeking to conceal, namely, that actually terror and bourgeois dictatorship prevail in the most democratic of republics and are openly displayed every time the exploiters think the power of capital is being shaken.

The imperialist war of 1914-18 conclusively revealed even to backward workers the true nature of bourgeois democracy, even in the freest republics, as being a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Tens of millions were killed for the sake of enriching the German or the British group of millionaires and multimillionaires, and bourgeois military dictatorships were established in the freest republics.

—“Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”

* * *

The only “correction” Marx thought it necessary to make to the Communist Manifesto he made on the basis of the revolutionary experience of the Paris Communards.

The last preface to the new German edition of the Communist Manifesto, signed by both its authors, is dated June 24, 1872. In this preface the authors, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, say that the programme of the Communist Manifesto “has in some details become out-of-date,” and they go on to say:

“...One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes’....”

...Marx’s idea is that the working class must break up, smash the “ready-made state machinery,” and not confine itself merely to laying hold of it.

—The State and Revolution

* * *

“We,” the revolutionary Marxists, never made speeches to the people that the Kautskyites of all nations love to make, cringing before the bourgeoisie, adapting themselves to the bourgeois parliamentary system, keeping silent about the bourgeois character of modern democracy and demanding only its extension, only that it be carried to its logical conclusion.

“We” said to the bourgeoisie: You, exploiters and hypocrites, talk about democracy, while at every step you erect thousands of barriers to prevent the oppressed people from taking part in politics. We take you at your word and, in the interests of these people, demand the extension of your bourgeois democracy in order to prepare the people for revolution for the purpose of overthrowing you, the exploiters. And if you exploiters attempt to offer resistance to our proletarian revolution we shall ruthlessly suppress you; we shall deprive you of all rights; more than that, we shall not give you any bread, for in our proletarian republic the exploiters will have no rights, they will be deprived of fire and water, for we are socialists in real earnest, and not in the Scheidemann or Kautsky fashion.

—The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

* * *

Only the soviet organization of the state can really effect the immediate breakup and total destruction of the old, i.e., bourgeois, bureaucratic and judicial machinery, which has been, and has inevitably had to be, retained under capitalism even in the most democratic republics, and which is, in actual fact, the greatest obstacle to the practical implementation of democracy for the workers and the working people generally. The Paris Commune took the first epoch-making step along this path. The soviet system has taken the second.

—“Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”

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From the Archives of Marxism-V.I. Lenin on the State

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