The Fire This Time-In Honor Of James Baldwin Whose Time Has Come Again-From The Archives- Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "Solidarity Song"- In Honor Of James Baldwin

Solidarity Song


Peoples of the world, together
Join to serve the common cause!
So it feeds us all for ever
See to it that it's now yours.

Forward, without forgetting
Where our strength can be seen now to be!
When starving or when eating
Forward, not forgetting
Our solidarity!

Black or white or brown or yellow
Leave your old disputes behind.
Once start talking with your fellow
Men, you'll soon be of one mind.

Forward, without forgetting
Where our strength can be seen now to be!
When starving or when eating
Forward, not forgetting
Our solidarity!

If we want to make this certain
We'll need you and your support.
It's yourselves you'll be deserting
if you rat your own sort.

Forward, without forgetting
Where our strength can be seen now to be!
When starving or when eating
Forward, not forgetting
Our solidarity!

All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.

Forward, without forgetting
Where our strength can be seen now to be!
When starving or when eating
Forward, not forgetting
Our solidarity!

Workers of the world, uniting
Thats the way to lose your chains.
Mighty regiments now are fighting
That no tyrrany remains!

Forward, without forgetting
Till the concrete question is hurled
When starving or when eating:
Whose tomorrow is tomorrow?
And whose world is the world?

Bertolt Brecht

As The 100th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Creative Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth -Bertolt Brecht-“To Those Born After”

As The 100^th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Creative Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth -Bertolt Brecht-“To Those Born After”   

By Seth Garth

A few years ago, starting in August 2104 the 100^th anniversary of what would become World War I, I started a series about the cultural effects, some of them anyway, of the slaughter which mowed down the flower of the European youth including an amazing number of artists, poets, writers and other cultural figures. Those culturati left behind, those who survived the shellings, the trenches, the diseases, and what was then called “shell shock,” now more commonly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is duly recognized, and compensated for at least in the United States by the Veterans Administration in proven cases reacted in many different ways. Mainly, the best of them, like the ordinary dog soldiers could not go back to the same old, same old, could not revive the certitudes of the pre-war Western world with it distorted sense of decorum and went to what even today seem quirky with moderns like Dada, Minimalism, the literary sparseness of Hemingway, and so on. I had my say there in a general sense but now as we are only a few months away from the 100^th anniversary of, mercifully, the armistice which effectively ended that bloodbath I want to do a retrospective of creative artistic works by those who survived the war and how those war visions got translated into their works with some commentary if the spirit moves me but this is their show-no question they earned a retrospective.

Almost everything the good German communist, and that is a worthy designation for him, the communist part, when that was  an important ideal reads almost as well and timely today. Here is one which those old time radicals who still are in the struggles should ponder: 

Bertolt Brecht                         To Those Born Later I Truly, I live in dark times! The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs Has simply not yet had The terrible news. What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors? That man there calmly crossing the street Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends Who are in need? It is true I still earn my keep But, believe me, that is only an accident. Nothing I do gives me the right to eat my fill. By chance I've been spared. (If my luck breaks, I am lost.) They say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad you have it! But how can I eat and drink if I snatch what I eat From the starving, and My glass of water belongs to one dying of thirst? And yet I eat and drink. I would also like to be wise. In the old books it says what wisdom is: To shun the strife of the world and to live out Your brief time without fear Also to get along without violence To return good for evil Not to fulfill your desires but to forget them Is accounted wise. All this I cannot do: Truly, I live in dark times. II I came to the cities in a time of disorder When hunger reigned there. I came among men in a time of revolt And I rebelled with them. So passed my time Which had been given to me on earth. My food I ate between battles To sleep I lay down among murderers Love I practised carelessly And nature I looked at without patience. So passed my time Which had been given to me on earth. All roads led into the mire in my time. My tongue betrayed me to the butchers. There was little I could do. But those in power Sat safer without me: that was my hope. So passed my time Which had been given to me on earth. Our forces were slight. Our goal Lay far in the distance It was clearly visible, though I myself Was unlikely to reach it. So passed my time Which had been given to me on earth. III You who will emerge from the flood In which we have gone under Remember When you speak of our failings The dark time too Which you have escaped.     German; trans. John Willett, Ralph Manheim & Erich Fried

*The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- Artist's Corner- "The Solution" -In Honor Of Bertolt Brecht

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons-    Artist's Corner- "The Solution" -In Honor Of Bertolt Brecht

Markin comment:

This poem refers to the German workers uprising, an attempted workers political revolution, in East Germany in 1953.


