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
Friday, June 13, 2014
As The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Approaches ... Some Remembrances-
Rosa Luxemburg, The Rose Of The Revolution, Peace Utopias(1911)
The events leading up to World War I from the massive
military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in
Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of
the world’s resources to the supposedly eternal pledges by the Social-Democrats
and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the
international working-class to stop those parties in their tracks at the
approach of war were decisive for 20th century history. The ability
to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first
portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial
might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20th
century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow
exponentially with each new turn in the war machine.
The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon
fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for
the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out
by the norms of the last war. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race
to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried
to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain
a big hold in the Asia seas. The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking
havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological
innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look
back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice
rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead
to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much,
or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began among all those “civilized”
nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would
not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international
conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement
which in theory was committed to stopping the madness. A few voices were raised
and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.
Over the next period as we lead up to the 100th
anniversary of the start of World War I and beyond I will under this headline
post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in
order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle
against its outbreak before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive
struggles in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the
battlefields.
********
Teddy Martin had come from a long line of workers, some of
his forbears had been among the first domestic weavers in Spitalfield, the
first machine-tenders in Manchester and had been workers like him and his
father in the London shipbuilding trade. He knew deep in his blood there was an
“us” and “them” in the world without his party, the Labor Party, having to tell
him word one on the subject. He had even read Karl Marx in his early teens when
he was trying to figure out why his family was stuck in the faraway outer
tenements with their squalor and their human closeness (he never could get over
being in close quarters ever since then). So yes he was ready to listen to what
some left members of the party had to say if the war clouds on the horizon
turned any darker. But, and hear him true, his was like his forbears and his
father before him as loyal a man as to be found in the country. Loyal to his
king (queen too if it came to that) and his country. So he would have to think,
think carefully, about what to do if those nasty Huns and their craven allies
making loud noises of late threatened his way of life. Most of his mates to the
extent that they had any opinion were beginning to be swept up in the idea that
a little war might not be such a bad thing to settle some long smoldering
disputes. Still he, Teddy Martin, was not a man to be rushed and so he would
think, think hard, about what to do if there was a mass mobilization.
********
The German Social-Democratic Party had given Fritz Klein
everything. Had taken him from a small furniture-making factory(less than one
hundred employees constituting in those days small) where he led the fight for
unionization (against all odds for that woefully unorganized industry and
against the then still standing laws against unionization pressed by the state
as well as well as the outlaw status of the S-D Party in those pre-legal days)
and brought him along into the burgeoning party bureaucracy (boasting of this
number of party publications, that number of members, and the pinnacle the
votes attained for the growing number of party parliamentarians in the
Reichstag). Made him a local then regional shop steward agent. Later found him
a spot in the party publications department and from there to alternate member
of the party’s national committee. As he grew older, got married, had two
lovely children the party had severely sapped the youthful idealism out of him.
Still he was stirred whenever Karl Liebknecht, old Wilhelm’s son, the father whom
he knew from the old days, delivered one of his intellectual and rational
attacks against the war aims of the Kaiser and his cabal. Still too though he
worried, worried to perdition, that the British and, especially the French were
deliberately stepping on German toes. Although tired, endlessly tired, he hoped
that he would be able to stick to the Second International’s pledge made at
Basle in 1912 to do everything to stop war in case it came, as was now likely.
He just didn’t know how he would react, didn’t know at all.
********
Jacques Rous (and yes he traced his family roots back to the
revolution, back to the “red” priest who he was named after who had led some of
the plebeian struggles back then that were defeated by those damn moderate
cutthroats Robespierre and Saint Just) had long been a leader the anarchist
delegation in his Parisian district, had been in a few fights in his time with
the damn city bourgeoisie, and had a long, very long memory of what the Germans
had, and not done, in Paris in ’71,in the time of the bloodedly suppressed
Commune. Also Jacques had long memories of his long past forbears who had come
from Alsace-Lorraine now in German hands. And it galled him, galled him that
there were war clouds gathering daily over his head, over his district and over
his beloved Paris.
But that was not what
was troubling Jacques Rous in the spring of 1914. He knew, knew deep in his
bones like a lot of his fellow anarchists, like a lot of the guys in the small
pottery factory he had worked in for the past several years after being laid
off from the big textile factory across the river that if war came they would
know what to do. Quatrain from the CGT (the large trade union organization to
which he and others in the factory belonged to) had clued them in, had told
them enough to know some surprises were headed the government’s way if they
decided to use the youth of the neighborhoods as cannon fodder. What bothered
Jacques was not his conduct but that of his son, Jacques too named in honor of
that same ancient red priest who was the lifeblood of the family. Young Jacques
something of a dandy like many youth in those days, something of a lady’s man
(he had reportedly a married mistress and somebody else on the side), had told
one and all (although not his father directly) who would listen one night that
he planned to enlist in the Grenadiers just as soon as it looked like trouble
was coming. Old Jacques wondered if other fathers were standing in fear of such
rash actions by their sons just then.
