In The 74^th Anniversary Year Of The Assassination Of Great Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky A Tribute- DEFEATED, BUT UNBOWED-THE WRITINGS OF LEON TROTSKY, 1929-1940

 

LEON TROTSKY AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, PART I

BOOK REVIEW

THE CHALLENGE OF THE LEFT OPPOSITION (1923-25), LEON TROTSKY, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1975

If you are interested in the history of the International Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the communist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of volumes in English of the writings of Leon Trotsky, Russian Bolshevik leader, from the start in 1923 of the Left Opposition in the Russian Communist Party that he led through his various exiles up until his assassination by a Stalinist agent in 1940. These volumes were published by the organization that James P. Cannon, early American Trotskyist leader founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s and 1980’s. (Cannon’s writings in support of Trotsky’s work are reviewed elsewhere in this space) Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by this important world communist leader.

Since the volumes in the series cover a long period of time and contain some material that , while of interest, is either historically dated or more fully developed in Trotsky’s other separately published major writings I am going to organize this series of reviews in this way. By way of introduction I will give a brief summary of the events of the time period of each volume. Then I will review what I believe is the central document of each volume. The reader can then decide for him or herself whether my choice was informative or not.

Although there were earlier signs that the Russia revolution was going off course the long illness and death of Lenin in 1924, at the time the only truly authoritative leader the Bolshevik party, set off a power struggle in the leadership of the party. This fight had Trotsky and the ‘pretty boy’ intellectuals of the party on one side and Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev (the so-called triumvirate).backed by the ‘gray boys’ of the emerging bureaucracy on the other. This struggle occurred against the backdrop of the failed revolution in Germany in 1923 and which thereafter heralded the continued isolation, imperialist blockade and economic backwardness of the Soviet Union for the foreseeable future.

While the disputes in the Russian party eventually had international ramifications in the Communist International, they were at this time fought out almost solely with the Russian Party. Trotsky was slow, very slow to take up the battle for power that had become obvious to many elements in the party. He made many mistakes and granted too many concessions to the trio. But he did fight. Although later (in 1935) Trotsky recognized that the 1923 fight represented a fight against the Russian Thermidor (from an analogy with the period of the French Revolution where the radical regime of Robespierre and Saint Just was overthrown by more moderate Jacobins) and thus a decisive turning point for the revolution that was not clear to him (or anyone else on either side) then. Whatever the appropriate analogy might have been Leon Trotsky was in fact fighting a last ditch effort to retard the further degeneration of the revolution. After that defeat, the way the Soviet Union was ruled, who ruled and for what purposes all changed. And not for the better.

The most important document in this volume is clearly and definitely Trotsky’s Lessons of October. Although there are a couple of other documents of interest- The New Course, his program to try to bring the agrarian and the industrial crisis into focus-and The Problems of Civil War- Trotsky’s contribution to the so-called “literary discussion” in the party far outdistances those documents in importance. When this document hit the press there was definitely gnashing of teeth by the ruling trio in the Kremlin- Why? Lessons of October is essentially a polemic against fainted-hearted, opportunist failure to appreciate both the rarity of a revolutionary moment and the necessity to have a sharp combat- tested organization to take advantage of that situation. Moreover, this polemic was a direct attack on Zinoviev and Kamenev for their position against insurrection at the time of revolution and on Stalin’s March, 1917 call for political support to the bourgeois Provisional Government.

George Bernard Shaw once called Trotsky the “Prince of Pamphleteers” and he certainly earns that title in Lessons of October. Alas, those who write the best polemics do not necessarily win the power. Those 200,000 plus politically immature or careerist new party members beholding to the increasingly Stalinist bureaucracy drafted under the “Lenin Levy” saw the writing on the wall differently. That was decisive. Nevertheless, Lessons of October is not just any political document- it is an essential document for the education of today’s militants. It bears reading, re-reading, and reading again. I know I always get something new out of it each time I read it.
************

In Honor Of Leon Trotsky On The 74^th Anniversary Of His Death- To Those Born After-Ivan Smirnov’s Journey

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Ivan Smirnov came out of old Odessa town, came out of the Ukraine (not just plain Ukraine like now but “the” then), the good black earth breadbasket of Russian Empire, well before the turn of the 20^th century (having started life on some Mister’s farm begotten by illiterate but worthy and hard-working peasant parents who were not sure whether it was 1880 or 1881 and Mister did not keep very good records up in the manor house) although he was strictly a 20^th century man by habits and inclinations. Fashioned himself a man of the times, as he knew it, by developing habits favored by those who liked to consider themselves modern. Those habits included a love of reading, a love of and for the hard-pressed peoples facing the jack-boot (like his struggling never- get-ahead parents) under the Czar’s vicious rule, an abiding hatred for that same Czar, a hunger to see the world or to see something more than wheat fields, and a love of politics, what little expression that love could take even for a modern man stuck in a backward country. 

Of course Ivan Smirnov, a giant of a man, well over six feet, more like six, two, well-build, solid, fairly muscular, with the Russian dark eyes and hair to match, when he came of age also loved good food when he had the money for such luxuries, loved to drink shots of straight vodka in competition with his pals, and loved women, and women loved him. It is those appetites in need of whetting that consumed his young manhood, his time in Odessa before he signed on to the Czar’s navy to see the world, or at least  brush the dust of farmland Ukraine and provincial Odessa off his shoes as the old saying went. Those loves trumped for a time his people love (except helping out his parents with his wages), his love of liberty but as we follow Ivan on his travels we will come to see that those personal loves collided more and more with those larger loves. 

