From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

Click below to link to the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty website.

http://www.mcadp.org/

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Markin comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Committee’s strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences.

***Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He wrote of small-voiced people, the people who fell between the cracks, who survived down among the bushes and the ruts, the great fellahin unwashed (or refusing to wash) who needed a voice, a literary voice to tell their prosaic tales. He wrote big balloon valentines to the small-voiced people, the invisible denizens (right word) of the cities tucked away on trash-filled back streets, suffocated by the oppressive stinks of the alley way (watch out for dead-assed hipsters shooting up, lurking jack-rollers craving just cashed paycheck pockets, sullen corner boys, ready, ready, hell, just ready to do something other than holding up that all-night drugstore wall.

Let’s be clear here he did not speak, how could he a back street city dweller himself, of the small- voiced pleasant up at dawn (his bedtime) Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world out of the heartland loams. He did not speak of the prosperous small town drugstore owners, how could he staring down those ready for hell corner boys in front of that neon-lit all night storefront, with their coca-cola-lime rickey-milk shake soda fountain filled with blossom youth and an occasional thirsty parent, closed at nine sharp. He did not speak of Miss Millie’s beauty salon, how could he when he was up against round heel street quick trick-turners, flat-out by-the-numbers whores and whiskey-bloated bar girls, where matrons and junior leaguers worked out the kinks and spread the gossip about who was, or was not, sleeping with whom.

One suspects that he could have, could have written elegant prose to titillate the romance-sated reader although in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses, their flaks already. Nor to put it bluntly was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice, the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world. All those left behind as the steely 1940s turned into the go-go 1950s

And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous crack of dawn Midwestern farmer (assuming as we must that he was not short-weighting the world), the stainless steel soda fountain gold mine drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market, to Frankie machine’s kindred), know everybody’s business Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she was not running a call girl service on the side), the grey flannel suit banker (assuming as we must that he was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the hustle-bustle newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the glad-handing politician (assuming as we must that he was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could. Some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, some to face the wreaker’s ball, some to face a police line-up (you know the drill -round up the usual suspects so the farmer-drugstore owner-beauty parlor operator-banker-editor and pol can rest easy). Others to sort of sleepwalk amble, hell stumble is more like it, along in the urban wilderness purgatory.

Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, walking ding-dong daddies, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word, needing something, something quick to get well, until the next time), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, of the down side of the be-bop night, of the night of the long knives, of the losers in the aptly named neon wilderness. One, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with a hole in his vein where junk flowed like the river, flowing endlessly, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century (20^th century okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks to take the world away (the world being outside Division Street) in that mid-century parlance.

And two, that hungry boy, Christ born hungry, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up from the back lots, the wheat fields, the Ozarks, and the bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention. I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the saga of the poor white trash, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Those who one way or another missed the boat with the tide rising.

Whoever made the observation was right, of course, as I found out after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop over to these shores from thrown out Europe (for pig-stealing, horse-stealing, maybe the genetic jack-rolling, who knows but for some sin against the proper order) are explored. The population of California after World War II, the slack savage hot rod boys in tee-shirt and jeans, eternally giving off a faint whiff of motor oil, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways; those chain-wielding, chain-smoking wandering Madonna hell’s angels; and, the sullen (oops I said that already) corner boys hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, making noise all night to prove their existence, put paid to that observation. The cutthroat world, or better cut-your- throat world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.

He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm. They had no existence in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small. They needed the anonymous rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid row flop-house, the ten- cent beer hall, the smoke-filled dank tavern, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world.

He identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, his blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, midnight police line-ups, plebeian entertainments (take your girl to the carnival, brother), sweat, a little dried blood, pock-marked veins, reefer madness (sweet dream marijuana for the unknowing , swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners, the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.

He spoke of jazz and the blues, not upfront but as a backdrop. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, absolutely no sense, and so it went.

He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. Or when the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love, sacred love, a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man gets his woman well. Hard, hard love. Not pretty, not at all. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.

To Those Who Come After- As We Approach The 12th Anniversary Of The Endless War In Afghanistan 


                                      Karl Liebknecht

Markin comment:

Every time you and I, we, get weary of rolling that big old rock up the hill, Prometheus –style, in fighting against the American imperium’s endless wars, now centrally focused on getting U.S/Allied (whatever is left in that dwindling pack) troops out of Afghanistan and its environs think about revolutionary German Social-Democrat leader (and later Spartacist leader and Communist Party founder)    Karl Liebknecht and his trials and tribulations fighting against German imperialism in the heat of World War I at a time in Germany, and not just in Germany but on all sides,  when opposition  to war could get you shot, or thrown in the bastinado for good. Very few of us today in the anti-war struggle of the past dozen years (with the exception of Private Chelsea [Bradley] Manning and precious few others) have faced that kind of decision to make a life or death statement. So every time you are standing alone, or in a small crowd, with your handmade hand-held poster, being ignored or worst laughed at remember that name, Karl Liebknecht. Oh yeah, and remember we still have a fight on our hands right now- President Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American Troops From Afghanistan .            