*******
George Jenkins dreamed the dream of many young men out in
the heartland, out in the wheat fields of Kansas a dream that America, his
America would keep the hell out of what looked like war clouds coming from
Europe in the spring of 1914 (although dreams and dreamers were located not
just on the farms since George was not a Kansas farm boy but a rising young
clerk in Doc Dell’s Drugstore located in the college town of Lawrence). George
was keenly interested in such matters and would, while on break or when things
were slow, glance through the day later copy of the New York Times or Washington
Post that Doc provided for his more worldly customers via the passing
trains. What really kept George informed though was William White’s home grown Emporia Gazette which kept a close eye
on the situation in Europe for the folks.
And with all of that information here is what George
Jenkins, American citizen, concluded: America had its own problems best tended
to by keeping out of foreign entanglements except when America’s direct
interests were threatened. So George naturally cast skeptical eyes on
Washington, on President Wilson, despite his protestations that European
affairs were not our business. George had small town ideas about people minding
their own business. See also George had voted for Eugene V. Debs himself, the
Socialist party candidate for President, and while he was somewhat skeptical
about some of the Socialist Party leaders back East he truly believed that Brother
Debs would help keep us out of war.
********
Ivan Smirnov was no kid, had been around the block a few
times in this war business. Had been in the Russian fleet that got its ass
kicked by the Japanese in 1904 (he never called them “Nips” like lots of his
crewmates did not after that beating they took that did not have to happen if
the damn Czar’s naval officers had been anything but lackeys and anything but
overconfident that they could beat the Johnny-come-lately Japanese in the naval
war game). More importantly he had been in the Baltic fleet when the revolution
of 1905 came thundering over their heads and each man, each sailor, each
officer had to choice sides. He had gone with rebels and while he did not face
the fate of his comrades on the Potemkin
his naval career was over.
Just as well Ivan had thought many times since he was then able
to come ashore and get work on the docks through some connections, and think.
And what he was thinking in the spring of 1914 with some ominous war clouds in
the air that that unfinished task from 1905 was going to come to a head. Ivan
knew enough about the state of the navy, and more importantly, the army to know
that without some quick decisive military action the monarchy was finished and
good riddance. The hard part, the extremely hard part, was to get those future
peasant conscripts who would provide cannon fodder for the Czar’s ill-thought
out land adventures to listen up for a minute rather than go unknowingly
head-long into the Czar’s arm (the father’s arms for many of them). So there
was plenty of work to do. Ivan just that moment was glad that he was not a
kid.
*********Rosa Luxemburg, The Rose Of The Revolution, Peace Utopias
(1911)
First Published: Leipziger Volkzeitung, May 6 and 8, 1911.
Source: This work was reprinted in a shorter form in Die Internationale, January 1926. A translation of the latter piece was made in The Labour Monthly, July 1926, pp.421-428, from which this version is taken. We earnestly would like to print the full copy, instead of this abstract version, which is the best we’ve been able to find hitherto.
Translated: (from the German) ?
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins.
Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
Source: This work was reprinted in a shorter form in Die Internationale, January 1926. A translation of the latter piece was made in The Labour Monthly, July 1926, pp.421-428, from which this version is taken. We earnestly would like to print the full copy, instead of this abstract version, which is the best we’ve been able to find hitherto.
Translated: (from the German) ?
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins.
Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
WHAT is our task in the question of peace? It does not consist merely in vigorously demonstrating at all times the love of peace of the Social Democrats; but first and foremost our task is to make clear to the masses of people the nature of militarism and sharply and clearly to bring out the differences in principle between the standpoint of the Social Democrats and that of the bourgeois peace enthusiasts.
Wherein does this difference lie? Certainly not merely in the fact that the bourgeois apostles of peace are relying on the influence of fine words, while we do not depend on words alone. Our very points of departure are diametrically opposed: the friends of peace in bourgeois circles believe that world peace and disarmament can be realised within the frame-work of the present social order, whereas we, who base ourselves on the materialistic conception of history and on scientific socialism, are convinced that militarism can only be abolished from the world with the destruction of the capitalist class state. From this follows the mutual opposition of our tactics in propagating the idea of peace. The bourgeois friends of peace are endeavouring – and from their point of view this is perfectly logical and explicable – to invent all sorts of “practical” projects for gradually restraining militarism, and are naturally inclined to consider every outward apparent sign of a tendency toward peace as the genuine article, to take every expression of the ruling diplomacy in this vein at its word, to exaggerate it into a basis for earnest activity. The Social Democrats, on the other hand, must consider it their duty in this matter, just as in all matters of social criticism, to expose the bourgeois attempts to restrain militarism as pitiful half-measures, and the expressions of such sentiments on the part of the governing circles as diplomatic make-believe, and to oppose the bourgeois claims and pretences with the ruthless analysis of capitalist reality.From this same standpoint the tasks of the Social Democrats with regard to the declarations of the kind made by the British Government can only be to show up the idea of a partial limitation of armaments, in all its impracticability, as a half-measure, and to endeavour to make it clear to the people that militarism is closely linked up with colonial politics, with tariff politics, and with international politics, and that therefore the present Nations, if they really seriously and honestly wish to call a halt on competitive armaments, would have to begin by disarming in the commercial political field, give up colonial predatory campaigns and the international politics of spheres of influence in all parts of the world – in a word, in their foreign as well as in their domestic politics would have to do the exact contrary of everything which the nature of the present politics of a capitalist class state demands. And thus would be clearly explained what constitutes the kernel of the Social Democratic conception, that militarism in both its forms – as war and as armed peace – is a legitimate child, a logical result of capitalism, which can only be overcome with the destruction of capitalism, and that hence whoever honestly desires world peace and liberation from the tremendous burden of armaments must also desire Socialism. Only in this way can real Social Democratic enlightenment and recruiting be carried on in connection with the armaments debate.
