Support "Courage To Resist"-The Organization Supporting Military Resisters And Chelsea Manning

Support "Courage To Resist"-The Organization Supporting Military Resisters And Chelsea Manning 

Frank Jackman comment on Courage To Resist and military resisters: 

During the early stages of the Vietnam War, say 1965, 1966, frankly, I was annoyed at, dismayed by, appalled by and perplexed by guys my age, who were refusing to be drafted, refusing in some cases to even sign up for the draft (although I admit I was “late” signing up myself not for political or moral reasons but because I was not living at home having left on the first of about six estrangements from my family and did not receive the letter about the legal requirement to register until much later). Refusing and making a big public deal out of it. And this draft resistance movement was not some faraway situation heard on the news out in the suburbs about actions in the big cities or on some ivy-covered Ivy League elitist campuses but because while I was going to school I supported myself by getting up very early and servicing coffee- making machines in various locales in downtown Boston, including near the landmark draft resistance center, the Arlington Street Church (now U/U –Universalist-Unitarian but then I believe home to only one of the two having subsequently united but I am not sure which denomination ruled the roost at that location then although I believe it was the blessed Unitarians, now blessed for their generous help in the struggles against war and lesser known place of refuge for vagrant monthly folk-music friendly coffeehouses.) The Arlington Street Church moreover held itself out as a main sanctuary protecting under long time religious principles draft-resisters who had taken shelter there in order to avoid being arrested by federal law enforcement agents. So many mornings there would be a bee-hive of activity outside and around the church in support of the resisters. The sight of straggly guys and their supporters protesting would get my blood pressure rising.   

Now it was not that I was particularly pro-war even then, probably had not been in favor of escalation of that war and support to the South Vietnamese government since about the time of the Diem regime, the time before Jack Kennedy was murdered in 1963. Somehow I sensed that with each tragic turn there the noose of the draft would tighten around my own neck. But in those days, whatever else I held politically sacred, I, a working class guy from North Adamsville, held all of the usual patriotic sentiments about country, about service and about military duty of my neighborhood and upbringing.

 

As my grandfather, a veteran of World War I, said of his own experience of volunteering when President Wilson pulled the hammer down looking for recruits back then, never volunteer but if called you go, say you went willingly if anybody asked. So the thought of anybody “shirking” their duty if called really rankled me and while later I did a complete turn-around about the draft resisters, especially the ones who chose jail rather military service then I was disgusted. Disgusted as well by what I perceived vaguely as a class-bias about who was refusing to go and who had to go if those who would normally be called refused to go-working class and minority guys. Don’t hold me to some kind of prescience on that because that was just a vague underpinning for my general reasons of patriotic duty but in the case when I did my own military service, my infantryman grunt service guess who the other guys in the barracks and tents were-yeah, working class and minority guys.

 

I, on the other hand, have always admired military resisters since my knowledge of them and their actions came later after I had begun my sea-change of views. Knowing too by personal experience that “bucking” the Army system and winding up in the stockade, or worse the dreaded Fort Leavenworth every drill sergeant made a point of telling us about if we screwed up. But I was no resister having, frankly, done my time in the military, Vietnam time, without any serious reflection about the military, my role in the military, or what was just and unjust about that war until after I got out. After I got out and began to see things without “the fog of war” and its infernal “do it for your buddies” which is what a lot of things came down to in the end blinding me and got serious “religion” on the questions of war and peace from several sources.

 

At first I began working with the Cambridge Quakers who I had noticed around the fringes of anti-war GI work in the early 1970s when there was a serious basis for doing such work as the American army, for one reason or another whether the craziness of pursuing the war, racism, or just guy being fed-up with being cannon-fodder for Mister’s war, was half in mutiny and the other half disaffected toward the end of American involvement in that war. The Quakers front and center on the military resisters just as they had been with the draft resisters at a time when there was a serious need as guys, guys who got their “religion” in the service needed civilian help to survive the military maze that they were trying to fight. This connection with the Quakers had been made shortly after I got out of the service when my doubts crept in about what I had done in the service, and why I had let myself be drafted and why I hadn’t expressed serious anti-war doubts before induction about what the American government was doing in Vietnam to its own soldiers. But, more importantly, and this was the real beginning of wisdom and something I am keenly aware every time the American government ratchets up the war hysteria for its latest adventure, to the Vietnamese who to paraphrase the great boxer Mohammed Ali (then Cassius Clay) had never done anything to me, never posed any threat to me and mine. But as much as I admired the Quakers and their simple peace witness, occasionally attended their service and briefly had a Quaker girlfriend, I was always a little jumpy around them, my problem not theirs, since their brand of conscientious objection to all wars was much broader than my belief in just and unjust wars.

Later I worked with a couple of anti-war collectives that concentrated on anti-war GI work among active GIs through the vehicle of coffeehouses located near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and Fort Dix down in New Jersey. That work was most satisfying and rewarding as I actually worked with guys who knew the score, knew the score from the inside, and had plenty to tell, especially those who had gotten “religion” under fire although that experience was short-lived once American on the ground involvement in Vietnam was minimalized and the horrific draft was abolished as a means of grabbing “cannon fodder” for the damn war. Once the threat of being sent to Vietnam diminished the soldiers drifted off and the anti-war cadre that held things together as well.