So as we pick up the heart, the coming of age, coming of political age, Ivan Smirnov story, he was no kid, had been around the block a few times. Had taken his knocks on the land of his parents (really Mister’s land once the taxes, rents, and dues were taken out) when he tried to organize, well, not really organize but just put a petition of grievances, including the elimination of rack-rents to Mister which was rejected out of hand and which forced him off the land. Forced him off under threat to his life. He never forgot that slight, never. Never forgot it was Mister and his kind that took him away from home, split his family up. So off he went to the city, and from there to the Black Sea Fleet and adventure, or rather tedium mixed with adventure and plenty of time to read.

Ivan also learned up close the why and wherefores of modern warfare, modern naval warfare. Knew too that come some minor confrontation the Czar’s navy was cooked.  As things worked out Ivan 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). And so Ivan came of war age and political age all at once.

More importantly after that debacle he applied for, and had been granted a transfer into in the Baltic fleet, the Czar’s jewel and defending of citadel Saint Petersburg, headquartered at later famous Kronstadt  when the revolution of 1905 came thundering over their heads and each man, each sailor, each officer had to choice sides. Most seaman had gone over the rebels or stood on the sidelines, the officers mainly played possum with the Czar. He had gone wholehearted with rebels and while he did not face the fate of his comrades on the Potemkin his naval career was over. That was where his love of reading from an early age came in, came and made him aware of the boiling kettle of political groupings trying to save Russia or to save what some class or part of a class had an interest in saving Russia for their own purposes. He knew, knew from his dismal experience on the land, that Mister fully intended to keep what was his come hell or high water. He also knew that Mister’s people, the peasantry like his family would have a very hard time, a very hard time indeed bucking Mister’s interests and proclaiming their own right to the land all by themselves. Hadn’t he also been burned, been hunted over a simple petition.

So Ivan from the first dismissed the Social Revolutionary factions and gave some thought to joining the Social Democrats. Of course being Russians who would argue over anything from how many angels could fit on the head of a needle to theories of capitalist surplus value that party organization had split into two factions (maybe more when the dust settled). When word came back from Europe he had sided with the Mensheviks and their more realistic approach to what was possible for Russia in the early 20^th century. That basic idea of a bourgeois democratic republic was the central notion that Ivan Smirnov held for a while, a long while, and which he took in with him once things got hot in Saint Petersburg in January of 1905.       

That January after the Czar’s troops, his elite bloody Cossack troops in the lead, fired on (and sabre-slashed) an unarmed procession led by a priest, damn a Russian Orthodox priest, a people’s priest who led the icon-filled procession to petition the Czar to resolve grievances, great and small, Ivan Smirnov, stationed out in the Baltic Fleet then after the reorganization of the navy in the wake of the defeat by the Japanese the year before had an intellectual crisis. He knew that great things were going to unfold in Russia as it moved into the modern age. He could see the modern age tied to the ancient agrarian age every time he had leave and headed for Saint Petersburg with its sailors’ delights of which Ivan usually took his full measure. He could see in the city within a city, the Vyborg district, the growing working-class district made up of fresh recruits from the farms looking for higher wages, some excitement and a future.

That was why he had discarded the Social Revolutionaries so quickly when in an earlier generation he might very well have been a member of People’s Will or some such organization. No, his intellectual crisis did not come from that quarter but rather that split in the workers’ party which had happened in 1903 far from Russia among the émigré intellectuals around who was a party member. He had sided with the “softs,” the Mensheviks, mainly because he liked their leader, Julius Martov, better than Lenin. Lenin and his faction seemed more intent on gaining organizational control, had more hair-splitters which he hated, and were more [CL1] wary of the peasants even though both factions swore faith in the democratic republic for Russia and to the international social democracy. He had sided with the “softs” although he saw a certain toughness in the Bolshevik cadre that he admired. But that year, that 1905 year, had started him on a very long search for revolutionary direction.           

The year 1905 had started filled with promise after that first blast from the Czarist reaction. The masses were able to gather in a Duma that was at least half responsible to the people, or to the people’s representatives. At least that is what those people’s representatives claimed. More importantly in the working class districts, and among his fellow sailors who more likely than not, unlike himself, were from some strata of the working class had decided to set up their own representative organs, the workers’ councils, or in the Russian parlance which has come down in the  history books the soviets. These in 1905, unlike in 1917, were seen as supplementary to other political organizations. As the arc of the year curved though there were signs that the Czarist reaction was gathering steam. Ivan had trouble organizing his fellow sailors to action. The officers of his ship, The Falcon, were challenging more decisions. The Potemkin affair brought things to a head in the fleets. Finally, after the successes of the Saint Petersburg Soviet under the flaming revolutionary Leon Trotsky that organ was suppressed and the reaction set in that would last until many years later, many tough years for political oppositionists of all stripes. Needless to say that while Ivan was spared the bulk of the reprisals once the Czarist forces regained control his career in the navy was effectively finished and when his enlistment was up he left the service.       

Just as well Ivan that things worked out as they did he had thought many times since then because he was then able to come ashore and get work on the docks through some connections, and think. Think and go about the business of everyday life like marriage to a woman, non-political but a comfort, whom he met through one of his fellow workers on the Neva quay and who would share his home and life although not always understanding that part of his life or him and his determination to break Russia from the past. In those days after 1905, the dogs days as everybody agreed, when the Czar’s Okhrana was everywhere and ready to snatch anyone with any oppositional signs Ivan mostly thought and read, kept a low profile, did as was found out later after the revolution in 1917, a lot of low-level underground organizing among the dockworkers and factory workers of the Vyborg district. In other words developing himself and those around him as cadre for what these few expected would be the great awakening. But until the break-out Lena River gold-workers strike in 1912 those were indeed dog days.     

 

 

And almost as quickly as the dog days of the struggle were breaking the war clouds over Europe were increasing. Every civilized nation was arming to the teeth to defend its civilization against the advancing hordes pitched at the door. Ivan could sense in his still sturdy peasant-bred bones that that unfinished task from 1905, that fight for the land and the republic, hell maybe the eight hour day too, was going to come to a head. He knew enough too 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.  Glad he had learned enough to earn a hearing, to spread the word.     