         
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And Always Appropriate For Those Who Have Rolled The Rock Up The Hill..

Bertolt Brecht's-

To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II

You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.

 

 

From The Marxist Archives- In Honor Of The 64th Anniversary Year Of The Chinese Revolution of 1949- Irish Independence and the English Proletariat

Markin comment (repost from 2012):

On a day when we are honoring the 63rd anniversary of the Chinese revolution of 1949 the article posted in this entry and the comment below take on added meaning. In the old days, in the days when I had broken from many of my previously held left social-democratic political views and had begun to embrace Marxism with a distinct tilt toward Trotskyism, I ran into an old revolutionary in Boston who had been deeply involved (although I did not learn the extend of that involvement until later) in the pre-World War II socialist struggles in Eastern Europe. The details of that involvement will not detain us here now but the import of what he had to impart to me about the defense of revolutionary gains has stuck with me until this day. And, moreover, is germane to the subject of this article from the pen of Leon Trotsky -the defense of the Chinese revolution and the later gains of that third revolution (1949) however currently attenuated.

This old comrade, by the circumstances of his life, had escaped that pre-war scene in fascist-wracked Europe and found himself toward the end of the 1930s in New York working with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in the period when that organization was going through intense turmoil over the question of defense of the Soviet Union. In the history of American (and international) Trotskyism this is the famous Max Shachtman-James Burnham led opposition that declared, under one theory or another, that the previously defendable Soviet Union had changed dramatically enough in the course of a few months to be no longer worth defending by revolutionaries.

What struck him from the start about this dispute was the cavalier attitude of the anti-Soviet opposition, especially among the wet-behind-the-ears youth, on the question of that defense and consequently about the role that workers states, healthy, deformed or degenerated, as we use the terms of art in our movement, as part of the greater revolutionary strategy. Needless to say most of those who abandoned defense of the Soviet Union when there was even a smidgeon of a reason to defend it left politics and peddled their wares in academia or business. Or if they remained in politics lovingly embraced the virtues of world imperialism.

That said, the current question of defense of the Chinese Revolution hinges on those same premises that animated that old Socialist Workers Party dispute. And strangely enough (or maybe not so strangely) on the question of whether China is now irrevocably on the capitalist road, or is capitalist already (despite some very un-capitalistic economic developments over the past few years), I find that many of those who oppose that position have that same cavalier attitude the old comrade warned me against back when I was first starting out. There may come a time when we, as we had to with the Soviet Union and other workers states, say that China is no longer a workers state. But today is not that day. In the meantime study the issue, read the posted article, and more importantly, defend the gains of the Chinese Revolution.
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Workers Vanguard No. 969 19 November 2010 TROTSKY LENIN Irish Independence and the English Proletariat (Quote of the Week) Writing when all of Ireland was under British rule, Karl Marx stressed that for the proletariat in England to develop its class consciousness, it must champion Irish independence. Today, the emancipation of the working class in Britain remains inextricably linked to that of the workers in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, posing the need for proletarian revolutions that establish a voluntary federation of workers republics in the British Isles. I have become more and more convinced—and the thing now is to drum this conviction into the English working class—that they will never be able to do anything decisive here in England before they separate their attitude towards Ireland quite definitely from that of the ruling classes, and not only make common cause with the Irish, but even take the initiative in dissolving the Union established in 1801, and substituting a free federal relationship for it. And this must be done not out of sympathy for Ireland, but as a demand based on the interests of the English proletariat. If not, the English people will remain bound to the leading-strings of the ruling classes, because they will be forced to make a common front with them against Ireland. Every movement of the working class in England itself is crippled by the dissension with the Irish, who form a very important section of the working class in England itself. The primary condition for emancipation here—the overthrow of the English landed oligarchy—remains unattainable, since its positions cannot be stormed here as long as it holds its strongly-entrenched outposts in Ireland. But over there, once affairs have been laid in the hands of the Irish people themselves, as soon as they have made themselves their own legislators and rulers, as soon as they have become autonomous, it will be infinitely easier there than here to abolish the landed aristocracy (to a large extent the same persons as the English landlords) since in Ireland it is not just merely an economic question, but also a national one, as the landlords there are not, as they are in England, traditional dignitaries and representatives, but the mortally-hated oppressors of the nationality.... In fact, England never has and never can rule Ireland any other way, as long as the present relationship continues—only with the most abominable reign of terror and the most reprehensible corruption. —Karl Marx, Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (29 November 1869)

 

***Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind

He wrote of small-voiced people. He wrote big time about the small-voiced people. Not the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world, the prosperous small town drugstore owners, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon (although one suspects that he could have) for in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses. Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice, the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.

