This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Pierce Brosnan’s “Goldeneye” (1995) –A Film Review
DVD Review
By former Associate Film Critic Alden Riley
[I personally do not like the new regime’s, under Greg Green’s steady guidance, policy of getting rid of titles which were the hallmark of the now safely departed and exiled Allan Jackson who used to run the show here. It took many years for me to get it and I resent being thrown on the dung heap and placed with everybody else with just their names on the by-line line. For now I will use my old title in the past tense until we go back to titles or Greg make a big deal out of my moniker and tries to shut it down. Then I will go back to being an Everyman like Sandy Salmon and Si Lannon have mentioned elsewhere. Alden Riley]
Goldeneye, starring Pierce Brosnan, based on the character created by Ian Fleming although not on any of his novel series plot-lines, 1995
Sometimes writers, especially a coterie of writers of film reviews, will sometimes come up with the screwiest things to argue about in those dark getting to dawn hours when the booze has been flowing generously and the dregs of writing under deadline have passed by without comment. Especially when there are other disputes hanging in the shadows making things tense before the storm like the big blow we just went through at this site which basically came down to a battle royal against the old guard caught in their daydreams of 1960s growing up in turbulent times grandeur by the “Young Turks” whose frame of reference is later times and later connections, Reagan “trickle down” times, post-Soviet monster Clinton times, Bush-Obama boom and bust times, hip-hop, techno, social media explosion times.
That shadow battle got exploded a few months ago when I, ignorant of the hagiology of the 1960s musical scene which all the older guys carry with them like a lodestone, mentioned to then Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon that I did not know who Janis Joplin was. Sandy, to be fair, was willing to forgive me my transgression but Pete Markin, the “boss” got wind of it and “forced” me to do a review of a Joplin bio-pic over Sandy’s head. That was one is a series of grievances we younger non-1960s devotees had built up inside.
The way these “troubles” hit before getting resolved was the big blow-out Sandy and I did have over reviewing the myriad James Bond, you know, 007, films. Sandy has started reviewing the first four Sean Connery films, I don’t think in order which he usually doesn’t give a fuck about, Doctor No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball and had asked me to continue the series, at least the Sean Connery part which is all he cared about covering since for him Connery was Bond, was James Bond end of discussion.
When I mentioned that I thought Sean Connery was probably a good Bond for the 1960s although I hadn’t seen any of his films except Goldfinger where I thought he was a little over the top Sandy flipped. I figured I was going to be assigned the litany without any recourse or appeal especially if fellow Sean Connery devotee Peter Markin got wind of my ignorance and would have probably added that I had to review Ian Fleming’s books as well. I finally was able to get Sandy to see reason, to see that a younger man whose frame of Bond reference was not Connery but the man who played 007 in the film under review Goldeneye the beautiful rather than handsome Pierce Brosnan should have an opportunity to compare the two or at least to show that different actors working in different times would have a different sensibility. Once he saw reason he mentioned that he would finish up the Sean Connery films and I could do “pretty boy” Brosnan (Sandy’s term) and we would fight out the battle when the reviews were done. Fair enough.
Now everybody knows that there will be plenty of high tech gadgetry, plenty of physically over-the-top action and plenty of sexy women either chasing or being chased by any actor who plays Bond. That goes with the territory even though this first Pierce Brosnan Bond vehicle was not created out of Fleming’s stockpile. Brosnan brings not only a “pretty boy” as against Connery’s dashingly handsome demeanor but is much more physically agile and adept than Connery ever was. And plays the role with more cheek.
Of course each film has a storyline roughly similar, some criminal operation here the nefarious Janus syndicate which wants to create a meltdown of the London stock exchange and the British economy in general. Reason: the head of the organization who is MI6 turned rogue had Cossack parents in Russia who collaborated with the Nazis against Stalin and the British after the war sent them back to Uncle Joe after falsely promising asylum. WTF. What did the parents, what did the rogue MI6 expect with Uncle Joe an ally then before Winston Churchill pulled the “iron curtain” down.
In any case to create the meltdown Janus steals a super Euro helicopter which he will use to help when he with inside help is able to use a Russian space probe to deflect some action and destroy London for good measure. Come hell or high water he will not get away with such a dastardly deed not if Bond and his fetching Russian super-technician have anything to say about it. And they do- God Save The Queen or something like that. Pierce does it in style.
Just Before The Sea Change, The Big 1960s Mix And Match-Up - With The Dixie Cups Going To TheChapel Of Love In Mind
By Lance Lawrence
[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Allan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin in the blogosphere) was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers solely to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment by Green designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]
[Although I am a much younger writer I today stand in agreement with Bart Webber and Si Lannon, older writers who I admire and whom I have learned a lot from about how to keep it short and sweet but in any case short on these on-line sites. Originally I had agreed with both men as far as Phil Larkin’s, what did Si call them, yes, rantings about heads rolling, about purges and would have what seems like something out of Stalin’s Russia from what I have read about that regime were dubious at best. Now I am not sure as I have heard other younger writers rather gleefully speaking around the shop water cooler about moving certain unnamed writers out to pasture-“finally” in the words of one of them.
In any case the gripe the former two writers had about the appropriateness of this disclaimer above or whatever it purports to be by the "victorious" new regime headed by Greg Green and his so- called Editorial Board is what I support. As Bart first mentioned, I think, if nothing else this disclaimer has once again pointed told one and all, interested or not, that he, they have been “demoted.” That I too, as Si pointed out, chafed as an Associate Book Critic and didn’t like it am now just another Everyman and don’t like it. This is the second time I have had the disclaimer above my article so I plead again once should be enough, more than enough.