This work, however, will be rendered somewhat difficult and the attitude of the Social Democrats will become obscure and vacillating if, by some strange exchange of roles, our Party tries on the contrary to convince the bourgeois State that it can quite well limit armaments and bring about peace and that it can do this from its own standpoint, from that of a capitalist class State.
It has until now been the pride and the firm scientific basis of our Party, that not only the general lines of our programme but also the slogans of our practical everyday policy were not invented out of odds and ends as something desirable, but that in all things we relied on our knowledge of the tendencies of social development and made the objective lines of this development the basis of our attitude. For us the determining factor until now has not been the possibility from the standpoint of the relation of forces within the State, but the possibility from the standpoint of the tendencies of development of society. The limitation of armaments, the retrenchment of militarism, does not coincide with the further development of international capitalism. Only those who believe in the mitigation and blunting of class antagonisms, and in the checking of the economic anarchy of capitalism, can believe in the possibility of these international conflicts allowing themselves to be slackened, to be mitigated and wiped out. For the international antagonisms of the capitalist states are but the complement of class antagonisms, and the world political anarchy but the reverse side of the anarchic system of production of capitalism. Both can grow only together and be overcome only together. “A little order and peace” is, therefore, just as impossible, just as much a petty-bourgeois Utopia, with regard to the capitalist world market as to world politics, and with regard to the limitation of crises as to the limitation of armaments.
Let us cast a glance at the events of the last fifteen years of international development. Where do they show any tendency toward peace, toward disarmament, toward settlement of conflicts by arbitration?
During these fifteen years we had this: in 1895 the war between Japan and China, which is the prelude to the East Asiatic period of imperialism; in 1898 the war between Spain and the United States; in 1899-1902 the British Boer War in South Africa; in 1900 the campaign of the European powers in China; in 1904 the Russo-Japanese War; in 1904-07 the German Herero War in Africa; and then there was also the military intervention of Russia in 1908 in Persia, at the present moment the military intervention of France in Morocco, without mentioning the incessant colonial skirmishes in Asia and in Africa. Hence the bare facts alone show that for fifteen years hardly a year has gone by without some war activity.
But more important still is the after effect of these wars. The war with China was followed in Japan by a military reorganisation which made it possible ten years later to undertake the war against Russia and which made Japan the predominant military power in the Pacific. The Boer War resulted in a military reorganisation of England, the strengthening of her armed forces on land. The war with Spain inspired the United States to reorganise its navy and moved it to enter colonial politics with imperialist interests in Asia, and thus was created the germ of the antagonism of interests between the United States and Japan in the Pacific. The Chinese campaign was accompanied in Germany by a thorough military reorganisation, the great Navy Law of 1900, which marks the beginning of the competition of Germany with England on the sea and the sharpening of the antagonisms between these two nations.
But there is another and extremely important factor besides the social and political awakening of the hinterlands, of the colonies and the “spheres of interest,” to independent life. The revolution in Turkey, in Persia, the revolutionary ferment in China, in India, in Egypt, in Arabia, in Morocco, in Mexico, all these are also starting points of world political antagonisms, tensions, military activities and armaments. It was just during the course of this fifteen years that the points of friction in international politics have increased to an unparalleled degree, a number of new States stepped into active struggle on the international stage, all the Great Powers underwent a thorough military reorganisation. The antagonisms, in consequence of all these events, have reached an acuteness never known before, and the process is going further and further, since on the one hand the ferment in the Orient is increasing from day to day, and on the other every settlement between the military powers unavoidably becomes the starting point for fresh conflicts. The Reval Entente between Russia, Great Britain and France, which Jaurs hailed as a guarantee for world peace, led to the sharpening of the crisis in the Balkans, accelerated the outbreak of the Turkish Revolution, encouraged Russia to military action in Persia and led to a rapprochement between Turkey and Germany which, in its turn, rendered the Anglo-German antagonisms more acute. The Potsdam agreement resulted in the sharpening of the crisis in China and the Russo-Japanese agreement had the same effect.
