Saturday, December 15, 2018

12/31 13th annual First Night Against the Wars!

Charlie Welch<cwelch@tecschange.org>
Join us at our 13th annual First Night Against the Wars!

To be held across from Copley Square, Boston, MA.
****NOTE: We will be right in front of the old entrance to the Boston
Public Library, facing the park.****
1 to 6 PM

Invite your friends, make Boston history. We are fighting the biggest
war of all against Washington. Stop the Wars on Afghanistan, Iraq,
Yemen, Syria, Russia, Iran; wars against workers, immigrants, people of
color, LGBTQ folks, women, the environment...this list goes on and on,
so bring your message to Copley as we try to bring in a new year where
we can work together to end war and imperialism. Food will be provided
by Food for Activists!

Co-sponsored by Boston Food for Activists, the Boston May Day Coalition,
the Coalition to Stop the Genocide in Yemen, and Veterans for Peace Boston.

Co-sponsors are welcome!

https://www.facebook.com/events/327877544471442/
<https://www.facebook.com/events/327877544471442/#>
_______________________________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org

12/15 "Fighting the Undeclared Emergency in India"

Charlie Welch<cwelch@tecschange.org>
Dorotea Manuela <dorotea.manuela@gmail.com> writes


Globally we are witnessing the rise of tight wing and fascist movements
and governments in response to the failed neoliberal capitalist polices
of the western powers. Working and oppressed Peoples are increasingly
rising to defend themselves and to defeat fascism.

*/Please join encuentro5 community and friends to hear about the
liberation struggles in India. Workers are fighting back and resisting
exploitation, oppression. Our comrades Padma, Pratyush and Somnath will
share their compelling experiences while recently in India. /*
*/
/*
*_When_*: Saturday, December 15^th  at 7pm

*_Where_*: encuentro 5   9A Hamilton Pl,  Boston across from Park Street
Train Station (Green/Red lines) and next to Orpheum Theater

to view flyer http://encuentro5.org/home/

Workers, peasants, Dalits, Muslims, indigenous people and activists are
underattack because of the Indian government’s undeclared emergency.
Dalit activists, intellectuals and human rights lawyers recently have
been arrested under a draconian “anti-terrorist” act. Adivasis
(indigenous people) and peasants, who have been fighting for a fair
price for their crops, have been assaulted and killed. Several people of
Muslim faith and Dalits have also been lynched with political
complicity. As unemployment continues to increase, workers are leading a
precarious existence. Despite the odds, Dalits, Muslims, peasants,
women, workers, and Adivasi continue to resist the increasing fascist
policies of the Indian government. The speakers will focus on this
resistance of the people of India.

*Padma *will talk about the sensational arrests of prominent human
rights activists, lawyers and intellectuals this year using fabricated
charges under the draconian ‘anti terrorist’ laws in India that have
been largely used to suppress dissent.

*Somnath* will discuss some of the everyday crises that the rural poor
face as more and more natural resources are being appropriated by
corporations and the political elite and how communities are coping with it.


_______________________________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org

Dear Friend, You will find attached, a PDF of fliers for my January poster exhibits. If you are in the market for political posters, one source is the Syracuse Cultural Workers. They also have other political gifts for sale'


Dear Friend,

You will find attached, a PDF of fliers for my January poster exhibits.

If you are in the market for political posters, one source is the Syracuse Cultural Workers. They also have other political gifts for sale'
Another source of posters is Robbie Conal. I met him in Cambridge Massachusetts, just prior to George Bush invading Iraq. A group of us put up posters, opposing the invasion, around Boston and Cambridge.