In the interest of transparency I was among the leaders, among the most vociferous leaders, of what has now started to come down in the shop as urban legend “Young Turks” who fought tooth and nail both while Alan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin as blog moniker for reasons never made clear, at least to me) was in charge and essentially stopped young writers from developing their talents and later when we decided that Allan had to go, had to “retire.” (I am sure Phil Larkin will take those innocent quotation marks as definite proof that Allan was purged although maybe I should reevaluate everything he has said in a new light.) But I agree with Bart and Si’s sentiment that those on the “losing” end in the fierce no-holds barred internal struggle had taken their "beating" and have moved on as far as I can tell. That fact should signal the end of these embarrassing and rather provocative disclaimers. Done. Lance Lawrence]
*********
There were some things about Edward Rowley’s youthful activities that he would rather not forget, things that defined his life, gave him that fifteen minutes of fame, if only to himself and his, that everybody kept talking about that everyone deserved before they departed this life. That is what got him thinking one sunny afternoon in September about five years ago as he waited for the seasons to turn almost before his eyes about the times around 1964, around the time that he graduated from North Adamsville High School, around the time that he realized that the big breeze jail-break that he had kind of been waiting for was about to bust out over the land, over America. It was not like he was some kind of soothsayer, could read tea leaves or tarot cards like some latter day Madame La Rue who actually did read his future once down at the Gloversville Fair, read that he was made for big events anything like that back then. No way although that tarot reading when he was twelve left an impression for a while.
Edward’s take on the musical twists and turns back then is where he had something the kids at North Adamsville High would comment on, would ask him about to see which way the winds were blowing, would put their nickels, dimes and quarters in the jukeboxes to hear. See his senses were very much directed by his tastes in music, by his immersion into all things rock and roll in the early 1960s where he sensed what he called silly “bubble gum” music that had passed for rock (and which the girls liked, or liked the look of the guys singing the tunes) was going to be buried under an avalanche of sounds going back to Elvis and forward to something else, something with more guitars all amped to bring in the new dispensation. More importantly since the issue of jailbreaks and sea changes were in the air he was the very first kid to grasp what would later be called the folk minute of the early 1960s (which when the tunes, not Dylan and Baez at first but guys like the Kingston Trio started playing on the jukebox at Jimmy Jack’s Diner after school some other girls, not the “bubble gum” girls went crazy over). So that musical sense combined with his ever present sense that things could be better in this wicked old world drilled into him by his kindly old grandmother who was an old devotee of the Catholic Worker movement kind of drove his aspirations. But at first it really was the music that had been the cutting edge of what followed later, followed until about 1964 when that new breeze arrived in the land.
That fascination with music had occupied Edward’s mind since he had been about ten and had received a transistor radio for his birthday and out of curiosity decided to turn the dial to AM radio channels other that WJDA which his parents, may they rest in peace, certainly rest in peace from his incessant clamoring for rock and roll records and later folk albums, concert tickets, radio listening time on the big family radio in the living room, had on constantly and which drove him crazy. Drove him crazy because that music, well, frankly that music, the music of the Doris Days, the Peggy Lees, The Rosemary Clooneys, the various corny sister acts like the Andrews Sisters, the Frank Sinatras, the Vaughn Monroes, the Dick Haynes and an endless series of male quartets did not “jump,” gave him no “kicks,’ left him flat. As a compromise, no, in order to end the family civil war, they had purchased a transistor radio at Radio Shack and left him to his own devises.
One night, one late night in 1955, 1956 when Edward was fiddling with the dial he heard this sound out of Cleveland, Ohio, a little fuzzy but audible playing this be-bop sound, not jazz although it had horns, not rhythm and blues although sort of, but a new beat driven by some wild guitar by a guy named Warren Smith who was singing about his Ruby, his Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby who only was available apparently to dance the night away. And she didn’t seem to care whether she danced by herself on the tabletops or with her guy. Yeah, so if you need a name for what ailed young Edward Rowley, something he could not quite articulate then call her woman, call her Ruby and you will not be far off. And so with that as a pedigree Edward became one of the town’s most knowledgeable devotees of the new sound. Problem was that new sound, as happens frequently in music, got a little stale as time went on, as the original artists who captured his imagination faded from view one way or another and new guys, guys with nice Bobby this and Bobby that names, Patsy this and Brenda that names sang songs under the umbrella name rock and roll that his mother could love. Songs that could have easily fit into that WJDA box that his parents had been stuck in since about World War II.
So Edward was anxious for a new sound to go along with his feeling tired of the same old, same old stuff that had been hanging around in the American night since the damn nuclear hot flashes red scare Cold War started way before he had a clue about what that was all about. It had started with the music and then he got caught later in high school up with a guy in school, Daryl Wallace, a hipster, or that is what he called himself, a guy who liked “kicks” although being in high school in North Adamsville far from New York City, far from San Francisco, damn, far from Boston what those “kicks” were or what he or Eddie would do about getting those “kicks” never was made clear. But they played it out in a hokey way and for a while they were the town, really high school, “beatniks.” So Eddie had had his short faux “beat” phase complete with flannel shirts, black chino pants, sunglasses, and a black beret (a beret that he kept hidden at home in his bedroom closet once he found out after his parents had seen and heard Jack Kerouac reading from the last page of On The Road on the Steve Allen Show that they severely disapproved on the man, the movement and anything that smacked of the “beat” and a beret always associated with French bohemians and foreignness would have had them seeing “red”). And for a while Daryl and Eddie played that out until Daryl moved away (at least that was the story that went around but there was a persistent rumor for a time that Mr. Wallace had dragooned Daryl into some military school in California in any case that disappearance from the town was the last he ever heard from his “beat” brother). Then came 1964 and Eddie was fervently waiting for something to happen, for something to come out of the emptiness that he was feeling just as things started moving again with the emergence of the Beatles and the Stones as a harbinger of what was coming.
That is where Eddie had been psychologically when his mother first began to harass him about his hair. Although the hair thing like the beret was just the symbol of clash that Eddie knew was coming and knew also that now that he was older that he was going to be able to handle differently that when he was a kid. Here is what one episode of the battle sounded like:
“Isn’t that hair of yours a little long Mr. Edward Rowley, Junior,” clucked Mrs. Edward Rowley, Senior, “You had better get it cut before your father gets back from his conference trip, if you know what is good for you.”