What really drove the issue of military resistance home to me though, what caused some red-faced shame was something that I did not find out about until well after my own military service was over. A few years later when I went back to my hometown on some family-related business (another futile attempt to rekindle the family ties) I found out after meeting him on the street coming out of a local supermarket that my best friend from high school, Sean Kiley, had been a military resister, had refused to go to Vietnam, and had served about two years in various Army stockades here in America for his efforts. Had done his “duty” as he saw it. Had earned his “anti-war” colors the hard way.  

See Sean like me, like a lot of working-class kids from places like our hometown  up in Massachusetts, maybe had a few doubts about the war but had no way to figure out what to do and let himself be drafted for that very reason. What would a small town boy whose citizens supported the Vietnam War long after it made even a smidgen of sense, whose own parents were fervent “hawks,” whose older brother had won the DSC in Vietnam, and whose contemporaries including me did their service without a public murmur know of how to maneuver against the American military monster machine. But what Sean saw early on, from about day three of basis training, told him he had made a big error, that his grandmother who grew up in Boston and had been an old Dorothy Day Catholic Worker supporter had been right that there was no right reason for him to be in that war. And so when he could, after receiving orders for Vietnam, he refused to go (I will tell you more of the details some time when I ask him some questions about events that I have forgotten) and did his time in the military that way.          

Sean’s story, and in a sense my belated story, are enough reasons to support Courage to Resist since, unfortunately, there are today very few organizations dedicated to providing informational, legal, and social support for the military resisters of the heinous onslaughts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The organization needs the help of every ex-soldier who got “religion,” of every anti-war activist, and of every honest citizen who realizes, now more than ever, that the short way to end the endless wars of this generation is to get to the soldiers, get to the cadre on the ground fighting the damn wars. Enough said.     

When Guys Get All Knotted Up Over A Dame-With Burt Lancaster’s Criss-Cross In Mind

When Guys Get All Knotted Up Over A Dame-With Burt Lancaster’s Criss-Cross In Mind

 

 

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Zack James

 

Of course Steve Thompson’s story was about a dame, about a guy can’t shake some gal off his mind dame that has been done a million times in Hollywood, and not just Hollywood, by a thousand guys ever since Adams got bopped, be-bopped according to some sources but they we jazz-addled benny popping 1950s hep cats and hipsters so consider the source, some well-placed sources though when you think about the situation by the way so I am not just blowing smoke about that, making it a hypothetical situation or just making it up. Making it up while I am still scratching my head, still in shock really, to fill some time until I figure out how my boy Steve could be such a sap, could have gone back to her, practically begging, practically begging to wind up with some very bad karma, maybe a few slugs or more if things worked out that way. Or maybe  I had it wrong on that script business and it was a thousand times on a bum Hollywood script by a million guys that got waylaid by a skirt because even though I am a partisan of my boy Steve another guy, another smart guy got waylaid by the same frail and so how are you going to figure the story hasn’t been told some number of times since Adam took that first roll in the hay with the Lady Eve, who when you think about weren’t no lady when Adam delved and Eve spanned if you know what  I mean.

But I am getting behind my story, way behind, although if you were old enough to have been able to go see a movie titled Criss Cross starring old time film noir hunk, Burt Lancaster, a 1940s and 1950s hunk which had a lot to do with looking good to guy-starved women with their men away at war, and after that those guys finished up in Europe and the Pacific trying to come back to the “real” world of nine to five, a nice wife, a housewife wife, three kids, a picketed white fence and a dog of indeterminate breeding a bit moody and sullen those women still guy-starved for a while. That film, film noir really, where you get a serious look at the starkly beautiful black and white cinematography and the great shots of our old neighborhood, the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles, around Thornton Street, a corner boy generation or so before our coming of age time in the early 1960s, dealt with Burt Lancaster and his travails with his own Anna who came up on those same streets then you know what is what about my boy Steve and I am not telling any tales out of school when I tell you I am talking about the late Steve Thompson.

A lot of that “late,” as in RIP, part was my fault, although about six guys from the old neighborhood who hung around with us at Doc’s Rexall Drugstore on Norton Street and later at Molly’s Diner on Vine, I mentioned Steve’s fate to have told me he was built for the fall, had played with dynamite when he first tangled with Anna and so nothing I could have done would have changed a damn thing. Maybe, maybe not. But I take my share of the fault for this part, because I didn’t see it coming, didn’t see the real reason that he had come back to Los Angeles, had come back to the old neighborhood, right back to the Bunker Hill section where we came of age together to find her, to get back under the linens with her instead of starting fresh in say El Segundo or maybe Pasadena, places where she wouldn’t dream of going, places for the squares she would say in that brittle voice of hers which would be cooing one minute and high dungeon bitch the next, but you probably figured that out already. (Steve told me once he had taken her, after he made a big score at the track and had dough for a few days, to a swanky hotel over on Wiltshire, a place where they don’t ask questions as long as the money is green, very green, that they had satin sheets there but she didn’t like them because when he was on top of her, or when she was giving him some head the damn sheets would slip and slide all over the place so linen was the bedding material she wanted, although more than once she said to me even she had been done in the back of a car more than once, a super 1949 Hudson among others, and scene with no sheets was okay too, strange chick, strange that way.)