And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.

Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20^th century okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up from the back lots, the wheat fields, the Ozarks, and the bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.

I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. And he or she was right , of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop from thrown out Europe are explored. The population of California after World War II, the hot rod boys speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways, those wandering hells angels, the corner boys hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, put paid to that observation. The cutthroat world, or better cut your throat world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.

He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm. They had no existence in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small. They needed the anonymous rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. He identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, his blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners, the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.

He spoke of jazz and the blues, not upfront but as a backdrop. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, absolutely no sense, and so it went.

He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.

***Frankie Riley Holds Forth- On The Aches And Pains Of Aging -With Jim Cullen, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, And All Other AARP-Worthy Brethren In Mind

"Do not go gentle..

...into that good night." First line of Dylan Thomas' poem of the same name.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT- Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Frankie Riley here. Ya, I know its been a while since you have heard from me and I have seen or heard from most of you. Now some of you know, know full well, that back in North Adamsville days I could, well, you know “stretch” the truth. Stretch it pretty far when I was in a fix, or one of my corner boys like my right-hand man Peter Paul Markin up at our old "up the Downs" haunt, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, needed some outlandish excuse to get right. And fellow women classmates and some other women non-classmates as well know I would outright lie, lie like the devil in church or out, to get, well, “close” to you. Hope you forgive me about the lying, not about the trying to get close to you part. But that is all water of over the dam or under the bridge, take your choose. Today I am a new man, a truth-teller, or trying to be, except of course when I am practicing my profession as a lawyer. Then the truth might just be as elusive as it was when I was making up excuses for my corner boys or, if you were a woman, trying to “feel” you up. But enough of that as I am not here to speak of my repentance or about me at all, as hard as that might be to believe, but of the hard fact of age, ya, that creeping up thing that just kind of snuck up on us. So I am here to say just one thing- “won’t you take my word from me” like the old blues singer used to sing when he had the miseries. Listen up.

I am, once again, on my high horse today like I used to be when I had the bee in my bonnet on some subject in the old days. I have heard enough, in fact more than enough, whining from fellow AARP-worthies that I have been in contact with lately and others of my contemporaries from the "Generation of '68” about the aches and pains of becoming “ a certain age.” If I hear one more story about a knee, hip, heart, or, maybe, brain replacement or other transformative surgery I will go screaming into that good night. The same goes for descriptions of the CVS-worthy litany of the contents of an average graying medicine cabinet. Or the high cost of meds.

If I am not mistaken, and from what that old gossipy Markin has told me, many of you fully imbibed in all the excesses of our generation from crazed-out drug overkill to wacky sexual exploits that need not be mentioned in detail here (although I would not mind hearing of a few exploits strictly in confidence, attorney-client type confidence, of course), and everything else in between. Admit it. So come on now, after a lifetime of booze, dope, and wild times what did you expect? For those of us who have not lived right, lo these many years, the chickens have come home to roost. But I have a cure. Make that THE cure.

No I am not, at this late date, selling the virtues of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran or any of a thousand and one religious cures we are daily bombarded with. You knew, or at least I hope you knew, I wasn't going to go that route. That question, in any case, is each individual's prerogative and I have no need to interfere there. Nor am I going to go on and on about the wonders of liposuction, botox, chin lifts, buttocks tuckers, stomach flatteners and the like. Damn, have we come to that? And I certainly do not want to inflame the air with talk of existentialism or some other secular philosophies that tell you to accept your fate with your head down. You knew that, as well. No, I am here to give the "glad tidings," unadorned. Simply put- two words-graham crackers. No, do not reach for the reading glasses, your eyes do not deceive you- graham crackers is what I said.

Hear me out on this. I am no "snake oil" salesman, nor do I have stock in Nabisco (moreover their products are not "true" graham). So, please do not start jabbering to me about how faddish that diet was- in about 1830. I know that it has been around a while. And please do not start carping about how wasn't this healthful substance "magic elixir," or some such, that Ralph Waldo Emerson and his transcendentalist proteges praised to high heaven back in Brook Farm days. Well, I frankly admit, as with any such movement, some of those guys went over the top, especially that wacky Bronson Alcott. Irresponsible zealots are always with us. Please, please do not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Doctor Graham simply insisted that what our dietary intake consisted of was important and that a generous amount of graham flour in the system was good for us. Moreover, in order to avoid some of the mistakes of the earlier movement, in the age of the Internet we can now Google to find an almost infinite variety of uses and helpful recipes. Admit it, right now your head is swirling thinking about how nice it would be to have a few crackers and a nice cold glass of milk (fat-free or 1%, of course). Admit also; you loved those graham crumb-crusted pies your grandmother used to make. The old chocolate pudding-filled ones were my favorite. Lime was a close second. Enough said.