That mothers’-song was being endlessly repeated in North Adamsville households (and not just those households either but in places like North Adamsville, Hullsville, Shaker Heights, Dearborn, Cambridge any place where guys were waiting for the new dispensation and wearing hair a little longer than boys’ regular was the flash point) ever since the British invasion had brought longer hair into style (and a little less so, beards, that was later when guys got old enough to grow one without looking wispy, had taken a look at what their Victorian great-grandfathers grew and though it was “cool.” Cool along with new mishmash clothing and new age monikers to be called by.).
Of course when one was thinking about the British invasion in the year 1964 one was not thinking about the American Revolution or the War of 1812 but the Beatles. And while their music has taken 1964 teen world by a storm, a welcome storm after the long mainly musical counter-revolution since Elvis, Bo, Jerry Lee and Chuck ruled the rock night and had disappeared without a trace, the 1964 parent world was getting up in arms.
And not just about hair styles either. But about midnight trips on the clanking subway to Harvard Square coffeehouses to hear, to hear if you can believe this, folk music, mountain music, harp music or whatever performed by long-haired (male or female), long-bearded (male), blue jean–wearing (both), sandal-wearing (both), well, for lack of a better name “beatniks” (parents, as usual, being well behind the curve on teen cultural movements since by 1964 “beat” except on silly television shows and “wise” social commentary who could have been “Ike” brothers and sisters, was yesterday’s news).
Mrs. Rowley would constantly harp about “why couldn’t Eddie be like he was when he listened to Bobby Vinton and his Mr. Lonely or that lovely-voiced Roy Orbison and his It’s Over and other nice songs on the local teen radio station, WMEX (he hated that name Eddie by the way, Eddie was also what everybody called his father so you can figure out why he hated the moniker just then). Now it was the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a cranky-voiced guy named Bob Dylan that has his attention. And that damn Judy Jackson with her short skirt and her, well her… looks” (Mrs. Rowley like every mother in the post-Pill world refusing to use the “s” word, a throw-back to their girlish days when their mothers did not use such a word.)
Since Mrs. Rowley, Alice to the neighbors, was getting worked up anyway, she let out what was really bothering her about her Eddie’s behavior, "What about all the talk about doing right by the down-trodden Negros down in Alabama and Mississippi. And you and that damn Peter Dawson, who used to be so nice when all you boys hung around together at Jimmy Jacks’ Diner [Edward: corner boys, Ma, that is what we were] and I at least knew you were no causing trouble, talking about organizing a book drive to get books for the little Negro children down there. If your father ever heard that there would be hell to pay, hell to pay and maybe a strap coming out of the closet big as you are. Worst though, worst that worrying about Negros down South is that treasonous talk about leaving this country, leaving North Adamsville, defenseless against the communists with your talk of nuclear disarmament. Why couldn’t you have just left well enough alone and stuck with your idea of forming a band that would play nice songs that make kids feel good like Gale Garnet’s We’ll Sing In The Sunshine or that pretty Negro girl Dionne Warwick and Her Walk On By instead of getting everybody upset."
And since Mrs. Rowley, Alice, to the neighbors had mentioned the name Judy Jackson, Edward’s flame and according to Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” talk, Judy’s talk they had “done the deed” and you can figure out what the deed was let’s hear what was going on in the Jackson household since one of the reasons that Edward was wearing his hair longer was because Judy thought it was “sexy” and so that talk of doing the deed may well have been true if there were any sceptics. Hear this:
“Young lady, that dress is too short for you to wear in public, take it off, burn it for all I care, and put on another one or you are not going out of this house,”
barked Mrs. James Jackson, echoing a sentiment that many worried North Adamsville mothers were feeling (and not just those mothers either but in places like Gloversville, Hullsville, Shaker Heights, Dearborn, Cambridge any place where gals were waiting for the new dispensation and wearing their skirts a little longer than mid-calf was the flash point) about their daughters dressing too provocatively and practically telling the boys, well practically telling them you know what as she suppressed the “s” word that was forming in her head.
She too working up a high horse head of steam continued, "And that Eddie [“Edward, Ma,” Judy keep repeating every time Mrs. Jackson, Dorothy to the neighbors, said Eddie], and his new found friends like Peter Dawson taking you to those strange coffeehouses in Harvard Square with all the unwashed, untamed, unemployed “beatniks” instead of the high school dances on Saturday night. And that endless talk about the n-----s down South, about get books for the ignorant to read and other trash talk about how they are equal to us, and your father better not hear you talk like that, not at the dinner table since has to work around them and their smells and ignorance over in that factory in Dorchester. And don’t start with that Commie trash about peace and getting rid of weapons. They should draft the whole bunch of them and put them over in front of that Berlin Wall. Then they wouldn’t be so negative about America."
Scene: Edward, Judy and Peter Dawson were sitting in the Club Nana in Harvard Square sipping coffee, maybe pecking at the one brownie between, and listening to a local wanna-be folk singing strumming his stuff (who turned out to be none other than Eric Von Schmidt). Beside them cartons of books that they are sorting to be taken along with them when head South this summer after graduation exercises at North Adamsville High School are completed in June. (By the way Peter’s parents were only slightly less irate about their son’s activities and used the word “Negro” when they were referring to black people, black people they wished their son definitely not to get involved with were only slightly less behind the times than Mrs. Rowley and Mrs. Jackson and so requires no separate screed by Mrs. Dawson. See Peter did not mention word one about what he was, or was not, doing and thus spared himself the anguish that Edward and Judy put themselves through trying to “relate” to their parents, their mothers really since fathers were some vague threatened presence in the background in those households.)
They, trying to hold back their excitement have already been to some training sessions at the NAACP office over on Massachusetts Avenue in the Roxbury section of Boston and have purchased their tickets for the Greyhound bus as far as New York’s Port Authority where they will meet others who will be heading south on a chartered bus. But get this Pete turned to Edward and said, “Have you heard that song, Popsicles and Icicles by the Mermaids, it has got great melodic sense.” Yes, we are still just before the sea change after which even Peter will chuckle about “bubble gum” music. Good luck though, young travelers, good luck.
