When The World Was Fresh And Young And All Things Were Possible (Or So We Thought)-Ah, To Be Young Was Very Heaven-Ans Cat Steven’s Soundtrack Too-Ruth Gordon And Bud Cort’s “Harold And Maude” (1971)-A Film Review

When The World Was Fresh And Young And All Things Were Possible (Or So We Thought)-Ah, To Be Young Was Very Heaven-Ans Cat Steven’s Soundtrack Too-Ruth Gordon And Bud Cort’s “Harold And Maude” (1971)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Frank Jackman

Harold and Maude, starring Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, 1971

I have commented in the past, and a number of other commentators have as well most notably or publicly the late great Gonzo journalist Doctor Hunter S. Thompson, on when the 1960s ended. Meaning not 1969 or 1970 however you count decade-endings but the spirit, the wildness ride of the 1960s, the time when we variously sought a “newer world” in the expression of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and “to be young was very heaven” in the words of poet William Wordsworth. Thompson himself put it at 1968 and the Democratic National Convention in bloody Chicago and I, for one, and I am not alone on this, called May Day, 1971, the day we tried, and failed, to shut down the government if it would not shut down the Vietnam War the ebb tide. Others have picked the horrific Rolling Stones concert at Altamont as the low tide and others have expressed other lesser events at the touchstone of the night of the long knives, the long night of fighting, these days seemingly daily rear-guard actions in the cultural wars burning a hole in this country, in America. All of this to say that the film under review, the now classic Harold and Maude, upon re-watching (after having seen it several times when it was a cheap no dough for big dinners date night ritual to go watch and re-watch the film when it first came out in 1971) seems very much a product of those times, a moment in those times and therefore dated. Dated not in a negative sense necessarily although some of the dialogue seems that way but very much rooted in the dying embers of the 1960s, the ebb tide previously mentioned.

       

I noted recently in a rare film review of the anti-fascist classic from 1945 starring Dick Powell Cornered, previously rare apparently since under the new Greg Green regime since here I am again, reviewing a classic of another sort, that generally I had been concerned with other types of commentary, mostly political and social, cultural if you will. Greg “drafted” me for this assignment with the understanding that since I had already seen the film when it came out and he wanted somebody to do a “then and now” piece as he called it, and as it is called in the business, in the film review business at least at his previous job as editor at American Film Gazette I was the logical choice. Neglecting the real logical choice Sam who actually reviewed the film in 1971 but who these days is in a knock down, drag out fight with young up and coming reviewer Sarah Lemoyne over a series of issues that need not detain us here. So I am second logical choice not only because I had seen (and re-seen) the film but because I have some comments about the times centered on that ebb tide business mentioned above.     

The premise of Harold and Maude is fairly simple, a benighted young rich kid, Harold, played by Bud Cort who I don’t recall having done anything much of anything on screen after this performance which may tell us something as well about the film or the times since it was not well-regarded except in the rarified air of Cambridge and such alternative life-style havens and as well the extremely rarified air around Sam Lowell in those day for he prophetically was one of the few who reviewed the film positively. Harold had, rich or poor then, two things many of the young could relate to a deep-seeded if comically portrayed hatred for his well-heeled but indifferent mother who controlled lots of his life’s decisions and too much time on his hands waiting to break out in the world. That former may seem strange today but during the 1960s a common slogan was “don’t trust anybody over 30” which meant every freaking parent of the baby-boomer generation was in our cross-hairs. The latter as well since we were caught in a world we didn’t create, a war we could not comprehend while being caught up in its throes and no constructive way to make ourselves heard without going to the barricades.    

Harold, an odd-ball and a loner, although nobody would have cared much one way or the other about his idiosyncrasies then, beside staging about twenty-seven fake suicide attempts for his mother’s “benefit” attended funerals, became on the surface at least comforted by that attendance. As part of that ritual he eventually meets the Maude of the title, played by energetic Ruth Gordon, a woman almost eighty and still going strong, still full of spunk. She attends the funerals for a very different reason, a reason having to do with coming to terms with her own mortality, not an unimportant concern given her age. Harold, after umpteen attempts by his mother to get him married to an assortment of young women, gravitates toward, well toward a grandmother figure. Maybe we all hated our parents then but we gave grandparents a pass. I know my own grandmother saved my young ass from many a home life wrangle with my own mother.

Once you get past the extreme age difference between the pair they are kind of an interesting couple. Maude has, as I said, her own agenda, but while they interact she is a positive influence on Harold breaking out of his self-imposed shell. His affect, his clothing, his interest shift as he becomes more in thrall of Maude. The dicey part, or rather the two dicey parts which may have accounted for the negative reviews back in the day, was that relationship leading to a romance, leading to sexual intercourse between the two. These days you can love who you want, or at least that is the thought of many people on the question of gender identification but the area of intergenerational sex still has some distance to go. Who the hell would go to bed with their grandmother after all. More pressing was that Maude agenda item. She held firm to the notion that at a certain age, eighty, she would have had enough of life. And she acted on it, took her own life when the deal went down leaving Harold bereft. But not paralyzed for knowing Maude Harold was able to break out of death door’s grasp. Like I said dated, but not necessarily in a negative way given our social identity issues today.