So no way I  should have fallen for that  cock and bull story about Steve being lonely for home, for Thornton Street, for Bunker Hill, Jesus, every guy including me was looking to get out of there, corner boy-bred or not once the bikers, and not the candy-assed guys that Marlon Brando was hanging with in The Wild One who ripped through a small hick town with him on a lark but guys with chains and the ability to whiplash with them, hipsters, dopesters, tramps, you know hookers, good time girls, and low-rent con men came to the Hill to nurse their acts. No way. He wasn’t there, hadn’t come back  to support dear old mother in her old age, or his younger brother either who was all hopped up to marry some bimbo, Rita was her name, and she really was a bimbo because I had dated her sister, Kate, for a while after high school once her ex-boyfriend told me she was “easy” if you bought her a few drinks or a little sister, you know cocaine from the drugstore depending on who you knew at Doc’s and while she was nice under the sheets, knew how to “curl a guy’s toes” as she would say when she was done, she was nothing but a bimbo, stupid as hell outside the do-you-want-sex bit, so it ran in the family.

I see I really am getting behind in my story about Steve’s fate so I had better go back to the beginning, not the beginning beginning but the beginning of Steve’s troubles because like I said nothing good was coming of his getting mixed up with a tramp like Anna, Anna Chavez, a Spanish hot-blood or that is the way she played it although she looked as much Indian as Mex to me. I found out later after the smoke had cleared and everybody was accounted for that she was half-Navajo, half Indian on her mother’s side so I wasn’t that far off. But you know when you mix-up hot-blooded races there is bound to be trouble so maybe all that happened was in the cards anyway but somebody else can figure that one out, that one is beyond me except like I said she had that Indian streak in her and that had to mean trouble for a corner boy like Steve.

A guy whose previous experiences with women, girls really, were those sulky Irish Catholic girls who we really never did figure out, one day they had the bible between their legs and the next day, next night really, they were asking if you wanted a blow job to “ease your tensions” by which they meant to give you that treat in order to avoid losing their virginity and still be able to tell their girlfriends how “fast” they were with the boys once the damn Mass was over and they had taken holy communion to build up their sin accounts for the next time.  Once though a girl, one of those bible between the knees types told me she just flat-out like giving head, didn’t like the thought that it might get around that she was getting laid since her older brother was the protective type and might wail on the guy. She didn’t like the idea from what one girlfriend describe to her the mess of vaginal intercourse either. You know that was probably true since she was a swallower, said she also didn’t like the idea that she would get your seed all over her face or hair once you came and the jimson squirted all over the place. We used to have a great debate at Molly’s about the girls who gave head and whether they would swallow your jimson or spit it out. This girl I am talking about also would lick you dry and then keep at it try to get you hard again just for kicks to see if you could come again so she could get another swallow again said the stuff was good for her, that somebody had told her the stuff helped a girl’s complexion.

That was high school stuff  but see we used to after high school, after we graduated from Doc’s and Molly’s to real hangouts, hang at Florian’s Bar on Norfolk Street (and in high school too if Jimmy the Greek was behind the bar, a guy who asked no questions if you gave him his graft, his tip and a big one for serving you the house rotgut whiskey but what are you going to do when you developed a thirst and Jimmy was the only one who was a stand-up guy if you didn’t count the winos over under the bridge on Vernon Street who would get you a pint of whatever you wanted as long as they got their Ripple along with the order). Hey, not the Florian’s over on Central Avenue where a guy named Moose and his boys used to hang out listening to some warbler named Velma singing torch songs, not a bad singer either when I checked later and found she had recorded a few songs in the Billie Holiday style but like a lot of dames was looking for the main chance and so turned Moose in on an armed robbery beef for six bits and a mansion up in the hills. No that Florian’s was strictly for black people in our time and we wouldn’t have been caught dead there, or maybe we would have been caught dead there if we had tried to go upstairs where the real action was. Wouldn’t have gone there even with Roosevelt Barnes, a black as night brother who hung with us, to grease the way.

The one on Norfolk Street as we, or rather Steve found out when it was too late, was run by Slim Dundee the “connected” mob guy, who was using the place as a front for drugs, high stakes gambling and prostitution, prostitution mainly for guys who were into weird stuff like getting whipped by a broad or who liked to tie girls up that kind of thing. Slim was maybe ten years older than us but he was smooth, had all the angles down, and of course was in with the boys that counted back East as they were heading out to claim the West as their happy hunting ground. Here’ the thing though, the thing that Steve didn’t know until it was too later Slim was secretly married to Anna, had been since she was sixteen and he had bopped her, some say be-bopped her which is what made her such a tramp. Be-bopping in our old neighborhood meaning that he was pimping her out, making her walk the streets, you know making her nothing but trade, when he was on his way up to make some dough to buy Florian’s. So Steve when he walked into that fatal rhumba with Anna on the Florian dance floor didn’t know the score, and it probably wouldn’t have mattered that minute when she started getting him stirred up as she rubbed up against him all provocative that first night when Xavier Del Rio and his band were calling the shots.              