When The Fight To Turn The World Upside Down Was In Full Flower- With The Doors The Unknown Soldier In Mind
By Lance Lawrence
[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Allan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin in the blogosphere) was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers solely to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment by Green designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]
[Although I am a much younger writer I today stand in agreement with Bart Webber and Si Lannon, older writers who I admire and whom I have learned a lot from about how to keep it short and sweet but in any case short on these on-line sites. Originally I had agreed with both men as far as Phil Larkin’s, what did Si call them, yes, rantings about heads rolling, about purges and would have what seems like something out of Stalin’s Russia from what I have read about that regime were dubious at best. Now I am not sure as I have heard other younger writers rather gleefully speaking around the shop water cooler about moving certain unnamed writers out to pasture-“finally” in the words of one of them.
In any case the gripe the former two writers had about the appropriateness of this disclaimer above or whatever it purports to be by the "victorious" new regime headed by Greg Green and his so- called Editorial Board is what I support. As Bart first mentioned, I think, if nothing else this disclaimer has once again pointed told one and all, interested or not, that he, they have been “demoted.” That I too, as Si pointed out, chafed as an Associate Book Critic and didn’t like it am now just another Everyman and don’t like it. This is the second time I have had the disclaimer above my article so I plead again once should be enough, more than enough.
In the interest of transparency I was among the leaders, among the most vociferous leaders, of what has now started to come down in the shop as urban legend “Young Turks” who fought tooth and nail both while Alan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin as blog moniker for reasons never made clear, at least to me) was in charge and essentially stopping young writers from developing their talents and when we decided that Allan had to go, had to “retire.” (I am sure Phil Larkin will take those innocent quotation marks as definite proof that Allan was purged although maybe I should reevaluate everything he has said in a new light.) But I agree with Bart and Si’s sentiment that those on the “losing” end in the fierce no-holds barred internal struggle had taken their "beating" and have moved on as far as I can tell. That fact should signal the end of these embarrassing and rather provocative disclaimers. Done. Lance Lawrence]
“The Unknown Soldier”
Wait until the war is over And we're both a little older The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read Television children fed Unborn living, living, dead Bullet strikes the helmet's head And it's all over For the unknown soldier It's all over For the unknown soldier Hut, hut, hut ho hee up Hut, hut, hut ho hee up Hut, hut, hut ho hee up Comp'nee, halt Present, arms Make a grave for the unknown soldier Nestled in your hollow shoulder The unknown soldier Breakfast where the news is read Television children fed Bullet strikes the helmet's head And, it's all over The war is over It's all over War is over
Well, all over, baby All over, baby Oh, over, yeah All over, baby
Ooh, ha, ha, all over All over, baby Oh, woah, yeah, all over All over, heh Songwriters Robbie Krieger;John Densmore;Jim Morrison;Ray Manzarek From The Pen of Frank Jackman
There was no seamless thread that wrapped the 1960s up tightly. A thousand things, or it seemed like a thousand things, came together in pretty rapid succession to draw down in flames, for a while anyway although none of us though it would on be for only a while just as we thought that we would live forever, or at least fast, the dread red scare Cold War freezes of our childhood. But you could traces things a little, make your own “live free” categories of the events that chipped away the ice of those dark nights.
Start in with the mid-1950s if you like with the heat of the black struggle for some semblance of civil liberties down south (and some sense for equality up north), the first break-out of music with the crowning of rock and roll as the wave of the future (black rhythm and blues, scat, rockabilly mixed all stirred up), the “discovery” of teen alienation and angst exemplified by movie star James Dean, who lived fast, and died fast a metaphor that would work its way through youth culture over the next generation. An odd-ball mix right there. Then start to throw in the struggles against the old authority, the old certitudes that had calmed our parents’ lives in places like Frisco town where they practically ran the red-baiters in the HUAC out of town, but of course the biggest event that opened the doors for liberals, radicals, hell even thoughtful conservatives was the sweet breeze coming down the road from Boston with the election of Jack Kennedy.
That event opened up a new psyche, that it was okay to question authority, whatever the limitations and shortness of the Camelot times with the struggles against some hoary things like segregation, the dead penalty, nuclear proliferation, the unevenness of life which would get propelled later in the decade with fight for women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the fight against the draft, the damn war in Vietnam that drove a nail into the heart of the generation. There were more things, cultural things and experimentations with new lifestyles that all got a fair workout during this period as well.
Plenty of us in retrospective would weigh the various combinations of events differently in figuring out how the uprising started just as plenty of us have our specific dates for when the tide began to ebb, when the mean-spirited and authoritarian began their successful counter-offensive that we still live with for not taking the omens more seriously.
And then we have the photograph that graces this short screed. This photograph is almost impossible to imagine without some combination of that hell broth mix stirred up in the 1960s. Three self-assured women comfortable with the loose and individualistic fashion statements of the day from floppy hats to bare legs, bare legs that would have shocked a mother. Uncomfortable about the damn Vietnam war that was eating up boyfriends, brothers, just friends at a heavy rate and they unlike their mothers who came through World War II waiting patiently and patriotically for their military heroes to come home, come home in one piece, have a very different sense of the heroic. A sense of the heroic going back to ancient times when one group of women demanded that their men come home on their shields if they had to rather than speak of defeat and others providing a distant echo for these three women pictured here who refused their soldier boys any favors if they went off to war. More, much more of the latter, please.
