Saturday, January 16, 2016

*****When The Bourgeoisie Was In Full Flower- With The French Painter Caillebotte In Mind


*****When The Bourgeoisie Was In Full Flower- With The French Painter Caillebotte In Mind 



 

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

Yeah, the Baron, Baron Haussmann if you need a name to go with the damage, the social damage done, had done a good job, a damn good job of breaking up beloved Paris with his squeaky clean street lines and wide boulevards. Yeah, changed the face of Paris, the Paris of squalid throw your leavings out the window and heaven help who is below, and heaven help what awful thing was thrown down to the trash-filled streets. The Paris of funny crooked cul de sac streets, which reflected the add-ons over centuries to make a great city from the piss-pot small town back in the Middle Ages when the university was the center of attraction and the good bourgeois in embryo were trying to hold off the barbarians, the wayward no account peasant drifters who snuck off the land, or tried to in order to sulk and menace in the shadows down by the Seine, the river of life and of intrigue.

The Paris of the small craftsman working his trade in some lonely workshop, maybe an indentured apprentice by his side if the craft was skilled enough to warrant such service, his “home” and hearth in the back rooms where the dutiful wife and undutiful screaming children scratched out their pitiful existence. Said craftsman working furiously always brow-beaten worrying about being edged out by Monsieur So and So with plenty of capital and fifty men in his employ underselling him by virtue of economy of scale (or just plain greed at having anybody even a single slave craftsman in his “invisible hand” market place). The Paris too of the jack-roller, the pick-pocket, the wharf rats, the tavern-dwellers, the drifters, the grifters, and the midnight sifters along the shallow shadows of that same beloved Seine     

He, Jean Villon, was called Jean-bon out of respect for his courage under fire in the hell-hole barricade days of 1848  when he and his neighbors, all working-men, held out to the last when the vicious petty-bourgeois who would have benefited most from victory deserted the barricades and he and his took to their fallen losses and jail cells with equanimity (he and his comrades ever after called ‘48ers and no further explanation was necessary, none what-so-ever in any street or boulevard in the town). And called Jean-bon as well for his general good humor when he was not talking politics or scheming the next plot that would bring on the newer world that he and his brethren were seeking. This morning he had had to laugh about the changes in the Rue Madeleine, the urine-laned street where he grew up, about the smell to high heaven of tanning chemicals, rough blacksmith coals, clothe dyes, slaughtered cattles and poultries. Laughed too that in those days, the days before the Baron got the itch (Baron dreams prodded on by ’89 dreams of san-culottes crowds demanding his head on a platter, or maybe just his head any way they could get it preferably via the people’s justice of the guillotine and more recent close calls in ‘48) none of the government’s men dared to enter those quarters even to look for the treasonous or seditious whoever was in power was always nervously pacing the floor about (it did not matter-king-premier-emperor-they all nervously paced their respective floors).

Yeah, back then nothing but crooked little streets leading to harmless little cafes, where he, workingman Villon held “court” with the riff-raff so-called of the old society. Calmly and cautiously quartered where no king’s men would bother to penetrate for they might not come back. Villon descended in some cousin-age degree never quite figured out back to the 15th century from the outlaw poet mad monk bastard saint Francois Villon who wrote longing "exile in his own country" verse with one hand and stole whatever was not nailed down with the other a fact which Jean never tired of pointing out when back in the day, back in ‘48 on the barricades when it counted comrades would wonder whether his revolutionary energies were flagging and he would drag out his pedigree to small-mouthed scoffs and tittles.

Yeah, the Baron was a slick one tearing down the old quarters to let the rising petty-bourgeois have their elegant apartments tucked away from the steamy stinking markets, the riff-raff cafes, the shadow men of the Seine. Let the bourgeoisie laugh in their clubs about how the riff-raff, meaning their working-men, those who slaved for them, those they had fired for being what some wag called “master-less men” for their habit of robbing said masters whenever the shadows fell, and robbing the once innocent peasant girls who followed in their train and cast their fate with the lot of their virtue, would get a belly-full of lead from the phalanx encircling infantry the next time they tried to pull up brick number one in order to build a barricade.

Although for a while when Thiers, that wizened troll who never uttered anything but treacherous remarks and never stopped for one minute to give the orders to  send whatever troops against the barricades which remained loyal to keep him in power. Rammed those troops against the brave Paris communards of blessed memory back in 1871 when the frightened bourgeoisie realized that the barricades could still be constructed when the working-men rose up in righteous anger at the betrayals put upon them. (Those communards like their earlier brethren of ’48 called communards and no further explanation was necessary, none what-so-ever in any street or boulevard in the town.)