Therefore, on a mere reckoning with facts, to refuse to realise that these facts give rise to anything rather than a mitigation of the international conflicts, of any sort of disposition toward world peace, is wilfully to close one’s eyes.
In view of all this, how is it possible to speak of tendencies toward peace in bourgeois development which are supposed to neutralise and overcome its tendencies toward war? Wherein are they expressed?
In Sir Edward Grey’s declaration and that of the French Parliament? In the “armament weariness” of the bourgeoisie? But the middle and petty bourgeois sections of the bourgeoisie have always been groaning at the burden of militarism, just as they groan at the devastation of free competition, at the economic crises, at the lack of conscience shown in stock exchange speculations, at the terrorism of the cartels and trusts. The tyranny of the trust magnates in America has even called forth a rebellion of broad masses of the people and a wearisome legal procedure against the trusts on the part of the State authorities. Do the Social Democrats interpret this as a symptom of the beginning of the limitation of trust development, or have they not rather a sympathetic shrug of the shoulders for that petty-bourgeois rebellion and a scornful smile for that State campaign? The “dialectic” of the peace tendency of capitalist development, which was supposed to have cut across its war tendency and to have overcome it, simply confirms the old truth that the roses of capitalist profit-making and class domination also have thorns for the bourgeoisie, which it prefers to wear as long as possible round its suffering head, in spite of all pain and woe, rather than get rid of it along with the head on the advice of the Social Democrats.
To explain this to the masses, ruthlessly to scatter all illusions with regard to attempts made at peace on the part of the bourgeoisie and to declare the proletarian revolution as the first and only step toward world peace – that is the task of the Social Democrats with regard to all disarmament trickeries, whether they are invented in Petersburg, London or Berlin.
II
The Utopianism of the standpoint which expects an era of peace and retrenchment of militarism in the present social order is plainly revealed in the fact that it is having recourse to project making. For it is typical of Utopian strivings that, in order to demonstrate their practicability, they hatch “practical” recipes with the greatest possible details. To this also belongs the project of the “United States of Europe” as a basis for the limitation of international militarism.
“We support all efforts,” said Comrade Ledebour in his speech in the Reichstag on April 3, “which aim at getting rid of the threadbare pretexts for the incessant war armaments. We demand the economic and political union of the European states. I am firmly convinced that, while it is certain to come during the period of Socialism, it can also come to pass before that time, that we will live to see the UNITED STATES OF EUROPE, as confronted at present by the business competition of the United States of America. At least we demand that capitalist society, that capitalist statesmen, in the interests of capitalist development in Europe itself, in order that Europe will later not be completely submerged in world competition, prepare for this union of Europe into the United States of Europe.”
And in the Neue Zeit of April 28, Comrade Kautsky writes:
... For a lasting duration of peace, which banishes the ghost of war forever, there is only one way to-day: the union of the states of European civilisation into a league with a common commercial policy, a league parliament, a league government and a league army – the formation of the United States of Europe. Were this to succeed, then a tremendous step would be achieved. Such a United States would possess such a superiority of forces that without any war they could compel all the other nations which do not voluntarily join them to liquidate their armies and give up their fleets. But in that case all necessity for armaments for the new United States themselves would disappear. They would be in a position not only to relinquish all further armaments, give up the standing army and all aggressive weapons on the sea, which we are demanding to-day, but even give up all means of defence, the militia system itself. Thus the era of permanent peace would surely begin.
Plausible as the idea of the United States of Europe as a peace arrangement may seem to some at first glance, it has on closer examination not the least thing in common with the method of thought and the standpoint of social democracy.
As adherents of the materialist conception of history, we have always adopted the standpoint that the modern States as political structures are not artificial products of a creative phantasy, like, for instance, the Duchy of Warsaw of Napoleonic memory, but historical products of economic development. But what economic foundation lies at the bottom of the idea of a European State Federation? Europe, it is true, is a geographical and, within certain limits, an historical cultural conception. But the idea of Europe as an economic unit contradicts capitalist development in two ways. First of all there exist within Europe among the capitalist States – and will so long as these exist – the most violent struggles of competition and antagonisms, and secondly the European States can no longer get along economically without the non-European countries. As suppliers of foodstuffs, raw materials and wares, also as consumers of the same, the other parts of the world are linked in a thousand ways with Europe. At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. Europe no more forms a special unit within world economy than does Asia or America.And if the idea of a European union in the economic sense has long been outstripped, this is no less the case in the political sense.
The times when the centre of gravity of political development and the crystallising agent of capitalist contradictions lay on the European continent, are long gone by. To-day Europe is only a link in the tangled chain of international connections and contradictions. And what is of decisive significance – European antagonisms themselves no longer play their role on the European continent but in all parts of the world and on all the seas.