Steve should have known when Anna took him out back in the alley that night, both of them half-drunk, both of them randy as hell if what Steve said was right, and showed him the world. Christ he was hooked, hooked right there. But when you are dealing with fire you are going to get burned and so from that very first night she led him a merry chase. Got him thinking marriage and kids and houses shit he could have cared less about before, and which she could have cared less about ever. She kept stalling though every time he asked, every time he said they should settle down, saying they had to know each other better. Here is the funny thing she was half serious about taking a run at Steve, at the square life once Slim got tired of her, tired of her enough to spent more time at his businesses than with her but that was only half serious because she knew what Slim would do to her, to Steve if she stopped being Slim’s property. Yeah, that was exactly the way Slim saw his women, chattel property.  

Here is the outline of the half serious part, how Steve wound up “two slugs” the late Steve. Steve, hell all the corner boys, me too were not only strictly from hunger but we had been less than stellar students and so like maybe from time immortal guys like us got heavy-lifting, you know, working class jobs, me, working over at Selmo’s garage as an oil and grease man and Steve as a trucker, for National Pacific, good pay for working stiffs but strictly to meet expenses kind of work. Anna as the Annas of the world will do wanted dough and lots of it that is why she rode with Slim even when he was hustling her on the streets. She could see he was going places and took the ride along with him. But when she got her hooks into Steve she was too old to go back on the streets although she said she could still show those young gals she would see on Hollywood and Vine a thing or two about doing tricks and Steve said he agreed, said she “curled his toes” about six ways to Sunday, showed him stuff he had only seen in girlie magazines and he had been in the Army and knew what was what when it came to odd-ball sex stuff.

 So he had to do something to get dough, and fast, since Anna was murmuring about going back to Slim, full-time, leaving Steve out in the cold. So Steve got this bright idea that he would go where the money was, no, not a bank like the famous bank robber Willie Sutton said when asked about why he robbed banks but Slim’s Florian’s Bar where he had an office upstairs and kept his big cash in a safe. Do it solo so that no one would figure it was him, do it quietly too and not tell Anna a thing except to meet him up in Malibu on a designated day.            

Well, strangely, Steve actually pulled off the heist, caught Jimmy the Greek putting some money in the vault and just slugged him over the head and scrammed. Made a clean get away. The only problem was that Slim having sensed that Anna was seeing somebody else, or so he thought which was the same thing had a tail put on Steve and so once Steve got to Malibu he was easy pickings. Slim’s man had them cornered until Slim showed up. Then, cool as a cucumber, Slim walked in to the hideaway love nest and without saying a word put two into Steve and then for good measure two into Anna, RIP. Then walked away smooth as silk. Yeah, Steve is the prime example I always use when I warn guys about getting knotted up over a dame. Little good it does.           

30th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal-Free the Class-War Prisoners!

30th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal-Free the Class-War Prisoners! Workers Vanguard No. 1080	11 December 2015

30th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal-Free the Class-War Prisoners!

 

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

 

This year’s Holiday Appeal marks the 30th year of the Partisan Defense Committee’s program of sending monthly stipends as an expression of solidarity to those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression and imperialist depredation. This program revived a tradition initiated by the International Labor Defense under James P. Cannon, its founder and first secretary (1925-1928). This year’s events will pay tribute to two former stipend recipients: Phil Africa of the MOVE 9 who died under suspicious circumstances in January and Hugo Pinell, the last of the San Quentin 6 in prison, who was brutally assassinated in August. We honor the memory of these courageous individuals by keeping up the fight for the freedom of all class-war prisoners. The PDC currently sends stipends to 14 class-war prisoners.

 

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” Framed up for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Mumia was sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. Federal and state courts have repeatedly refused to consider evidence proving Mumia’s innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed the policeman. In 2011 the Philadelphia district attorney’s office dropped its longstanding effort to legally lynch America’s foremost class-war prisoner. He remains condemned to life in prison with no chance of parole. Mumia now faces a life-threatening health crisis related to an active case of hepatitis C which brought him close to death in March. The Pennsylvania prison authorities adamantly refuse to treat this dangerous but curable condition.

 

Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its Native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier was framed up for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents marauding in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 71-year-old Peltier is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another nine years. Peltier suffers from multiple serious medical conditions and is incarcerated far from his people and family.

 

Seven MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa and Eddie Africa—are in their 38th year of prison. After the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, they were sentenced to 30-100 years, having been falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops when a bomb was dropped on their living quarters. After nearly four decades of unjust incarceration, these innocent prisoners are routinely turned down at parole hearings. None have been released.

 

Albert Woodfox is the last of the Angola Three still incarcerated. Along with Herman Wallace and Robert King, Woodfox fought the vicious, racist and dehumanizing conditions in Louisiana’s Angola prison and courageously organized a Black Panther Party chapter at the prison. Authorities framed up Woodfox and Wallace for the fatal stabbing of a prison guard in 1972 and falsely convicted King of killing a fellow inmate a year later. For over 43 years, Woodfox has been locked down in Closed Cell Restricted (CCR) blocks, the longest stretch in solitary confinement ever in this country. His conviction has been overturned three times! According to his lawyers, he suffers from hypertension, heart disease, chronic renal insufficiency, diabetes, anxiety and insomnia—conditions no doubt caused and/or exacerbated by decades of vindictive and inhumane treatment. Albert was ordered released by a federal judge in June, but the vindictive Louisiana state prosecutors are bringing him to trial yet again for a crime he did not commit.

 

Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the two remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals but, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not crimes. They should not have served a day in prison.