But those days were long gone now. The Baron had won, had won his victory over the riff-raff and Jean-bon Villon knew it would be a long time before the blood of the communards dried. Dried and avenged.  

 

Now the picture before Villon as he walked along Rue Madeline a place foreign to his eyes this rainy Sunday morning is that of prosperous petty bourgeois walking under the shadows of their handsome umbrellas along the well-trodden brick-laid slippery street taking in the sullen airs of the day. Each pair, male and female from a rough look at the scene, in their own world heading perhaps to some cafĂ© breakfast (under awnings this morning) maybe going to the gardens up the road. Villon, the old revolutionary, looking down and noticing that every spattered brick had been inlaid (although that never stopped them from tearing them up in the old days), noticed that  as one wag put it that now the streets were big enough for all of Paris without regard to class to walk and fete wherever they cared to. Here is the waggish joke though, except for some ragman with his cur of a dog his sort were nary to be seen on these wet streets and intersections. Yeah, the Baron did his work well.      

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-HONOR ROSA LUXEMBURG-THE ROSE OF THE REVOLUTION

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-HONOR ROSA LUXEMBURG-THE ROSE OF THE REVOLUTION

 HONOR ROSA LUXEMBURG-THE ROSE OF THE REVOLUTION





Every January leftists honor three revolutionaries who died in that month, V.I. Lenin of Russia in 1924, Karl Liebknecht of Germany and Rosa Luxemburg of Poland in 1919 murdered after leading the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin. Lenin needs no special commendation.  I will make my political points about the heroic Karl Liebknecht and his parliamentary fight against the German war budget in World War I in this space tomorrow so I would like to make some points here about the life of Rosa Luxemburg. These comments come at a time when the question of a woman President is the buzz in the political atmosphere in the United States in the lead up to the upcoming 2016 elections. Rosa, who died almost a century ago, puts all such pretenders to so-called ‘progressive’ political leadership in the shade.   

The early Marxist movement, like virtually all progressive political movements in the past, was heavily dominated by men. I say this as a statement of fact and not as something that was necessarily intentional or good. It is only fairly late in the 20th century that the political emancipation of women, mainly through the granting of the vote earlier in the century, led to mass participation of women in politics as voters or politicians. Although, socialists, particularly revolutionary socialists, have placed the social, political and economic emancipation of women at the center of their various programs from the early days that fact had been honored more in the breech than the observance.

 

All of this is by way of saying that the political career of the physically frail but intellectually robust Rosa Luxemburg was all the more remarkable because she had the capacity to hold her own politically and theoretically with the male leadership of the international social democratic movement in the pre-World War I period. While the writings of the likes of then leading German Social Democratic theoretician Karl Kautsky are safely left in the basket Rosa’s writings today still retain a freshness, insightfulness and vigor that anti-imperialist militants can benefit from by reading. Her book Accumulation of Capital , whatever its shortfalls alone would place her in the select company of important Marxist thinkers.

But Rosa Luxemburg was more than a Marxist thinker. She was also deeply involved in the daily political struggles pushing for left-wing solutions. Yes, the more bureaucratic types, comfortable in their party and trade union niches, hated her for it (and she, in turn, hated them) but she fought hard for her positions on an anti-class collaborationist, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist left-wing of the International of the social democratic movement throughout this period. And she did this not merely as an adjunct leader of a women’s section of a social democratic party but as a fully established leader of left-wing men and women, as a fully socialist leader. One of the interesting facts about her life is how little she wrote on the women question as a separate issue from the broader socialist question of the emancipation of women. Militant leftist, socialist and feminist women today take note.

 

One of the easy ways for leftists, particularly later leftists influenced by Stalinist ideology, to denigrate the importance of Rosa Luxemburg’s thought and theoretical contributions to Marxism was to write her off as too soft on the question of the necessity of a hard vanguard revolutionary organization to lead the socialist revolution. Underpinning that theme was the accusation that she relied too much on the spontaneous upsurge of the masses as a corrective to the lack of hard organization or the impediments that  reformist socialist elements threw up to derail the revolutionary process. A close examination of her own organization, The Socialist Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, shows that this was not the case; this was a small replica of a Bolshevik-type organization. That organization, moreover, made several important political blocs with the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the defeat of the Russian revolution of 1905. Yes, there were political differences between the organizations, particularly over the critical question for both the Polish and Russian parties of the correct approach to the right of national self-determination, but the need for a hard organization does not appear to be one of them.

