The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *The Folk Historian Still Standing- In Honor Of The Songs Of Pete Seeger

Click on Title To link To Pete Seeger Appreciation Page

CD REVIEW

If I Had A Song…: The Songs Of Pete Seeger, Volume 2, Pete Seeger and various artists, Appleseed Records, 2001

Some of the points concerning the review of this volume of the three volume CD set honoring the music of Pete Seeger were previously made in a review of “ Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, American Masters Series, PBS, 2006”. They apply here equally as well.

Does anyone from the "Generation of ’68" who was interested in folk music, and there were legions of us, really remember the first time we heard that thrilling voice of Pete Seeger (generally then accompanied by a banjo). Probably for me it was in some variation of The Weavers’ version of Lead Belly’s "Goodnight, Irene" but I am really not sure. That deep but nevertheless gentle voice first came at us over the radio or on a record player (A what? I hear the younger set saying-well, old fogies, fill them in later). Not television, however, as this is one folksinger that was banned in Boston, as the old expression went.

Why? Was it because Pete sang randy, racy songs and thus offended the moral scruples of the community? Hell no. Just for the simple act of political expression of not telling the various ‘distinguished’ Congressional committees down in old Washington in the 1950’s whether he was or was not a communist. Kid’s stuff now but then it meant your life and livelihood if you gave the wrong answer, or worst, no answer. This information is just a little background to demonstrate why, if any other reason was necessary, old Pete (now 89) was being honored in 2001with a three volume CD set of his most enduring works performed by a virtual who’s who of old and new folkies, including Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Bragg and the late Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. It was, moreover, nice to hear something produced to pay homage to the man while he still breathes.

The above paragraph is just my little valentine to the work of the man. Make no mistake Pete stands, and has most always stood, for a different political perspective than mine but one must cut cultural workers a certain amount of political slack when it comes to their craft. I take issue with his concept of thinking globally and acting locally. The reverse is necessary- think locally and act globally. But what can one say negatively about this man’s musical good news.

A short list of my favorites here- "Oh, Had I A Golden Thread”, “Turn, Turn, Turn (his adaptation), "Last Train to Nuremberg" (a powerful anti-war song written during the Vietnam anti-war struggle in the same mode as Dylan’s “Masters Of War”), Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes", "Talking Union" (done nicely in a very effective hip hop style) and “Old Devil Time” just begins to do justice to the man. Best of all, Appleseed Records seems to be carrying out the tradition of Yazoo Records and Smithsonian/Folkway Records in providing copious liner notes to accompany their CDs. It was nice to read Pete’s take on the genesis of his various musical efforts that were included here. Oh well, enough of the valentines, except one thing. Something is definitely out of joint with the times when, as was shown in the American Masters documentary mentioned above, Pete was being feted by then President Clinton at the White House for good citizenship. Pete, where did you go wrong?


Pete Seeger Lyrics

Last Train To Nuremberg Lyrics

[Chorus (and after each verse):]
Last train to Nuremberg!
Last train to Nuremberg!
Last train to Nuremberg!
All on board!

Do I see Lieutenant Calley?
Do I see Captain Medina?
Do I see Gen'ral Koster and all his crew?
Do I see President Nixon?
Do I see both houses of Congress?
Do I see the voters, me and you?

Who held the rifle? Who gave the orders?
Who planned the campaign to lay waste the land?
Who manufactured the bullet? Who paid the taxes?
Tell me, is that blood upon my hands?

If five hundred thousand mothers went to Washington
And said, "Bring all of our boys home without delay!"
Would the man they came to see, say he was too busy?
Would he say he had to watch a football game?

Pete Seeger Lyrics

Oh, Had I A Golden Thread Lyrics

Oh, had I a golden Thread
And needle so fine
I've weave a magic strand
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design.

In it I'd weave the bravery
Of women giving birth,
In it I would weave the innocence
Of children over all the earth,
Children of all earth.

Far over the waters
I'd reach my magic band
Through foreign cities,
To every single land,
To every land.

Show my brothers and sisters
My rainbow design,
Bind up this sorry world
With hand and heart and mind,
Hand and heart and mind.

Far over the waters
I'd reach my magic band
To every human being
So they would understand,
So they'd understand.