As the war clouds came to a head after the killing of the archduke in bloody damn Sarajevo in early summer 1914 Ivan Smirnov knew in his bones that the peasant soldier cannon fodder as always would come flocking to the Czar like lemmings to the sea the minute war was declared. Any way the deal was cut the likely line-up of the Czar with the “democracies” of the West, Britain and France and less likely the United States would immediately give the Czar cover against the villainies of the Huns, of the Germans who just the other day were propping up the Czar’s treasury. It could not end well. All Ivan hoped for was that his party, the real Social-Democrats, locally known as the Mensheviks from the great split in 1903 with the Bolsheviks and who had definitely separated from that organization for good in 1912, would not get war fever just because the damn Czar was lined up with the very democracies that the party wished to emulate in Russia.

---

 [CL1]

Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel -Rally In Boston-Monday August 11th-City Hall Plaza-5:30 

 

 

PLEASE SEND TO YOUR LISTS -  THANKS Ann

We will be gathering at City Hall Plaza. We will move to the JFK Federal Building, from where the march starts at 5:30pm.

Mass March for Gaza

As the Israeli assault on Gaza enters a month, with over 1900 Palestinians killed already, join us in a march of solidarity with the Palestinian people to demonstrate against the US government's enabling role in the massacre, including the $3 billion in aid every year as well as its unconditional political support for the land siege and naval blockade that renders Gaza as the world's largest "open air prison."

The march will also be targeting Hewlett Packard (HP), as one of the companies complicit in the occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands, and hence a target for the Palestinian called - and led - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Besides providing numerous other services to the IDF, HP developed and maintains the automated biometric access management system that controls the movement of Palestinians and specifically Palestinian workers through checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza.

We will be gathering at City Hall Plaza. We will move to the JFK Federal Building, from where the march starts 

 City Hall Plaza. We will move to the JFK Federal Building, from where the march starts at 5:30pm.

***You Can’t Go Home Again, Can You?

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman, Hullsville Class Of 1964

No he, Peter Paul Markin, would not be going after all, not going to the scheduled 50^th Anniversary North Adamsville Class of 1964 reunion to be held at the swanky Adams Hotel Deluxe over Thanksgiving weekend.  Apparently that holiday weekend a very usual occasion for such events across the country, a time when old-time rooted families might still gather together in the old hometowns or just to take advantage of the generally taken long weekend. He announced the news to me, to the candid world as he called it (or me) in his usual odd-ball historical literary snarl, something that I have grown used to, grown to deeply discount, to block out okay, so maybe I did not get the full import of his screed. I had met Markin, let’s eliminate the “Peter Paul” since nobody, except his mother, and I think he said his first wife, first of three, Anne, when she wanted to taunt him to do something, some task he did not want to do, and she mercilessly went after him with that three-name moniker attesting to why wife number one did last the course, down at the Surf Ballroom in my hometown of Hullsville the summer after we graduated from our respective high schools. We met while pursuing the same young woman (then called a girl but we have learned a thing or two since then) on the dance floor while the great local cover band , The Rockin’ Ramrods, played the Kingmen’s Louie, Louie and we practically sparred to get her to dance with us. For the curious since we have very different versions of the way things went after the dance she subsequently dumped us both in turn (me first) but our friendship remained and hence I can say with a straight face that I do not have to listen to all of Markin’s screeds to get whatever historical or literary point he is trying to drive home. The only different from the days when we first met, and officially could not do so, is that when he has something on his chest that just will not stay submerged we talk it over at some local watering hole and I can get a couple of shots under my belt as he rants on.    

That spot these days, the days since we have both returned to the Boston area and have re-ignited our old-time friendship that as we lived on different coasts faced periods of inactivity, is Jimmy’s Bar & Grille over in Centerville a few miles south of the respective towns where we grew up, and about thirty miles from downtown Boston if anybody is asking. We had been talking about the old days, the old high school days when we had met, and that is where we started cutting up old touches about how we met down at a rock and roll dance at the Surf Ballroom in my hometown of Hullsville mentioned above. But our friendship, close or faraway as times changed, lingered on. Now in the great scheme of things, the great mandala of life out in the real world such a decision as Markin made naturally would take a back seat to serious matters like the fight against war and pestilence, the struggle to keep body and soul together that preoccupies most minds most of the time, and being mindfully thoughtful about the three great tragedies of human existence-hunger, sex, and death. (Jesus, I now remember too that I did, once again, get mad at him when he started that  Peter Paul Markin thing that only his mother and, I think, that one prissy ex-wife called him, like he was some Mayflower swell rather than to the “projects” born)

Notwithstanding those heavy precedent- takers, no, emphatically no, Markin would not be going back to his old hometown that weekend to see the old gang. See the old gang collectively for probably the last effective time that clan would be able to gather on a significant occasion what with death, disability, forgetfulness and just plain fright at the idea of a next time taking their toll. That the next significant milestone, the 75^th, assuming that the mania for oddball celebration years like 30^th , 45^th , and 60^th , or worst 38^th ,48^th or 68^th has no taken root they would all be at or approaching ninety-three. A very scary thought, the thought of holding a reunion at some assisted living site or nursing home. No thank you then either he can safely be quoted as saying that night as well.

Strangely, and I quizzed him on the subject that night, several years before, I can remember Markin telling me, that  under the influence of some old town family members passing he had returned to North Adamsville after many years absence. As a result of roaming around the old neighborhoods, around the old memory sites, or places that triggered memories he had exhibited a spurt of old town patriotism, some old bleeding of school colors red and black, some old time nostalgia for sacred youth places and quirky roots memories. More, a fervent desire to put together some occasion, not necessarily a tradition-filled full-blown official reunion like has been done since Horace Mann’s time, maybe before, but a collective gathering of those in the area to mark the passing of time, mark some memory mist youthful occasions and, frankly to gather some information, insights, observations on what they had been through back in the day, back in those hectic angst and alienation-filled school days.