France: Mothers denounce police brutality Payday men's network

Payday men's network<payday@paydaynet.org>
To   

Since 17 November, there’s been widespread street protests and road blocks all over France by the ‘gilets jaunes’ (named after the hi-vis yellow vests they wear). They were sparked off by an increase in the tax on petrol while the rich had had a tax cut. The movement has grown and broadened its demands and now includes many more sectors – school students, ambulance workers, campaigners against police murders and racism, etc.  
Police repression has been ferocious, especially against secondary education kids who blockaded their schools. In one school alone (Mantes la Jolie, near Paris) over 150 students were arrested and forced by armed police to kneel down against a wall with their hands tied behind their backs. This received general condemnation, especially from parents horrified by how they children were treated.
The "Mothers Front", a parents trade union, issued a statement on 8 December denouncing police racism and brutality and their invasive presence in schools. They are planning various actions in defence of children and their right to organise.
Arrests of students, Mantes-la-Jolie, 6 Dec. 2018

FRANCE: FRONT DES MERES 
syndicat de parents  MOTHERS FRONT parents trade union
Nous avons créé le Front de Mères, premier syndicat de parents des quartiers populaires. Nous l'avons crée parce que nous aimons nos enfants, parce que nous voulons mettre hors d’état de nuire le système raciste qui les détruit, parce que nous voulons leur transmettre tout ce qui pourra les rendre plus forts, à commencer par notre dignité, parce que nous voulons les éduquer à travers des valeurs d’égalité, de justice et de bienveillance, et parce que nous savons que sans lutte politique et collective, ce combat-là est vain. Notre projet s'inscrit dans une démarche d'éducation populaire, nous travaillons sur des projets concrets et locaux, sur du long terme, dans une perspective positive et constructive, et sur tout ce qui concerne l'éducation de nos enfants.
We created the Mothers Front, the first tradeunion of parents in working-class neighbourhoods. We created it because we love our children, because we want to stop the racist system which destroys them, because we want to pass on to them everything that can make them stronger starting with our dignity, because we want to educate them with values of equality, justice and kindness, and because we know that without political and collective struggle, this fight is futile. Our project is part of a process of popular education, we work with a positive and constructive perspective on concrete local projects, as well as long term, and on all that concerns the education of our children.
Les mères avec les lycéens réprimés par la police: ne touchez pas à nos enfants!
·        8 DÉC. 2018  PAR FRONT DE MÈRES
·        BLOG : LE BLOG DE FRONT DE MÈRES
C'est en tant que mamans unies et déterminées que nous nous adressons à l’État : ça suffit, nous vous interdisons d'humilier, de mutiler et de détruire nos mômes ! Nous ne laisserons pas faire ! Nous protégerons nos enfants par tous les moyens nécessaires, parce que nous les aimons, que c'est notre avenir, et parce que c'est notre devoir de parents !
Depuis plusieurs jours, nos enfants lycéens et lycéennes subissent une infâme répression policière digne d'une dictature.
La guerre est déclarée à nos enfants Ã  Ivry, Mantes-la-jolie, Garges, Paris, Orléans, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Marseille et partout en France.
Nos assistons à des scènes où nos enfants sont humiliés, placés dans des positions dégradantes, rappelant les pratiques coloniales.
Nous entendons la police les menacer avec des insultes racistes et homophobes. Nos enfants sont illégalement placés et maintenus en garde à vue. Nous voyons, horrifiées, la police les mutiler à coups de flashballs, plusieurs d'entre eux ont perdu une main, ont le visage cassé, la mâchoire détruite. Quelle hypocrisie de la part d'un gouvernement qui dans le même temps veut interdire aux parents la fessée !
Nous ne sommes pas dupes concernant les objectifs de cette répression féroce : nous savons qu'il s'agit de défigurer la jeunesse de ce pays et de la terroriser pour éviter qu'elle vienne donner de la force au mouvement massif de contestation sociale, notamment autour des gilets jaunes. Nous savons que la garde à vue est utilisée comme arme de dissuasion pour empêcher les jeunes d'utiliser leurs droits les plus fondamentaux de s'exprimer et de manifester.