 

Furthermore, no less a stalwart Bolshevik revolutionary than Leon Trotsky, writing in her defense in the 1930’s, dismissed charges of Rosa’s supposed ‘spontaneous uprising’ fetish as so much hot air. Her tragic fate, murdered with the complicity of her former Social Democratic comrades, after the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin in 1919 (at the same time as her comrade, Karl Liebknecht), had causes related to the smallness of the group, its  political immaturity and indecisiveness than in its spontaneousness. If one is to accuse Rosa Luxemburg of any political mistake it is in not pulling the Spartacist group out of Kautsky’s Independent Social Democrats (itself a split from the main Social Democratic party during the war, over the war issue) sooner than late 1918. However, as the future history of the communist movement would painfully demonstrate revolutionaries have to take advantage of the revolutionary opportunities that come their way, even if not the most opportune or of their own making.

All of the above controversies aside, let me be clear, Rosa Luxemburg did not then need nor does she now need a certificate of revolutionary good conduct from today’s leftists, from any  reader of this space or from this writer. For her revolutionary opposition to World War I when it counted, at a time when many supposed socialists had capitulated to their respective ruling classes including her comrades in the German Social Democratic Party, she holds a place of honor. Today, as we face the endless wars of imperialist intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere in Iraq we could use a few more Rosas, and a few less tepid, timid parliamentary opponents.  For this revolutionary opposition she went to jail like her comrade Karl Liebknecht. For revolutionaries it goes with the territory. And in jail she wrote, she always wrote, about the fight against the ongoing imperialist war (especially in the Junius pamphlets about the need for a Third International).  Yes, Rosa was at her post then. And she died at her post later in the Spartacist fight doing her internationalist duty trying to lead the German socialist revolution the success of which would have  gone a long way to saving the Russian Revolution. This is a woman leader I could follow who, moreover, places today’s bourgeois women parliamentary politicians in the shade. As the political atmosphere gets heated up over the next couple years, remember what a real fighting revolutionary woman politician looked like. Remember Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the Revolution.      

VFP North Carolina Triangle Chapter 157 Supports Bowe Bergdahl at his Hearing-Free Boew Bergahl Now!

VFP North Carolina Triangle Chapter 157 Supports Bowe Bergdahl at his Hearing



In Photo:  Eisenhower Chapter members Machai St. Rain and John Heuer and Fayetteville Quaker House directors Lynn and Steve Newsom with banner designed by Tarak Kauff and Ellen Davidson.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl appeared at a Ft. Bragg, NC courtroom on Tuesday, January 12 for a hearing on pre-trial defense motions.  His court martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior is slated for August.  Bowe spent 5 years as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan until he was released in a controversial prisoner swap in 2014.  He is being prosecuted by the US Army in an apparent attempt to misdirect attention from 15 years of failed policies in Afghanistan on the part of politicians and military brass.

Both Lynn and Machai were able to speak briefly with Sgt. Bergdahl, who expressed his appreciation for our supportive witness.


The Bowe Bergdahl banner in the photo is available for sale.   Cost $75.  Email virginia@veteransforpeace.org for more information.

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Show your support for Bowe Bergdahl!



    Fitted Unisex Tee
    100% ringspun combed fine jersey.
$20.00

Veterans For Peace is dismayed by the Army’s decision to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and endangering troops. He is being made the scapegoat for the failed policies for the disastrous U.S. occupation of Afghanistan Sgt. Bergdahl should be freed from the Army with an Honorable Discharge.

FREE BOWE BERGDAHL!
VFP Bowe Bergdahl Statement

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Veterans For Peace Weekly E-Letter-Stop The Endless Wars



Friday, January 15, 2016

Dr. Martin Luther King, Presente!

Today is Dr. King's birthday.  We officially celebrate his birthday onMonday, January 18th.  Visit thewebsite for our tribute to Dr. King.  ContactCasey@veteransforpeace.org to have your chapter activity added.
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VFP Press Release:   Unending U.S. War is Driving North Korea’s Nuclear Program

As a major U.S. peace organization of veterans, including members who served in the Korean War, Veterans For Peace (VFP) is deeply concerned about the underground test of a “smaller hydrogen bomb” in North Korea on January 6 (Korean Time), as well as the rising military tensions on the Korean Peninsula at this time, including the resumption of the loud anti-North propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ by the U.S.-ROK military. U.S. also sent a B-52 bomber, which can drop nuclear bombs, over the Korean sky on January 10.  <Press Release>
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VFP Files Letter Brief In United States Court of Appeals To Support Marshall Islands Lawsuit

Recently, North Korean officials claimed North Korea had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.  U.S. officials, scientists and others remain skeptical.  Nonetheless, such testing could signify a renewed nuclear arms race among the nine nations known to possess nuclear weapons.  Undoubtedly, such testing (or the threat of such testing), could dramatically increase tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Physician's for Social Responsibility, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Pax Christi filed an Amicus Curiae (friend of court) Brief in the Ninth Circuit challenging the court's finding.  On November 3, 2015, Veterans For Peace filed an Amicus Letter Brief supporting the arguments of PSR/IPPNW/Pax Christi. 
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Order Your Winter Issue of Peace In Our TimesToday!