Markin had told me at that time, and we had had several good laughs about his answers, that he had actually answered (patiently answered, believe me, unusual for him when it is not his own project), extensively answered a series of questions posed through an Internet classmates site by the chairwoman of the Class of 1964 45^th Reunion Committee (see what I mean by odd-ball year celebrations) to her fellow classmates about a whole range of questions. And no, he would not be going, did not go to, had had no intention of going to that odd-ball year reunion unlike the 50^th that he was really aiming at with his answers. You know the usual suspect questions about work history, family history, any distinctions creditable to old North, and the role played by the old school in keeping you off the streets, off welfare and out of prison (sorry). He waved those questions off out of hand in maybe a sentence, no more. After all three divorces, a checkered work history, and half a dysfunctional family not speaking to you for many years, and maybe wishing you were in jail can be summarily written off with few words.

What he did respond to were more thoughtful questions about dreams and ambitions (Jesus, right up in Markin’s wheelhouse), disappointments, thoughts on mortality, and most importantly, questions directly related to the old days like what did you think of certain school clubs, sport teams, school dances (particularly the annual Fall Frolics and the Spring Follies), and several other school- specific events that I have forgotten about and I did not think important before I decided to write this screed, He went wild, went crazy, “stopped the presses,” he said. He wrote sketch after sketch, some long, some short, about the school dances, his wall-flower status before he got his courage up, his girl shy courage, at some last dance trigger moment. About his lackluster running career, and the stellar performances of his running mate, Bill Brady, and their mutual jock-inspired devotion to the football team neither could ever come close to making. About his befuddlement over the segregated, boy-girl segregated, bowling teams, the vagaries of the mythical Tri-Hi-Yi, the inanity of white socks and white shorts for gym garb, the sex question, circa 1960 and the role that Adamsville Beach played in resolving that question. Endlessly as well about corner boy life in about twelve varieties, the place of rock and roll in the teenage universe then. Fluff but answered.

Here is the beauty of his answers though, the beauty of Markin really. He answered, or he told me he answered everything put before him by that relentless chairwoman, even making stuff up if he did not remember, or could have cared less about something back then, like Glee Club or the Chess Club. Here was the best one, and I can attest to this one because I was actually present with him that night down at the Surf Ballroom at one of those frequent rock and roll dances we both attended. He felt compelled to write about the senior year Thanksgiving Football Rally in 1963 held the night before the game against the hated cross-town rival blue and white Adamsville High since he really did bleed Red Raider black and red around the football team. He wrote this long screed that several people thought was an excellent description of the event, said that it had brought back some nice memories especially from someone who remembered so many details. Of course as you now will know this sketch was made out of whole cloth since he was not within twenty miles of the event, although he defended himself by saying that he had gone to the 1962 Thanksgiving rally and said if you have if gone to one rally you have gone to them all. That’s Markin                                 

Some answers though were actually thoughtful, another aspect of Markin as well, his beauty if you will. He movingly, if briefly, wrote about the John F.  Kennedy assassination that cast a dark shadow over that senior year, over the fresh breeze brought down that Camelot represented in his mind and that I had also felt bereaved by down in my hometown. About missing out on the Great Books Club because they were, uh, nerds, about the odd-ball class photographs, before and after, about some teachers, English teachers I think, that he sent delayed kudos too, about his love of the sea (me too). About like I said before, dreams and ambitions. The best one, at least the one I remember him showing me at the time was simply entitled, A Walk Down Dream Street, which dealt with Billy Brady and his habit, penniless, no cars, no girls, sitting on the granite steps of the high school on warm, sultry nights talking about their dreams for the future, their jail-break from the unhappy homes they came from, about how they were going to do this and that to make their marks in the world. Small dream stuff as he recalled, but dreams, nicely written, with the virtue (if it can be called that) that he, they, actually did do that talking as Billy confirmed when I met him for the first time a few years ago.         

So you can see that Markin was clearly at peace with himself and ready to go to that reunion based on that box full of memories. Moreover, Markin had put together his own survey at that time looking for more in-depth information although that project kind of died on the vine due to apathy, poor response from classmates, and his own need to push on to a more pressing project at the time. Last year in another spurt of old town devotion he pulled that survey together with much better results since he really worked hard to contact, through the beauty of the Internet, as many classmates as possible working off of the 1964 Magnet yearbook.

Then one night in December, as we sat down at Jimmy’s, the local watering hole I mentioned that we frequent of late, he laid out to me the reasons why he was not going, could not possibly go, what did he say, oh yeah, he empathically could not go. Later I got to thinking about his long trail of reasons and came to agree with his conclusions. You know things having been alienated from his family, from the old town for so long he would not know anybody and would feel uncomfortably shy in that situation, especially since his long-time companion, Sarah, had refused his request to go to the reunion with him. Reasons along that line.  

Here is the kicker though. One that I would not have thought of now but knowing Markin back in the day would have had no trouble believing then. As part of the build-up to the reunion the reunion committee had put together a class website on the Internet. One way or another Markin got cyber-friendly with a woman classmate whom he did not know in high school but admitted (to me and her) that he had had a going-nowhere “crush” on back then. One thing led to another as they compared notes about their lives, interests and desires. That “one thing led to another” wound up with a face-to-face date, then several others, then under the satin sheets (yeah, this is definitely old days Markin, no question). But back up a minute-remember Sarah the longtime companion (and a woman who I would have grabbed in a minute if she had ever left Markin but she never did). That, in the end, that not wanting to be the “other woman” left that woman classmate no choice but to call off the short affair before it got too serious, and too complicated. Of course, since Markin wanted to burn both ends of the candle the break-up was horrendous (another Markin trademark, unfortunately) and so there was nothing but ill-feelings between the pair as a result. An emotion that I agreed would not be dissipated by reunion time as Markin also feared and so he made his unworthy decision that put all the other reasons in the shade.            