Only were one suddenly to lose sight of all these happenings and manoeuvres, and to transfer oneself back to the blissful times of the European concert of powers, could one say, for instance, that for forty years we have had uninterrupted peace. This conception, which considers only events on the European continent, does not notice that the very reason why we have had no war in Europe for decades is the fact that international antagonisms have grown infinitely beyond the narrow confines of the European continent, and that European problems and interests are now fought out on the world seas and in the by-corners of Europe.
Hence the “United States of Europe” is an idea which runs directly counter both economically and politically to the course of development, and which takes absolutely no account of the events of the last quarter of a century.
That an idea so little in accord with the tendency of development can fundamentally offer no progressive solution in spite of all radical disguises is confirmed also by the fate of the slogan of the “United States of Europe.” Every time that bourgeois politicians have championed the idea of Europeanism, of the union of European States, it has been with an open or concealed point directed against the “yellow peril,” the “dark continent,” against the “inferior races,” in short, it has always been an imperialist abortion.
And now if we, as Social Democrats, were to try to fill this old skin with fresh and apparently revolutionary wine, then it must be said that the advantages would not be on our side but on that of the bourgeoisie. Things have their own objective logic. And the solution of the European union within the capitalist social order can objectively, in the economic sense, mean only a tariff war with America, and in the political sense only a colonial race war. The Chinese campaign of the united European regiments, with the World Field Marshal Waldersee at the head, and the gospel of the Hun as our standard – that is the actual and not the fantastic, the only possible expression of the “European State Federation” in the present social order.
Veterans For Peace In The Boston Pride Parade June 14th Say Free Chelsea Manning Now!
Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Chelsea Manning, now having been held in prison for four years by the United States Government for the simple act of telling the truth, will be honored and remembered as the Smedley Butler Brigade-Veterans For Peace, long time Manning supporters march in the 44th Annual Boston Pride Parade on June 14, 2014. We will not leave our sister behind. We will not let President Obama hide behind his cowardly legal screen in this case and will continue to call on him to pardon Chelsea Manning now!
***Of This And That In The Old North Adamsville Neighborhood-In Search Of…..Fast Guys
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
For those who have been following this series about the old days in my old home town of North Adamsville, particularly the high school day as the 50th anniversary of my graduation creeps up, will notice that recently I have been doing sketches based on my reaction to various e-mails sent to me by fellow classmates via the class website. Also classmates have placed messages on the Message Forum page when they have something they want to share generally like health issues, new family arrivals or trips down memory lane on any number of subjects from old time athletic prowess to reflections on growing up in the old home town. Thus I have been forced to take on the tough tasks of sending kisses to raging grandmothers, talking up old flames with guys I used to hang around the corners with, remembering those long ago searches for the heart of Saturday night, getting wistful about elementary school daydreams, taking up the cudgels for be-bop lost boys and the like. These responses are no accident as I have of late been avidly perusing the personal profiles of various members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 website as fellow classmates have come on to the site and lost their shyness about telling their life stories (or have increased their computer technology capacities, not an unimportant consideration for the generation of ’68, a generation on the cusp of the computer revolution and so not necessarily as computer savvy as the average eight-year old today).
Some stuff is interesting to a point, you know, including those endless tales about the doings and not doings of the grandchildren, odd hobbies and other ventures taken up in retirement and so on although not worthy of me making a little off-hand commentary on. Some other stuff is either too sensitive or too risqué to publish on a family-friendly site. Some stuff, some stuff about the old days and what did, or did not, happened to, or between, fellow classmates, you know the boy-girl thing (other now acceptable relationships were below the radar then) has naturally perked my interest.
Other stuff defies simple classification as is the case here in my cutting up old torches with some of the guys I used to run around on the streets with and run with on the track team as well. No, not cutting up old torches about old love affairs like normal guys or about midnight shifting (don’t ask about what that is if you don’t know it is better left unsaid)but back in the day running prowess (or on certain days when the anaerobic impulses got the better of you or the allergies kicked lack of prowess). That is what we AARP-worthies apparently are reduced to in our dotage in trying to bring back the glory days when every ache and pain took just a little liniment and a brush-off of the knees unlike now where half the medical staff at some local hospital has to be called in and even then that nagging pain will hang around and kick you for about six months. Glory days too when a quick two-mile run was in fact a quick two mile run without working up, except in high summer, a sweat, or without gasping for breath having to reach for a respirator.
Glory days too when somehow, early on anyway, we got the impression that track guys were worthy of adulation (and it was all guys back then women it seems were meant to be too busy looking beautiful to run more than about eight yards). We were out there on the roads before our time, before the great 1970s forward running boom (now with a little edge taken off of that cachet cut off except at major marathon time due to another generation coming of age, the age of knee operations and being warned to keep off hard asphalt running roads). And so we suffered in the shadow of such august school athletic powerhouses as the intramural volleyball team and the interscholastic golf team. Jesus.