A few of the featured stories
  • Open Letter to Donald Trump – Amal David
  • Plant Your Ass in the Ground – Bruce Gagnon
  • What Dulles Killed the Kennedys – David Swanson
  • I helped Create ISIS – Vincent Emanuelle
  • Guantanamo – Frida Berrigan
Additional stories by Mike Ferner, Denise Levertov, Doug Rawlings and much more . . .
*Order Today
Bundles ($35) includes 80 newspapers
Individual Annual Subscriptions ($15) 
*Deadline to order is Jan 30, 2016.
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VFP North Carolina Triangle Chapter 157 Supports Bowe Bergdahl at his Hearing

In Photo:  Eisenhower Chapter members Machai St. Rain and John Heuer and Fayetteville Quaker House directors Lynn and Steve Newsom with banner designed by Tarak Kauff and Ellen Davidson.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl appeared at a Ft. Bragg, NC courtroom on Tuesday, January 12 for a hearing on pre-trial defense motions.  His court martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior is slated for August.  Bowe spent 5 years as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan until he was released in a controversial prisoner swap in 2014.  He is being prosecuted by the US Army in an apparent attempt to misdirect attention from 15 years of failed policies in Afghanistan on the part of politicians and military brass.

Both Lynn and Machai were able to speak briefly with Sgt. Bergdahl, who expressed his appreciation for our supportive witness.

The Bowe Bergdahl banner in the photo is available for sale.   Cost $75.  Email virginia@veteransforpeace.org for more information.
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Show your support for Bowe Bergdahl!

    Fitted Unisex Tee
    100% ringspun combed fine jersey.
$20.00
Veterans For Peace is dismayed by the Army’s decision to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and endangering troops. He is being made the scapegoat for the failed policies for the disastrous U.S. occupation of Afghanistan Sgt. Bergdahl should be freed from the Army with an Honorable Discharge.
FREE BOWE BERGDAHL!
VFP Bowe Bergdahl Statement
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Travel Opportunities for Activists


We will embark on our 4th and last VFP trip of 2016 to CubaMarch 3-11.  Members and supporters of our message of peace are welcome to join us.  However, please be advised that we take 15-20 people, and there are only 3 rooms available. Our tours are led by VFP member and Cuban documentary
film maker, Jim Ryerson, who has been to the island more than 25 times.  If you are interested, please contact Jim by phone. Like the other 3 trips, this one will sell out.

jim@travelingman.net
323-436-5223

Here is the itinerary
http://cubaexplorer.com/tours/jrv/

Location Sponsored by Dates Contact
Cuba Code Pink
Feb 2016
Visit the Code Pink website
Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua Alliance For Global Justice
Feb 20-29
Deadline to apply Jan 20th
For application or questions, emailChuck@AFGJ.org
Cuba Veterans For Peace Mar 3-11 For more information, call Jim Ryerson @323-436-5223
Việt Nam Việt Nam's  Hoa Binh (Peace) Chapter 160
Mar 14-30, 2016
For more information, please email Nadya Williams
Cuba Code Pink
May 2016
Visit the Code Pink website
Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders
May 21 - Jun 1 2016
For more information email esiegel@ifpb.org
Columbia Witness for Peace
Jul 20-30, 2016
For more information email or call:  Patrick Bonner:  323-563-7940 pkbonner@earthlink.net
Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders
Jul
16- 29 2016
For more information email esiegel@ifpb.org
Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders
Oct   24-Nov     6
2016
For more information email esiegel@ifpb.org

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In This Issue:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Presente!

VFP Press Release:  Unending U.S. War is Driving North Korea’s Nuclear Program

VFP Files Letter Brief In United States Court of Appeals To Support Marshall Islands Lawsuit

Order Your Winter Issue of Peace In Our Times Today!

VFP North Carolina Triangle Chapter 157 Supports Bowe Bergdahl at His Hearing

Show your support for Bowe Bergdahl!

Travel Opportunities for Activists

Final Payment Due Today - Jan 15th for 2016 Vietnam Tour

Fundraising Opportunity for VFP Chapters!