When I thought about Markin’s reasons, especially that bombshell last one later (although I would not have cried had he left Sarah because I would have been there to pick up the pieces so some things between us haven’t changed-damn), I found that my recollections of that night’s conversation, maybe not quite the way he put the matter but close, followed under our agreed upon common sign that, unfortunately, you cannot go home again.       

 

 

***Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- A Second  Encore

 

Peter Paul Markin, Class of 1964, comment:

 

Scene: Around and inside the old high school gym entrance on the Hamilton Street side the night before the big Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross town arch-rival, Adamsville High School, in 1963. (Yes, that above-mentioned street for the forgetful is the one that had the Merit gas station, now Hess, on the corner. The place where every self-respecting be-bop high school guy “filled up,” his “boss” car, or his father’s on Friday or Saturday night, cheaply, so that he had enough dough to “spurge” at the end of that “hot date” night for burgers, fries and tonic, you remember soda, at Adventure Car Hop down on the Southern Artery.)

This ancient 1963 time, for the younger reader, was a time before they built what is apparently an addition, including a newer gym and cafeteria, modeled on the office buildings across the street from the school behind the MBTA stop and a tribute to “high” concrete construction, and lowest bidder imagination. But this could have been a scene from any one of a number of years in those days. And I am willing to bet six-two-and-even with cold hard cash gathered from my local ATM against all takers that this story “speaks,” except for the names, to what is up today at Thanksgiving football rally time as well:

Sure the air was cold, you could see your breath making curls before your eyes no problem, and the night felt cold, cold as one would expect from a late November New England night. It was also starless, as the weather report had projected rain for the big game. Damn, not, damn, because I was worried about, or cared about a little rain. I’ve seen and done many things in a late November New England winter rain, and December and January rains too, for that matter. No, this damn, is for the possibility that the muddy Veterans Stadium field would slow up our vaunted offensive attack. And good as it is a little rain, and a little mud, could prove to be a great equalizer.

This after all was class struggle. No, not the kind that you might have heard old Karl Marx and his boys talk about, although now that I think of it there might be something to that here as well. I’ll have to check that out sometime but right then I was worried, worried to perdition, about the battle of the titans on the gridiron, rain-soaked granite grey day or not. See, this particular class struggle was Class A Adamsville against Class B North Adamsville and we needed every advantage against this bigger school. (Yes, I know for those younger readers that today’s Massachusetts high schools are gathered in a bewildering number of divisions and sub-divisions for some purpose that escapes me but when football was played for keeps and honor simpler alphabetic designations worked just find.)

Do I have to describe the physical aspects of the gym? Come on now this thing was (is) any high school gym, any public high school gym, anywhere. Foldaway bleachers, foldaway divider (to separate boys for girls in gym class back in the day, if you can believe that), waxed and polished floors made of sturdy wood, don’t ask me what kind (oak, I guess) with various sets of lines for its other uses as a basketball or volleyball court. But enough of paid by the word stuff to add color to this sketch. The important thing was that guys and gals, old and young, students and alumni and just plan townies were milling about waiting for the annual gathering of the Red Raider clan, those who have bled, bleed or want to bleed Raider red and even those oddballs that don't. This one stirs the blood of even the most detached denizen of the old town.

This night of nights, moreover, every unattached red-blooded boy student, in addition to his heavy dose of school patriotism and wishful wishing that he had been just a little stronger, faster or agile to have made the team, was looking around, and looking around frantically in some cases, to see if that certain she has come for the festivities. And every unattached red-blooded girl student was searching for that certain he (and maybe wishing that just that moment the one she was interested in has been just a little stronger, faster or agile so she could bask in his reflected glory). Don’t tell me, boy or girl, agile or not, you didn’t take a peek, or at least a stealthy glance.

Among this throng of peekers, half-peekers and wannabe peekers were a couple of fervent not fast enough, strong enough, agile enough quasi-jock male students, one of them is writing this entry, the other the great long distance track man, Josh Breslin, was busy getting in his glances. Both were (are) members of the Class of 1964 who with a vested interest in seeing their football-playing fellow classmates pummel the cross town rival, and also, in the interest of full disclosure, are deeply emerged in the hunt for those elusive shes. I do not see the certain she that I am looking for but, as was my style then, I have taken a couple of stealthy glances at some alternate prospects. (This led, on more than one occasion, including one “oh, damn” occasion, to have a very special she accuse me of perfidy, although she did not use that word, and dismissed me, words she did use, out of hand).

This was the final football game of our final football-watching season, as students anyway, as well so we had brought extra energy to the night’s performance. We were on the prowl and ready to do everything in our power to bring home victory…, well, almost everything except donning a football uniform to face the monstrous goliaths of the gridiron. We fancied ourselves built for more "refined" pursuits like those just mentioned stealthy glances, perfidious or not, and the like.

Finally, after much hubbub (and more coy and meaningful looks all around the place than one could reasonably shake a stick at) the rally began, at first somewhat subdued due to the then very recent trauma of the Kennedy assassination, the dastardly murder of one of our own, for the many green-tinged Irish partisans among the crowd, as well as the president. But everyone, seemingly, had tacitly agreed for this little window of time that the outside world and its horrors would not intrude. A few obligatory (and forgettable) speeches by somber and lackluster school administrators, headed by Principal Kelley, and their lackeys in student government and among the faculty stressing good sportsmanship and that old chestnut about it not mattering about victory but how you play the game drone away.