Here is the closer, as they say. If people have been mistaking you for your father's brother or mother's sister lately then this is your salvation. So scurry down to your local Whole Foods or other natural food store and begin to fight your way back to health. Let me finish with this personal testimonial. I used to regularly be compared in appearance to George Bush, Sr. Now I am being asked whether Brad Pitts is my twin brother. Or is it Robert Redford? .....Oh well, that too is part of the aging process. Like I say-“won’t you take my word from me.” Get to it.
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To “jump start” you here is a little recipe I culled from my own Google of the Internet.

Graham Crackers Recipe
November 10, 2004
I'm nostalgic about graham crackers because they remind me of my Grandma Mac. Her full name is Maxine McMurry and she is now 90 years old. She lived just a short drive from our house (when my sister and I were kids) and we would tag along after soccer games when my dad would go by on Saturdays to check up on her, trim hedges, wash cars, or do any handyman work she needed. Heather and I didn't mind at all because she had a huge driveway that was flat as a pancake and smooth as an frozen pond -- perfect for roller skating. This was in striking contrast to our house that was on a steep hill which made skating perilous at best.

Grandma Mac always had snacks and treats for us when we arrived. She had a beautiful cookie jar in the shape of a big red apple which was always filled with oatmeal raisin cookies (I admittedly picked out all the raisins). Around the holidays she would fill old See's candy boxes with with perfect cubes of chocolate fudge, and if we were really lucky she would have a plate full of sweet, graham cracker sandwich cookies in the refrigerator. It was a pretty simple concept, but I've never had it since. She would take cream cheese frosting and slather it between two graham crackers and then let it set up in the fridge. I couldn't get enough.
So I thought of her when I saw this recipe for homemade graham crackers from Nancy Silverton's pastry book. I've cooked a few other winners from Nancy's books in the past; the Classic Grilled Cheese with Marinated Onions and Whole Grain Mustard, and Spiced Caramel Corn, and have quite a few more tagged for the future.

Most people think graham crackers come from the box. Period. But making homemade versions of traditional store-bought staples is worth the effort if you have some extra time or enthusiasm -- in part because the homemade versions always taste better, but also because people LOVE seeing and tasting homemade versions of foods they have only tasted out of a store-bought bag or box. I've done marshmallows and hamburger buns in the past, as well - both a lot of fun.

As far as Nancy Silverton's take on graham crackers goes - this recipe was flawless. I didn't even have to make a special trip to the store because I had every ingredient in my pantry - flour, brown sugar, honey, butter. The dough was easy to work with, and the best part of the whole thing is that the cookies actually taste exactly like graham crackers. They are delicious. I included a recipe for the cream cheese frosting in case you want to make sandwich cookies out of your homemade crackers.

Graham Cracker Recipe
2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
7 tablespoons (3 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes and frozen
1/3 cup mild-flavored honey, such as clover
5 tablespoons whole milk
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
For the topping:
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade or in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse or mix on low to incorporate. Add the butter and pulse on and off on and off, or mix on low, until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse meal.

In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, milk, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture and pulse on and off a few times or mix on low until the dough barely comes together. It will be very soft and sticky.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

To prepare the topping: In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon, and set aside.

Divide the dough in half and return one half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of flour onto the work surface and roll the dough into a long rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. The dough will be sticky, so flour as necessary. Trim the edges of the rectangle to 4 inches wide. Working with the shorter side of the rectangle parallel to the work surface, cut the strip every 4 1/2 inches to make 4 crackers. Gather the scraps together and set aside. Place the crackers on one or two parchment-lined baking sheets and sprinkle with the topping. Chill until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes. Repeat with the second batch of dough.

Adjust the oven rack to the upper and lower positions and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Gather the scraps together into a ball, chill until firm, and reroll. Dust the surface with more flour and roll out the dough to get about two or three more crackers.

Mark a vertical line down the middle of each cracker, being careful not to cut through the dough. Using a toothpick or skewer, prick the dough to form two dotted rows about 1/2 inch for each side of the dividing line.

Bake for 25 minutes, until browned and slightly firm to the tough, rotating the sheets halfway through to ensure even baking.