Here is one little tale that made the guys laugh when I told them this in a collective e-mail blast. Like most guys back then (and now too I am sure) part of sports for guys was, well, to get a little edge with the girls, the young women around school or town once they saw or heard about your running prowess. Gave you a little something to talk about when you were honing in on a certain she that you had sleepless nights over. Football and basketball clearly held that allure for young women then and not just the random cheerleader or baton-twirler (or I just remembered what they called them, majorettes, sorry) but any young women who wanted to be seen with the goliaths of the field or magicians of the parquet. The rest of us sportsmen though had to fend for ourselves, provide our own publicity, and public relations.
Now I was as interested in girls as the next guy, although overall I was a lot shier than that next guy so I was all for trying to break the ice with any girl that caused me sleepless night by using my running prowess as a talk-starter. This one girl, Linda, had me in tizzy for a while. We would talk in class a lot, she was easy to talk to, but mainly it was about things like should Red China be admitted into the United Nations (yeah, it was a while back) or will computers or robotics replace humans in the workplace. Yes, I know not stuff that is going to get anybody past first base, hell, past strike-out.
One winter day, it was probably a Monday, because we had our winter track meets over in an armory in Boston on Saturdays, I decided since I had done very well the previous Saturday to tell Linda about it. I did so, probably pumping the thing up a little too. Her response, “Oh, does North Adamsville have a track team?” Totally deflated. So, yeah, it was tough being a track guy back then but fortunately I loved to run in order to get about twenty tons of teen-age angst and alienation off my shoulders. So a few defeats in the women department were also rubbed off with a little liniment and a brush-off of the knees unlike later when it would take major heart surgery to mend me in order to get over some affair and the nagging pain from that would still be kicking around six months later.
Well enough of old torches, except this exchange among the guys got me thinking about writing a little something for the Message Forum about those old glory running days for all to see. I titled it there The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner after an old movie from that period:
“In the 1960s runners were “geeks.” You know-the guys who ran in shorts on the roads and mainly got honked at, yelled at, and threatened with mayhem by irate motorists. And the pedestrians were worse, throwing an occasional body block at runners coming down the sidewalk outside of school. And that was the girls, those “fragile” girls of blessed memory. The boys shouted out catcalls, whistles, and trash talk about maleness, male unworthiness, and their standards for worthiness did not include what you were doing. Admit it. That is what you thought, and maybe did, then too.
[And then too it was mainly guys, girls were too “fragile” to run more than about eight yards, or else had no time to take from their busy schedule of cooking, cleaning, and, and looking beautiful, for such strenuous activities. Won’t the boys be surprised, very surprised, and in the not too distant 1970s future when they are, uh, are passed by…passed by “fast girls” of a different kind]
In the 1970's and 1980's runners (of both sexes) became living gods and goddesses to a significant segment of the population. Money, school scholarships, endorsements, soft-touch “self-help” clinics, you name it. Then you were more than willing to “share the road with a runner.” Friendly waves, crazed schoolgirl-like hanging around locker rooms for the autograph of some 10,000 meter champion whose name you couldn’t pronounce, crazed school boy-like droolings when some foxy woman runner with a tee-shirt that said “if you can catch me, you can have me” passed you by on the fly, and shrieking automobile stops to let, who knows, maybe the next Olympic champion, do his or her stuff on the road. Admit that too.
And as the religion spread you, suddenly hitting thirty-something, went crazy for fitness stuff, especially after Bobby, Sue, Millie, and some friend’s grandmother hit the sidewalks looking trim and fit. And that friend’s grandma beating you, beating you badly, that first time out only added fuel to the fire. And even if you didn’t get out on the roads yourself you loaded up with your spiffy designer jogging attire, one for each day, and high-tech footwear. Jesus, what new aerodynamically-styled, what guaranteed to take thirteen seconds off your average mile time, what color-coordinated, well- padded sneaker you wouldn’t try, and relegate to the back closet. But it was better if you ran.
And you did for a while. I saw you. You ran Adamsville Beach, Castle Island, the Charles River, Falmouth, LaJolla, and Golden Gate Park. Wherever. Until the old knees gave out, or the hips, or some such combination war story stuff. That though is a story for another day.