Pete Seeger Lyrics

Talking Union Lyrics

If you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do;
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you;
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
But if you all stick together, now, 'twont he long.
You'll get shorter hours,
Better working conditions.
Vacations with pay,
Take your kids to the seashore.

It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train;
'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We'll all be waiting till Judgment Day;
We'll all he buried - gone to Heaven -
Saint Peter'll be the straw boss then.

Now, you know you're underpaid, hut the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work till you're 'bout to faint,
You may he down and out, but you ain't beaten,
Pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'
Talk it over - speak your mind -
Decide to do something about it.

'Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
To go to your meeting and act like a stool;
But you can always tell a stool, though - that's a fact;
He's got a yellow streak running down his back;
He doesn't have to stool - he'll always make a good living
On what he takes out of blind men's cups.

You got a union now; you're sitting pretty;
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.
The boss won't listen when one man squawks.
But he's got to listen when the union talks.
He better -
He'll be mighty lonely one of these days.

Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous,
They're paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell,
"Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell."
Well, he's puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick,
He thinks he's got your union licked.
He looks out the window, and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree
He's a bastard - unfair - slave driver -
Bet he beats his own wife.

Now, boy, you've come to the hardest time;
The boss will try to bust your picket line.
He'll call out the police, the National Guard;
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card.
They'll raid your meeting, hit you on the head.
Call every one of you a goddamn Red -
Unpatriotic - Moscow agents -
Bomb throwers, even the kids.

But out in Detroit here's what they found,
And out in Frisco here's what they found,
And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found,
And down in Bethlehem here's what they found,
That if you don't let Red-baiting break you up,
If you don't let stool pigeons break you up,
If you don't let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don't let race hatred break you up -
You'll win. What I mean,
Take it easy - but take it!

Pete Seeger Lyrics

Old Devil Time Lyrics

Old devil time, I'm goin' to fool you now!
Old devil time, you'd like to bring me down!
When I'm feeling low, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

Old devil fear, you with your icy hands,
Old devil fear, you'd like to freeze me cold!
When I'm sore afraid, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

Old devil pain, you often pinned me down,
You thought I'd cry, and beg you for the end
But at that very time, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

Old devil hate, I knew you long ago,
Then I found out the poison in your breath.
Now when we hear your lies, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

No storm nor fire can ever beat us down,
No wind that blows but carries us further on.
And you who fear, oh lovers, gather 'round
And we can rise and sing it one more time!


Pete Seeger Lyrics

If I Had A Hammer Lyrics

If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land.

I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a bell,
I'd ring it in the morning,
I'd ring it in the evening,
All over this land.

I'd ring out danger,
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a song,
I'd sing it in the morning,
I'd sing it in the evening,
All over this land.

I'd sing out danger,
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

Well I got a hammer,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song to sing, all over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-From The Archives- *On The Anniversary Of The Fall Of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Click On Title To Link To "Wikipedia"'s Entry For The Fall Of Saigon And A Famous Photograph Of The Evacuation Of The United States Embassy In The Wake Of The North Vietnamese Army Advances On Saigon.

Commentary

April 30th Marks The 34th Anniversary Of The Military Victory Of The North Vietnamese Army/South Vietnamese National Liberation Front With The Fall Of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).

Other years I have used this occasion to review some work directly related to that victory from the view point of highlighting some exploit of the victors in that war- our side. One should not underestimate the importance of that victory by a determined, if outgunned military force, in crimping the style of American imperial policy for a significant period (and some would argue its continuing effect today). One should also note, sadly, that this event (always dramatically visualized in the mind’s eye by those pictures of the helicopters evacuating American and other personnel from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy) the last clear cut anti-capitalist victory that we have been able to celebrate. That, in itself, is cause for reflection.

This year, with the almost daily growing evidence by the Obama administration that it is seeking to escalate the American presence in the quagmire that is Afghanistan beyond any rational necessity, I wish to review the memoir of one of the American architects of the American escalation in Vietnam, Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara. As McNamara’s version of the Vietnam saga unfolds, and not incidentally or accidentally his craven attempt to reshape the history of his involvement in that process as well, one cannot help but see that the same sense of American hubris is at play now. As always to be on the safe side here the slogan remains- Obama- All U.S./Allied Troops Out Of Iraq and Afghanistan Now!