Nous ne sommes pas dupes, nous savons que cette répression s'inscrit dans le prolongement de l'Etat Macron qui veut expérimenter la présence policière au sein des établissements, qui nomme des gendarmes comme proviseurs adjoints, qui forme les chefs d'établissement aux techniques militaires.
Nous ne sommes pas dupes Ã©galement du fait que le système d'oppression raciste ne traite pas nos enfants de la même manière selon leur classe et leur couleur de peau. Si tous les lycéen.nes qui manifestent aujourd'hui sont ciblés, nous savons que le pouvoir traite différemment les jeunes noirs et arabes, et les jeunes blancs des classes moyennes. Aux jeunes noirs et arabes habitant les quartiers populaires, et depuis des décennies, on dénie jusqu'à leur humanité. Ils ne sont même pas considérés comme des enfants, mais comme des délinquants. Nous savons aussi que ce système cherche par là à nous diviser. Mais aujourd'hui, nous ne sommes pas divisées ! Aujourd'hui, nous sommes solidaires. Car liées par le même sentiment d'amour pour nos enfants, liées également par le même sentiment d'inquiétude et d'angoisse pour eux.
Et c'est en tant que mamans unies et déterminées que nous nous adressons à l’État : ça suffit, nous vous interdisons d'humilier, de mutiler et de détruire nos mômes ! Arrêtez de maltraiter et de sexualiser le corps de nos enfants !
Nous ne laisserons pas faire !
Nous protégerons nos enfants par tous les moyens nécessaires, parce que nous les aimons, que c'est notre avenir, et parce que c'est notre devoir de parents !
Nous sommes solidaires des revendications légitimes de nos enfants, qui refusent qu'on restreigne « réforme » après « réforme » leurs champs des possibles et leurs perspectives d'avenir. Nous sommes solidaires de leurs revendications contre Parcoursup, la « réforme » du bac, la suppression de 2600 postes depuis septembre, et les discriminations dans le système scolaire le plus inégalitaire d'Europe.
Quant à notre revendication principale, elle concerne la police, qui n'a rien à faire dans l'écoleNi autour ! Nous exigeons une distance de sécurité entre nos enfants et la police. Et que les chefs d'établissement ne soient pas des relais de la police au sein de l'école. Car l'institution scolaire est aujourd'hui complice de la répression à l'égard des lycéen.nes et de l'atteinte à leurs droits fondamentaux en excluant les lycéen.nes qui bloquent les établissements, en leur refusant des salles de réunions, et en collaborant étroitement avec les services de police contre leurs élèves.Nous exigeons de l'institution scolaire qu'elle défende avant tout l'intérêt des élèves !
Dans ce sens, nous exigeons que soit respecté le droit de nos enfants à manifester et à s'exprimer. Nous refusons la criminalisation de leur engagement, cette forme de punition collective parce qu'ils osent se lever. Car notre rôle éducatif de parents c'est d'apprendre à nos enfants à refuser l'injustice et la violence.
Notre démarche est de long terme, mais nous prévoyons plusieurs actions concrètes dès les prochains jours :
• Nous sommes en train d'organiser une riposte juridique pour faire condamner l’État français. En ce sens, nous soutenons les plaintes déposées par les avocats de lycéen.nes victimes de violences policières Arié Alimi, Hosni Maati, Yassine Bouzrou, etc.
• Nous allons organiser des cellules de soutien pour les lycéen.nes victimes et leurs familles
• Nous sommes en train de rédiger une plaquette à destination de tous les lycéen.nes, avec leurs droits, les démarches à suivre, les contacts à appeler, etc
• Mais surtout nous allons protéger nos mômes, nous allons être des mères boucliers !!
• Nous nous rendrons dès ce lundi 10 décembre dans les lieux d'extrême répression, à Ivry, Mantes la Jolie, Garges, Villemonble, etc pour y faire bouclier face à la police et protéger nos enfants !
Car un pays où l'on détruit les enfants est un pays sans avenir,
Un pays où l'on terrorise les enfants se dirige vers la dictature et le fascisme.
Nos enfants, c'est notre vie, notre espoir ! Protégeons-les contre les violences d’État !
A toutes les mamans de France, rejoignez-nous!
FRONT DE MÈRES
MÈRES SOLIDAIRES
COLLECTIF DES MÈRES DE BERGSON
COLLECTIF DES MÈRES D'ARAGO
Mothers with the school children repressed by police: do not touch our children!
·        8 DÉC. 2018   BY FRONT DE MÈRES 
·        BLOG : LE BLOG DE FRONT DE MÈRES  
As united and determined mums, we want the  State to know that: enough is enough, we forbid you to humiliate, maim and destroy our kids! We will not allow it! We will protect our children by any means necessary, because we love them, it is our future, and because it is our duty as parents!
For several days, our high school child­­­­ren have suffered infamous police repression akin to a dictatorship.