Yield: 10 large crackers

From Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery (Villard, 2000)

Cream Cheese Frosting1
8-ounce package of cream cheese
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups of powdered sugar, sifted

Beat the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until creamy. Mix in the cream cheese and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla extract and when fully incorporated add the powdered sugar. Mix until smooth and creamy. Place in the refrigerator for an hour before using.

from Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery - reprinted with permission

***The Once And Future King- “The King’s Speech”-A Film Review

The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, Helen Bonham Carter, directed by Tom Hooper, 2010
No question Mr. Darcy (oops) Colin Firth deserved every accolade, including the coveted Oscar, for his performance as the stammering King George VI (the current monarch’s father). Anyone from king to kid (including this writer) who has had even a passing acquaintance with stammering can relate to the story line here, and the sheer talent necessary for an actor to convincingly produce such a realistic portrayal (especially that climatic pep talk speech to the empire). And hats off to Geoffrey Rush as the unorthodox tutor who sees the king through his travails. However, at the end of the day and as the good king himself was painfully aware, good republican that I am I was left with the gnawing feeling that the monarchy (and the monarch) portrayed add nothing to our accumulated historical experience. Old Oliver Cromwell and his boys had it right in 1649-and it hasn’t been right since 1660.

***Writer's Corner-The Rough And Tumble of American Post-Revolutionary Politics-Gore Vidal's "Aaron Burr"

BOOK REVIEW

Aaron Burr, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1978

This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal’s’ output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value).

Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible. That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the old bourgeois historical novelist, Norman Mailer nemesis and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics are somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period (I don’t think he ever got over being related to Jacqueline Kennedy) he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.

Vidal, as is his style, combines fictional characters with the makings and doings of real characters. In Burr we once again meet Charles Schuyler the narrator/protagonist of his novel 1876. There he was a world weary old journalist seeking politically to get back to his pleasant long time voluntary exile in France after the dust of the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune and the establishment of the Third Republic had settled down. This return was projected by way of a sinecure in the American Embassy courtesy of a victorious Samuel Tilden in that controversial 1876 presidential race against Rutherford B. Hayes. In the present novel Charles is just beginning his career as a writer in the mid-1830’s while also in the throes of becoming a lawyer in ante bellum New York. But he apprenticed, as was the norm in those days, not with just any lawyer but the controversial American historical figure- an aged Aaron Burr- successful lawyer, Revolutionary war soldier, ladies’ man, leading Republican politician, political foe and physical killer of Federalist political leader Alexander Hamilton, putative emperor of the Western American frontier (via Mexico) and almost President of the United States in the hot-disputed presidential election of 1800 (the famous tie with Jefferson).

Vidal lashes the action together here by having Charles commit, as a partisan political act, to writing Burr’s memoirs in order to get Burr’s side of the story about the various controversies that swirled around his life. As a subplot, and something of a ruse, the need for this information is alleged to be necessary to help (or hinder) the efforts of President Andrew Jackson’s then Vice President, the Red Fox of Kinderhook, Martin Van Buren by clearing up the relationship (possible fatherhood) between Burr and Van Buren. Whether Van Buren, the wily leader of the Albany Regency and premier political operative in his own right, needed such help from the outside is a separate question but it allows Schuyler (through access to Burr’ papers, mementos and personal remembrances) to present us with a broad and interesting look at the first fifty years or so of the American Republic.

Vidal has mentioned in connection with this series of historical novels that he has produced over the years (some six in all, I believe) that part of the interest for him was to provide, while hewing as close the historical record as possible, through his characters some motive for the actions that they did (or didn’t take) under the pressure of particular events. That approach is generally frowned upon in the academy. Thus, while this particular novelistic approach to Burr’s life is not an apologia it nevertheless gives Vidal’s’ interpretation of what he thinks Burr’s motives were from the historical record. Since Burr is something of a murky, shadowy character in the annuls of early American republican history (especially as most people know of him mainly through his deadly duel with Alexander Hamilton) even this novelistic opening up of his side of the story accrues to his benefit.

And what is Burr’s side of the story? Aside from the self-proclaimed bravado of his claim, in the end, to be as pure as the driven snow in his ultimate motivation in defense of the American republican interest and to have been the “last true patriot” his story belies some of that image. Along the way Burr (Vidal) takes the traditional potshots that, until recently, most historians of the period had to take at George Washington’s leadership of the military forces against the British in the Revolution and his essentially regal reign as first President of the United States. He also highlights the long term rivalry between himself and the previously mentioned Hamilton as the competing class interests (mercantile/agrarian/urban plebeian) of the early Republic got encapsulated into political factions- the Federalist/ Republican controversy that in various guises continue until this day.