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Out In The Corner Boy Night- Rock “Em Daddy, Be My Be-Bop Daddy

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing a sassy, sexy, alternate version of One Night, One Night Of Sin.

CD Review

Rockin’ Bones, Four CD set with booklet, various artists, Rhino Records, 2006

This is the way Betsy McGee, an old time, very old time Clintondale Elementary School flame (locally known as the Acre school, and everybody knew what you were talking about, everybody around Clintondale anyway), and now (1961, in case anybody reads this later) a fellow sophomore classmate at North Clintondale High, wanted the story told, the story of her ill-fated brother, twenty-two year old John “Black Jack” McGee so this is the way it will be told. Why she wanted me to tell the story is beyond me, except that she knows, knows even in her sorrows, that I hang around with corner boys, Harry’s Variety Store corner boys, although I am more like a “pet,” or a “gofer,” than a real corner boy. But that story has already been told, told seven ways to Sunday, so let’s get to Black Jack’s story.

John “Black Jack” McGee like a million guys who came out of the post-World War II Cold war night and came out of the no prospect projects, in his case the Clintondale Housing Project (the Acre, okay, and hell’s little acre at that to save a lot of fancy sociological talk stuff), looking for kicks. Kicks anyway he could get them to take the pain away, the pain of edge city living if he was asked, by the way, politely asked or you might get your head handed to you on a platter asked. Needless to say Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff even when he was nothing but another Acre teenage kid, with a chip, no, about seven chips, on his wide shoulders. Needless to say, as well, there was nothing that school could teach him and he dropped out the very day that he turned sixteen. As a sign of respect for what little North Clintondale High taught him threw a rock through the headmaster’s window and then just stood there. The headmaster did not made peep one about it (he was probably hiding under his desk, he is that kind of guy) and Black Jack just walked away laughing. Yes, Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff all the way around. That story made him a legend all the way down to the Acre school, and so much so that every boy, every red-blooded boy, in her class made his pitch to get along with Betsy.

The problem with legends though is unless you keep pace other legends crowd you out, or somebody does some crazy prank and your legend gets lost in the shuffle. That’s the way the rules are, make of them what you will. And Black Jack, wide shouldered, tall, pretty muscular, long brown hair, and a couple of upper shoulder tattoos with two different girls’ names on them was very meticulous about his legend. So every once in a while you would hear a rumor about how Black Jack had “hit” this liquor store or that mom and pop variety store, small stuff when you think about it but enough to stir any red-blooded Acre elementary schoolboy’s already hungry imagination.

And then all of sudden, just after a nighttime armed gas station robbery that was never solved, Black Jack stepped up in society, well, corner boy society anyway. This part everyone who hung around Harry’s Variety knew about, or knew parts of the story. Black Jack had picked up a bike (motorcycle, for the squares), and not some suburban special Harley-Davidson chrome glitter thing either but a real bike, an Indian. The only better bike, the Vincent Black Lightning, nobody had ever seen around, only in motorcycle magazines. And as a result of having possession of the “boss” bike (or maybe reflecting who they thought committed that armed robbery) he was “asked” (if that is the proper word, rather than commissioned, elected, or ordained) to join the Acre Low-Riders.

And the Acre Low-Riders didn’t care if you were young or old, innocent or guilty, smart or dumb, or had about a million other qualities, good or bad, just stay out of their way when they came busting through town on their way to some hell-raising. The cops, the cops who loved to tell kids, young kids, to move along when it started to get dark or got surly when some old lady jaywalked caught the headmaster’s 'no peep' when the Low Riders showed their colors. Even “Red” Doyle who was the max daddy king corner boy at Harry’s Variety made a very big point that his boys, and he himself, wanted no part of the Low-Riders, good or bad. And Red was a guy who though nothing, nothing at all, of chain-whipping a guy mercilessly half to death just because he was from another corner. Yes, Black Jack had certainly stepped it up.

Here’s where the legend, or believing in the legend, or better working on the legend full-time part comes in. You can only notch up so many robberies, armed or otherwise, assaults, and other forms of hell-raising before your act turns stale, nobody, nobody except hungry imagination twelve-year old schoolboys, is paying attention. The magic is gone. And that is what happened with Black Jack. Of course, the Low-Riders were not the only outlaw motorcycle “club” around. And when there is more than one of anything, or maybe on some things just one, there is bound to be a "rumble" (a fight, for the squares) about it. Especially among guys, guys too smart for school, guys who have either graduated from, or are working on, their degrees from the school of hard knocks, the state pen. But enough of that blather because the real story was that the Groversville High-Riders were looking for one Black Jack McGee. And, of course, the Acre Low-Riders had Black Jack’s back.

Apparently, and Betsy was a little confused about this part because she did not know the “etiquette” of biker-dom, brother John had stepped into High-Rider territory, a definite no-no in the biker etiquette department without some kind of truce, or peace offering, or whatever. But see Black Jack was “trespassing” for a reason. He had seen this doll, this fox of a doll, this Lola heart-breaker, all blonde hair, soft curves, turned-up nose, and tight, short-sleeved cashmere sweater down at the Adamsville Beach one afternoon a while back and he made his bid for her. Now Black Jack was pretty good looking, okay, although nothing special from what anybody would tell you but this doll took to him, for some reason. What she did not tell him, and there is a big question still being asked around Harry’s about why not except that she was some hell-cat looking for her own strange kicks, was that she had a boyfriend, a Groversville guy doing time up the state pen. And what she also didn’t tell him was that the reason her boyfriend, “Sonny” Russo, was in stir was for attempted manslaughter and about to get out in August. And what she also did not tell him was that Sonny was a charter member of the High-Riders.