Elegy Upon Hearing Of The Death Of Superman-“With Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” (2016) In Mind
By Seth Garth
[Perhaps only a person, a man in this case, like Seth Garth who can trace his forebears gaggle of poets, bandits, stone-cold junkies, whores, whoremongers, whoremongers’ wives, midwives, witches, odd-ball aficionados, troubadours, minstrel singers, blackguards going back to medieval times in ancient France, going back on his mother’s side it is said and which explains a lot of things to the bandit/troubadour/poet exiled in his own land François Villon. Back to France when it was all cut up into pieces with little castles and moats and the world too. Only a guy like that could write a prosaic elegy without tears for a legendary figure like Superman, a super-hero whose time had passed. Site manager Greg Green]
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Signpost: December 7, 1941 for those who squeaked by the Great Depression hunger and cold that provoked and pervaded the land and who still charged forward slogging through the muddy beaches and forests of World War II, or waited breathlessly at home. Signpost: November 22, 1963 where every schoolboy and schoolgirl knew exactly where he or she was when the news came through the PA systems of a million schools portending I have a dream Martin death and seek a newer world Robert one too to end Camelot children dreams and Summer of Love drugs, sex and rock and roll. Signpost: 9/11 no year needed yet when everybody learned that in this wicked old world that there were people, there were unchecked forces who sought end time, sought the garden without regard. Signpost: March 26, 2016 the day when a candid world first heard that super-hero for the ages, an other-worldly guy, an alien of a different sort, Superman, had finally cashed his check.
Who knows how it happened, how it could possibly happen when all the world figured he was invincible, was always to be with us. The world became far shorter than by a head when he laid down that beautiful head of his. (Now laid out in white cross National Cemetery to be wreathed at Christmas time, flagged on Memorial Day and Armistice Day after boom-boom salutes).
Man of steel, man of steel, man of steel, man of maximum steel.
Not born of woman, a stranger in our midst, churning cornfields into flapjacks, odd duckling in a hero-less world in desperate need of heroes. Nameless except silly earthling name horn-rimmed glasses wimpy goof Clark Kent, a dweeb, nerd, and every other foul name tyrant editor Perry White could lay on him when he came up with some of the lamest stories in newspaper history to cover his tracks, running ruses around who he was and who had deposited him pod-like in Middle America corn-fed fields of dreams.
Mild-mannered, mild mannered, maximum mild-mannered
Caped crusader in a world filling up with vermin, with the dregs, with oceans full of flotsam and jetsam robbers and robber-barons. Filling up too with a crowd of would-bes, would be super-heroes like they could come off the assembly line ready for action. Ready to fight the creeps, the crooks, the fixer men, the gay guys who worshipped him in silent vigil rooms. Junkie-fixer men crying hero, hero worship me unto the end days, unto the return to the garden. Every sullen batman, ironman, wonder woman, black widow, hulk, thor, and a million other hucksters and hustlers, con artists claiming king or queen-ship. Looking for the man chance.
Able to leap tall buildings, able to leap tall buildings, able to leap maximum tall buildings.
Made young boys weep for their inadequacies, cowering in corners waiting to be saved, to be born again. Made grown women wet with his bulging muscles and his devilish ways. Little did they know that timeless he was winding down, had lost a step or two, told that he was losing some of his brain power by respected John Hopkins doctors and Walter Reed medics like many aliens do when they hit the American shore and try to turn to vanilla.
Faster than a speeding bullet, faster than a speeding bullet, faster than a speeding maximum bullet.
I, I who hear the great world moan death attendant, I who speak for the unwashed masses, I who sing the great Whitman America we are your sons song, got caught off guard, didn’t know that he had had more than a few run-ins with the law, was selling high grade ammo to nefarious parties, was getting a few more people angry every time he took to the cape for a caper. Worried and angry since the collateral damage, a new term unfamiliar to him that he told Lois Lane one pillowy night, he didn’t give a damn about as long as he got one bad guy less to the notched world wasn’t over-shadowing the ratio. Was getting so people were calling for his arrest and exile back to Pluto or wherever they thought he was from (so hungry for a savior in a Daily Planet survey inspired by that brute Perry White only one in ten could name his planet of origin-sad)
Kryptonite, kryptonite, maximum kryptonite.
Had missed in my plainsong that Superman had turned junkie and was selling himself to the highest bidder, toying with a holy goof named Lux Luthor who had more than one screw loose, who had a stable of poor boy super-heroes to unload on an unsuspecting world. Had a guy named batman wound up so tight that he was ready to take the caped crusader on one on one for cheap money and a shot at Lois Lane if Wonder Woman was already spoken for. Beat the bejesus out of Superman on the quiet one night and Clark Kent was AWOL for days around the Daily Planet nobody thinking it odd.
More powerful than a locomotive, more powerful than a locomotive, more powerful than a maximum locomotive.
The way the story went around, went after the coppers fucked around with the truth and the media bought the damn thing hook, line and sinker, was he was an orphan bastard of some Krypton mutant seeking revenge, seeking his death, since his mother shipped him off to joyride Earth. Ceremonial bitch father had a kryptonite-edged blade and rammed the thing straight through the kid, gone in a minute, done, cooked shamrock green from what they told on the 6 o’clock news.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, its Superman, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s maximum Superman.
Yeah, it was a sad world day the day that guy laid down his head, the day we heard Superman had finally cashed his check.
From The Living Archives Of Boston Veterans For Peace-They Ain't Your Grandfather's Veterans-By Site Manager Greg Green-First Night Against The Wars In Boston New Years Eve Day-A Ralph Morris-Sam Eaton Story
By Site Manager Greg Green
“Everybody knows the story about how Ralph Morris and Sam Eaton met and how they got there and how they became VFP stalwarts, right?” asked Don Mack, local Boston chapter coordinator just as the post-“First Night Against The Wars” party was about to begin at his house. The event held each year at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve had become a staple of the yearly activities of the organization since it had been formed by a coalition of peace and social action groups about a dozen years before. After what was usually a cold to bitter cold afternoon’s work the participants and other friends and supporters would meet at Don’s house in Brighton for the annual New Year’s Eve party which would bring in the new year in a somber if not sober way.
The reason that Don had asked if the people present knew of the Ralph and Sam story is because Frank Jackman, usually pretty knowledgeable about the personal histories of the local members had mentioned to somebody at the anti-war stand-out within Don’s hearing that the pair had grown up together in Carver and had both been in Vietnam, although not together and not at the same times. That got Don to realize that Frank either had forgotten the particulars of their story or had had a senior moment, or both. When Don got a mixed set of answers to his question he realized that perhaps it was the time and place to tell the story, or rather have the pair who were present at the party as usual tell the story as a very good way to show a lifetime of commitment to the anti-war and social justice movements and how that came about. Don had remembered that one night when they were at Jack’s over in Cambridge after an anti-Raytheon weapons-maker stand-out that both Ralph and Sam had declared that if had not been for the Vietnam War and their reactions to what it had done to their respective sensibilities that they would not be sitting in that room ready to bleed out once again their collective story.