The Solution- Bertolt Brecht

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

*Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "Contemplating Hell"

Contemplating Hell by Bertolt Brecht


Contemplating Hell, as I once heard it,
My brother Shelley found it to be a place
Much like the city of London. I,
Who do not live in London, but in Los Angeles,
Find, contemplating Hell, that is
Must be even more like Los Angeles.

Also in Hell,
I do not doubt it, there exist these opulent gardens
With flowers as large as trees, wilting, of course,
Very quickly, if they are not watered with very expensive water. And fruit markets
With great leaps of fruit, which nonetheless

Possess neither scent nor taste. And endless trains of autos,
Lighter than their own shadows, swifter than
Foolish thoughts, shimmering vehicles, in which
Rosy people, coming from nowhere, go nowhere.
And houses, designed for happiness, standing empty,
Even when inhabited.

Even the houses in Hell are not all ugly.
But concern about being thrown into the street
Consumes the inhabitants of the villas no less
Than the inhabitants of the barracks.

*Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"- In Honor Of Julius And Ethel Rosenberg

*Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"- In Honor Of Julius And Ethel Rosenberg

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the heroic communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed by the American state on June 19, 1953.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg


To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II

You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.

*Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"- In Honor Of Julius And Ethel Rosenberg On The Anniversary Of Their Execution

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the heroic communists, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed by the American state on June 19, 1953.


To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II

You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.

A PARABLE CONCERNING PROPERTY-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht

A PARABLE CONCERNING PROPERTY-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht  

A PARABLE CONCERNING PROPERTY


PLAY/BOOK REVIEW


THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, BERTAOLT BRECHT, UNIVERSTIY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, 1999


One of the master communist playwright Bertolt Brecht’s strengths as an artist was the ability to set up a moral dilemma and work it out to a conclusion, not always a satisfactory one, by play’s end. This is unusual in a seemingly orthodox follower of the old Stalinist 'socialist realist’ cultural program. This work nevertheless permitted Brecht to address an age-old question about the nature of property ownership, extending it from its natural and historic setting in land and chattels to the question of personal human ownership.

The question posed here is whether a child abandoned by its natural mother then found and raised by another women should go to the former or that latter. Nice dilemma, right? But Brecht, as seem in Mother Courage and other parables, is not above cutting right to the bone on moral questions. What makes this work a cut above some of Brecht’s more didactic plays is the way that he weaves the parable about the odd resolution of an ancient Chinese property dispute and places that ‘wisdom’ in context of a then current dispute between two Soviet-era communes.

In the ancient dispute the judge who is called upon to render judgment, using the circle as a medium to resolve the dispute, seems to be Solomonic but is really a buffoon. This is pure Brechtian irony. This says as much about Brecht's attitude toward property as it does about the old time Chinese justice system. The question of property rights as presented by Brecht and their value as a societal glue is also something the reader or viewer of this play should think about, as well.

**Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"- In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Paris Commune

Markin comment:

Old Brecht may not have been from the be-bop generation but he, in his way, knew how to speak truth to power through his poetry and plays.

To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II

You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.

The Revolution At The Base-Bertolt Brecht’s "The Mother"

The Revolution At The Base-Bertolt Brecht’s "The Mother"

PLAY/BOOK REVIEW

THE MOTHER, BERTOLT BRECHT, GROVE PRESS, 1989

More than one socialist commentator has noted that a revolution is made at the base of society by a combination of experiences that cause the masses to throw of their former servitude, indifference or fear and just go for it. Needless to say those times are few and far between so that it is important to study the mechanics of those changes even if, as here, they are changes in agrarian Russia in the early 20^thcentury. I believe, as Brecht obviously did when he brought it to the theater in highly industrialized Germany, that those same sentiments would also be expressed in more developed capitalist societies when tensions reached the breaking point.