Forget dramatic tension, forget suspense, this situation, once Sonny found out, and he would, sooner or later, turned into “rumble city," all banners waving, all colors showing. And so it came to pass that on August 23, 1961, at eight o’clock in the evening the massed armies of Acre Low-Riders and Groverville High-Riders gathered for battle. And the rules of engagement for such transgressions, if there is such a thing, rules of engagement that is rather than just made up, was that Sonny and Black Jack were to fight it out in a circle, switchblades flashing, until one guy was cut too badly to continue, or gave up, or… So they went back and forth for a while Black Jack getting the worst of it with several cuts across his skin-tight white tee-shirt, a couple of rips in his blue jeans, bleeding but not enough to give up. Meanwhile true-blue Lola is egging Sonny on, egging him on something fierce, like some devil-woman, to cut the love-bug John every which way. But then Black Jack drew a break. Sonny slipped and John cut him, cuts him bad near the neck. Sonny was nothing but bleeding, bleeding bad, real bad. Sonny called it quits. Everybody quickly got the hell out of the field of honor, double-quick, Sonny’s comrades helping him along. That is not the end of the story, by no means. Sonny didn't make it, and in the cop dust-up Lola, sweet Lola, told them that none other than lover-boy Black Jack did the deed. And now Black Jack is earning his hard knock credits up in stir, state stir, for manslaughter (reduced from murder two).

After thinking about this story again I can also see where, if I played my cards right, I could be sitting right beside maybe not-so-old-flame Betsy, helping here through her brother hard times, down at the old Adamsville beach some night talking about the pitfalls of corner boy life while we are listening to One Night of Sin by Elvis Presley; Boppin’ High School Baby by Don Willis; Long Blonde Hair, Rose Red Lips by Johnny Powers (watch out Johnny); Sunglasses After Dark by Lo Lou Darrell Rhodes (Clintondale's pizza parlor max daddy Frankie Doyle’s favorite song); Red Hot by Bob Luman (yes, red hot); Long Gone Daddy by Pat Cupp; Put Your Cat Clothes On by Carl Perkins; Duck Tail by Joe Clay; Switch Blade Sam by Jeff Daniels (maybe not); Susie-Q by Dale Hawkins; Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins; Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran; Rumble Rock by Kip Taylor, Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On by Jerry Lee Lewis; and, Get Hot Or Go Home by John Kerby on the old car radio. What do you think?

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- A Jeff Bridges Retrospective- In The Time Of The Small Time Lounge Lizard Act- “The Fabulous Baker Boys”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Michelle Pfeiffer performing  the song Making Whoopee in the film The Fabulous Baker Boys. Whoa!

 DVD Review

The Fabulous Baker Boys, Jeff Bridges, Beau Bridges, Michele Pfeiffer, 1984

In what has now become my standard opening line doing this retrospective of Jeff Bridge's film work I will simply repeat here what I have said before. I have spilled much ink this year, in the wake of his Oscar victory in the role of broken down country singer-songwriter, Bad Blake, in the film Crazy Hearts , arguing that Bridges had been preparing for that role since he first broke out as the future good ol' boy, Duane Jackson, in The Last Picture Show. That thread in his work comes to something of halt here as Bridges, and brother Beau, play a brother team of lounge lizard show tune piano-players going nowhere fast in the hard scrabble work of small venue musical gigs. East Coast version, mainly New York City and its environs. Bridges' here plays a more abstracted, more world-weary and wary, catch in a place that he doesn't want to be, life has passed him by, more existential anti-heroic role.


You know, now that I think of it, what this low rent brother act could use is a female singer, a torch singer. And of course the plot line in what would otherwise be an unexceptional film brings in just such a singer in the person of Michelle Pfeiffer to spice up the act. The tensions, including the obvious sexual tensions between Jeff and Michelle drive most of the film. And at that level this becomes a better than average film. But the real reason that I liked the film is, as I have mentioned in other reviews, I am a sucker for a torch singer. From Bessie Smith to Billie Holiday to Peggy Lee in her Benny Goodman days, hell, even Rosemary Clooney when she was in the mood could (can) always chase away the blues. Now enter one fetching torch singer, one slinky, fetching torch singer, one cry me a river fetching torch singer and I am a goner. Add in a scene with said torch singer dressed in a come hither devilishly red dress singing atop old Jeff's piano on New Year's and, well, be still my heart. I could add more but under doctor's advice I have to wait until my blood pressure subsides Oh ya, before I forget Jeff (and Beau) did a good job acting here. But it's really about that silky-voiced, sultry dame, okay. Enough said.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *Jazz 101- A Booklet/CD Review

Click on title to link to a "The Boston Sunday Globe" book review of the new jazz primer, "Jazz" by Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux.

Markin comment:

My interest in jazz is sporadic and tends to the old classics that seem to predominate in this CD/book combination. Nevertheless one cannot talk about the blues, as readers of this space know that I surely do, without a tip of the hat to jazz in the middle third of the 20th century. I will give my own review at some future date , if I ever get my hands on this thing.