You have declared war on our children in Ivry, Mantes-la-Jolie, Garges, Paris, Orleans, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Marseille and everywhere in France.
We witness how children are humiliated, placed in degrading positions, reminiscent of colonial practices.
We hear the police threatening them with racist and homophobic insults. Our children are illegally taken into custody and held. We see, horrified, the police mutilate them with flashballs, a number of them have lost a hand, have a smashed face, a destroyed jaw. What hypocrisy on the part of a government which at the same time wants to ban parents from spanking!
We are not fooled about what the goals of this fierce repression are: we know it’s about disfiguring the youth of this country and terrorizing them to prevent them from adding strength to the massive movement of social protest, in particular around the yellow vests. We know that police custody is used as a deterrent to prevent young people from exercising their most basic rights of expression and demonstration.
We are not fooled, we know that this repression is an extension of the Macron state that wants to try having a police presence in our schools, appoints gendarmes as deputy headmasters, and training school heads in military techniques.
We are not fooled, we also know that this system of racist oppression treats our children in a different way according to their class and their skin colour. Even if all the high school students who are demonstrating today are targeted, we know that the power treats Black and Arab youth differently than it treats middle class white youth. For decades, Blacks and Arabs youth living in working class neighbourhoods have denied even their humanity. They are not even considered children, but delinquents. We also know that this system seeks to divide us. But today, we are not divided! Today, we stand together. Because we are bound by the same feeling of love for our children and by the same feeling of worry and anguish for them.
And it is as united and determined mums that we tell the State: enough is enough, we forbid you to humiliate, mutilate and destroy our kids! Stop mistreating and sexualizing the bodies of our children!
We will not allow it!
We will protect our children by any means necessary, because we love them, it is our future, and because it is our duty as parents!
We stand in solidarity with the legitimate demands of our children, who refuse "reform" after "reform" narrowing their scope of possibilities and their future prospects. We stand in solidarity with their demands against Parcoursup, the "reform" of the baccalaureate, the elimination of 2600 posts since September, and discriminations in the most unequal school system in Europe.
As for our main demand, it concerns the police: they have no place within school. Or around it! We demand a safe distance between our children and the police. And school managers must not be extensions of the police within the school. The school institution is now complicit with the repression of high school students and the violation of their fundamental rights by excluding those who block schools, refusing them meeting rooms, and working closely with the police against their own students. We demand that school institution defends above all the interest of its pupils!
That is, we demand respect for the right of our children to demonstrate and express themselves. We refuse this criminalisation of their involvement, this collective punishment because they dare to stand up. Because our educational role as parents is to teach our children to reject injustice and violence.
What we are doing is long-term, but we are planning several concrete actions in the coming days:
• We are organizing a legal response to condemn the French State. That is, we support the complaints lodged by the lawyers of high school students victims of police violence Arié Alimi, Hosni Maati, Yassine Bouzrou, etc.
• We will organize support cells for high school students and their families.
• We are writing a booklet for all high school students, with their rights, steps to follow, contacts to call, etc.
• But above all we will protect our kids, we will be ‘mother shields’!!
• We will go this Monday, 10 December, to areas of extreme repression, Ivry, Mantes la Jolie, Garges, Villemonble, etc., to be shields from the police and protect our children!
Because a country where children are destroyed is a country without a future.
A country where children are terrorized is heading towards dictatorship and fascism.
Our children are our life, our hope! Let’s protect them against state violence!
To all the mothers of France, join us!
MOTHER'S FRONT
MOTHERS IN SOLIDARITY
COLLECTIVE OF MOTHERS OF BERGSON
COLLECTIVE OF MOTHERS OF ARAGO

Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Short Film Review Series

Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Short Film Review Series


Recently I wrote a short, well maybe not short when the thing got finished, summary of my “take” on this American Left History publication that I have been the site manager of since the fall of 2017. Took over full time after the variously called “purge,” “exile”, “retirement,” forced or otherwise of the previous site manager Allan Jackson who had actually hired me to run the day to day operations before the “internal rebellion” of the younger writers against his regime knocked him out of the box. I stood on the side-lines then since taking sides would have hurt my chances of taking full command and also I didn’t have an opinion one way or the other although I cringed when Seth Garth who I respect started talking about Stalinist purges, Siberia and written out of history photographs like this was the second coming of the Leon Trotsky-Joe Stalin fight back in ancient history early Soviet Union days.

I also cringed when the younger writers who obviously had never known privation or hard times started taking Allan to task for glorifying his hometown high school junkie corner boy, a guy called the Scribe, who got himself killed for some stupid reason down in Mexico over a busted drug deal. Hated   Allan’s incessant nostalgia for the 1960s, especially the Summer of Love, 1967 which they knew nothing about, didn’t want to write about and could have given a fuck about except to placate him (and move up the food chain which some did even in opposition). I now, now that the dust has settled, and I have taken firm control of the operations do have an opinion that indeed Allan was unceremoniously purged and found himself in exile although not to Ata Alma or deep Siberia but sunny California, via a short stop in Utah. Needless to say the same fate will not await me as long as I can keep young and old writers too busy to waste time plotting around the office water cooler.

(Needless to say I have in the back of my mind thought many times that I should just get rid of the damn water cooler and let the employees find their own water sources just like in most offices. Maybe I am making a mistake putting this in print will be seen by somebody who will then get all protective and defend keeping the thing as some democratic right or something grandfathered in since it was here before I was but so be it. My real problem is that this illustrious water cooler is the place where many a plot against recently exiled Allan Jackson were hatched and where, according to Sam Lowell’s own words, he “got religion” about the need to “pass the torch” and along the way put the knife deeply into the misbegotten body of his oldest friend by casting the decisive vote for Allan’s ouster. So you can see where things stand with these wild cowboys and the cohort of women writers I have brought in, or in the case of Leslie Dumont brought back spend even more time there so who knows what they are talking about).

Yeah, Allan took it on the chin, didn’t see it coming when the younger writers led by Will Bradley who when not conniving with others who harbor some kind of grievous hurts from those in charge, whoever is in charge, is an up and coming writer who now has courtesy of my good offices a by-line, if he can keep it, took a vote of no confidence and Allan took the sack, hit the skids. Some of his detractors wanted him escorted from the office under guard like they do in the high tech and finance fields throwing his boxes of stuff out the window or something like that but cooler heads prevails. Meaning this silly Editorial Board which needs to rubber stamp my decisions-nixed the idea since maybe he still had some friends from the old days who might take umbrage at the idea-and come in and do bodily harm to whoever proposed the crazy idea. Worse of all his longtime old-time high school corner boy Sam Lowell under the guise of passing the torch gave him the coup de grace giving the kids the deciding “no” vote. With friends like that I said at the time although not to Sam who now heads the Ed Board and is technically my “boss” who needs enemies. Sam I am sure in true hard-ass Acre neighborhood form will say all is fair in love and war and that Allan had done much worse to him over the years including sleeping with his, Sam’s, third wife.