Brecht has adapted for the stage this story written by the great Russian writer, and sometime revolutionary, Maxim Gorky. The story line in both cases is fairly straight forward. A peasant mother is fearful that her son’s Bolshevik revolutionary activities will bring disaster on him and the family. As the story unfolds and the son’s commitment grows in line with the government’s repressive policies the mother starts, slowly, very slowly, to get the point of his work. Along the way her own ‘politics’ change and by the end she is as committed to the cause as her son. Her banner is now red.

On the stage this story gets told amid banners and music that add to the dramatic effect. In either format this is a powerful story and good piece of socialist propaganda. I remember an old German Communist Party member once telling me that in his youth he was actually recruited to the Communist Youth League by this play. Apparently the German CP set up literature tables in the lobby of the theater and at intermission and the end would sign up theater patrons after they had experienced the play. WOW, would that our tasks were so easily done these days.

***From The Archives-Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-As The Torch Passes-In Honor Of Those Who Fight To "Seek A Newer World"

Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II

You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.
*******
Markin comment October 24, 2011:

Recently I have, as an old-time radical, a 1960s radical but don’t hold that against me, been commenting in this space about my favorable reaction to the creation of the Occupy Boston site (and the several hundred others set up here in America and world-wide in the wake of Occupy Wall Street). I have backed that favorable reaction with all kinds of support, including physical defense of the Occupy Boston site in the early hours of Tuesday October 11, 2011 when the Boston police raided and shut down the second site. During the course of various conversations over past couple of weeks, mainly with the young campers and their supporters, I have repeatedly made the statement that “the torch has been passed.” This statement has met with a certain amount of bewilderment and incomprehension on the part of some young listeners. All that the statement means, perhaps reflecting my own political origins as a left-liberal democrat who fiercely supported John F. Kennedy’s presidential victory in 1960 and was enthralled by his use of the term in his inaugural address in 1961, is that we older radicals now had young radicals to pass the lessons of the struggle on to. Unfortunately, until very recently, I and a fair number of other older radicals, were somewhat in despair because with a very un-radical “missing generation” (our sons and daughters, and today’s youth’s parents) the links to the past struggles might not get passed on. I breathe easier now knowing we have reinforcements, and plenty of them.

I breathe easier still knowing that like the narrator in Bertolt Brecht's poem above, To Those Who Come After, by my actions over a long political career, a career filled with its fair share of mistakes and wrong roads taken that I can post this poem in solidarity with the narrator. I have continued the fight for the “newer world” that I started out as a starry-eyed youth to fight for long ago in the early 1960s when I attended my first public demonstration in favor of nuclear disarmament. I, we, did not set the terms that we fought under, mostly the rich and powerful set the agenda and we reacted, fitfully, to their outrages in order to stop their wars, stop their violations of our civil liberties, and stop their hoarding of the common wealth. But mainly, well or poorly, I, we, fought. I, we, got up, stood up, stood up for my (our) rights as Bob Marley’s song of the same name would have it. So remember, as the last lines of the poem plead-“And in the future when no longer, Do human beings still treat themselves as animals, Look back on us with indulgence.”

IN THE MATTER OF ONE MAC THE KNIFE-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht

BOOK REVIEW



THE THREE-PENNY OPERA, BERTOLT BRECHT, ARCADE PUBLISHING, 1928



I have reviewed some of the master Communist playwright Bertolt Brecht’s later more consciously political and didactic plays elsewhere in this space. The play under review is an earlier work, before he fully committed himself to communism, and is an adaptation of John Gay’s 18th century Beggar’s Opera to the modern theater. The subject at hand is a look at the way those in the lower depths of society survive under emergent capitalist conditions, especially the main character, one MacHealth a.k.a. Mac the Knife. As such Brecht’s adaptation has given no end of problems for those critics who want to claim it for the communist cause. It is far too universal in it sentiment about human nature in the capitalist era and therefore properly is a transitional to his later more consciously partisan works like The Measures Taken and The Mother. Thus one should take it for is own worth as a look at survival in a seemingly Hobbesian world.