Here is what Ralph, then Sam had to say that night to the couple of dozen people gathered around their seats:
I was strictly a working- class kid growing up in the rough and tumble Tappan Street section of then, as now, run down Troy upstate New York right next to Albany, the state capital. Was the son of a then struggling owner of a small high-end electronics components company which my father had scratched to make a go of. Growing up though we were pretty poor before my father caught a few breaks from the major employer in the area, General Electric, GE, when they were starting to outsource high tech electronics stuff. As you know, when Dad retired, I took over after working many years for him and now that I am retired my son, my youngest son since Ralph III didn’t want to do it finding a career as a senior software engineer has taken over.
The important part of growing up poor, fairly poor if not as bad as Sam who can tell his own story later was that I shared all the prejudices of my father and the neighborhood’s about things like patriotism, the horrible Russians who were ready to take our bread and freedom away, and especially about race, about keeping black people out of the Tappan Street neighborhood. Maybe those ideas were not just among the poor of Tappan Street and more pervasive in society than we thought but they were definitely a driving force on the social front. I am ashamed to admit it now and it is hard to say but the only word I knew for blacks, for black people, before I went into the Army was the “n” word. It was around the neighborhood like that too. The worse though was that when I was in high school I stood shoulder to shoulder with my father and other neighbors when a black family tried to move into the neighborhood. To keep them out come hell or high water, and we did. Did keep them out.
Given what I just said you can probably guess that it was no big deal for me when it came time to go in the Army, especially as I went in during the early days of the build-up of the damn Vietnam War, the war which would turn me around but which then was just something to do to fight the local commies in Vietnam there who wanted to snatch our bread and freedom. My father and most of the neighborhood fathers had been veterans, proud veterans of World War II and so the idea of serving was seen as a duty. I remember my father refusing a neighborhood guy, my friend Jimmy Snyder’s father Rudy a job at his shop because he had not served in their war. After high school having nothing else going and prodded on by my father to go and learn a trade, learn electronics, then pretty primitive compared to now so I could come work for him after the service. As I just mentioned in a round about way I did that except through the GI bill not through “learning” the trade in the Army. There was never any thought about waiting to be drafted or stuff like that. It just wasn’t done among the guys I grew up with. It was more likely that guys would go into the Army after getting in trouble with the law and taking the Army as the “easy way out” when the judge gave them a choice between the military and jail.
I signed up, signed up under the gentle guidance of that bastard recruiting sergeant who is probably still laughing at me for believing word one about what he had to say. He had promised me that I would get first crack at electronics school which I mentioned was in its infancy then at least as compared to now. My idea, boosted by my father was that I would “learn a trade,” his trade for after the Army. As you also know and this is no lie just then, just 1967 or so the war in Vietnam was getting ratcheted up by Johnson, McNamara and the gang of hawks who ran the show then and the demand for infantrymen, grunts, cannon fodder as I, we, learned to call it later when we finally figured out what the hell we really were I was sent to AIT after basic training down at Fort Dix, down in New Jersey. AIT meaning Advanced Infantry Training, meaning just enough training to put your ass in trouble, big trouble when Charlie, the name we had for the VC, the Cong, the whole shooting match of soldiers under the authority of the North Vietnamese.
After AIT, after the inevitable orders to report at Fort Lewis in Washington state for transport to Vietnam, that “inevitable orders” just then since Uncle Sam, a mythical figure who actually got his start out in my part of New York, just then was in desperate need of replacements for the infantrymen who were being chewed up and spit out like crazy when Charlie pulled the hammer down. I had no more thought of not going through with my orders than the man in the moon. Although I was uneasy about what I had been hearing as the war dragged on it kind of went over me. There was no way in my life that I would join the various resistance and refusal movements either civilian or military at the time. If anything I saw things the other way, saw the “hippies” and resisters as cowards and unpatriotic. That was then, that was before the baptism of fire.
I won’t go through my experiences in Vietnam, not for this crowd, and I don’t feel any need to. This is how I have put it for a long time. I did things, saw others do things and most importantly saw my government do things to people I had no quarrel with than even now I cannot live down although working the peace movement for this long time helps some. I was pretty shattered coming back to the “real world,” had a very hard listening to guys like my father who were still red meat hawks, hell, he would support the war even after all was lost. Got by some kind of osmosis into something of a semi-hippie mode when I met a girl who was a wild child in Albany. Overall though outside of the drugs and alcohol things were pretty hazy and loose, I was drifting.
Then in early 1970 I was walking down the street near Russell Sage College, that wild child girlfriend was going to school there, or pretending to, in those days things were pretty loose then on the campuses when I saw, not heard, a group of guys, mostly guys, some in military garb, some looking the classic hippie look of the time walking silently down the street to some kind of marching cadence.
I saw a huge banner being carried in front by about four guys all in military garb which read “Bring The Troops Home”-signed Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). There were other signs, home-made signs but that one stuck out. As did the only voice you could hear over the megaphone. “Any Vietnam vets who hated the war, hated what they did, join us, fall in.” And without hesitation I did. Right after the march I joined VVAW, learned more about the group, learned about the war I had fought in than I had known before and I had fought there and took part in all the demonstrations and actions they sponsored in Albany or in Washington, the ones I could make since I was taking some classes in electronics through the GI bill. That was why I was in Washington, D.C. during May Day, 1971 when National VVAW called for us to try one desperate attempt to shut down the government if it would not shut down the war. Everybody knows, and if you don’t, I was arrested that May Day and thrown in RFK stadium, the overflow holding area we were put in. That is where I met Sam when he saw my VVAW button and we started talking, talking about how I, and he, had gotten into that jam. Sam can now tell you his story, but let’s take a little break and have some wine and some food.