Of course, no self-respecting “true” Red Raider had (has) anything but thoughts of mayhem and casting the cross-town rivals to the gates of hell in his or her heart so this speechifying was so much wasted wind. This “bummer,” obligatory or not, was followed with a little of this and that, mainly side show antics. People, amateurishly, twirling red and black things in the air, and the like. Boosters or Tri-Hi-Yi types, somebody’s girlfriend or some important alum’s daughter for all I knew. Certainly not in a league with the majorettes, who I will not hear a word against, and who certainly know how to twirl the right way. See, I was saving one of my sly, coy and not perfidious glances for one of them right then.

What every red-blooded senior boy, moreover, and probably others as well, was looking forward to get things moving though was the cheer-leading, led by the senior girls like the vivacious Roxanne Murphy ( who, if you can believe this, dismissed me out of hand, although not for perfidiousness( ouch), the spunky Josie McCarthy, and the plucky Linda Kelly. And when they hit center court they did not fail us with their flips, dips, and rah-rahs. Strangely, the band and its bevy of majorettes when it is their turn, with one noted exception, did not inspire that same kind of devotion, although no one can deny that some of those girls can twirl.

But this entire spectacle was so much, too much, introduction. For what was wanted, what was demanded of the situation, up close and personal, was a view of the Goliaths that will run over the cross town arch-rival the next day. A chance to yell ourselves silly. The season had been excellent, marred only by a bitter lost to a bigger area team on their home field, and our team was highly regarded by lukewarm fans and sports nuts alike. Naturally, in the spirit, if not the letter of high school athletic ethos, the back-ups and non-seniors were introduced by Coach Leahy. Then came the drum roll of the senior starters, some of whom have been playing for an eternity it seems. Names like Tom Kiley, Walt Simmons, Lee Munson, Paul Duchamp, Joe Zona, Don McNally, Jim Fallon, Charlie McDonald, Stevie Chase, "Woj" (Jesus, don’t forget to include him. I don't need that kind of madness coming down on my face, even now.) and on and on.

Oh, yes and “Bullwinkle”, Bill Curran, a behemoth of a run-over fullback, even by today’s standards. Yes, let him loose on that arch-rival's defense. Whoa. But something was missing. A sullen collective pout filled the room. After the intros were over the restless crowd needed an oral reassurance from their warriors that the enemy was done for. And as he ambled up to the microphone and said just a couple of words we get just that reassurance from “Bullwinkle” himself. That is all we need. Boys and girls, this one is in the bag. And as we head for the exits to dream our second-hand dreams of glory the band plays the school fight song to the tune of On Wisconsin. Yes, those were the days when boys and girls, young and old, wise or ignorance bled raider red in the old town. Do they still do so today? And do they still make those furtive glances? I hope so.

 

Free Chelsea Manning - President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

Radack on Manning, war on whistleblowers

August 4, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

In a podcast on Sunday, August 3^rd, Justice Department whistle-blower Jesselyn Radack condemned the Obama administration for persecuting and sentencing Chelsea Manning to a 35-year sentence, while the people who actually committed war crimes and torture remain free.
Radack also calls attention to the lack of public knowledge in Chelsea’s case, attributing this to the government’s choice to prosecute whistleblowers in a secret, “closed door” manner:

Jesselyn Radack

“It’s sad to me that so much of her case still remains in the dark from the American public… from what was a very closed court-martial in a number of ways. And it’s sad to me that, like a number of other whistleblowers prosecuted by President Obama, she’s serving a stiff 35-year sentence while people who committed war crimes and torture are out free.”
Radack continues by shutting down politician claims that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should come back to the US to be tried, stating we’ve already seen in Chelsea Manning’s trial how the government over-prosecutes whistleblowers:
“Snowden is not going to come back to the US to face an Espionage Act prosecution because there simply is no public interest defense available So all of the people saying come home and face the music and just tell your story to a jury of your peers have a very romanticized notion of what an American trial is supposed to look like. And what we’ve learned from Chelsea Manning’s case is that these Espionage Act prosecutions are very locked down and it’s very difficult for the public to glean what’s going on because so much of it is done behind closed doors in secret.”
Jesselyn Radack blew the whistle on the Justice Department’s efforts to conceal the torture of John Walker Lindh. She is currently the director of the Government Accountability Project’s National Security and Human Rights Division and is one of Snowden’s defense lawyers.

Listen to the whole podcast here!

 

Free Chelsea Manning - President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

PRIDE for Manning in Vancouver

August 6th, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

Last weekend, Vancouver supporters gathered to march in support of Chelsea Manning in Vancouver’s Pride Parade.  Participants carried bright neon Chelsea Manning signs, one stating, “FREE CHELSEA MANNING NOW!”

Earlier in the week, supporters participated in Vancouver’s Trans March in support of Chelsea, carrying home-made Chelsea Manning posters.

***The Long Ago Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner  

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman  

Make no mistake, despite the lightly- dusted fictionalized places to protect the innocent, and the guilty too now that I think about the matter, this honor sketch is about our old town, North Adamsville back in the 1960s, back in our Class of 1964 youth, no question.

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 it that 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 is a story for another day.