Adding insult to injury the conspirators, Sam in good corner boy form included at first before he got elevated to the Ed Board and so had to be “neutral” or nice I forget which he claimed he was doing to back out of the battle, to slander and libel Allan when he was down, kicked him in the metaphorical groin. Maybe not court-worthy, not money damages worthy but it made it extremely hard for him to find work on the East Coast, in New York City particularly.  Put the hex on him like he had been some kind of monomaniacal tyrant when they put the kiss of death “hard to work with,” tag which gets your resume to the shedder faster than you can walk there. Publishers who a few years ago would have paid big money to Allan just to sit in the office when important advertisers came by now wouldn’t offer him a cup of coffee, would make him wait all day in the foyer and then  tell the front office that the big boys had gone home for the day and could you come back tomorrow like he was just out of journalism school. 

Those young writers as if to bury the dead deeply or perform some exotic exorcism to insure that Allan would not come back zombie-like from the dead like you see in the current wave of dystopic films or if you are old enough or have access to a Netflix account some films from the heyday of zombie films-the 1950s spread the rumors far and wide. As far as I can tell they made the stuff up. Or they had so-called “third parties” do their dirty work a trick I too learned long ago when you wanted to rake somebody over the coals but wanted to pretend you were just reporting some facts you had picked up along the way. Either way they had a field day once Allan left the office, left without giving a forwarding address (although Seth Garth his main old-time hometown neighborhood supporter knew where he was part of the time, knew at least that when he tapped out in New York that he headed West, not just any West but purely West Coast California west, to get clean, to get washed over by some fresh Pacific breeze in along the Pacific Coast Highway near Todo el  Mundo scene of many early fresh breathes when he and that crowd were young and filled to the brim with Summer of Love, 1967 dreams and visions).       

Some of the stuff really was unbelievable although as long as it didn’t impinge on the operations here or diminish my authority starting out trying to fill some pretty big shoes in the industry after Allan’s demise, I tucked my head in. A couple of things I tried to check out, stuff like he was selling encyclopedias door to door out in Westchester County when Readers Digest turned him down for an office boy’s job. (Does anybody still use a hard copy set of encyclopedias in the age of Internet anyway which is what made the story seem fishy to me.) Was working in a fish factory for wages down in North Carolina. Nothing to it. Had gotten a job as a bellhop at the Ritz. (Maybe but I could never get anybody to follow up on the story). Had been washing dishes when the Ritz had banquets and needed extra day labor help. Nothing.    

The three that did keep coming up and which had an aura of possibility since he had been seen in the West (which is how we were able to discount the North Carolina fish factory story since he was in either Utah or California by then confirmed by Seth) are worth noting. Let me put it this way I hope the next generation that rebels, assumed to be against me, will just shoot me and get it over with rather than run my reputation into the ground.

According to the most prevalent rumors Allan had variously been “seen” running a high-end West Coast whorehouse with his old flame Madame LaRue, acting as stage manager for the  famous Miss Judy Garland “drag queen” Queen of  the notorious KitKat Club in San Francisco or more improbably “selling out “ to the Mormons via attempting to get a press agent’s job during Mitt’s now successful U.S. Senate campaign out in the wilds of Utah. The first one was totally wrong although Allan did stay at Madame’s place, not the whorehouse, on Luna Bay for a while and who knows what they did or did not do together but it was not running the whorehouse since Madame according to Seth was very touchy about anybody running her place since she dealt almost exclusively with rich Asian businessmen with a taste for the wild side. Still even spreading such a rumor was just another nail in Allan’s coffin in a profession where things at least had to look aboveboard.