 

Ed Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa are former Black Panther supporters and leaders of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. They are victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation, under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter and Mondo were railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and they have now spent more than 40 years behind bars. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter and Mondo new trials despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a 911 audio tape long suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.

 

Contribute now! All proceeds from the Holiday Appeal events will go to the Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund. This is not charity but an elementary act of solidarity with those imprisoned for their opposition to racist capitalism and imperialist depredations. Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252.

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of  ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

 

After The Fall-John Steinbeck’s' "Eden Of Eden"- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s “East Of Eden.”

DVD Review

East Of Eden, starring James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, directed by Elia Kazan, based on the second half of John Steinbeck’s book of the same name, Warner Brothers, 1955.

This entry was originally posted as a review of the book by John Steinbeck but other than to note the outstanding performances by Dean, Harris and Massey (and small role by Burl Ives) the point made there apply here on the film adaptation.


I usually do not read the comments of book reviewers on Amazon.com (or, in a few cases, at least not until after I have written my own). I was, however, interested in finding out whether Steinbeck and his tale still held interest for today’s readers. The answer seems to be yes. Moreover, I was interested in what other people had to say about the symbolic nature of the clash between and among generations of brothers and its relationship to the old biblical struggles going back to the ‘first family’.

Damn, life has definitely been tougher since the ‘fall’. The morale to be derived from Steinbeck’s novel is, apparently, that while the ‘fall of man’ under the spell of earthly temptations had its down side humankind is better for the struggle. A strong argument can moreover be made that without that struggle by fallen humankind no serious progress would have been made. That struggle is epitomized by the characters, tensions and actions of the two brothers (in both generations ,Adam’s the father’s and Aaron’s and the son’s) which makes me think that Steinbeck may see this an eternal struggle and that we are endlessly doomed to roll that rock up the hill just to have it come crashing back down on us.

Those who have only seen the 1950’s movie version of this novel starring, among others, the ill-fated James Dean and a young Julie Harris, have missed some great writing about the effects of the destruction, struggle to rebuilt and attempts at redemption in the wake of the fall of Adam Trask and his struggle to change his ways. And through him, his sons. The movie (that I saw long before reading the book) skips over the compelling first section which deals with the seemingly pre-ordained destruction of Adam, by his ‘wife’ among others. Moreover, in the movie the demonic role of the ‘wife’ Kathy is glossed over (probably due to the less tolerate and more squeamish mores about ‘fallen women’ in the 1950’s). She is not a ‘nice’ person. Read the book and see why we, even the best of us, are now all living just East of Eden.

* Poet's Corner- T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock and Section One of "The Wasteland"

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of T.S. Eliot reading his "The Lovesong Of J. Alfred Prufrock".

Click on link below for a discussion on T.S. Eliot on NPR's On Point 

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/12/15/ts-eliot-modern-poetry-waste-land

Markin comment:

There is, sometimes, no accounting for literary tastes, especially for poetry. In this space I have featured the likes of John Donne, Walt Whitman and- Allen Ginsberg. Go figure. The common thread (beside liking them all) is their use of language to convey emotions that I can understand. Not an easy task connecting together with this crowd. In "Prufrock" it is that one line- "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons" that always gets to me. Same for "April is the cruellest month...." in "The Wasteland"


T.S. Eliot (1888–1965).

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . . 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old … 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me. 125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.




The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, 25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, 45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. 55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. 65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! 75
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'

*On The Question Of Cats- Really

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of a performance of "Memory" from the musical, "Cats".
Click on link below for a discussion of T.S. Eliot on the NPR show On Point  

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/12/15/ts-eliot-modern-poetry-waste-land

CD Review

Selections From “Cats”, “Cats” cast, The Really Useful Group Records, 1989

Okay, put a life long love of cats (real), with a literary love of cats (poetic, via T.S. Eliot), with a “Cat”-full of cats (on stage) and you throw in some now classic songs about our feline friends and that tells everything you need to know about this CD. Oh, except that for the life long cat-lovers out there you will know by each kind of cat mentioned in this compilation that it is probably not far removed from some cat that you nursed back to health, tripped over, got mad at, fed (in the middle of the night), groomed (at best you could) and got misty-eyed over the memory of when you heard that “Memory” song that kind of puts the whole production together. That says it all.

Rum Tum Tugger is one of the many feline characters in the poetry book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot and in the musical Cats. Cats was based on Eliot's book, published in 1939.

T.S Eliot draws attention to the similarities between feline and human personality traits in his book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. The Rum Tum Tugger is portrayed as the rebel cat who can't help but be difficult. He is never satisfied with what you give him;

The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:

If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse.
He is notoriously hard to please and he sets himself apart from others by wanting to be different. He always does the opposite of what is expected of him and by the end of poem you are left with the idea that the Rum Tum Tugger is deviously self-centered and relishes in being so. The three words that are used to describe his character given to each performer who plays the role are, 'Perverse, Preening, and Independant'

In the musical The Rum Tum Tugger is a black tom cat with leopard spots on his chest, and a wild mane. In some Japanese productions, he is white. He is considered the ladies cat, and the rebel of the group. He loves the limelight, while at the same time he enjoys being seen as an individual by separating himself a little from the pack. He may be self-obsessed, but he has great respect for those who deserve it, such as Mr. Mistoffelees. The younger female kittens (Victoria, Etcetera, Electra and Jemima), and even some of the male kittens are in awe of him as well as some of the older queens, especially Bombalurina. He flirts openly with almost every female cat in the filmed version. Demeter seems to dislike him very deeply. This is shown in the filmed version. During The Awefull Battle Of The Pekes And The Pollicles, he plays the bagpipes.