The Fog Of War, Part II- War Secretary Robert McNamara’s View Of His Handiwork in Vietnam

Book Review

In Retrospect: The Tragedy And Lessons Of Vietnam, Robert Strange McNamara with Brain VanDeMark, Random House, 1995

Anyone who had caught the Friday March 27, 2009 headlines is aware that the Democratic Party-run Obama government has called for some 4,000 additional troops for Afghanistan and what they, euphemistically, call civilian support teams in order to bolster the sagging regime of “Mayor of Kabul” Karzai. Those numbers are in addition to the 17,000 extras already committed by the Obama regime in February. Does the word escalation seem appropriate here?

One of the problems of having gone through the Vietnam experience in my youth (including periods of lukewarm support for American policy under John F. Kennedy, a hands-off attitude in the early Lyndon B. Johnson years and then full-bore opposition under the late Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford regimes) is a tendency to view today’s American imperial policy in the same by-the-numbers approach as I took as a result of observing the Vietnam War as it unfolded. There are differences, some of them hugely so, between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Just as, I have previously noted in this space, there are differences between Vietnam and the recently “completed” Iraq War. (Hey, I’m just going by what the media tells me is going on. They wouldn’t lead us astray, would they?)

But, I keep getting this eerie feeling in the back of my neck every time I hear, or see, anything concerning Afghanistan coming out of this new Obama administration. They appear clueless, yet are determined to forge ahead with this policy that can only lead to the same kind of quagmire than Vietnam and Iraq turned into. That is where the analogies to Vietnam do connect up. In this regard, I have recently been re-reading Kennedy/Johnson War Secretary Robert Strange (that’s his middle name, folk, I didn’t make it up and didn’t need to) McNamara’s memoirs, written in 1995, of his central role in the development of Vietnam policy, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam”.

Obviously McNamara has put his own ‘spin’ on his personal role then in order to absolve himself (a little) before history. That is to be expected. What comes through crystal clear, however, because in the final analysis McNamara still doesn’t get it, is that when you’re the number one imperial power all the decisions you make are suppose to fall into place for your benefit because you represent the “good guys”. Regardless of what you do, or do not, know about the internal workings of the situation at hand. The Kennedy/Johnson administrations were almost totally ignorant of the internal working of Vietnamese society. That is why I have that eerie, very eerie, feeling about this Obama war policy.

In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were very necessary in his case and hence he had to go to the prints in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his “ghost writer” not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 8o something, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic “The Best and The Brightest”.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the “lessons” to be drawn from experiences (eleven in all by the way). Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate “war criminal” to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery. Yet, like that freshman course there are things to be learned despite the professor and more to learn, if only by reading between the lines, than he or she wanted to express.

McNamara presents his take by dividing the Vietnam War buildup, at least at the executive level, into periods; the early almost passive Kennedy days; the post Kennedy assassination period when Lyndon Johnson was trying to be all things to all men; the decisive post-1964 election period; and, various periods of fruitless and clueless escalation. It is this process that is, almost unwittingly, the most important to take from this world. Although McNamara, at the time of writing was an older and wiser man, when he had power he went along with ever step of the “hawks”, civilian and military. He led no internal opposition, and certainly not public one. This is the classic “good old boys” network where one falls on one’s sword when the policy turns wrong. And he is still scratching his head over why masses of anti-war protesters chanted “war criminal” when they confronted him with his deeds. And then listen to the latest screeds by current War Secretary Gates concerning Afghanistan. It will sound very familiar.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to read this book if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defended their state then, and now.


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.




________________________________________

L'Internationale

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout

C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud

L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits

Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.

Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux

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!

In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-From The Archives- *A Short Note On History And The Individual- A Tale Of Sorts

Click on title to link to the early Russian Marxist George Plekhanov's essay "The Role Of The Individual In History" that forms the philosophical backdrop to this little anecdotal commentary. Yes, I know, when the deal went down Plekhanov was on the wrong side of the Russian revolution of 1917 but every Russian Marxist, including Lenin and Trotsky, notes the debt they owe to the early Plekhanov. A debt we acknowledge here as well.

Commentary

I have spent no little amount of ink in this space over the last year giving some personal and political reminiscences concerning that key year of my youth, 1968. Among them I included my last ditch efforts to stay within the bourgeois political world fighting to elect Robert Kennedy as president- and then Hubert Horatio Humphrey. I still blush over that one. I do not propose to continue on, for the most part, in that vein this year as I believe that I have adequately made most of the important points already.