Needless to say Burr rips into the Adams presidency, especially the Adams policy toward the French under the Directory and Napoleon that put the country on the cusp of war. A bit surprisingly he also tears apart that “paragon” of democratic virtue Thomas Jefferson- the man who defeated him during the odd-ball presidential election of 1800 that was held under the bizarre and severely undemocratic) old constitutional rules (They were amended, although no more democratically. Some things do not change). Along the way he takes other potshots as Washington and Jefferson’s fellow Virginia presidents Madison and Monroe (not all of them so far off the mark). Finally we get Burr’s take on his duel with Hamilton, his role in the infamous Western expedition that lead to his trial (and acquittal)on treason charges and his rather puzzling positive take on the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

Okay, so here is your prescription for dealing with this period of history and of the Honorable Mr. Burr. Read Vidal’s little book (well, maybe not so little at over five hundred pages). Then go and get some books on the period to read about these other figures. I have addressed the question of Martin Van Buren elsewhere in this space in his political biography by Richard Remini and that of Andrew Jackson (Arthur Schlesinger Jr, of course) as well as John Adams (David McCullough). Read on.

***Honor The 79th Anniversary Of The Toledo Auto-Lite General Strike

Commentary

This year marks the 79th Anniversary of three great labor struggles that ended in victory in heart of the Great Depression(the 1930s version of what we, at least partially, confront today); the great General Strike in San Francisco that was led by the dockers and sailor unions and brought victory on the key issue of the union hiring hall (since then greatly emasculated); the great Minneapolis Teamster strikes that led to the unionization of truck drivers and allied workers in that labor-hating town and later to the organizing of over-the-road drivers that created one of the strongest (if corrupt) unions in North America; and, the Toledo Auto-Lite Strike whose key component was leadership by the unemployed workers. Does all of this sound familiar? Yes and no. Yes, to labor militants who, looking to a way out of the impasse of the condition of today's quiescent labor movement, have studied these labor actions. No, to the vast majority of workers who are either not organized or are clueless about their history. In either case, though, these actions provide a thread to how we must struggle in the future. Although 75 years seems like a long time ago the issues posed then have not gone away. Far from it. Study this labor history now to be ready to struggle when we get our openings.

*****
Guest Commentary

Toledo Auto-Lite Strike

Below is a speech given by Ted Selander on June 3, 1984 at an anniversary celebration of the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite strike. Selander was a participant in the historic strike, the leadership of which shortly afterwards joined the Trotskyist movement. This article is reprinted from the March 1986 issue of Socialist Action newspaper. An expanded version appeared in the July 1984 issues.

Brothers and sisters, the key to an understanding of the magnificent Auto-Lite strike in 1934 is that it was a strike won on the picket line by a community uprising. I repeat: on the picket line by a community uprising.

Toledo was in the grip of a tremendous popular upsurge of anger at the greedy bosses who have to give their wage slaves a few cents more in their pay.

This was 1934 B.T. – B.T. meaning before television. As a matter of fact, it was before all the social gains when we fought for and won in the ‘30s – before unemployment pay, before food stamps, before social security, before the CIO, and before Medicare, etc.

After four years of depression, the Toledo workers were in an angry mood because of the bank failures, the idle factories, the over-stocked granaries, and the 15 million unemployed. For four years we had poverty in the midst of plenty. Even the establishment was losing confidence in themselves and their system.

Rank and file muzzled

I don’t think (as James P. Cannon once pointed out) there was any real difference between the Toledo Auto-Lite strikers and the workers involved in many of the lost strikes in the United States at that time. In practically every strike, the rank and file always displayed courage. The difference was in the leadership and their strategy and tactics. In nearly every strike the militancy of the rank and file was muzzled, many times snuffed out from the top.

The leaders are tricked by the courts, the labor boards, the mediators, the government, and the media to shift the fight from the picket line to the court and conference room. But all the while, the company keeps hiring scabs to take the strikers’ jobs.

In the Auto-Lite strike, the company was hiring scabs by the hundreds and claimed they now had 1800 workers. We understood what was happening. We knew that the strike was dying and doomed. Only some bold, dramatic action could revive it, and even then it would have to be followed up with plenty of action and support to give the company an all-out fight. And nothing short of an all-out fight would do.

As you probably know, we wrote a public letter to Judge Stuart telling him that we were going to violate his anti-labor injunction and call for mass picketing. By mass picketing we didn’t mean a few hundred, we meant thousands. Could we get thousands down to that picket line? Well, that was the $64 question.

We had spent the previous year organizing what some qualified observer said was the largest and most militant unemployed organization in the country – the Lucas County Unemployed League. We had held meetings and spoke in every section of the city and in the townships; organized countless marches, demonstrations, sit-ins; stopped evictions; won cash relief with a relief strike; and had held many, many other actions.