501(c)(3)'s and Political Election Activity

Seeking Women Candidates for VFP Board

VFP Nashville Chapter 89 Hosting Radio show on Radio Free Nashville

VFP Bob Bowman Memorial Chapter 136 Sponsors the “Solving 9/11″ Author Christopher Bollyn Tour

Chapter Reports Due For VFP Newsletter

Member Highlights

Save the Dates:  Upcoming VFP Endorsed Actions/Events


Final Payment Due Today - Jan 15th for 2016 Vietnam Tour 

Dates of travel:  March 14 -30, 2016
Each year since 2012, members of Việt Nam's Hoa Binh (Peace) Chapter 160 of Veterans For Peace invite up to 20 veterans, non-veterans, spouses & peace activists to come to Việt Nam for an insider's 2-week tour. The Hoa Binh chapter is the first & only overseas VFP chapter of American veterans living in Việt Nam!

The mission of the tour is to address the legacies of America’s war, as well as visit a beautiful country & form lasting ties of friendship & peace. 

For more information, email Nadya Williams @nadyanomad@gmail.com

Fundraising Opportunity for VFP Chapters!

Over the next four months, musician Tom Neilson willbe traveling coast to coast, putting on fundraising shows for local peace organizations. Tom is willing to perform free of charge for VFP chapters, to help them raise funds. Any interested chapter should reach out to Tom. Shows are being offered first come, first served. Tom's current calendar can be viewed on his website

501(c)(3)'s and Political Election Activity 

VFP will abide by the 501(c)(3) rules set forth by the law firm Harmon, Curran, Spielberg Eisenberg, LLC regarding political election activity.  The documentcontains a list of "10 Mistakes Nonprofits Should Avoid in an Election Year

Seeking Women Candidates for VFP Board

If you are interested in being a Board member, please send a short resume including a statement explaining why you are interested in serving as a VFP Board member to Board President Barry Ladendorf bdlvfp@gmail.com or call the VFP National Office 314-725-6005 to speak to the Executive Director Michael T. McPhearson to answer any questions.

VFP Nashville Chapter 89 Hosting Radio show on Radio Free Nashville

On January 7th, members from the Nashville Chapterhosted a one-hour radio show on Radio Free Nashville (107.1 and 103.7 which streams atradiofreenashville.org.   The inaugural show included an interview with Joey King, president of VFP Nashville Chapter 89, and Trina Baum from the Alternative to Violence Project.  The show airs  at2pm ET.  Audio will be provided at a later date.

VFP Bob Bowman Memorial Chapter 136 Sponsors the “Solving 9/11″ Author Christopher Bollyn Tour

Christopher Bollyn’s “Solving 9/11 Ends the War” Tour includes three speaking events in Central Florida this month. Investigative journalist Bollyn is the author of “Solving 9-11: The Deception That Changed the World” and “Solving 9-11: The Original Articles“.

For more information, contact Phil Restino at (386) 235-3268.

Chapter Reports Due For VFP Newsletter

Deadline for submitting chapter reports is January 31st.  

Member Highlights

VFP Member and former POW, Phil Butler shares his story and his feelings on Bowe Bergdahl.  <Article>


Save the Dates:  Upcoming VFP Endorsed Actions/Events

Jan 18 - MLK Day
Mar 27- April 2, 2016 - Shut Down Creech AFBoutside of Las Vegas, NV
Apr 15 - GDAMS (Global Day Against Military Spending)

Apr 22 - Earth Day

May 14-21 - Sam's 5th Annual Ride for Peace, Raleigh, NC to Washington, DC
May 30 — Memorial Day (Observed)
Jul 27 - Korean War Armistice Day
Aug 11-15, 2016 - VFP Annual Convention at Clark Kerr campus of University of California Berkeley, CA
Sep 21—International Day of Peace

Nov 11 - Armistice Day


Did you know? 

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
 - Howard Zinn















Friday, January 15, 2016

Veterans For Peace Statement-Free Bowe Bergdahl!

December 22, 2015
30
Veterans For Peace is dismayed by the Army’s decision to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and endangering troops, for which, if convicted, he could potentially face life in prison.  We believe that Sgt. Bergdahl should be freed from the Army with an Honorable Discharge.

Bowe Bergdahl is a prisoner of war, three times over.  First the U.S. government sent him on Mission Impossible, to salvage its illegal, immoral and unwinnable war in Afghanistan.  Then he was captured by the Taliban, who held him prisoner under brutal conditions for five years.  Now Sgt. Bergdahl is prisoner to an orgy of militaristic politics in the most fear-mongering election year in memory.  Republican front runner Donald Trump has publicly called Bergdahl a “dirty, rotten traitor” and suggested he should be executed.