I do, however, have this one comment to make that may shed some light on a question that has plagued me since early in my youth, although I may have not been able to articulate it that way then. The question: What is the relationship between the individual and the flow of human history? As a long time Marxist I could make a long intellectual argument concerning this subject and the linked relationship between the two, and have done so in the past. Here I merely propose to use a personal event in my life to highlight the vagaries of the historical process even for one who firmly believes that history has some connectedness.

The impetus for this little saga is the fact that this year marks the 40th anniversary of my induction, as a draftee, into the American army in 1969. (Yes, I know that I am drifting perilously close to that oft-cited habit that I have cast scorn on in this space concerning oddball commemorations by others-but bear with me here.) That event hardly made me unique as some two million plus men (mainly) revolved through military service during that period. Although draft resisters got far more attention at the height of the opposition to the Vietnam War, and at some level rightly so, far more young men were like me- hating the war but patriotic or fearful enough of the alternatives (jail or exile) to be drafted. I certainly was no Bolshevik at the time and did not enter the military along with other working class kids with the idea of “bringing the war home” to use the parlance of the times. That understanding came later after my military service had ended.

I would, in any case, rather speak here of consequences of my military service and not the political wisdom of it. Many who served during that Vietnam War period came home shattered, forlorn, broken or otherwise afflicted. Some just came home and put it behind them, one way or another. A few of us became permanent oppositionists to bourgeois society. That is the point I find interesting and an appropriate subject for comment lo these many years later.

No question that had I not been drafted that I would have gone along on some kind of left-social democratic parliamentary track and today, probably, would be going ‘ga-ga’ over ‘comrade' Obama. Or worse. Moreover, as I have noted previously in commenting on other personal political anniversaries I came to opposition later than most of my “Generation Of ‘68” but find that I have stayed the course better for all that, certainly better than the vast majority who have made their peace with this imperialist society.

That, my friends, is what this little tale is all about. I did not have any input into the contours of Vietnam War strategy, or the opposition to it. That was left to “the best and brightest” of the Kennedy/Johnson cabal on the one side or professional pacifists/and social-democratic organizations like the Communist Party or Socialist Workers Party on the other. Yet, my time of decision was that during that time period and thus I was compelled to make judgments based on that reality. I ask: is that or is that not one of those little vagaries of history that Marx mentioned? Humankind makes its own history, although not always to its own liking. Nevertheless humankind makes it. That truth and the fight to put us in a position to “like" our own creation are what have kept me going. Enough said.

On The 80th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International (1938)- *From The Pen Of American Socialist Workers Party Leader James P. Cannon- "Don't Strangle The Party (1967)"

Click on the headline to link to a "James P. Cannon Internet Archive" online copy of his 1967 polemic, "Don't Strangle The Party".


Markin comment:

On a day when I am posting an article from the archives of "Women and Revolution" about the Socialist Workers Party's various policies toward the gay liberation struggle back in the 1970s it seems appropriate to post something from historic SWP leader James P. Cannon. This is from late in his career when he was not in day-to-day charge of the organization, some of the politics are also wobbly, and a lot of the issues concern internal party political in-fighting (as was the rationale for publishing and posting it by others at later times)but the entry is still worth a look at.

The Summer Of Love-1967-California Dreamin'- Berkeley In The 1960's

Click below to listen to Stanley Nelson speak about his latest documentary –The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution on the Terry Gross show Fresh Air on NPR (Sept 24, 2015)  

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/23/442801731/director-chronicles-the-black-panthers-rise-new-tactics-were-needed

DVD REVIEW

Berkeley in the Sixties, various interviewees, performers, etc., 1990

For those us of the Generation of '68 the political actions of the 1960's were essentially a youth-led effort. To the extent that anyone though about the situation as a separate political matter young students, mainly from the traditionally elite campuses, were the vanguard of those youth. And the vanguard of the vanguard? At least until 1969 a very strong case could be made, and is made in this documentary under review, that the University of California at Berkeley held that role. The whys and wherefores of that role are what makes this above-average documentary, complete with the inevitable `talking heads' that populate this kind of film, a very good source for what actually happened in the 1960's there for those who were around at the time and a primer on radical politics at the base of society for those who were not.