This Is An Immigrant Country-Let Them Stay-Full Citizenship Rights For Those Who Make It Here

This Is An Immigrant Country-Let Them Stay-Full Citizenship Rights For Those Who Make It Here

By Allan Jackson

My old corner boy leader from back in the 1960s Frankie Riley, a successful attorney in Boston whose law firm has taken a fair amount of immigrant asylum appeal cases of late on a pro bono basis, said he had to laugh (this before the racist hatred ignited down in North Carolina recently make things much grimmer and dangerous for citizens never mind asylum seekers) when the white nationalists and others go on and on about immigrants and keeping them out by any means necessary it appears.     

See Frankie is very sensitive about the immigration question because his grandparents on his mother’s side had come to this country from the old country (Ireland) illegally and never did become citizens because they had overstayed without papers during the last immigrant scare and both had died before the coast was clear to try.  (This I did not know growing up and hanging around with him in front of Tonio’s Pizza Parlor in heavily Irish North Adamsville south of Boston but I can see today why he would have kept quiet about it then). This meant something today’s “illegal” immigrants know all too well that they contributed to the American economy, paid taxes and all the other regular ordinary attributes of the average citizen without the benefits.     

When I mentioned that I had seen a poster or maybe it was a newspaper arguing that all those innocent immigrants who made it here should be given full citizen rights he raised both hands in agreement. Overwhelmingly people, families do not uproot themselves from their home countries unless they have run out of room, have faced a blank wall, have to flee.  That means the refugees photographed below should have the same opportunity to stay here and make citizenship.  

*I should explain my own American immigrant story since after all with the exceptions of Native Americans who were already here and black slaves who were forced here this is an immigrant county and we are all immigrants one way or another. On my mother’s side her great-great grandparents, both sides, came over in the late 1840s during the British-created “potato famine” (a good example of people leaving when there was no other recourse). On my father’s side some forebears early in the 1800s were given “the choice” after stealing some pigs regularly from some lord of the manor in England of the hangman or “emigration.”      

Trying To Figure Out What The Heck Is Going In A Film-A Case Study-Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai” (2003)

Trying To Figure Out What The Heck Is Going In A Film-A Case Study-Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai” (2003)

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, Ken Wantanabe, 2003      

Usually in doing film reviews I watch the film, alone or with my companion to compare notes after viewing, and then write a draft review from scratch. I do not usually look at the now many film reviews provided by such companies as Netflix and the like on the Internet. (The best by far is still American Film Gazette which started out as a hard copy magazine about seventy years ago and went to on-line about ten years ago and has reviewed over fifty thousand films in that time, many reviews classics in the genre like that publication’s Sam Lowell’s extensive and inclusive film noir series from the 1970s which defined the genre in the wave of the French New Wave which went crazy over the 1930s-1940s material)  With the film under review though I was perplexed as to what my hook would be so I looked at some thoughtful and familiar reviewers I have known and trust (despite the cutthroat nature of the business personally between reviewers who take no prisoners  the reviews usually are spot on) and found that they had missed the point or had gotten so caught up in the action that they missed the real point which I will discuss in a minute after I take a few of the views expressed to school.

Marlene Kalen, a well-regarded reviewer and former colleague of Leslie Dumont now of this publication at Women Today, seemed to have dismissed the whole venture as just a violence-soaked way to put Tom Cruise in a period piece (1870s Japan after the American Civil War when many of the fighters of that war were free-booters, were ready and willing mercenaries for whatever came up from training foreign armies in modern warfare to robbing banks and trains a la the James gang and Cruise’s character, Captain Algren, took a leap to the Orient for a private company working on behalf of the Japanese government trying to modernize its army and put down a rebellion by traditional samurai who were resisting those efforts). To Ms. Kalen Cruise, along with Harrison Ford and the string of James Bond from Sean Connery on, were hopped up on the male fantasy cave man taking on all comers to preserve, well, preserve something. I have lost the figure, or it is not at hand but in a film of some two and one-half hours Ms. Kalen noted over twenty separate “battle, skirmish, fake battle” scenes including using children as foils for the violence. While I might today have sided a bit with her general conclusion about films, action films, which exist solely to keep people glued to their respective seats in horror, fascination I think by modern standards, and given the subject matter of the film which after all was about the demise of free agent warrior culture in a country trying to modernize the film’s violence was inherent in what was being produced.

Naturally if you want to avoid talking endlessly about violence in modern films, and not so modern films check out the gangster classics of the 1930s, then the next step is to fix on the brotherhood, the multicultural brotherhood (Japanese and American) between Captain Algren and the leading samurai, Kyoto, played by Ken Watanabe, around questions of honor, valor, and service. That was the approach Lenny Lynch then of American Film Gazette took when he made this out as one of the great buddy films in the tradition of Robert Redford and the late Paul Newman where individuals who would not normally associate with each other, would not normally interact in their respective occupations find a serious bond by virtue of their common (maybe universal at least that was the way Lenny broached the subject) regard for fellows who took honor, sacrifice and expertise seriously. Maybe if Lenny had thought more about what he saw on screen he would have seen that these two men in the end did not really understand each other since Kyoto was trying to stave off the injurious effects of modernization on Japanese society and Algren was barely more than a well-paid, well-trained but vicious mercenary. A loner to boot.    