Did Sgt. Bergdahl walk away from his post in Afghanistan?  Yes, by his own account he did so, in order to bring attention to poor leadership which he believed was endangering his fellow soldiers.  Resistance to Mission Impossible takes many forms.  Bowe Bergdahl may not have been explicitly protesting against the war in Afghanistan, but by taking drastic action he sent a distress signal.

Bergdahl is charged with Desertion to Avoid Hazardous Duty, and Misbehavior Before the Enemy, which respectively, carry maximum sentences of five years and life in prison. Charging him with serious crimes in a General Court Martial appears to be a political decision.  It overrides the recommendation of the Army’s own investigating officer, who said that Bergdahl’s actions did not warrant either jail time or a punitive discharge.  The investigating officer recommended, at most, a Special Court Martial which can mete out a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Bowe Bergdahl is clearly not guilty of desertion.  It cannot be proven that he was attempting to avoid hazardous duty or to remain away from his unit indefinitely.  The Misbehavior Before the Enemy Charge asserts that Bowe Bergdahl’s actions put his fellow soldiers at risk.  It has even been said that soldiers died looking for him.  However, no evidence has been provided to back up this claim.

It was the U.S. government that put our soldiers at risk by sending them to invade Afghanistan and to occupy it for going on 15 years.  Nearly 2,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, including six who were killed just this week by a suicide bomber at Bagram Air Force Base.  None of these soldiers died as a result of Sgt. Bergdahl’s actions.

Bowe Bergdahl is being made the scapegoat for the failed policies for the disastrous U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, which has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghan men, women and children.

Bowe Bergdahl remains a Prisoner of War.  Veterans For Peace demands that Sgt. Bergdahl be freed immediately with an Honorable Discharge.

Veterans For Peace is also concerned about the 9,800 U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan, hostages to a failed policy, with targets on their backs.  The U.S. government should withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan immediately and finally bring that long U.S. war to an end.

FREE BOWE BERGDAHL!     U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN!
30

When Little Johnny S. Got “Religion”-With Edward G. Robinson’s Brother Orchid In Mind -An Encore


When Little Johnny S. Got “Religion”-With Edward G. Robinson’s Brother Orchid In Mind




By Sam Lowell 

Fritz Jasper couldn’t believe the news once it got to him up in the joint, up in Sing-Sing if you want to know. (Fritz was doing a nickel for armed robbery where the money was, a bank, having gotten caught for doing exactly what he never had been touched for when Johnny S. ran things, ran the show with style, ran it without rancor, and without enemies, live enemies anyway but time were tough lately and so the nickel.) Yeah, couldn’t believe that Johnny, Little Johnny S. had gone off on a tangent, had gone underground from what he got of the story.  Fritz wasn’t alone, a lot of guys around New York City, a lot of guys on the island of Manhattan especially, guys just like Fritz Jasper from the old Five Points  hell-hole neighborhood where Johnny got his start stealing candy from Angelo’s candy store at about age six (stealing it with ease against the hawk-like Angelo who had nabbed Fritz more times than he liked to remember until he wised up about getting in trouble for two-bit stuff like penny ass candy and graduated to banks and short terms growing longer in Sing-Sing although never when he worked for Johnny, worked the best wheel in town before the “junk” got to him, got him short-nerved).

Betting guys too, guys who bet on everything including the color of their mother’s underwear if the price was right, who liked to look at every proposition from every angle couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t figure out, couldn’t put the price on, the how and why when they heard Little Johnny S., Little Johnny without the “S” to guys in the know, walked away from his kingpin crime boss job. (Only “Sky” King put a price on a proposition, a proposition that Johnny was working some king-sized scam and money would come raining down on the old town, everybody would get well in a hurry and many guys, including Fritz through the “trustie” connection to the outside world put a cool  C-note on that one.)  

Fritz thought for a moment how jobs like the candy store childhood petty larcenies were so Johnny easy, that was just like minting dough after the hard times flaked away when the Great Depression hit and the, worse, worst of all, liquor became free and easy to get and that cut the tail out of that racket. Johnny moved on though, everything he touched then turned to gold after a few heists, a good dope market connection, and bliss (and no penny ante Al Capone stuff either Johnny “bought” himself a politician who stayed bought and no copper even sneezed on any Johnny operation.

Jesus, walked away, Johnny walked away on two upright legs not carried away by six pall-bearers paid for by some up and coming guy in the food chain like Jack Buck who was Johnny’s viper sidekick on the way up and had maybe figured his own figuring that slicing the pie one way, hell, not slicing it at all was just fine (Jack too had figured the candy store gaff early and never got caught by Ma Singleton, the candy store owner in his neighborhood up in the high number Bronx), walked away without “uncle” laying a hand on him, good old uncle trying to put the squeeze on him to get out from under some crummy rap since they never could get fact one him, couldn’t break that “connection”  and the East River ran red as proof of that assertion.