 

“Food Chains” private screenings in San Francisco, LA pack the house with food movement, farmworker organizing luminaries! San Francisco press calls film an “incredibly moving documentary”; Dolores Huerta pledges to “joyfully promote the film and the Fair Food campaign”!… From left to right, Smriti Keshari (producer, “Food Chains”), former US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, CIW co-founder Lucas Benitez, David Damian Figueroa (MALDEF, executive producer “Food Chains”), Dolores Huerta (co-founder, UFW), Jon Esformes (Operating Partner, Pacific Tomato Growers), Sanjay Rawal (director, “Food Chains”), gather for a photo following last week’s screening at Creative Artists Agency’s offices in Los Angeles. Last week was a busy one on the “Food Chains” calendar!  With two invitation-only screenings in California, the “Food Chains” road crew continued to marshal support for the first feature film to take a close look at the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food and the groundbreaking Fair Food Program ahead of its big Nov. 21st theatrical release.  First up, San Francisco.  “Food Chains” director Sanjay Rawal reports from the scene: On Tuesday evening, chef Alice Waters, journalist Davia Nelson and documentary filmmaker James Redford hosted a private screening of FOOD CHAINS at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco along with the Neda Nobari Foundation and CRLA.  The one-time-only sneak peek in the Bay Area proved to be a high-demand event.  Audience members came from far and wide for this standing room-only screening and included heads of major foundations, local food celebrities, vintners, and farmers. James Redford (right) gave a moving introduction to the evening in which he referenced the long history of his brother-in-law and Food Chains’s Executive Producer, Eric Schlosser, in reporting on human rights violations in farm labor.  Venerated chef and farm-to-table pioneer Alice Waters spoke of how viscerally moving the film was, giving viewers “a lens into the lives of the very people who pick our food.”  She remarked on her close relationship with the CIW and her aspiration that the Fair Food Program reach the farthest corners of the agricultural sector. [...] [...]  Meanwhile, down in LA, the congratulatory comments flooded in following the screening.  Here below are just a few: Congratulations on such an inspiring, moving film. The documentary was great from start to finish — it was a great reminder of the important work we are doing to empower working-class people: our friends, neighbors, and family. Thanks for the invitation and for doing such great work. – Oscar Padron Espin, Wage and Justice Center Thanks for inviting us.  The film was very inspiring and we really enjoyed visiting and meeting Sanjay and the CIW folks from Immokalee.  Seeing the FLA farmworkers brought back a lot of memories of how we built the UFW. – Emilio Huerta, Esq. (Son of Dolores Huerta) What a brilliant and important film. I hope many people see it. You should be very proud. What good work and so full of integrity. A beautiful story of victory and resilience. – Diane Rodriguez, Theater activist (formerly of Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez) It’s a monumental contribution to the fight for  farm workers rights! Bravo, Bravisimo! – Alma Martinez, actress, AMPAS member

No New U.S. War In Iraq- Immediate Withdrawal Of All Military Aircraft, Troops And Mercenaries!  

 Workers and the oppressed have no interest in a victory by one combatant or the other in the reactionary Sunni-Shi’ite civil war. However, the international working class definitely has a side in opposing imperialist intervention in Iraq and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries. It is U.S. imperialism that constitutes the greatest danger to the world’s working people and downtrodden.

************

Dear Al, Action: Call the White House at 202.456.1111 before 5:00 eastern time today. The message: “Yes to humanitarian aid, but no bombing, no new Iraq war!” Just two weeks ago, you helped us send a strong message to policy-makers in Washington when the House of Representatives passed H. Con. Res. 105 stating clearly there is no legal authority for U.S. military involvement in Iraq without express Congressional approval. While a similar measure has not yet passed the Senate, this message from the American people couldn’t be more clear – NO NEW WAR IN IRAQ! Unfortunately, the spreading, hideously violent civil war in Iraq (flowing from the civil war in Syria, which U.S. weapons and support for opposition forces helped fuel) has President Obama considering military strikes, along with air drops of food, water and medicine to beleaguered Yazidi and other persecuted minorities stranded on a mountain top in northern Iraq, besieged by the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Certainly this rapidly evolving humanitarian crisis – people are dying for lack of food and water -- deserves U.S. and international action to deliver badly needed life-saving supplies to civilians fleeing the rampaging ISIS forces. But this gut-wrenching situation must not be used to justify U.S. escalation of the war, entailing certain if unknown disastrous unintended consequences, as we’ve seen before in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Please take action in support of humanitarian relief for people who desperately need it, but against escalating the killing. Call the White House today at 202.456.1111 before 5:00 pm eastern time. Humbly for Peace, Kevin Martin Executive Director Peace Action Take Action: Call the White House today at 202.456.1111 before 5:00 pm eastern time. Say 'yes' to humanitarian aid and 'no' to US military action in Iraq. CONNECT TO US:  Find us on Facebook  Follow us on Twitter  Read our blog  Contact us You are subscribed to Peace Action's Action Alert Network. You can unsubscribe here.

***50 Years Of Togetherness -In Honor Of The Class of 1964 High School Sweethearts Wherever You Are -“Written In The Stars”-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Here is an early Valentine for those who spied their fate mates early, early in life in the early 1960s, a true marvel of the modern social world. A post-World War II coming of age world with all its own set of teen distractions and mis-directions, angsts and alienations, in the days when we did not know whether there would be a tomorrow never mind fifty years when we faced the red scare Cold War night and came ever so close to fifty minutes when that old Cuban Missile Crisis got everybody’s attention even the lovebirds who only had eyes for each other and did not know where Cuba was, or care.

Moreover survived the trials, tribulations, traumas and traps of high school romance which in comparison made staying together for fifty years easy. You know how he felt when those seventy-six other guys, hungry for love guys or maybe just hormonally-charged, were “hitting” on her and she maybe was taking the bait or so he thought in his  green-eyed world, and in his forever world once he caught a whiff of that bath soap she used that drove him crazy when she came within ten feet of him (or maybe it was a whiff of “stolen” perfume, some mother’s perfume from her bureau calculated to drive him crazy. And she had it right even then. How about reverse? How did she feel when those seventy-six girls were “hitting” on him. Yeah, he wished, she knew he was from hunger, knew that whiff of perfume (where did he ever get the notion that it was bath soap, Ivory soap or something, Jesus, wake up brother) was all she needed to set the trap, and knew, that scraggly, pitiful, ragamuffin scruff he, was not drawing eye-power from seventy-six girls not even seven. Worse though Sally telling a tale to her about how she saw him looking twice at a certain other she in Math class. Ben telling him who she was seen in the school cafeteria, Jesus, the cafeteria, talking to over lunch. And then those personal points, you know the stuff like what to do about those grabby hands of his or how she had teased him way too far one wind-swept Saturday night.  But you know he/she/they survived the tough part. Enough said.