And after the break with a couple of people drifting away from the talk Sam gave his story:
Its funny that I am talking about this experience since I thought everybody kind of knew about Ralph and me, thought it was kind of an unspoken legend. But maybe it is good to run this against and maybe since I am the writer of the two of us, although when Ralph gets motivated his can whip my ass writing anti-war stuff sometimes, I will write it up and put it on the website, or in the archives. I really think that one of the things that has held Ralph and me together in this antiwar business is that we came essentially from the same kind of backgrounds, working class, working poor so we knew a few bumps already unlike some of the anti-war activists from other organizations. I grew up south of here, down in Carver, down in what was then called “bog” country, down where they grew cranberries in the bogs used to product the crop.
They called those who worked the bogs, my family, “boggers” and that was not meant as a compliment, kind of drew what I would later call the class line between us and “them” in town life. It came up in strange ways like I remember liking a girl in high school who also liked me but when she found out I was a “bogger,” or maybe her parents did that was that. Stuff like that.
The big thing you have to know, the thing that got this whole story business rolling was that while I am a proud member of VFP I am not a veteran, am as you know we have a “supporter” member, an associate. The reason I am not a veteran, although in other circumstances I might have been, was that in 1965 just as the Vietnam War was beginning to take its bite out of a whole generation which can be felt even today my father, my “bogger” father had a massive heart attack and died leaving my mother alone with four sisters and me. I might add that whatever caused the heart attack my father was a drunk, drank away many a dollar in the town bars and elsewhere. Even now I bristle when I say this. In any case I was the sole male supporter of my family and the local draft board of the time exempted me from military service for that reason once I graduated from high school in 1967. The way I supported my mother and sisters was working in Mr. Carey’s print shop on Washington Street during high school and later when I graduated. As some of you know after my “wild days” in the early 1970s I would take over that operation from Mr. Carey when he retired and run it until my son who is much more tech savvy than I could ever be knowing which way the wind was blowing in the printing business took it over a few years ago.
If you think about it there is nothing in that profile which would lead anybody to believe, to believe today at this far remove, that I would wind up as a long-time peace activist with some arrests for civil disobedience and other things. I, like Ralph, and many others if you heard their stories was as patriotic as the next person, drew in the full propaganda about the red menace and other Cold War bullshit. Believed that we needed to destroy the commies root and branch, go after them to save the world. Believed fully in that domino theory that was touted then as the reason to go to war in Vietnam even if I couldn’t explain the theory then. For me the thing the sole thing that switched me on the war and then on a lot of other things was the death in Vietnam of my best friend from second grade on-Jeff Mullins. Sorry, I still shed a tear every time I say his name, get worse every time I pass the town memorial or I go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington where his name is etched in black granite with thousands of other names.
Like I said I had known Jeff from early childhood so I knew him pretty well, knew that when he said something it stuck. He had been gung-ho to go into the service as much for getting the hell out of “bogger” Carver to see the big wide world as he said and away from horrible parents as patriotic fervor but that was serious factor. He also bought into all the myths that I had as I mentioned before. I wish I could talk about him more about his dreams, but you get the idea. A few months before Jeff was killed down in the Mekong Delta while on patrol, he had sent me a letter, a long letter basically foretelling his doom and his hatred for the lying war. Made me promise that if anything happened to him and he couldn’t get back to tell the real story, his story about the goddam war that I was to do so. Once we got the message that he had been killed I went crazy -and went to work.
Of course I knew there were people against the war, you could not watch the news at least in Boston without seeing somebody demonstrating against the war or resisting the draft which despite my lucky status I still supported or maybe resisting to the thing is what bothered me, but I was clueless how you would contact anybody especially down in Carver where I don’t think anybody was publicly against the war. So I started from scratch a funny scratch when you think about it since what I did was go to Cambridge one Saturday afternoon to see if anybody knew anything about the anti-war struggle. I hear laughing, knowing laughing but like I say I didn’t know anything about what was happening except that something was. I had never been to Cambridge before or at least I wasn’t aware of it so the whole thing was not only an adventure but very informative as well. As it turned out the best way then to find out what was happening was to look at a place like the world-famous kiosk in the Square at the posters that were plastered on poles or anything that would take paper and glue, or wallpaper paste. What I noticed was that there was to be a big SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, meeting later that afternoon to plan something for what was called the Spring Offensive. SDS then pretty notorious and another grouping that I had previously scorned but I figured I was young enough to fit in.
That was decision was decisive in a lot of ways since at that meeting people were encouraged to speak up about why they were there and what they expected to do for the Spring Offensive. There were probably a hundred people in I think it was Memorial Hall, or a large room off of it and when I stood up and trembling told the crowd my reason, the death of Jeff Mullins I was applauded which I couldn’t understand until later because I thought they would hate the idea that I was doing this to support a fallen soldier. That was one off the great lies of the war that these anti-war people for the most part were hostile to the private solider. Although it would not be until about a year later that there would be any serious attempts to link up to disgruntled and war-weary soldiers. In any case off of that meeting I met Jim Thorn, the big local activist who kind of took me under his wing, taught me plenty about the ins and outs of the war and how it got out of hand and got a lot of young guys who had plenty of other stuff to do with their lives killed for no good reason. Two or three weeks later I went to my first anti-war demonstration in downtown Boston, on the Common, sponsored by SDS and a bunch of other groups, none still around at least in that form. That demo was the first leg of a planned Spring Offensive to stop the war and I was very happy to walk the walk holding a photograph of Jeff with the legend “No More.”
That is the important part and I would attend many more such events in Boston, New York and Washington. Along the way I got my speaking voice, spoke from the heart about my mission for Jeff, and would sometimes read a few passages of that Jeff letter urging me to fight the good fight if he didn’t make it back. Along the way I got as frustrated as almost every young person and got progressively more radicalized as the Cambridge milieu went further to the left and with more aggressive tactics. That led up to my going to Washington with a Cambridge group called the Red Brigade to stop the government if it would not stop the war. And the fateful meeting with Ralph after seeing his VVAW button. Sometime let Ralph and me tell you about the details of that meeting but tonight we are about how we met. And remember Ralph was the real deal antiwar Vietnam veteran and I was and am a supporter of VFP except not a veteran. Let’s have a drink.
