The Latest From The Rag Blog-A Voice Of The Old New Left
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http://www.theragblog.com/
Peter Paul Markin comment:
When we were young, meaning those of us who were militant leftist baby-boomers from what I now call the “Generation Of ‘68”, we would chuckle/gasp/shriek in horror when some Old Leftists tried to tell us a few of the ABCs of radical politics. Those scorned old leftists, mainly old Stalinist Communist Party hangers-on or moribund Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party members who had come of political age in the 1930s and 1940s had nothing to tell us young stalwart in-your-face- rebels who were going to re-invent the world, re-invent it without the hurts and sorrows accumulated from millennia of previous struggles to push the rock up the hill of human progress.
Well, we fell significantly short of that aim, had that Promethean rock come speeding down over our heads. Today I am still not sure whether in retrospect those scorned Old Leftists of old had anything going but all I know is we are now cast in somewhat the same light. We are now the Old New Leftists. Problem is that unlike our 1960s generation, warts and all, there is no sizable younger crowd of young stalwart in-your-face-rebels to thumb their noses up at us. And there should be. That has not stopped many old radicals, many who have not succumbed to old age and hubris, from trying to be heard. And the place they have congregated, for better or worse, at least from what I can see is at this site.
So I find this The Rag Blog website very useful to monitor for the latest in what is happening with past tense radical activists and activities. Anybody, with some kind of name, and who is still around from the 1960s has found a home here. The remembrances and recollections are helpful for today’s activists. Strangely the politics are almost non-existent, as least any that would help today, except to kind of retroactively “bless” those old-time New Left politics that did nothing (well, almost nothing) but get us on the losing end of the class (and cultural) wars of the last forty plus years. Still this is a must read blog for today’s left-wing militants.
A Markin disclaimer:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Sometimes I will comment on my disagreements and sometimes I will just let the author/writer shoot him or herself in the foot without note. Off hand, as I have mentioned before in other contexts, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in the entries on this website. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. Read on.
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Heartland takes root with new workers & friends, arson on my birthday, and a rising, 1976-’79
My partners and I began to learn the ins and outs and challenges of running our business as we pioneered our community-oriented, left-leaning business model.
Chef Earl and Chef Celeste Kelly, Heartland dining room, Chicago, Illinois, 1977. Photos by Michael James from his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James’ Pictures from the Long Haul.
After the Heartland Café opened Wednesday night, August 11, 1976, “Heartland life” took root and I began the part of my life I term “activist entrepreneur.” Katy, Stormy, and I entered a new world, one in which we were the bosses. We were now responsible for dealing with the government and its agencies, no longer as outside critics but as small business owners required to comply with what seemed at times to us unnecessary, ever-changing rules and regulations. We essentially took a crash course on “doing business” in Chicago.
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Posted in Rag Bloggers Tagged Chicago, Food, Heartland Cafe, Memoir, Michael James, Pictures from the Long Haul, Rag Bloggers, Rising Up Angry 1 Comment
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