The disruption of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) meetings in San Francisco in 1960, various anti-racial discrimination actions in support of the growing national civil right movement in the early 1960's, the historic and well-known Mario Salvo-led Free Speech Movement of 1964 along with its trials an tribulations, the early anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft actions of 1965 and 1966, the drift toward an apolitical counter-cultural experience in 1967, the romance with the next door neighbor Black Panthers and the Free Huey Movement in Oakland and ending with the militarily defeated People's Park efforts in 1969. They are all resurrected here. All these events are, moreover, discussed from various later viewpoints by participants, adversaries and flat out ill-wishers. If you want a two hour capsule commentary of the highs and lows of the political and counter-cultural struggles as they occurred at Berkeley and spread to the East this is a very good documentary to bring you up to speed.

Some of the rhetoric may seem odd to today's cyberspace-driven youth. Some of the costumes, especially during the height of the Haight -Ashbury era and the Summer of Love in 1967, may be perplexing to today's fashion-conscious youth. Most of the politics may seem obscure. But know this- it may have not lasted long, we may have made every mistake in the political book, we certainly went off on more tangents that one could shake stick at but there was a fight going on then to change the nature of the way we do business in this society. Call us utopian, if you will, but we fought. A little of that spirit would come in very handy right about now. Many of the lessons of that time may be lost now. However, I sense a little of that same 1960's breeze starting to blow again in 2008 so look here for a guidepost.

I would not be a proper leftist politico if I did not mention that of all the scenes presented, all the discussions taped, all the `talking heads' giving their, seemingly sincere, takes on meaning of those times there was virtually no commentary on one very fundamental problem. Students, from elite universities or otherwise, cannot independently without joining up with some other social agency create the kind of just society that students were fighting for then. In no instant that I can recall during the course of this documentary did anyone attempt to draw the lesson that the working class, whatever its then current organization (or more correctly lack of it) and political consciousness came into play as a factor in history.

The closest anything came to understanding the need for an additional agency was the unequal, uncritical `alliance' with the Black Panthers. That is why, in the end, after the military defeat of the People's Park experiment Berkeley fell off the political map. But, my friends, the story did not end there for the 1960's. Some youth, although not nearly enough, drew that lesson about the lack of political power of students if left to their own devises and got serious about political theory and the working class. Some of us are still at that fight. From the later careers of the Berkeley interviewees credited at the end of this film that did not include most of them. They mainly people the "politically correct" professorariat of our university system. That tells the tale.

From The-Archives Berkeley 2009, This Is Not Your Parents' Berkeley 1969

Commentary

A couple of months ago(see archives for November 13, 2008) I did a review of the film documentary “Berkeley in the Sixties” that took an, on the whole, positive look at the social activism that drove some members of my political generation, “the generation of ’68". My purpose in that review, as is the general purpose of this blog, was to highlight for this generation coming of political age in the Obamiad the kinds of struggles that were necessary then in order to have any kind of shot at creating a more just society. We, as everyone is painfully aware today, failed. However, as I pointed out it was no accident that when things got heated up, particularly around opposition to the Vietnam War, Berkeley was until 1969, at least, at the epicenter of radical student opposition to those running this society.

Certain towns, mainly college towns or their environs, have historically acted as “sanctuaries” for the offbeat, the marginal, the radical, the left out and, frankly, the tired and burned out. One thinks of Ann Arbor, Madison, the University of Chicago, Harvard Square, Greenwich Village at various times and today additionally places like Durham, North Carolina and Austin, Texas. Moreover, in tough times like we have just been through with the Bush Administration those oases are necessary against the onslaught of the main culture. In its time Berkeley was the epitome of all that was fresh, strong, articulate and thoughtful about the way forward politically. Alas, as the article below gleaned from a local Boston newspaper makes abundantly clear today’s Berkeley is a very different place.

I made a point in the above-mentioned film review to note that after the People’s Park defeat in 1969 Berkeley kind of fell off the political map. Partially that was due to an ellipse of the student movement as the center of political struggle, as the whole society seemed to come unglued. But mainly it was due to an unorganized and messy political retreat of activists, once they realized how hard it was going to defeat this imperialist “monster”, going off to their own sectoral "sandbox" politics. And waiting in those enclaves for that “someday” in order to join up the various struggles. They are apparently, at last check, still waiting. But enough of that for now. As the comments by some of the interviewees in this article indicate that point that I made earlier about “sanctuaries” applies to the tired and burned out as well as those with fresh idea. Well, even an old leftie like I can read the writing on the wall- for now- and recognize that today’s Berkeley is obviously not your parents’ Berkeley. But, I still have this nagging question after reading this article- After Obama fizzles, what are you going to do?