A lot of people have prattled on endlessly, Danny Lawrence, from Film Today, for one about how the American Civil War was the harbinger of mass military industrialization and that older values and occupation had to bow down to what was coming, coming to America and to Japan and that to challenge that was fool-hardly and unwise. Thus the Kyoto-Algren axis of the film was misdirected   and the railroad magnate Omura, and his agent Colonel Bagley formerly of the Union Army as well, should have been held up as the model of modernizers and agents of serious change whatever personal benefits they would receive from such changes. The film according to Danny can be taken as a cautionary tale about what happens to those who can’t keep up with social changes and had to, should be left bury themselves in splendid isolation.      

Action-faction, buddy-buddy and holding the thumb in the dike may all have a place in a review of this film but sometimes reviewers can’t see what is in front of them, can’t get out of the way of their own shadows, can’t imagine the obvious as in this film. The key here, maybe the only thing that gives this film any energy is the “boy meets girl” aspect that none of the above reviewers had a clue about. (Remember I told you the film review occupation is not for the faint-hearted, is more cutthroat that any lawyers would dream possible and they consider themselves a pretty wild lot when they get up a head of steam). Think about it. This Captain Algren, a drunk, a stone-cold killer either while under orders or as a free-lancer, and a guy you should hang on to your wallet when he is around is nowhere, is nothing until his Japanese sweetie, Taka, whose husband he has off-handedly killed in battle sobers him up, get him to take a bath, teaches him how the show works in Japan and takes him in tow. Ms. Kalen may have counted up the number of violent acts committed in the film but what about the more numerous significant glances between Algren and Taka as the film rolls along. There will be problems as with any pair who are from different cultures but Taka softened the rough edges off of the good captain. The proof of what I say is obvious by the end of the film when there is speculation about what happened to Captain Algren after the decisive battle between Omura’s troops and the samurai warriors where Kyoto is killed and the samurai legend extinguished except in lore and novels is done and his whereabouts unknown. Does it really take a private detective like Phil Marlowe to figure out he hightailed it back to his Taka. Like I have said elsewhere Hollywood has milked this boy-girl theme a million times to good effect. Here as well.       

In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The Archives-From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-“Ungovernable” Europe enters economic depression

Click on the headline to link to the Socialist Alternative (CWI) website.

CWI Summer School

“Ungovernable” Europe enters economic depression

20/07/2012

Greece and Spain to fore in Europe’s deepening political, economic and social crisis

Kevin Parslow, Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales



The most crucial discussion at the CWI School 2012, held last week in Belgium, with up to 400 participants, was on Europe. This was introduced by International Secretariat member Peter Taaffe and there were a number of excellent contributions from the floor, as comrades grappled with real and immediate situations posed for socialists internationally. Kevin Parslow from the Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales) summarises the plenary session.

Socialistworld.net

The world crisis had coined a number of new words: ‘grexit’, ‘spanic’, brixit and others, to represent different possibilities in the crisis. But what nobody could do on a capitalist basis was under-write or solve this crisis economically. Not even German capitalism, as Chancellor Angela Merkel confessed, has unlimited resources. In the 1920s, the Dawes Plan, underwritten by US capitalism, saved Germany and Europe for six years until the Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression; it was the economic price paid to prevent revolution. Now, no power in the world can act in a similar fashion to solve the European crisis.

The European capitalists have created the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to bail out struggling economies. But the combined debts of Spain and Italy, next in the firing line, amount to €2.8 trillion, six times the resources of the ESM! Economists and politicians say a collapse of the euro is inconceivable yet the same was said of the Soviet Union. In both cases, the capitalists could not see how the situation could go on but could not envisage its collapse! In the case of the euro, the staggering events brought on by the world economic crisis will drive its demise; Peter pointed out that there have been 70 currency collapses since 1945.

The CWI had predicted from before the euro’s creation that it carried within it all the seeds of its own destruction. What had brought it into being and how it lasted so long was due to the prolonged boom up to 2007. But the profound economic and political crisis, rocking all capitalist institutions, means the eurozone is staggering from one crisis to another.


Northern Europe not immune

Northern Europe has been affected by the crisis, with youth unemployment reaching 28% in Sweden. Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, as Arne Johansson of Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna pointed out, once a blueprint for the welfare state and social democracy, is now a model for neo-liberalism privatisation of public services under its right-wing government and books are being written over the demise of the ‘Swedish model’. Oil workers have taken strike action in Norway and the crisis is so acute in the Netherlands that the left-wing Socialist Party there is heading the opinion polls. Even mighty Germany will not be immune; although in a boom, partly due to a long-term devaluation of the euro compared to the deutschemark, the government parties have been rocked by bad results in the regional elections.

Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union have also been devastated by the crisis, which has caused political and economic upheavals in Hungary, Romania and elsewhere. The intervention of the CWI in Kazakhstan has shown the possibilities for winning support for genuine socialist ideas in former Stalinist countries.

But it is mainly in southern Europe where the social, economic and political situation is most acute, with Greece in the vanguard and Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and others not far behind.