Paul Nicholas played the role on the West End and Terrence Mann originated the role in the Broadway version. Rum Tum Tugger is played by John Partridge in the filmed version. In the 25th Anniversary tour of CATS, the role of Rum Tum Tugger was performed by Gary Watson. Right now in the Worldwide tour he is played by Adam Steiner. In most productions he sings 'The Rum Tum Tugger', 'Magical Mr Mistoffelees', and, along with Munkustrap he sings 'Old Deuteronomy'. In "Jellicle songs for Jellicle Cats, he sings "Can you say of your bite, that it's worse than your bark?" Also, in this scene, he doesn't have his mane, he has a different wig and doesn't have his belt on yet- they don't want him to stand out too much just yet. His first appearance with his mane and proper Rum Tum Tugger wig and accessories is in his own song (which he enjoys greatly - he gets to destroy the Gumbie Cat's fun.)

Andrew Lloyd Webber has stated that the part of the Tugger is intended to be an homage to Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. This homage is apparent in the way he moves on stage in the original Gillian Lynne choreography and the costume styling. His type of cat was said to be Maine Coon, because of his wild mane and being portrayed as being much bigger than the other cats. According to his song, he apparently would do pretty much anything to annoy his owners. He does not appear in many of the scenes, but when he does he usually has a solo. He and Munkustrap sing the solos to "Old Deuteronomy"

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Tum_Tugger"

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-In Honor Of The Frontline Fighters Of The International Working Class Today-The International Working Class Anthem The Internationale

 

A YouTube film clip of a performance of the classic international working class song of struggle, The Internationale.

 
 

Ralph Morris comment:

“Never in a million years” if you had asked me the question of whether I knew the words, melody or history of The Internationale before I linked up in 1971 with my old friend and comrade, Sam Eaton, asked me whether I had known how important such a song and protest music in general was to left-wing movements as a motivating force for struggle against whatever the American government is down on in the war or social front to squeeze the life out of average Joes and Joanne. To the contrary I would have looked at you with ice picks in my eyes wondering where you fit into the international communist conspiracy if you has asked me that question say in 1964, 1965 maybe later, as late as 1967. Then living in Troy, New York I imbibed all the working class prejudices against reds (you know communist dupes of Joe Stalin and his progeny who pulled the strings from Moscow and made everybody jumpy), against blacks (stood there right next to my father, Ralph, Sr., when he led the physical opposition to blacks moving into the Tappan Street section of town and had nothing, along with me and my corner boys at Van Patten’s Drugstore, but the “n” word to call black people sometimes to their faces), against gays and lesbians (you know fag and dyke baiting them whenever the guys and I went to Saratoga Springs where they spent their summers doing whatever nasty things they did to each other), against uppity woman (servile, domestic women like my good old mother and wanna-bes were okay). Native Americans didn’t even rate a nod since they were not on the radar. But mainly I was a red, white and blue American patriotic guy who really did have ice picks for anybody who thought they would like to tread on old Uncle Sam (who had been “invented” around our way).

But things sometimes change in this wicked old world, change when some big events force everybody, or almost everybody since some people will go on about their business as if nothing had happened even come judgment day. That event for me was the Vietnam War, the war that tore this nation, my generation and a whole lot more asunder and has not really been put back together even now. And that Vietnam War was not an abstract thing like it was for a lot of guys who opposed it on principle, or were against the draft at least for themselves since once I got my draft notice in early 1967 I decided to enlist to avoid being cannon fodder for what looked to me a bloodbath going on over there. But I did that enlistment out of patriotic reasons since my idea also was to use some skills I had in the electrical field to aid the cause. When I got my draft notice I was working in my father’s high skill electrical shop where he did precision work for the big outfit in the area, General Electric (which was swamped with defense contract work at the time) and figured that is what I could do best. My recruiting sergeant in Albany led me to believe that as well. Silly boy (silly boy now but then he promised the stars and I taken in by his swagger bought the whole deal).

Pay attention to that year I got my draft notice, 1967. What Uncle was looking for that year (and in 1968 as well) were guys to go out in the bush in some desolate place and kill every commie they could find (and as I know from later experience if you didn’t have a commie to count just throw a red star on some poor son of a peasant who had just been mowed down in the crossfire and claim him, hell, claim her as an enemy kill, Jesus). So I wound up humping the hills of the Central Highlands of Vietnam not just for a year like most guys but I extended for six month to get out a little earlier when I got back to the “real” world. This is not the place to tell what I did, what my buddies did, and what the American government made us do, made us in nothing but animals but whatever you might have heard about atrocities and screw ups is close enough to the truth for now.

All of that made me a very angry young man when I got out of the Army in late 1969. I tried to talk to my father about it but he was hung up in a combination “good war, World War II, his war where America saved international civilization from the Nazis and Nips (my father’s term since he fought in the Pacific with the Marines) and “my country, right or wrong.” All he really wanted me to do was get back to the shop and help him fill those goddam GE defense contract orders. And I did it, for a while.