“Something New Brews In Berkeley: Patriotic Pride", Sasha Issenberg, Boston Globe, Sunday January 4, 2009


BERKELEY, Calif. - The hundreds who massed at the University of California on election night responded to Barack Obama's victory by heading off on a route that has been for a generation the sacred way for the activist left: out the campus gates, through Sproul Plaza, and down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park.
By the time they arrived at the intersection of Telegraph and Durant avenues, where a tie-dyed vendor occupies one corner, it became clear they did not come to challenge the system now preparing to consecrate a new regime in Washington. At one point, a man scaled a lamppost and unfurled the Stars and Stripes. The crowd broke out in the national anthem.

"People finally felt like our generation had reclaimed patriotism," said Haley Fagan, 24, a Berkeley paralegal who got stuck in a car trying to cross the street as the crowd surged. "It was a moment that we felt comfortable with it."

After generations of finding their voice in dissidence, some on America's left wing are adjusting not only to a new, post election comfort with patriotic symbols, but the political reality they represent. Believing in Obama after inauguration day will mean identifying with the machinery of American power.

"There's a left-wing tradition of being systematically opposed to the US government, knee-jerk reactionary - most of our presidents have made it fairly easy to do," said Jo Freeman, author of "At Berkeley in the Sixties," a memoir of her student activism. "Those who view everything the US does as automatically suspect already have a problem doing that with Obama."

At Berkeley, the university has, quite deliberately, chosen to host its first-ever large-scale observance of a presidential inauguration in a spot most closely identified with its radicalism, said Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau. At Sproul Plaza, site of the self-described Free Speech Movement protests beginning in 1964 - now commemorated with a monument declaring "this soil and the air space above it should not be part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity's jurisdiction" - students will gather around giant television screens to take in the nation's most solemn ritual.

"It will be a patriotic celebration," Birgeneau said in an interview. "That small circle will now be surrounded by a lot of students who are happy to be members of a nation that just elected its first African-American president."

Not since Franklin Roosevelt turned the federal government into an aggressive agent of liberalism - pushing the New Deal at home and confronting fascism abroad - has the left felt such a deep attachment and invested such hopes in a head of state.

"People in the '30s felt that for once the government was on their side," Pulitzer Prize-winning Berkeley historian Leon F. Litwack said in an interview. "They had never had that kind of relationship to a president before."

Disagreements with American foreign policy, particularly in Vietnam, fueled a cynicism about American might and its trappings, said Litwack. He has written in praise of Free Speech Movement leaders for "eschewing the conventional flag-waving, mindless, orchestrated patriotism. . . . They defined loyalty to one's country as disloyalty to its pretenses, a willingness to unmask its leaders, and a calling to subject its institutions, government, and wars to critical examination, not only the decisions made by rulers but often their indecision."

Such a view of patriotism was so hardened in Berkeley - where, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Fire Department removed flags from its trucks for fear that they could become targets of antiwar demonstrators - that a gathering of College Republicans made the front page of the Los Angeles Times in 2003 for walking down Telegraph waving flags and singing "America the Beautiful" as a sardonic provocation.

A similar, if earnest, display on election night "did strike me as funny and ironic," said Mark Rudd, who organized campus protests in the 1960s as a national leader of Students for a Democratic Society. "For the last eight years - and probably for much longer - most radicals have been mourning for our country. . . . Obviously the empire is not going to fall overnight, but at least there's been a popular vote that changes the direction of the last 40 years."

The Star Market, a small Berkeley grocery with a robust selection of legumes, recently posted next to its cash register a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle imploring readers to fly the Stars and Stripes on the day of Obama's inauguration. "In recent times, our flag has been displayed more by one side of the political spectrum than the other," wrote Paul Templeton of Berkeley. "Let's rescue it from unreflective, knee-jerk patriotism."