Greece

Greece accounts for less than 2% of eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) yet it is important for the capitalists in Europe, the working class and the CWI. We are watching avidly as our Greek section grapples with the task of giving leadership in the face of a five-year depression, terrible social conditions, worsening by the day and a society forced backwards by the barbarians of the European capitalists, represented by the ‘troika’ of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. In the recent general elections, the majority of Greek voters, although with reduced turnouts, voted for parties against the austerity packages imposed on them. However, the electoral system, which gives the winner of general elections an extra 50 seats, has allowed the right-wing New Democracy to form a pro-austerity government with the ex-socialist PASOK and its split, Democratic Left. Already, this government has called off attempts, if it ever meant its election slogans, to renegotiate the austerity package accepted by previous governments and will press on with further cuts.

Our Greek section faces great challenges, defending the working class from the attacks, putting the right demands which take consciousness forward and pursuing the correct tactics, to win over the most combative workers and youth to genuine Marxist ideas. The situation was explained graphically by Nikos Kanellis and Nikos Anastasiadis of our Greek section: the regular demonstrations in the centre of Athens, the general strikes which failed to defeat the austerity measures, and the effect of the elections as a ‘political earthquake’, which lifted the depression after the failure of the general strikes. Syriza had gone from 4% of the vote in 2009 to 26% in June 2012 and it was attracting to its ranks ex-PASOK supporters, which could have its dangers in pulling Syriza rightwards. In fact, a lack of decisiveness, particularly on the euro, in the last few days of the election campaign may have cost Syriza victory.

Greece will default on its debts at some stage and will be ejected from the euro. The question of a new currency will be posed. The euro has been associated with modernity compared to the old drachma but how will workers be defended if Greece (or any country) is forced out? Therefore, we have not called for ‘Get out of the euro!” but workers, although feeling the euro was a step forward, will not tolerate years of eurozone-imposed debts and will push to leave in the future.

Some capitalist economists – such as those in Deutsche Bank – have raised the idea of a double or parallel currency to run alongside the euro for a period. This would have the effect of driving down living standards through internal devaluation. The break of Argentina from the dollar-peso peg at the turn of the 21st century was accompanied by parallel currencies but this excluded whole groups of society from the monetary system and was accompanied by the reintroduction of barter. There was some discussion on this question in the school and this will continue further.

These points raised discussion in the meeting as to the best demands to put to workers. However, as Lynn Walsh of the IS pointed out, whatever becomes of the euro, socialists in Greece have to demand cancellation of debts, nationalisation of the banks and industry, a rejection of austerity, control of foreign exchange and trade as part of a socialist plan as the only way to defend workers’ living standards.

Golden Dawn threat

The far right in Greece, in the form of Golden Dawn, gained about 7% in the two general elections this year. The rise of the far right and reaction throughout Europe is the other side of the coin of this period to the rise of socialist ideas. Whereas the crisis will force workers to the left, the far right will also gain when the working class organisations do not give a strong enough lead, as has already been seen in Greece, in Hungary with Jobbik, with the votes for the Front National in France and other far-right parties in Europe. Having the correct ideas to take on the far right, which means taking up the social problems they exploit to gain support, is vital for CWI sections.

Other alternative formations have also sprung up where the traditional parties of both right and left have been discredited by their pro-capitalist austerity policies. The successes of the Pirate party in Germany and of the comedian Bepe Grillo’s movement in Italy show the discontent with ‘old’ politics throughout Europe.

The situation in Greece has elements of civil war about it. It is not a coincidence that there have been comparisons with the Weimar Republic in Germany between 1919 and 1933, and particularly the austerity regime of Chancellor Brüning that led to the rise of the Nazis. However, we have to caution that the idea that the capitalists can go directly to military rule or fascism is wrong. The working class will have a number of opportunities before that is posed but socialists need to warn of the dangers if the working class fails to take power.

Spain

Much of the focus of attention recently has passed to Spain, where a situation reminiscent of that prior to the civil war was developing. Austerity measures have provoked a massive reaction, typified by the Asturian miners’ march to Madrid to protest at the slashing of coal subsidies. Prime Minister Rajoy had sent a text during European summit negotiations, protesting at proposed harsh measures, which said: “Spain is not Uganda”. Unfortunately for him, it was pointed out that Uganda’s economy was growing while Spain’s had contracted! The banking crisis had led to guarantees of €100 billion directly to the Spanish banks yet this would do nothing to solve the underlying problems of the economy and the Spanish government would probably need a separate bailout.

The crisis in Spain has also raised the issue of national question. The autonomous regions control almost 40% of public spending and austerity policies will come up against the anger of the nationalities and regions, particularly in Catalonia, the Basque country and even now in Andalusia. What could develop is left nationalism, with struggles against austerity fusing with nationalist sentiments. This conjuncture may also arise in Scotland and Wales, and other European countries. The task of Marxists is to put forward a programme on the national question that links it to the struggle against capitalism and towards socialism.

Francois Hollande won the French presidential elections, and the Socialist Party the assembly elections, promising some concessions, but nothing on the scale of Francois Mitterrand’s presidency that nationalised 38 banks before forced to reverse his policies in the early 1980s. The scepticism towards all parties was shown by the much lower turnout for the elections. The vote was more against Sarkozy and the UMP than pro-Socialist. The significant factor was the rise of the Front de Gauche led by Mélenchon.