One day in1970 though I was taking a high compression motor to Albany and had parked the shop truck on Van Dyke Street near Russell Sage College. Coming down the line, silent, silent as the grave I thought later, were a ragtag bunch of guys in mismatched (on purpose I found out later) military uniforms carrying signs but with a big banner in front calling for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and signing the banner with the name of the organization-Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). That was all, and all that was needed. Nobody on those still patriotic, mostly government worker, streets called them commies or anything like that but you could tell some guys in white collars and who never came close to a gun, except maybe to kill animals or something defenseless really wanted to. One veteran as they came nearer to me shouted out for any veterans to join them, to tell the world what they knew first-hand about what was going on in Vietnam. Yeah, that shout-out was all I needed, all I needed to join my “band of brothers.”                                

I still worked in my father’s shop for a while but our relationship was icy (and would be for a long time after that although in 1991 when he retired I took over the business) and I would take part in whatever actions I could around the area (and down in New York City a couple of times when they called for re-enforcements to make a big splash). Then in the spring of 1971, the year that I met Sam Eaton, I joined with a group of VVAWers and supporters for an action down in Washington, D.C.

The idea, which will sound kind of strange today in a different time when there is very little overt anti-war activity against the current crop of endless wars but also shows you how desperate we were to end that damn war, was to on May Day shut down the government if it did not shut down the war. Our task, as part of the bigger scheme, since we were to form up as a total veterans and supporters contingent was to symbolically shut down the Pentagon. Wild right, but see the figuring was that they, the government, would not dare to arrest vets and we figured (we meaning all those who planned the events and went along with the plan) the government would treat it somewhat like the big civilian action at the Pentagon in 1967 which Norman Mailer won a literary prize writing a book about, Armies of the Night. Silly us. 

Naturally we were arrested well before we even got close to the place and got a first-hand lesson in what the government was willing to do to maintain itself at all costs. And in the RFK Stadium that day where we had been herded little cattle by the forces of order since we had thousands of people being arrested is where I met Sam who, for his own reasons which he has, I think, described elsewhere on his own hook, had come down from Boston with a group of radicals and reds whose target was to “capture” the White House. And so we met on that forlorn summertime football and formed our lifelong friendship. Sam, I know, if I know anything has already told you about all of that so I will skip past the events of those few days to what we figured out to do afterwards.      

No question we had been spinning our wheels for a long time in trying to oppose the war (and change other things as well as we were coming to realize needed changing as well) and May Day made that very clear. So for a time, for a couple of years after that say until about 1974, 1975 when we knew the high tide of the 1960s was seriously ebbing,  we joined study groups and associated with “red collectives” in Cambridge where Sam lived in a commune at the time. The most serious group “The Red October Collective,”  a group that was studying Marxism in general and “Che” Guevara and Leon Trotsky in particular, is where we learned the most in the summer of 1972 when Sam asked me to join him (my father was pissed off, went a little crazy but I wanted to do it and so I did). The thing was that at the end of each class, each action, each meeting the Internationale, or some version of it would be sung in unison to close the event and express solidarity with all the oppressed.

At the beginning some of my old habits kind of held me back, you know the anti-red stuff, Cold War enemy stuff, just like at first I had trouble despite all I knew about calling for victory to the Viet Cong (who in-country we called Charlie in derision although in Tet 1968 with much more respect when he came at us and kept coming despite high losses). But I got over it, got in the swing. Funny not long after that time and certainly since the demise of the Soviet Union and its satellites when socialism took a big hit out of favor to solve world’s pressing problems I very seldom sing it anymore, in public anyway. 

Sam, who likes to write up stuff about the old days more than I do, writes for different blogs and websites on the Internet and he asked me to do this remembrance about my experience learning the Internationale as part of a protest music series that a guy he knows named Fritz Jasper has put together. So I have done my bit and here is what Sam and Fritz want to convey to you:                          

Fritz  Jasper comment:

 

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

The Struggle For The Labor Party In The United States-Workers' Action- Winter 1969-1970

I am not familiar with the Riazanov Library as a source, although the choice of the name of a famous Russian Bolshevik intellectual, archivist, and early head of the Marx-Engels Institute there, as well as being a friend and , at various points a political confederate of the great Bolshevik leader, Leon Trotsky, sits well with me.
*******
Thanks to the Riazanov Library for their efforts in digitizing Workers Action. The works provided by the Riazanov Library are © copyrighted by the Riazanov Library in 2010 for the document formatting and editing as they appear here in their PDF format, on the ETOL. The actual content itself remains in the public domain pursuant to US and International copyright conventions.
*****
Additional Fritz Jasper comment on this series:

Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.

Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.

As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts runs a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
******
Fritz Jasper comment on this issue:
Obviously a propagandistic left-wing, pro-labor newspaper from 1969, driven by current events, is going to contain a lot of material now of just historic interest like the struggle around the effects of containerization of shipping on the West Coast docks, a question that we now know costs many union jobs by the failure of longshoremen’ union to tie in technological improvement with unionized labor employment. And, of course, the union bureaucracy’s penchant for making “sweetheart” deals rather than a class struggle fight over the issue.