Such spontaneous patriotism was the reaction to Obama's victory for many in neighborhoods where displays of Tibetan nationalism had been more common than its American equivalent. Election-night revelers in Harvard Square sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." Those in West Philadelphia chanted "USA.!" A celebrating mob in Manhattan's Union Square screamed, "This is what democracy looks like," emptied of the sarcasm that made it a favorite refrain of anti-globalization protestors.

"I think part of the new patriotism of the left is a function of folks recognizing how much certain things mattered to them - the Constitution, due process, separation of powers, basic legal and human rights - once they have been taken away, or at least radically threatened," said Jeremy Varon, a Drew University historian and editor of "The Sixties," a scholarly journal.

"We are used to alienation, but Bush has engendered an alienation so profound it has nearly shattered many of us and called us to defend core aspects of our polity that we thought were sacrosanct," Varon said. "Election night was the cathartic undoing of all that: a way to say, in Whitman-esque communion with our national identity, 'We too sing America!' "

In a photo now on the front of his website, folk singer Richie Havens stands before a large flag outside his New Jersey polling place, giving a thumbs-up after voting. Havens, 67, said he is excited to see Obama sworn in, but that the change in government is merely catching up with the democracy of popular culture.

"We are probably the first country in the world getting the chance to formalize our change," Havens said.

There are signs that Obama's success not only increased voter turnout, but has made citizens more interested in being part of government. His transition office has reported that more than 300,000 people have submitted their resumes via the Internet for federal jobs. A study this year by Harvard's Institute of Politics showed that about one-third of those between 18 and 24 were interested in joining a national, state, or local bureaucracy.

"These students are optimists," said Tufts President Lawrence S. Bacow, who on election night watched students march by his house on campus singing "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful." "They don't have an idealistic view of the country. At the same time, I don't think they're cynical in the way prior generations were cynical."

As opposed to the largely upper-middle-class white students who propelled the 1960s counterculture, leftist students today are more likely to come from working-class and immigrant backgrounds and see college as a route into the middle class, according to Birgeneau.

"They don't come here as radicals who are going to overturn the system," said the UC-Berkeley chancellor. "These students want to be successful. They seem to have realized that working within the system is the way to do so. The Obama victory is evidence to them that that works."

At Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, many who have, in the past, used such occasions to rambunctiously question American power are likely to be silently saluting its transfer.

"They've already got the permits," said Freeman, who joined anti-Bush protests at his 2004 inauguration but expects to be in Washington this time as merely a spectator. "But I'm going to be looking forward to seeing what the signs say."

The Latest On Jesse Winchester- Folksinger/Songwriter-A Voice From The 1960s Folk Minute Is Down- Singer-Songwriter Jesse Winchester Is Ill- Be Well “Yankee Lady” Writer.

Click on the headline to link to an earlier entry from the American Left History blog on the condition of 1960s folk revival singer Jesse Winchester.

***********

I'm sorry to announce that I'm cancelling my shows for the rest of this year. I have been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, and will have to undergo treatment for the next couple of months. I'm very sorry if any plans have been disrupted; I do hope to see you again soon, and we'll pick up where we left off.

Update: The other day my doctor asked how I was feeling. "Pretty rough, Doctor. But it's a funny thing - I have these strange moments of euphoria."

"Well, it's not from anything I've been doing." He has a very fine, wry sense of humor.

The truth is, it is what he and you have been doing. Your messages of love and support have been more touching than I can possibly tell you. You are causing my feelings of euphoria. Thank you - I love you so much.

I have cross-posted this message to the Caring Bridge web site.

Thanks for the visit,

Jesse Winchester

From "The Rag Blog"-Dave Zirin : When Muhammad Ali Took the Weight (1967)

SPORT / Dave Zirin : When Muhammad Ali Took the Weight


Muhammad Ali, the former Cassius Clay, was convicted by a U.S. federal court in Houston on June 20, 1967. Above, he is shown when refusing induction at the Houston draft board, April 28, 1967. At his right is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This day in history:
When Muhammad Ali took the weight

By Dave Zirin / The Rag Blog / June 20, 2011

In an era defined by endless war, we should recognize a day in history that won’t be celebrated on Capitol Hill or in the White House. On June 20, 1967, the great Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston for refusing induction in the U.S. armed forces.

Ali saw the war in Vietnam as an exercise in genocide. He also used his platform as boxing champion to connect the war abroad with the war at home, saying, "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?”