***********
Save The Date- First Night Against The Wars Stand-out Copley Square Boston New Year’s Eve Afternoon December 31st
The Smedley Butler Brigade, VFP, Chapter 9 has helped sponsor along with other peace and social action groups the annual (this the 13th year) First Night Against The Wars stand-out at the Boston Public Library entrance across from Copley Square on December 31st, New Year Eve’s afternoon starting around noon until about five o’clock.
Usually the weather is cold on that day so we ask people to volunteer for an hour or two during the day. Dan the Bagel Man has his food for activist operating to keep us in hot drinks. If you are coming and have a flag or a poster please bring whatever you have with you. Hope to see you there.
On The
100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa
Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-
By
Frank Jackman
History
in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event,
person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as
reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the
acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the
numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical
organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl
Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that
same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then
ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the
Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in
the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown
that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they
were.
(By
the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution”
these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I
was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly
old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that
back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on
the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask
your parents, or grandparents.)
Okay
here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea
out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional.
Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and
during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918
after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising
was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had
turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist
revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got
with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too
late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split
from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all
intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and
asking why.
The
big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not
keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland
when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps
assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some
nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and
Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a
more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence.
What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There
might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German
left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there
certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi
onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their
“heroic” and last moment.
Instead
we have a still sad 100th anniversary of the assassination of two
great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always
worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking
for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me. Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of "The Internationale".
As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement “The Internationale” in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]
Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.
________________________________________
Die Internationale
Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!
Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht
Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!
In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!
On The Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-From The Archives Of Marxism-Honor Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht-Karl Liebknecht's Statement In Opposition To The German War Budget In 1914
On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-
By Frank Jackman
History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.
(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)
Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why.
The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.
Instead we have a still sad 100th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.
Markin comment: The name Karl Liebknecht stands on its own and needs no additional comment from me. Except this. Every time some bourgeois congressman decides to get up the nerve to vote against one of the various parts of the American war budget just remember he or she, at worst, at least at worst for now, might not get reelected. Karl Liebknecht's stand led to charges of treason and jail. Yes, Karl Liebknecht's name stands on its own and needs no additional comment from me. Workers Vanguard No. 972 21 January 2010
Honor Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht
(From the Archives of Marxism) In the tradition of the early Communist International, each January we commemorate the “Three Ls”: Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, who died on 21 January 1924, and revolutionary Marxists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were assassinated in Berlin on 15 January 1919 by the reactionary Freikorps as part of the German Social Democratic government’s suppression of the Spartakist uprising. Although not well known today, Karl Liebknecht’s name is synonymous with intransigent opposition to one’s “own” bourgeoisie in the crucible of imperialist war. Despite his individual opposition to German imperialism from the outset of World War I, on 4 August 1914 Liebknecht submitted to the discipline of the Social Democratic Party and voted for war credits along with the rest of the party fraction in the Reichstag (parliament). But Liebknecht became increasingly vocal in his opposition to the party’s betrayal of the proletariat. When the party fraction resolved to support a new vote for the Kaiser’s military budget at the Reichstag session of 2 December 1914, Liebknecht broke ranks and cast the sole vote opposing war credits. Liebknecht was prohibited from delivering a statement motivating his vote on the floor of the Reichstag or having it printed in the body’s official record. Barred from the German press, the statement was published in a Dutch socialist newspaper and translated into English in the Socialist New York Call. Below we reprint the statement as it appeared in the February 1915 issue of the U.S. leftist journal The Masses. Liebknecht’s stand inspired proletarian militants in Germany and internationally, not least in Russia, where the working class under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would seize power in the October Revolution of 1917. In a May 1915 leaflet, Liebknecht declared, “The main enemy is at home,” which for generations afterward became the watchword for revolutionaries at a time of war between imperialist powers. As he denounced the slaughter of World War I at a May Day rally in 1916, Liebknecht was dragged from the platform and thrown into prison on charges of treason. Released in October 1918, Liebknecht along with Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party at the end of the year. They were assassinated two weeks later. In honoring the Three Ls, we fight to carry on their revolutionary tradition. As Liebknecht declared the day before his murder: “Whether or not we are alive when it arrives, our program will live, and it will reign in a world of redeemed humanity. Despite everything!” * * * My vote against the war credit is based upon the following considerations: This war, which none of the peoples engaged therein has wished, is not caused in the interest of the prosperity of the German or any other nation. This is an imperialistic war, a war for the domination of the world market, for the political domination over important fields of operation for industrial and bank capital. On the part of the competition in armaments this is a war mutually fostered by German and Austrian war parties in the darkness of half absolutism and secret diplomacy in order to steal a march on the adversary. At the same time this war is a Bonapartistic effort to blot out the growing labor movement. This has been demonstrated with ever-increasing plainness in the past few months, in spite of a deliberate purpose to confuse the heads. The German motto, “Against Czarism,” as well as the present English and French cries, “Against Militarism,” have the deliberate purpose of bringing into play in behalf of race hatred the noblest inclinations and the revolutionary feelings and ideals of the people. To Germany, the accomplice of Czarism, an example of political backwardness down to the present day, does not belong the calling of the liberator of nations. The liberation of the Russian as well as the German people should be their own task. This war is not a German defense war. Its historical character and its development thus far make it impossible to trust the assertion of a capitalistic government that the purpose for which credits are asked is the defense of the fatherland. The credits for succor have my approval, with the understanding that the asked amount seems far from being sufficient. Not less eagerly do I vote for everything that will alleviate the hard lot of our brothers in the field, as well as that of the wounded and the sick, for whom I have the deepest sympathy. But I do vote against the demanded war credits, under protest against the war and against those who are responsible for it and have caused it, against the capitalistic purposes for which it is being used, against the annexation plans, against the violation of the Belgian and Luxemburg neutrality, against the unlimited authority of rulers of war and against the neglect of the social and political duties of which the government and the ruling classes stand convicted.