Left parties

As the CWI explained from the mid-1990s, the move of the old social-democrat and Labour parties throughout Europe to openly embrace capitalism would leave a space for new formations to put forward socialist ideas. Parties such as Rifondazione Comunista in Italy grew in the 1990s but fell back when they failed to develop clear socialist policies. But the crisis has spurred the formation and enlargement of new left formations, including the Front de Gauche, the Socialist party in the Netherlands, Die Linke in Germany and others. Syriza has been pushed into a position where it is openly challenging for government and could form the next administration in Greece when the current one falls, as it most likely will and probably not after long. The CWI has orientated towards these formations and, while not necessarily mass in numbers yet, electorally they represent a force and workers and youth will join them, or similar organisations, in the future. The CWI will be present in these organisations to give a clear socialist direction to them.

Peter also referred to the situation in Ireland, where the United Left Alliance, including the CWI section, the Socialist Party, now has 5 TDs (members of parliament) and is leading the mass campaign against the household tax. Sinn Fein, the party of Republicanism in Ireland, could become the largest party in the South at the next election, and a stronger socialist contingent could also be elected. As Joe Higgins, one of the Socialist Party TDs pointed out, the Socialist Party has come under attack in sections of the right-wing press, using a spurious pretext of the TDs’ ‘expenses’ for supporting the household tax campaign. The government is intimidating non-payers of the household tax but this campaign could be as big as the poll tax in Britain, which led to the downfall of Prime Minister Thatcher.

Similarly, Britain’s coalition government is riven with divisions and there has been an upsurge in strikes in the public and private sectors. The National Shop Stewards Network is playing an important role in galvanising the trade union movement and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is beginning to make small but important moves forward on the electoral plane.

Europe has become “ungovernable”, as it enters its ‘Japanisation’ phase, a long period of depression. “How much pain can the countries under stress endure? Nobody knows. What would happen if a country left the eurozone? Nobody knows. Might even Germany consider exit? Nobody knows. What is the long-run strategy for exit from the crises? Nobody knows. Given such uncertainty, panic is, alas, rational. A fiat currency backed by heterogeneous sovereigns is irremediably fragile.

Before now, I had never really understood how the 1930s could happen. Now I do.” This was the gloomy prognosis for capitalism of Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. It shows the extreme pessimism of the European capitalist class.

Trade union militancy

Peter concluded that Marxists must root themselves in the situation. The current young generation will be the ‘lucky generation’. For 50 years, the pioneers of Marxism in Europe have seen marvellous developments but would give it all up to participate in current events. We can now look forward to the socialist revolution which is developing in Europe and worldwide.

In his reply to an excellent discussion, Tony Saunois of the IS remarked on the increase in trade union militancy. The general strikes that have taken place have tended to be protests, which some right-wing leaders of the trade unions have been only too eager to choke off. Not yet have these strikes raised the question of power for the working class. This will come in the future, as will the need for workers to get organised politically, either in broad mass formations or revolutionary parties directly. At the moment though, there is still an anti-party mood in most countries of Europe.

The tasks of the CWI include building our own sections but also to fight for new mass parties with demands to transform these new organisations as part of the struggle to transform society. In that way, our sections need to grow into bigger parties and shape events. Tony said we are in a protracted crisis and in a race against time. The key question for the CWI is to face up to the challenges and build our forces to transform society

*The Torch Singer's Torch Singer -The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Billie Holiday performing Strange Fruit.

DVD REVIEW

Billie’s Best, Polygram Records, 1992

In my book, and I am hardly alone on this, Billie Holiday is the torch singer's torch singer. Maybe it is the phrasing on her best songs. That well-placed hush. Maybe it is the unbreakable link between her voice when she is on a roll and the arrangements. Hell, maybe in the end it was the dope but, by Jesus, she could sing a modern ballad of love, lost or both like no other. And if it was the dope, let me say this- a `normal' nice singer could sing for a hundred years and never get it right, the way Billie could get it right when she was at her best. Dope or no dope. Was she always at her best? Hell no, as the current compilation makes clear. These recordings done between 1945 and her death in 1959 for Verve show the highs but also the lows as the voice faltered a little and the dope put the nerves on edge toward the end.

Many of the songs on the current compilation are technically sound, a few not, as is to be expected on such re-mastering. You will like Come Rain or Come Shine, Stars Fell On Alabama and Stormy Blues. A tear will come to your eye with Some Other Spring and East of the Sun. The surprise of the package is Speak Low, a sultry song with tropical background beat. That one is very good, indeed.

One last word- I have occasionally mentioned my love of Billie Holiday's music to younger acquaintances. Some of their responses reflecting, I think, the influence of the movie version of her life (Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross) or some unsympathetic black history 'uplift' type views on her life have written her off as an 'addled' doper. Here is my rejoinder- If when I am blue and need a pick me-up and put on a Billie platter (CD)and feel better then, my friends, I do not give a damn about the dope. Enough said.

Breaking News Flash: Donald J. Trump, POTUS, Soviet-Era “Mole”?

Breaking News Flash: Donald J. Trump, POTUS, Soviet-Era “Mole”?    