Because of this vast experience, we felt sure that we knew the temper of the Toledo workers. We felt we had a good chance to be the fuse that could ignite a spirit of solidarity with the Auto-Lite strikers to get union recognition and perhaps even win the first union contract in the auto plants of Toledo.

Workers violate injunction

On the first day that we violated the injunction, our mass picket line consisted of four individuals. That’s right – just four. We were arrested, jailed, convicted and let out on bail and warned not to return to the picket line. But we told the judge that we were going back. And we did – picking up some 50 pickets on the way.

After that, there were a series of arrests, each one with a greater amount of pickets – first 46, then 108, and in between many smaller numbers. Every time we went back from the courts and jail, the picket lines kept growing steadily until on May 23 there were 10,000 reported on the street in front of the plant.

Now when you have a mass picket line of thousands, it enables you to counter the company’s offensive moves. For example, they brought out a high-pressure hose and turned a stream of water on us. But it didn’t take very long for a couple of hundred pickets to take the hose away and turn the water on them.

Many times the police and deputies brutally clubbed the pickets; but before they could shove them into a patrol wagon enough pickets rushed in and grabbed the pickets away and often gave the cops a taste of their own clubs.

You know that every good union has two educational committees: one to arrange lectures of all kinds and the other to educate scabs who won’t attend classes.

Half the employees at the Auto-Lite were women who were among the very best strikers we had. A couple of days after the National Guard came in, the women grabbed a scab, took him into an alley, and stripped every bit of clothing off of him except his tie and shoes. Then they marched him, naked as a jaybird, up and down the downtown streets.

Next day the papers carried a large picture of him on the front page, but they had their artist broaden and lengthen the tie to hid the family jewels. You can bet that picture discouraged a lot of scabs, but it got a big round of applause from the unionists in Ohio.

Strikers fight National Guard

The Auto-Lite strikers battled first the police, then the company guards and deputies, and finally the National Guard. The first day the Guard came in they fired without warning at the unarmed strikers, killing two and wounding 25.

After those murders, the enraged strikers fought the guard for six days and nights – returning again and again to face tear gas and vomit gas, bayonet charges, and even rifle fire.

During the lulls in the battle, we stood on boxes educating the guardsmen about the issues in the strike and how they were being used against the workers. By the way, the casualties were not all one-sided. The hospitals were patching up not only strikers but police, deputies, and the National Guardsmen.

On June 4, the company surrendered and signed on the dotted line a union contract giving the strikers priority on jobs, a 5-percent wage increase, and other concessions; agreed to withdraw all court charges and to pay all court costs. The logjam in Toledo had finally been broken, and 19 auto plants were organized before the year ended. The road was cleared to make Toledo a union town.

As a participant in the Auto-Lite strike of 1934, I appreciate this opportunity to join with you in this 50th anniversary celebration. It is a credit to all of you who organized this anniversary to keep alive the memory of labor’s untapped strength as demonstrated in the Auto-Lite strike and all the other battles which prove that in unions we are strong.

Below is the letter that the Auto-Lite strikers sent to Judge R.R. Stuart to inform him of their intention to violate his injunctions against picketing.

May 5, 1934

His Honor Judge Stuart
County Court House
Toledo, Ohio

Honorable Judge Stuart:

On Monday morning May 7, at the Auto-Lite plant, the Lucas County Unemployed League, in protest of the injunction issued by your court, will deliberately and specifically violate the injunction enjoining us from sympathetically picketing peacefully in support of the striking Auto Workers Federal Union.

We sincerely believe that this court intervention, preventing us from picketing, is an abrogation of our democratic rights, contrary to our constitutional liberties and contravenes the spirit and the letter of Section 7a of the NRA.

Further, we believe that the spirit and intent of this arbitrary injunction is another specific example of an organized movement to curtail the rights of all workers to organize, strike and picket effectively.

Therefore, with full knowledge of the principles involved and the possible consequences, we openly and publicly violate an injunction which, in our opinion, is a suppressive and oppressive act against all workers.

Sincerely yours,

Lucas County Unemployed League
Anti-Injunction Committee
Sam Pollock, Sec'y

***"Red" Writer's Corner- Howard Fast -The Way They Were- An American Communist Party Cadre's  Story Of The 1950s Red Scare

BOOK REVIEW

BEING RED, HOWARD FAST, M.E. SHAPE, NEW YORK, 1994

I have always been intrigued by the American Communist Party’s ability up until the period of the “red scare” of the late 1940’s and the 1950’s to draw to itself and recruit a relatively large number of free-lance intellectuals and cultural workers. Whether the party could keep them once recruited and how effective they were are separate questions. Nevertheless, if one draws up a Who’s Who of those members of the American intelligentsia who passed through the party’s orbit during the first half of the 20th century one would find numbers far greater than would be indicated by the party’s actual influence in American politics. The novelist Howard Fast in his memoir of his decade long membership in the American Communist Party is highly representative of that trend. Or, at least of the those in that trend who could rationally explain their experience in the Party without either foaming at the mouth or running to the nearest government law enforcement agency.