The plot line is rather simply-MacHealth, a former British imperial soldier, has struck out on his own in dog-eat-dog 18th century London and has created a name for himself as a master criminal and seducer of the ladies. Other forces including the constabulary, a small disreputable but conniving businessman and, let us be politically correct here, some 'sexual workers' combine in an attempt to deprive Mac of life and limb. However luck and a royal coronation combine to thwart those best laid plans. All of this is performed in a light operatic format that allows Brecht to wax poetic at humanity’s plight through a series of sharply-etched songs in which he collaborated with the legendary Kurt Weill.

Above I referred to some controversy about Brecht’s intention in this work. That the roguish, incipient capitalist MacHealth is saved in the end through royal intervention has caused some commentators to argue for the organic connection between the rising capitalist class and the monarchy in England. Others have noted the similarities in appetite between the lumpenproletariat element as represented by MacHealth and his criminal crew and the developing capitalism of the time. I think that both views overdraw what one can take out of Gay’s story or Brecht’s adaptation. This story line is much more conducive to a generalized treatment on the nature of survival in a world that has broken from its agrarian past and has not yet stabilized into bourgeois norms of propriety. Some of these same characteristics were played out in the development of American capitalism, especially in the Wild West. But as presented here this is only a rudimentary outline of where things could go. I stand by my comment in the first paragraph about the unmediated nature of Brecht’s take on Gay’s little work. He most definitely got more focused on the nature of the human plight under capitalism latter as he developed as a Marxist.

Poet' s Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "United Front Song"

Markin comment:



This one must have been written during the Communist International's (CI) "third period" (after the CI Sixth World Congress, 1928). Definitely not after the "popular front" period (after the CI Seventh World Congress, 1935). Whenever it was written the sentiment is right. We, desperately, need a workers united front, an international workers united front. And pronto.





United Front Song


And because a man is human
He'll want to eat, and thanks a lot
But talk can't take the place of meat
or fill an empty pot.

So left, two, three!
So left, two, three!
Comrade, there's a place for you.
Take your stand in the workers united front
For you are a worker too.

And because a man is human
he won't care for a kick in the face.
He doesn't want slaves under him
Or above him a ruling class.

So left, two, three!
So left, two, three!
Comrade, there's a place for you.
Take your stand in the workers united front
For you are a worker too.

And because a worker's a worker
No one else will bring him liberty.
It's nobody's work but the worker' own
To set the worker free.

So left, two, three!
So left, two, three!
Comrade, there's a place for you.
Take your stand in the workers united front
For you are a worker too.

THE REVOLUTION AT THE BASE-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht

THE REVOLUTION AT THE BASE



PLAY/BOOK REVIEW



THE MOTHER, BERTOLT BRECHT, GROVE PRESS, 1989




More than one socialist commentator, including Lenin and Trotsky, has noted that a revolution is made at the base of society by a combination of experiences that cause the masses to throw of their former servitude, indifference or fear and just go for it. In the Marxist movement this has been called the molucular process. The action 'below the radar'. For a rather beautiful literary description of this rising tide read the first few chapters of Volume I of Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. Needless to say those times are few and far between so that it is important to study the mechanics of those changes even if, as here, they are changes in overwhelmingly agrarian Russia just coming into the capitalist production process in the early 20th century. I believe, as Brecht obviously did when he brought it to the theater in highly industrialized Germany, that those same sentiments would also be expressed in more developed capitalist societies when tensions reached the breaking point.

Brecht has adapted for the stage this story written by the great Russian writer, and sometime revolutionary, Maxim Gorky. The story line in both cases is fairly straight forward. A working class mother not far removed from her rural roots is fearful that her son’s Bolshevik revolutionary activities will bring disaster on him and the family. As the story unfolds and the son’s commitment grows in line with the government’s repressive policies the mother starts, slowly, very slowly, to get the point of his work. Along the way her own ‘politics’ change and by the end she is as committed to the cause as her son. Her banner is now red.