Nada, none of that stuff that no guy from Five Points, certainly not Fritz who rode up with Johnny and had been in on that first heist of the Bank of New York which in turn got that first shipment of opium from Morocco and the rest was history, would shake his head about for two seconds. Walked away, get this, so he could “spread the good word,” spread it around Buffalo for God’s sake, could do good deeds without reward, and really pay attention to this one, to get by with no dough, no dough of his own anyway. Nada. Jesus, double Jesus (a term Fritz hadn’t used since he was a kid but it seemed right just then. What was the world coming to for crying out loud). Yeah, Little Johnny S. sure got “religion,” sure bought that one-way ticket. And that, dear friends is how Johnny S., Little Johnny, the toughest hombre coming out of New York City in the 1920s and 1930s and that was saying something became Brother Orchid (the brother part is because he got all twisted up with that damn bunch of guys living poor, living real poor, by choice on the outskirts of the city and, at least this part makes sense, Little Johnny S. always loved orchids, always loved to give his lady friends that flower to let them know he cared, cared for that minute anyway).          

Here is what Fritz was able to gather from a few guys who knew Little Johnny S. better than he did later on when Fritz tried one Johnny-less bank heist too many and wound up in the joint that time, guys who knew the ins and outs of the guy, and the ins and outs of what brought Johnny low (besides the obviously dame problem that has sent more than one guy to do screwy stuff, sent more than one guy screaming to high heaven although they usually didn’t take the big step fall down giving up dough and the works like Johnny). Most of the information came from Willie “The Knife” so Fritz knew it has to be pretty close to the truth because Little Johnny and he were tight at the end and because Willie was telling his tale before his own big step-off, his own nickel to a dime up to Sing-Sing and Flo, Flo Addams, you remember her right, Little Johnny’s old flame who wound up on easy street with a big time cattle rancher once Little Johnny saw her as spoiled goods, saw her as an impediment to his new “life.”   

Here is what they cobbled together between them and it makes as much sense as the real story if it isn’t right as what the guy did who we are talking about. No question, Little Johnny Sarto (yeah, that’s his real name, or was, before that “Brother Orchid” moniker got laid on him), who would have been played by the old time classic shoot-‘em-up ask questions later gangster actor Edward G. Robinson in the movies if you had to describe his looks, the way every smart guy told him he looked which played on his vanity no  end) had grown up on some mean streets in the old city, no question either that like every guy (and gal for that matter) who grew up on “the wrong side of the tracks,” grew up “from hunger” poor, had serious wanting habits and was not particular about how he moved up the organized crime food chain during his younger days as a “torpedo” for “Red” Rizzo’s crowd in Flatbush. Illegal liquor, drugs, serious drugs like heroin that guys would go through hell to get (and get off of, some of them anyway), not that silly cocaine that you could buy at any drugstore and sniff your brains out, transporting women, pimping them off too, numbers, a few armed robberies and so on. And Johnny was smart, smart and tough, so he rose pretty swiftly up the chain until one day he was king of his own operation. All without spending day one in some cooped-up jailhouse. As he rose, and as the ways of criminal activity took different turns in the end he confined himself to the very lucrative and safe “protection” racket.                          

But see, and this Fritz (Willie too if you want to know, the name of the means streets might be different but the feelings were the same, almost universal) knew, knew from personal experience, poor boys, poor street urchins, getting to the top of the rackets only goes so far and so Johnny got to thinking about getting the pedigree to be a high-class guy, a high-class guy who guys (and gals) looked up to just because he was high-class. Without sticking a gun, or some fists in their face to prove the point. And that is what “The Knife,” ever-lovin’ Flo and Fritz thought was Little Johnny’s downfall. He moved out of his “safe zone” and tried to play straight up with society fake art and antiques, real estate, hell even royal titles guys and they having a few centuries of experience in the genes took him, like taking candy from a baby, no easier since Johnny didn’t have Jack Buck, Willie, or even Fritz to sniff out those cons while Johnny was in his high society heat.    

Funny one day Johnny checked his bank account, thought he saw that he had more dough than he could use in a lifetime and just walked away from his organization, gone fishing, done. Of course in the rackets, the food chain rackets, leaving doesn’t mean that is the end of the rackets but rather that Johnny was leaving his operation to his lizard right hand man Jack Buck, a guy who if you casting for types in some movie would hands down be played by Humphrey Bogart. Jack who came up the same way as Little Johnny except his was meaner, tougher and more likely to use a little gunplay to settle any problems. (He was also tough on his women, not afraid to throw a punch or two to keep them in line according to Flo.) So Johnny fled the city, leaving everything, and everybody, including his longtime girlfriend, Flo, who if you were casting her in the 1940s would be blonde, very blonde and Johnny would not have cared if it was real or from the bottle, a frilly   played by Ann Sothern type, but get this who was left in the lurch because, well, because she loved Johnny and expected him to marry her. Silly girl.      