The KitKat Club rumor was really a vicious one and I was kind shocked when young Sarah Lemoyne, who was hired by me after the Allan dust-up so had no reason to seek some silly revenge, told me in all good faith and naivete that Allan had come out of some “closet” and was MC-ing the nightly shows at that establishment in full drag regalia. When I asked Seth about it, actually ordered him to find out what was happening, he laughed and said that yes Allan was out in Frisco town, all these older writers love to call it Frisco town like they were just slumming wherever else they landed in life. What the younger writers didn’t know, maybe couldn’t know, or didn’t give a damn about just so they could throw some mud was that Miss Judy Garland, the owner of the club and the Queen of the “drag” set out there was none other than their old-time corner boy Timmy Riley who after years in the closet, after years of being abused, mentally and physically by everybody in their old home town from immediate family to some Acre young toughs had drifted West to a friendlier environment. The real deal was that Allan had staked Timmy to the money to buy the club and so was only staying in one of the apartments above the club (which Timmy also owned) while in town to see if he could catch on in the publishing industry out there far from the East where he really had tapped out. End of story.       

I would not ordinarily in a publication dedicated to the left side of society, politically and every other way although some of the writers, especially the younger ones, are either pretty wide-world politically indifferent or just slightly to the left of say the Democratic Party, give two words to the Romney slur. But maybe, just maybe although none of this ever surfaced in any piece submitted to me except maybe a vague reference in a film review about Utah, whoever surfaced this one will learn a small political lesson, or at least get the facts right before running to the water cooler all heated up. What that rumor did not recognize was that Allan had skewered Mitt Romney for years when he was governor of Massachusetts all the way to his failed Republican Party presidential bid in 2012. Had particularly honed in on counting his inadequacies as a executive against his Mormon pioneer great-grandfather who had five wives in the days when that religion went in for polygamy. The guys here from what I have been told had great admiration for the old man. Nevertheless no way was Allan going to get any job with the long-memory Mormons hovering around Romney, or even anything in the whole state of Utah for that matter. End of story although I hope not end of lesson.   

I noted above that I had been looking over the on-line archives since this publication went to a totally on-line format in 2006 and offered some observations about what way the winds were blowing and which way they should blow in the future. (See From The Archives Of “American Left History”-An Analysis And A Summing Up After His First Year By Site Manager Greg Green, date November 18, 2018) One key observation, especially since I was brought over from American Film Gazette by Allan Jackson (who by the way now writes an occasional contributing editor piece here belying all those rumors mentioned above except as I have also mentioned that he did wind in Frisco will old friend Miss Judy Garland when he was broke and needed a place to stay before heading back East) where I had spent many years editing some 40,000 film reviews of varying lengths and by everybody with any pretentions to film reviewing expertise from long time film editor Sam Lowell of this publication to the legendary Janie Dove and Jack Cummings was the yearly decline in the number of film, book and music reviews.

I wondered why given the sparse political environment, the general decline of street politics which animated a lot of the early work and decline in end-around cultural and social material to report on, to spent money sending people to cover. I have since his return talked to Allan, we have exchanged e-mails since he is now up in Maine, about the matter and gotten some other feedback. Allan had insisted that each review had to be full-blown “think piece” style contribution or else forget it apparently. (He denied this originally when he resurfaced to edit a rock and roll anthology which I thought needed his touch, but most senior older writers have testified under oath and a couple before God for balance that anything less than three thousand words and worthy of print in some academic cinematic journal went into the ashcan and I accept their takes on this.) Frankly, many of the films that I have seen come to my desk or have reviewed personally are not worth more than about three or five hundred words, maybe less, maybe just a thumb up or down is plenty.

To bring more balance, to get better into the film review business which is what many people who don’t have time to read endless reviews expect of a publication like ours I have started this new series of short movie reviews which has the dual purposes of giving today’s busy world a quick but incisive opinion. And keep these monstrous writers who are hanging around the “water cooler” plotting against the “boss,” me, occupied. Greg Green]