By the way the details of this sketch are totally fictional-although any honorees are welcome to give us their real stories. The sentiment however is real, very real…

 

…who knows when or where it started. Maybe it was that first fresh-eyed glance in Mr. Forrester’s dreary English classroom looking at her until his eyes got sore, or she spying him while waiting, endlessly waiting, for the always late bus walking down the street and went weak-kneed, or he sitting forlornly on the seawall at the old beach as she walked by took a second glance, or one of a hundred other possibilities but it happened. It happened with big bang hearts or with quietly growing on each other but it happened.

He, formerly full of boasts and bravados in that mandatory Monday morning before school boys’ “lav” talkfest about who did or did not do what with whom over the weekend fell silent, would not speak her name in such bluster. (She, she in that mandatory Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” talkfest about who did or did not do what with whom just smiled, a private smile, she had her man.) And they laughed, laughed one night down at that foreboding beach in his father-borrowed car once they had settled that issue of what was, and was not, appropriate in the grabby hands/tease beyond endurance watching, as the local lore had it in North Adamsville hard by the bay, the “submarine races” saying they would stay together forever. Forever being, as such things went with most time calculated in minutes, hours, days, and weeks, maybe the next year, or until the next best thing came along            

As it turned out the next best thing was sitting right next to each of them, and so they, maybe a little fearful, maybe a little worried about whether they would last or not tied the knot (although truth to tell that knot had already been tied long before). He went off to war, school, or work and she waited and worried, worried about how they would provide for the coming children. And worry or not the children came and made their time a little easier (mostly, but that is a whole story on its own).

But there were inevitable bumps in the road, he, getting a little thicker around the waist, losing a little hair, feeling a little antsy, looked off in the distance, gave off that glazed eye look when she beckoned, and she, well, she went on an exercise regime, read more books than one would think possible about keeping him attracted as they both wondered in the night what had happened. Both separately feverishly tossing in the night with thoughts about leaving, about what one would do without the other, about where they would they go and how when they were young they had loved each other so. That fever passed. Later he more interested in Sunday afternoon football point spreads and she in shopping, shopping until she dropped, for the newest grandchild had that recurring dream. But that too passed, remembering back to mist of time fogged car window beach night pledges.        

So they, maybe mocked in a modern world where everyone is supposed to change spouses, partners, lovers with the changing seasons, spent their time together. Marked their love with the flow of time.  Made it last. 

Somewhere up in Maine, somewhere along the coast, the white-capped waves ominously splashing against other seawalls, seawalls far removed from youthful high school beach frolics, on a cold December night a woman stood nose almost pressed against a frosted window in a lonely dark room looked out with a vacant expression at the swirl. Stood there thinking about that first forever marriage gone wrong when he went chasing after a younger woman, or maybe just the idea of another woman once he felt that he had gone beyond what she had to offer. He could never commit and she would, admittedly, withdraw first sex then love when she sensed that lack, and knew, knew from her bumpy sad childhood that she needed that and so the whole thing turned to ashes. After a while thought about that second foolish marriage to that charming chameleon who had used her as a meal ticket. He had vowed commitment, maybe even tried for a while but they were so different and wiser then in love’s thickets cut him loose. She thought as well, that thought crowding out those marriage moments, of that short recent affair that had held so much promise in the first days, had the feel of written in the stars just like she wished for, felt like maybe he would be her forever man but you see he was married, married all along to some other idea and so as that first blush faded, she dismissed him out of hand, and he turned into her never man. She sighed.

Down in some Southern California town, one of those endless beach towns complete with surfers and woodies, a man who had changed companions with the seasons, pensively looked out at the moonless night, the foam-flecked ocean waves swirling against the waiting shore his sole companion. He thinking, as he often did these days, about how he had raised holy hell in his first marriage, had married out of fear, fear of being alone when the hammer of his life went down. What did he know, knowing little of love from childhood.  Blushed at the thought of that horror of a second marriage where he let his every addiction, affliction and predilection destroy whatever good instincts he had left, the wretched remnant of his search for a newer world. Left too in those hellish second marriage days his best friend lying face down with two slugs in him in some dusty back street in Sonora after a drug deal went south on them. Those two things would always be linked in flashing forward to newer sorrows he wondered if that short splendid recent affair that he had tried to make work, make work out of a different fear, a fear of being left alone in his old age when the hammer went down might not have worked out because he could not commit, could not risk the return of those addictions. He smirked as he thought about that, thought about how his whole life revolved around two women, the one that he was with at the moment and that one in his head, and in his dreams just beyond his grasp e wanted to be with. Maybe he was not built for forever, maybe.

They, we, I, stand in awe, stand in awe do you hear, of such steadfastness by those classmate sweethearts. And love, but you knew that already.     

 

No New U.S. War In Iraq- Immediate Withdrawal Of All U.S. Military Aircraft, Troops  And Mercenaries!   

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/airstrikes-begin-u-s-navy-planes-drop-bombs-isis-forces-n175941

 

Workers and the oppressed have no interest in a victory by one combatant or the other in the reactionary Sunni-Shi’ite civil war. However, the international working class definitely has a side in opposing imperialist intervention in Iraq and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries. It is U.S. imperialism that constitutes the greatest danger to the world’s working people and downtrodden.