On the Brechtian stage this story is told amid banners and music that add to the dramatic effect. In either format this is a powerful story and good piece of socialist propaganda. I remember an old German Communist Party member once telling me that in his youth he was actually recruited to the Communist Youth League by this play. Apparently the German CP set up literature tables in the lobby of the theater and at intermission and the end would sign up theater patrons after they had experienced the play. WOW! Would that our tasks were so easily accomplished these days.

WAR- UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht

PLAY/BOOK REVIEW

MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, BERTOLT BRECHT, GROVE PRESS, 1991

In what appears to be a permanent war in Iraq it is not untimely to address the question of how individuals caught up on the margins of warfare cope, for good or evil, with the trauma of it. Bertolt Brecht, the master Communist playwright, has taken a story of a working mother’s struggle to survive as a camp following petty merchant in the Thirty Years War of the 17th century in Germany as his backdrop to investigate one aspect of that phenomena- the elemental struggle for individual survival. And it is not pretty.

If the simple moral of the story is that war does nothing to elevate the human spirit or bring out the better instincts of our nature Brecht has made his point in rather stark terms. The struggle of Mother Courage to keep her ‘mom and pop’ business going at the cost of the lives of her children may not go down well with today’s more squeamish audiences but the unfortunate fact is that all over the world, and most notably in today’s Iraq, those very same kind of cold, calculating decisions are being made by families in order to survive. The fact that it is a mother, the source of life and supposed nurturer-in-chief, who is sacrificing her children only makes that observation more compelling.

Brecht, moreover, wants us to see that while greed and acquisitiveness may not be eternal human characteristics under conditions of scarcity that have dominated most of human history that struggle has led to some very strange behavior. In the end his play is not only against war but the economic conditions that engender war as well. That would require some mighty big changes. But we had better think about it. Pronto.

IN DEFENCE OF SCIENCE-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht

PLAY/BOOK REVIEW



GALILEO, BERTOLT BRECHT, GROVE PRESS, 1996



The pressures that the established order can bring to bear on those who want to move outside the status quo are enormous. In the end those in charge can grind down the best of men and women with the most worthy knowledge to disseminate. That is the story that the master communist playwright Bertolt Brecht brings us here concerning the pressures to recant brought on Galileo by the Catholic Church in the 1500’s. And for what crime? For merely bringing out facts about the nature of the earth and its place in the universe that are taken as commonplaces, even by small children, today.

Brecht himself certainly knew about such pressures. Although in public, at least, Brecht was a fairly orthodox Stalinist he had his private moments of doubt. Certainly some of the themes in his plays stretch the limits of the orthodox Stalinist ‘socialist realist’ cultural program. Thus the strongest part of the play is the struggle between an individual who is onto something new about the world and an institution that saw that such a discovery would wreak havoc on its claims to centrality. Every once in a while a section of humankind turns inward on itself like that and here the Church was no exception. Damn, that is the overhead cost we pay for some sense of human progress. Except, as in the case of the Catholic Church, it should not have taken 300 years to admit the error. Know this. We have to defend the Galileos of the world against the seemingly never-ending rise of obscurantism. And in this play Brecht has done his part to honor that commitment.

*Poet's Corner-Bertolt Brecht's-"To Those Born Later" -"An die Nachgeborenen"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia: entry for German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Those Born Later
An die Nachgeborenen

I.
To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled might sleep more easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II.
You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:

Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.

And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.


Translation: Deptford, London, November 1993

*Poets' Corner- Walt Whiman- Emily Dickinson- Herman Melville- A Guest Book Review

Click on the headline to link to a guest article about Poets Walt Whitman- Emily Dickinson- Herman Melville.

*From "The Rag Blog"- On The Paris Commune- "La Commune"-A Guest Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a "The Rag Blog" entry of a film review of "La Commune", another way to look at the events of 1870-71 that are of importance to our communist future.