By Frank Jackman  

[No question on a day to day basis there is more than enough speculation, “fake” news, “alternate facts” around the Trump administration, its allies, and the role of the nefarious Russians in the 2016 election cycle-and in the Trump family and their associates lives. As moderator of this space I was a little hesitant to let this little “bombshell” be posted. But over the past few weeks as daily revelations, seemingly almost surreally unbelievable revelations and allegations, about the Trump operation from his own meetings with Russians, his son and son-in-law’s and a whole bunch of close operatives the following does not seem so bizarre and is worthy of follow-up by media with far more reach and resources that this blog had to push the investigation forward. -Peter Paul Markin]

The rush of revelations about meetings, discussions, e-mails, texts and who knows maybe even the old-fashioned landline telephone over the past few weeks about the relationship between Donald J. Trump, POTUS, and the nefarious Russians begins to make sense if what I have been able to uncover can be further investigated. According to my sources who for now wish to remain anonymous since they face possible criminal charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act Donald J. Trump back in the 1970s for unknown purposes became a Soviet mole ready to do the Kremlin’s bidding when they gave the go ahead. There is some question about whether he was part of a larger “sleeper cell” but there is no question that he was being “handled” by Soviet military intelligence in a top secret operation code named “Lilac Rose” (the English translation for the operation, of course.              

My sources are older native-born American citizens who for most of their adult lives before 1991 were high-level members of the small American Communist Party. That part checks out as I have seen photographs of them attending Party national conventions and have been shown other conclusive evidence. They knew and worked with my late older brother Prescott who was also in the Party from his youth in the 1960s and I knew them slightly for that reason. Of course after 1991 or 1992 with the demise of the Soviet Union and the break-up of almost all the existing Moscow-loyal communist parties they were left adrift although they continued to be political activists for a number of years after that. Around 2010 they decided to do a history of the American Communist Party during its post-World War period when it barely survived the “red scare” of the 1950s and later had been outmaneuvered by other leftist organizations for the loyalty of the youth in the 1960s and 1970s. Somehow by a process which they only partially described to me they used whatever connections they had with former Soviet officials, academics and current Russian state employees to gain access to Soviet-era military intelligence archives last year.

Whether or not my sources were supposed to have access to the particular documents found in a carton labelled “Operation Lilac Rose” they did gain access to the material. It was through perusing those files that they came upon information describing a series of “sleeper cells” and individual in the United States. Cells not of average citizens who for whatever reason including financial gain had been recruited, or recruited themselves to the operation but people in influential places. One such cell based in New York City had one member who had extensive real estate ties and holdings. Had borrowed a ton of money to build high rises, skyscrapers and luxury hotels and was looking to make connections with Moscow.                 

My sources did not think anything in particular of the profile at the time since these were long ago events under a very different regime but as Trump gained the presidency and then there was so much outcry about Trump’s Russian connections they came to me to see if I could make sense of the material they let me look at. I, after looking at all the particulars, have come to believe that the profile is that of the President. A lot of things begin to fall into place once that idea of a “mole” is accepted along with Trump’s post-Soviet connections with Russia. The Russians were probably like many of us were astounded by Trump’s victory over Clinton. From the files the usual mode of operation was to keep a low profile until ordered to do some action. The poor Russians are probably going apoplectic over the public furor around them and Trump but it their problem now. Our, me and my sources’, main problem is getting a more resourceful organization to look at the material and go forward on this potentially important lead about the furor now going on in America.

Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story"- Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Jail

Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story"- Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Jail

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review

Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story, Leonard Peltier, various leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, witnesses and by-standers, directed by Michael Apted, 1991

Let’s start this review of this documentary of the incidents surrounding the case of Leonard Peltier at the end. Or at least the end of this documentary, 1991. Leonard Peltier, a well-known leader of the Native American movement, convicted of the 1975 murder, execution-style, of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota after he had been extradited from Canada in the wake of the acquittal of two other Pine Ridge residents. In an interview from federal prison in that period the then still relatively young Peltier related that after receiving his life sentences and being told by prison officials that that meant his release date would be in 2035 he stated that he hoped not, for he would then be an old, old man. Here is what should make everyone interested in the case, and everyone interested in the least sense of justice, even just bourgeois justice, blood boil, he is now an old sick man and he is still in jail for a crime that he did not commit, and certainly one that was not proven beyond that cherished “reasonable doubt”

This documentary, narrated by Robert Redford in his younger days as well, goes step by step through the case from the pre-murder period when Native Americans, catching the political consciousness crest begun in the 1960s by the black civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, started organizing, mainly through the American Indian Movement (AIM), on the Indian reservations of the West, some of the most impoverished areas in all the Americas. The focal point of this militant organizing effort came in the war zone-showdown, the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973. The tension that hovered in the air in the aftermath of that war between the American government and its Indian agent supporters on one side, and the AIM-led “warrior nation” on the other is the setting for this incident at Ogala.

Through reenactment of the crime scene; eye witnesses, interested and disinterested, voluntary or coerced; defense strategies at both trials from self-defense to lack of physical evidence, and on appeal; the prosecution's case, its insufficient evidence, and it various maneuvers to inflame white juries against unpopular or misunderstood Native Americans in order to get someone convicted for the murders of one of their own; the devastating, but expected effect of the trials on the political organizing by AIM; and the stalwart and defiant demeanor of one Leonard Peltier all come though in this presentation. As a long time supporter of organizations that defend class-war prisoners, like Leonard Peltier, this film only makes that commitment even firmer. With that in mind- Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Jail!