Naturally a guy like Johnny from the mean streets figured he could buy class, buy that upscale thing with just enough money but here his instincts played him dirty. He did not know rule number one about how the rich and high class got that way, got there over a mountain of skulls, and so Johnny was an easy pick-off once it got around that he was in the “high-class” market. Poor sap many a guy had been put face down in the East River, put there by Johnny even, for doing less that those master thieves of Europe did to Little Johnny. So he busted out, went flat broke, and decided that he needed to get back to his own kind, get back to easy street, get back his old making money hand over fist operation. And so he headed home.   

But Johnny had a problem, well, really two problems, kind of inter-related. First was one Jack Buck who had built up his operation far beyond the seemingly cheapjack operation Johnny ran and so he was not inclined, most definitely not inclined, to give it up just because some old-time hood was making some noises, and second, Johnny with his soft living had lost a step or two and did not have the current capacity to strong-arm Jack out of his place in the food chain. Christ in the end all Johnny had was “The Knife” and while he was a good guy to have in a fight he was not enough to take on Jack’s wrecking crew, including a couple of new age “torpedoes” who shot first and asked questions later. No, just shot first. One way or the other the heat from Jack’s hired help was on and Johnny was on the lam.

That “on the lam” part is where things were hazy for Willie and Flo, the part about Johnny getting all shot up by Jack’s goons, being able to escape the worst of it, and finding sanctuary in that brotherhood monastery where he got his new moniker. Fritz could understand where Willie and Flo would have trouble with figuring out Johnny’s new thing it was so off base. See too it is hard to get inside a guy’s mind and see what he is up to, especially when he is on the lam and he stumbles into some guys, good guys who fix him up without question, feed and shelter him, but are naĂŻve to the ways of the world is what Johnny probably thought for a long time until they showed him a different way of looking at life.

It was not like Johnny went looking for something, he was just hiding out at the beginning, planning his Jack revenge and getting back on top. Well, he did get his Jack revenge in a funny way, funny since he got help from Flo’s rancher friend whom she wound up marrying and wound up on easy street as a result. Jack’s is now doing from one to ninety-nine at Sing Sing a few cellblocks away from Fritz, Flo is married to her Big Sky rancher and raking in whatever she wants, Willie is doing the best he can. And Johnny, oops, Brother Orchid is up there in the woods working for nada, or maybe his soul. Poor sap. Fritz just hoped that his luck would change and that the ten to one odds Sky King had given him on his C-note would pan out when Johnny crashed out of that old monastery out in freaking Buffalo and everybody would get well again.         

***A Donovan Encore- "Catch The Wind"




CD REVIEW

Sunshine Superman, Donovan, Digimode, 1999


Elsewhere in this space I have reviewed a 2007 Donovan benefit concert in Los Angeles, “Donovan: Live In L.A.”, for the movie director David Lynch’s meditation center. As part of that review I noted that the now 60-something Donovan, my contemporary from the”Generation of ‘68”, had lost a step or two after viewing that performance. He kind of mailed it in there. I also noted that if one had a choice between that DVD, which I gave three stars to, and the five stars CD under review here then grab this one with both hands. Without getting all nostalgic about it these tracks, many of them covered in the documentary, jump with the spirit, naivetĂ©, and hopes of the 1960’s. Donovan was, and is, an extraordinary songwriter. But more than that, in his prime he epitomized the hopes and dreams that we could create a “newer world”. That we failed in that important task does not negate that his music was part of that mix in trying to “turn the world upside down”.

Just listing his songs here evokes a whole youth of color, change, causes and clashes. That said, those who decide to get this CD will get a full cycle of Donovan’s early work, including the simple but strong melody of “Colors” and the wistfulness and yearning of “Catch The Wind” (recently used in an automobile commercial-not good) that first brought Donovan’s music to my attention. “Jennifer Juniper” (didn’t we all have dreams of our own Jennifer, or wanted to), the funky, funny sing-along “ Mellow Yellow” , the pacifically-inclined and strongly anti-war Buffy St. Marie song “The Universal Soldier” and Donovan’s theme song “Sunshine Superman” are also included. As are the mystical “Atlantis” and the semi-mystical “Hurdy Gurdy Man”. Ah, those were the days.