Still taking a close look again [at the yearbook photograph of the cross-country team] I would not want to be walking in a dark alley at night with this crowd on the loose especially that guy in the front row second from the right with that tell-tale smirk on his face. [Me] The others can speak for themselves.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation
Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Tune Weavers’ Happy, Happy Birthday Baby
Thought I'd drop a line to say
That I wish this happy day
Would find me beside you
Seems like years ago we met
On a day I can't forget
'Cause that's when we fell in love
How could we say goodbye
Hope I didn't spoil your birthday
I'm not acting like a lady
So I'll close this note to you
With good luck and wishes too
Happy, happy birthday, baby
**********
THE TUNE WEAVERS
"Happy, Happy Birthday Baby"
"Happy, Happy Birthday Baby"
Happy, happy birthday, baby
Although you're with somebody newThought I'd drop a line to say
That I wish this happy day
Would find me beside you
Happy, happy birthday, baby
No I can't call you my babySeems like years ago we met
On a day I can't forget
'Cause that's when we fell in love
Do you remember the names we had for
each other
I was your pretty, you were my babyHow could we say goodbye
Hope I didn't spoil your birthday
I'm not acting like a lady
So I'll close this note to you
With good luck and wishes too
Happy, happy birthday, baby
**********
Damn he never should have sent that
note, that short, silly, puffed-up cry-baby note trying to worm his way back
into Lucy’s arms with memory thoughts about this kiss, or that embrace. And
bringing up old seawall sugar shack beach nights holding hands against the
splashed tides, against full moons, against tomorrow coming too soon; double
date drive-in movies, speakers on low, deep-breathing car fog-ups on cold
October nights, embarrassed, way embarrassed, when they surfaced for
intermission's stale popcorn or reheated hot dogs; and, that last dance school
dance holding tight, tight as hell, to each other as the DJ, pretending to be
radio jockey Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsberg, played Could This Be Magic?
on that creaky record player used at North Adamsville High School dances since
his mother’s time, ancient Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday times.
Damn, a scratchy, scribbly note, a
note written on serious stationary and with a real fountain pen to show his
sincerity, and not the usual half- lined sheet, pulled out a three-ring subject
notebook, and passed to Lucy during their common study class. Notes the passing
of which sometimes got them severe looks from the study monitor, Miss Green,
and giggles and taunts, usually some lewd or luscious remarks fraught with sexual
innuendo from their fellow students, boys and girls alike, about fogged-up cars
and trash talk like that who also tried to intercept those precious notes
without success. Yah, “the note heard round the world” that would expose him to
all kinds of ridicule, endless be-bop jive patter, and snide questions about
his manhood from guys, and probably girls too, around the school, hell, all
around North Adamsville and maybe already had if Lucy decided to cut his heart
out and tell one and all what a square he, Luke Jackson, was when all was said
and done.
He could hear it now, and could hear
the words ringing in his ears. What a soft guy Luke Jackson really was, a guy
known to be a love ‘em and leave ‘em guy before Lucy. A guy, a used to be sharp
guy who shrugged off more things that you could shake a stick at and came back
swinging but who was getting all misty-eyed and cry-baby just because some
dame, a good looking dame in all the right places, yes, a dame all the guys
were ready to pursue once he was out of the picture, but still a dame, a young
high school dame, when all was said and done, got under his skin, like they
were married or something. Hell, he thought, thought now too late, to himself,
that he would have been better off, much better off, leaving it at calling Lucy
on the telephone every few hours and either hanging up before she answered or
when she did answer freezing up. But that was costing money, serious add up
money, since he had to use a public pay telephone up the street from his house
because the telephone service had been turned off for non-payment as his family
could not afford to pay the bill the past few months.
Besides it was getting kind of
creepy going in and out of the house at all hours, midnight by the telephone
waiting like some lonely, awkward girl, walking up the street like a zombie,
half mope, half dope, then hesitating before deciding to make the call, making
it, or not, and then scurrying like a rat from the public glare of the booth.
Christ, one time the cops looked at him funny, real funny, when he was calling
at about midnight. And he had to admit that he might have called the police
station a few times too after he looked at himself in the mirror upon returning
home.
That note, sent the day before and
probably in Lucy’s plotting hands right now, was a minute, a quick minute,
brain-storm that he had thought up when he was just plain miserable, just plain
midnight telephone tired too, and anyone could make such a rash decision under
love’s duress, teenage love’s duress. Right then though all he could think of
was all the notes, the cutesy, lined-sheet paper school-boyish notes, that he
had sent her when love was in full blossom, full blossom before Jamie Lee
Johnson came on the scene, came on the scene with his big old ’59 Chevy Impala,
his money in his pocket, and his line of patter and stole his “sweet pea” Lucy
away from her “sugar plum” Luke. And that picture sent him back to thoughts of
when he and Lucy first met, when their eyes first met.
“Let’s see,” Luke said to himself it
was probably at Chrissie McNamara’s sweet sixteen birthday party that he first
laid eyes on her. Hell, who was he kidding, he knew that it was exactly at 8:32
PM on the night of April 25, 1962 that he first laid eyes on her, big almost
star-struck staring eyes. Or maybe it was a few seconds before because, to
break the ice, he had gone up to her and asked her for the time, asked in his
then bolder manner if she had time for him, asked her to dance, she said yes,
and that was that. Oh, yah, there was more to it than that but both of them
knew at that moment, knew somewhere deep down in their teenage hearts, they
were going to be an “item,” for a while. And they were indeed sweet pea and
sugar plum, for a while. Although Luke would get mad sometimes, fighting mad,
fighting break-up mad, when Lucy teased, no, more than teased, him about his
not having a car so that they could go “parking” by themselves and not always
be on some clowny double-date down at the seashore on Saturday night (or any
night in the summer). And Luke would reply that he was saving money for
college, and besides sitting on the seawall (and sometimes in love’s heat down
beneath its height), their usual habit, was okay, wasn’t it.