Markin comment:

I have comment on, and marked the anniversary of, the start of the Paris Commune on March 18th in this space every year since its inception. This is an extremely good review of this film. I have order it and will give my own take on it later. For now read this one. Long Live the Memory Of the Paris Communards!

***Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-In Honor Of Those Who Fought To "Seek A Newer World"

Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-In Honor Of Those Who Fought To "Seek A Newer World"

To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.


I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.


The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.


Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

II


You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:


Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.


Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.


And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.

*******
Markin comment:

To Those Who Come After

History in the conditional is always a funny tricky little thing. You can get wrapped up it in so bad that you begin to deny the hard reality of what really happened, what really bad happened usually. On the other hand you can do as most historians do and just plod along assuming because X, Y, or Z happened that was that. That’s the facts, jack and that’s it. Obviously to resolve this thing, or rather to get a real sense of the possibilities, some combination, some mix and matching needs to be placed in the maelstrom. And it is under that sign that I wish to understand Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, his great big tied-up with ribbons and bows valentine to future generations really, To Those Who Come After, that I have posted above.


Of course it is a matter of generations, no question. And what that generation could have, or could not have, done, and done differently to sway the funny little rhythms of history. For his, Bertolt’s generation, if they only could have held out against the imperialist imperative onslaught of World War I, or at least not gone alone like sheep until almost the very end. More germane, if they could have carried out to completion one of those big-time revolutionary possibilities in Germany that they had in the early 1920s. Or ceased their, Communists and Social-Democrats alike, willfully myopic view that the Weimar regime would hold out against the bootjack of Hitler’s storm streets without having to unite for an all-out fight to the death against the Nazi menace.


Moving forward to my parent’s generation, the generation that scarecrow survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and went on to survive, or wait on the survivors, of the D-Day and Pacific bloodbaths of World War II. If only they could have seen clearly enough that that Roosevelt guise was sheer deception to save his class in power (even if he had to fight them, the economic royalists, the one percent of his time, tooth and nail to do it) and create their own party, a workers party, after the tremendous class battles of the mid to late 1930s when they had the bosses on the run, a little anyway. Or hadn’t bought, bought hard into that white picket fence post-war dream and let the red scare dark night wash away whatever big (or little, but I think big) spark got them through the dustbowl miseries and war shellshock.


Once again moving forward to my generation, my disposable income record store soda fountain be-bop high school confidential night with some undiagnosed teen angst mixed with teen alienation generation, the generation of ’68, who didn’t want, well, didn’t start out wanting to anyway, buy into that red scare night white picket fence dream. If we could have just, a big “could have just” I agree, not thrown everything out with the bathwater and read some history we could have realized that it wasn’t just about us. Well, one way or the other, the Vietnamese taught us that lesson, that lesson about perseverance, about a sense of history and about using every tool around to get free. Or, closer to home, if we could have remembered where we had come from, most of us anyway, and dug our working class heels in sooner we could have left some kind of social movement worthy of the name instead of leaving future generations to start from scratch.


And moving on to our children’s generation. Oh, well, history records many retrogressions in the uphill struggle.


And now on to the generation that I am really directing this little “history” lesson to, the real subject of my “to those who come after,” those who roughly are students today, and are moreover the heart and soul of the Occupy movement that has suddenly jumped up onto the historic stage giving them a chance to change the course of history- on their terms. And, by the way incidentally giving to me (and others) from the generation of ’68 a second chance to make things right. Each generation I am firmly convinced must (and will) find its own ways to fight the monster. But know this, know this from first-hand experience, there is a monster on the loose out there, and that monster has a name, the American imperial state just now being captained by one Barack Obama. Whoever the captain is though the monster remains and that is where the “to the death” fight is.


And this is where Brother Brecht and I can share the same sentiments about being ill-equipped in our times to face those hard realities, to worry over half-measures, to not stay the course we knew we had to stay. So forgive us for not doing better, not doing a lot better. But forgive, or not, go slay that damn dragon.