This issue does pose the question of questions centered on the labor movement and war that is currently very much with us with the Iraq, Afghan and whatever other hellish wars the American imperialists are raising around the world. For the anti-war movement, after trying everything but labor action in the previous period, 1969 represented a turning point where even the working class was getting fed up with the Vietnam War. No only by providing the mass base of “cannon fodder” but taking a beating on the economic front as well. The call for labor strikes against the war would later, in 1970, take on a more than propagandistic possibility when important sections of the working class began to take strike action over economic issues. While today, and maybe just today, the slogan has purely propaganda value it is always part of the arsenal of left-wing anti-war work.

The other section that still bears reading for today’s audience is the last article on, well, union caucus organizing. The point about standing on a left-wing militant program is the most important and dovetails with the struggle for the labor party to take state power when the time comes. Once again this says to me that we had better be getting a move on about the business of creating that revolutionary labor party-enough is enough. Break with the Democrats! Build a workers party that fights for our communist future.  

*Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The Middle School Dance—Teen Angst, And That Ain’t No Lie

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the legendary Lavern Baker performing her classic, Jim Dandy.

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1957, Time-Life, 1987

As I have noted in reviewing The ‘60s: Last Dance part of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance. The following is one such episode in that old time, eternal saga.

As part of the review of the dance sequel that I mentioned above I noted that there were two phases to the old school days dance scene, the high school one when we had all learned, or should have learned, the ropes enough not to be too foolish or too out of line on that social occasion, not if we expected to get a tussle from that certain she or he and the middle school one (formerly known as junior high school but we will use the current usage here on the off chance that someone who only knows the term middle school is reading this). I also noted that one could draw a sharp distinction between the two based on such factors as age, the more convoluted nature of social relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (and, nowadays, same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or a little off-hand nuzzling (or mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the middle school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were “hot” in those years.

In a sense the middle school scene is just an earlier version of the high school dance. No, stop, what am I talking about, hell, there is no question that the high school dance was a picnic to detail in comparison. We were light years ahead by then. At the middle school dance we were just wet-behind-the ears (boy and girls alike, although I think the girls were a little ahead of us, or at least we liked the idea that they were). Here though is what I gathered from a fellow middle schooler, Francis J. Murphy, “Frankie”, my best friend in those tormented years, when he heard that the big school dance was coming up in the spring. He merely went into denial, denial that he could care about such a “bourgeois” event (not his word but the idea is there), such a “square” event (his word, although he was probably clueless about what was square and hip in those days) and that he planned to be “out of town” that day. Ya, like he was the President on important business of state.

But here is the funny thing, a few weeks before the big event, as most of his classmates started to get lined up for, and behind the spirit of, this thing he started making noises about being free, maybe, or that he might be able to free up time that day to fit the dance into his schedule. Probably just a snafu of some sort with his appointment secretary previously, I assume. See, here is what he, and every not-nerd, non-dweeb, heck, just breathing young male and female knew, this event would permanently solidify, solidify like stone, the social order of the school, in or out, no questions asked, no prisoners taken. So he too “knew” that signing that world peace treaty that he seemed to be on the verge of signing rather than attend the dance was nothing compared to being in the fight, the furious fight, to gain leverage in the upper echelons of the school pecking order.

All fair enough, all true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations leading up to the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that included getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually included in the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here.

Damn, whatever physical description I could conger up would be just so much eye wash anyway. The thing could have been held in an airplane hangar and we all could have been wearing paper bags for all we really cared. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless, small, meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground. And that is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation), the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven, that it was a slow one.

Ah, memory. So what is the demographic that this CD compilation is being pitched to, aside from the obvious usual suspects, the AARP crowd. Well that’s simple. Any one who has been wounded in love’s young battles; any one who has longed for that he or she to come through the door; anyone that has been on a date that did not work out, been stranded on a date that has not worked out; anyone who has had to submit to being pieced off with car hop drive-in food; anyone who has gotten a “Dear John” letter or its equivalent; anyone who has been jilted by that certain he or she; anyone who has been turned down for that last school dance from that certain he or she that you counted on to make your lame evening; anyone who has waited endlessly for the telephone (now iphone, etc., okay for the younger set who may read this) to ring to hear that certain voice; and, especially those hes and she who has shed those midnight tears for youth's lost love. In short, everybody except those few “most popular “types who the rest of us will not shed one tear over, or the nerds who didn’t count (or care) anyway.

Stick outs here include on this exceptional compilation from this exception year: legendary rocker Jerry Lee Lewis on Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On and Great Balls Of Fire; The Dell-Vikings' Come Go With Me; a surprise classic with The Tune Weavers on Happy, Happy Birthday Baby (that I played about twenty times today never mind fifty years ago); The Everly Brothers on Wake Up Little Susie (yes, they are definitely in trouble); Chuck Willis’ up tempo C.C.Rider: legendary singer and the much underrated LaVern Baker on her classic Jim Dandy; Dale Hawkins on the sultry Susie-Q: The Bobbettes on the snappy, hip-hoppy Mr Lee: Buddy Knox on Party Doll: and, The Dubs on the slow classic (and the one you prayed for to be that last dance) Could This Be Magic. I would not have wanted to have been the dee-jay working off this list at those dances. You would have been hounded, and rightly so, out the back door with requests.