That simmer, that somehow
unarticulated simmer, went on for a while, a long while. But Luke had noticed a
few months back, or rather Lucy had made her sugar plum notice, that now that
they were high school seniors sitting on the seawall was nothing but nowhere
kids’ stuff and why did he want to go to college anyway, and wasn’t going to
work down at the shipyard where he could earn some real dough and get a car a
better idea. The real clincher though, the one that telegraphed to him that the
heavens were frowning on him, was the night she, no bones, stated that she had
no plans for college and was going right to work after graduation, and maybe,
just maybe, she wouldn’t be able to wait for him. And that’s where things
started to really break down between them.
Enter one Jamie Lee Johnson, a
friend of Lucy’s older brother Kenny, already graduated from North Adamsville
two years before and working, working steady with advancement possibilities
according to the talk, as a junior welder down at the shipyard making good
dough. Making drive-in movies and even drive-n restaurant good time dough, and
driving that souped-up, retro-fitted, dual-carbed, ’59 Chevy, jet black and
hung to the gills with chrome to make a girl breathless. And before Luke knew
it Lucy’s mother was answering the phone calls for Lucy from Luke saying that
she wasn’t in, wasn’t expected in, and that she, Lucy’s mother, would tell Lucy
that he had called. The runaround, the classic runaround since boy meets girl
time began, except not always done over the telephone. And while Lucy never
said word one about breaking it off between them, not even a “so long, we had
fun,” Luke, although not smart enough to not write that sappy note, knew she
was gone, and gone for good. But see she had gotten under his skin, way under,
and well, and that was that.
Just as Luke was thinking about that
last thought, that heart-tearing thought, he decided, wait a minute, maybe she
didn’t get the note, maybe he had forgotten to put a stamp on it and as a
result of those maybes he fished around his pocket to see if he had some coins,
some telephone coins, and started out of the house prison to make that late
night pilgrimage creep, that midnight waiting by the telephone creep. Walking
up the street, walking up the now familiar night street-lighted against the
deathless shadows Hancock Street he noticed a jet black ’59 Impala coming his
way, coming his way with Jamie Lee and Lucy sitting so close together that they
could not be pried apart with a crowbar. Luke thought about that scene for a
minute, steeled himself with new-found resolve against the love hurts like in
the old love 'em and leave ‘em days, threw the coins on the ground without
anger but rather with relief, turned back to his house wondering, seriously
wondering like the fate of the world depended on it, what pet names they Jimmy
and Lucy had for each other.
Sign the ZERO TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN Petition asking President Obama to bring all our troops home NOW
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President
Obama announced that the U.S. would extend the deployment of U.S. Troops in
Afghanistan an additional 2-1/2 years leaving 9,800 troops after 2014. He says
the “war” will be over and that our troops will continue their military
involvement by training the Afghan army and supporting counterterrorism
operations (night raids). Whatever he wants to call it, our troops will still be
at war, still risking their lives. There is no need to keep troops in Afghanistan through 2016 because there is NO MILITARY SOLUTION, it will not solve Afghanistan’s problems. As Barbara Lee states “After 13 years and more than $778 billion invested in an unstable country and the corrupt Karzai government, it’s time to bring our troops and tax dollars home.” Also, Senator Merkley has Senate Resolution 347 (S. Res. 347) calling for a congressional vote on any US troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014. We agree with Senator Merkley “if the administration wants to keep troops in Afghanistan beyond this year, Congress should vote. The American people deserve a voice in issues of war and peace.” Call your Senators TODAY asking them to co-sponsor Merkley’s bipartisan S. Res. 347 calling for a Congressional vote before troops can be kept in Afghanistan. Capitol Hill Switchboard 866-338-1015. The U.S. and the international community should play a supportive, non-military role in building a future for the Afghan people. There should be a focus on diplomacy, negotiation and economic development to end the violence in Afghanistan. A lasting solution will depend on Afghans and their neighbors not military personnel. “A future of hope and opportunity for Afghanistan begins with the full withdrawal of U.S. troops.” (Rep. Barbara Lee). Sign the ZERO TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN Petition asking President Obama to bring all our troops home NOW. The sacrifices of our troops, their families and Afghan civilians have been enormous. It is time for our troops to come home. If you appreciate receiving timely action alerts like this, please make a donation to UFPJ so that we can continue to keep our member groups and dedicated activists linked together for effective action and impact. |
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