The tale Mr. Fast has to tell about his trek to the party is informative and, except for the utterly extreme poverty of his childhood and the early loss of his mother, not atypical of the urban children of immigrants in general and New York Jewish youth in particular who came of age between World War I and II and joined the party. The key events that drove many into the party’s orbit were the Depression, the rise of Nazism in Europe and the hope that Soviet Union could provide a model for a socialist future. Those events also drove many youth into the Social Democratic and Trotskyist movements during this period as well.

What is interesting to me about Mr. Fast’s story is that he joined the party at the tail end of the Communist Party’s Popular Front period (excepts a short hiatus for the support of Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939-41, oops). That period was exemplified by Party Chairman Earl Browder’s declaration that “Communism is 20th century Americanism” and Mr. Fast and those recruited during the period really believed that this was the road to socialism. In short, the belief that some form of parliamentary road to socialism was possible. Unfortunately for them, Browder and those recruits including Mr. Fast got caught between the hammer of the American ruling class’s Cold War strategy and the Soviet’s “left” turn to seeming anti-capitalist militancy in the immediate post-World War II period that for a long time effectively ended the harmonious relationships provided during the Popular Front period.

Mr. Fast is somewhat exceptional in that rather than quietly leaving the party, selling out to the government or selling out his friends to the government as many did during the “red scare” he dug in his heels, stuck it out and did his duty. That is to his credit. The curious thing about this honorable position is that from what this reviewer was able to read between the lines of his book Mr. Fast seems instinctively much closer to a Social Democratic or pacifist view of the world than a Communist view of the world during this period. But such are the vagaries of the human personality.

As Mr. Fast unfolds his story he has many reminiscences to relate concerning the background to events such as the confusion in the party during the last part of World War II about the nature of the post-war period, the “red scare” as seen down at the local level by those who lacked adequate resources to defend themselves, the ominous beginnings of the Cold War, the start of the Korean War, and the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as "atomic spies". Some of the information presented here I knew previously but much is new and interesting. One should be glad that an old ex-Stalinist decided to write about his experiences. Maybe future generations can learn from those mistakes made by the American Stalinists but at the same time also take courage from the courage of such political opponents as Mr. Fast who stood up to government repression while others, too many others, ducked. Read on.

 

***The Rich Are Really No Different From You and Me-Right?

DVD REVIEW

My Man Godfrey, Criterion Collections, 2001

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously is reputed to have said that the very rich are different from you and I. Well, hell we knew that. Nevertheless the premise of this little 1930’s class comedy seeks to turn that proposition on its head, at least partially. William Powell as 1930’s down and out hobo (although in reality just another scion of a rich family looking to find himself and his place in the world during the Great Depression) is singled out to be a reclamation project (as the family butler, of course) for the Mayfair swells, a society family of crazies.

In the process that family learns some lessons about how the other half lives and about the universal proposition that it is nice to be nice in the world. Especially a class conscious, ruling class conscious that is, daughter who is the foil for old Godfrey's antics. Add a little off-hand romance by Powell with a batty younger daughter played by Carol Lombard and all’s well that ends well. Except, as I recall during the later part of the 1930’s, the period when this 'slice of life' film was produced there were little things like the Little Steel Strike Massacre, the sit-downs in order to organize the automobile industry in Michigan and myriad other actions to ‘level the playing field’ with the rich. But, my friends, that is another story.

William Powell, although always identified in my mind as the 'society' detective Nick Charles (with his lovely Nora, played by Myrna Loy, and the ever-present Asta)plays it straight here. Carol Lombard is, well, Carol Lombard a fine comedic actress. So suspend your disbelief and take this funny look at the class struggle for what it is worth.

***Studs Terkel's Busted Dreams of Working America

BOOK REVIEWS

American Dreams: Lost and Found, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of American Dreams: Lost And Found serves a dual purpose.

First, to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1980 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008): the recent arrivals to these shores hungry to seek the “streets of gold”; those Native Americans, as exemplified in Vince DeLoria’s story, whose ancestors precede our own and who continue to bring up the rear; those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South and, in some cases, found more in common than in difference; and, others who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill. Secondly, always hovering in the background is one of Studs’ preoccupations- the fate of his generation- ‘so-called “greatest generation”. Those stories, as told here, are certainly a mixed bag. Thus, there is no little irony in the title of this oral history.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.