For these statements, as much as the act itself, Judge Joe Ingraham handed down the maximum sentence to Cassius Clay” (as they insisted upon calling him in court): five-years in a federal penitentary and a $10,000 fine. The next day, this was the top-flap story for The New York Times with the headline, “Clay Guilty in Draft Case; Gets Five Years in Prison.”

The sentence was unusually harsh and deeply tied to a Beltway, bipartisan consensus to crush Ali and ensure that he not develop into a symbol of anti-war resistance. The day of Ali's conviction the U.S. Congress voted 337-29 to extend the draft four more years. They also voted 385-19 to make it a federal crime to desecrate the flag. Their fears of a rising movement against the war were well-founded.

The summer of 1967 marked a tipping point for public support of the Vietnam “police action.” While the Tet Offensive, which exposed the lie that the United States was winning the war, was still six months away, the news out of Southeast Asia was increasingly grim. At the time of Ali’s conviction, 1,000 Vietnamese noncombatants were being killed each week by U.S. forces. One hundred U.S. soldiers were dying every day, and the war was costing $2 billion a month.

Anti-war sentiment was growing and it was thought that a stern rebuke of Ali would help put out the fire. In fact, the opposite took place. Ali’s brave stance fanned the flames.

As Julian Bond said,
[It] reverberated through the whole society... [Y]ou could hear people talking about it on street corners. It was on everyone's lips. People who had never thought about the war before began to think it through because of Ali. The ripples were enormous.
Ali himself vowed to appeal the conviction, saying,
I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in this stand -- either I go to jail or go to the Army. There is another alternative, and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end, I am confident that justice will come my way, for the truth must eventually prevail.
Already, by this point, Ali’s heavyweight title had been stripped, beginning a three-and-a-half-year exile. Already Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam had begun to distance themselves from their most famous member. Already, Ali had become a punching bag for almost every reporter with a working pen.

But with his conviction came a new global constituency. In Guyana, protests against his sentence took place in front of the U.S. embassy. In Karachi, Pakistan, a hunger strike began in front of the U.S. consulate. In Cairo, demonstrators took to the streets. In Ghana, editorials decried his conviction. In London, an Irish boxing fan named Paddy Monaghan began a long and lonely picket of the U.S. Embassy.

Over the next three years, he would collect more than 20,000 signatures on a petition calling for the restoration of Muhammad Ali's heavyweight title.

Ali at this point was beginning to see himself as someone who had a greater responsibility to an international groundswell that saw him as more than an athlete.
Boxing is nothing, just satisfying to some bloodthirsty people. I'm no longer a Cassius Clay, a Negro from Kentucky. I belong to the world, the black world. I'll always have a home in Pakistan, in Algeria, in Ethiopia. This is more than money.
Eventually justice did prevail and the Supreme Court overturned Ali’s conviction in 1971. They did so only after the consensus on the war had changed profoundly. Ali had been proven right by history, although a generation of people in [Southeast] Asia and the United States paid a terrible price along the way.

Years later, upon reflection, Ali said he had no regrets.
Some people thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But everything I did was according to my conscience. I wasn't trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free. And I made a stand all people, not just black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn't just black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man's son went to college, and the poor man's son went to war. Then, after the rich man's son got out of college, he did other things to keep him out of the Army until he was too old to be drafted.
As we remain mired in a period of permanent war, take a moment and consider the risk, sacrifice, and principle necessary to dismantle the war machine. We all can’t be boxing champions, but moving forward, all who oppose war can rightfully claim Ali’s brave history as our own.

[Dave Zirin is the author of Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love (Scribner) and just made the new documentary Not Just a Game. Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. This article was also posted at The Nation blogs. Read more articles by Dave Zirin on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

Posted by thorne dreyer at 5:21 PM
Labels: Dave Zirin, Muhammad Ali, Rag Bloggers, Sports, War Resisters

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Phil Och's "I Ain't Marching Anymore"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Phil Ochs performing "I Ain't Marching Anymore".

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

Markin comment:

This is my first entry for folksinger/songwriter Phil Och's who back in the early 1960s stood right up there with Bob Dylan in the protest songwriting category. However, early on I sensed something special about Dylan and never really warmed up to Ochs. His singing style did not "move" me and that counted for a lot in those days. The rest just turned on preference.


“I Ain't Marching Anymore”-Phil Ochs

Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore

chorus)
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brothers
And so many others But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore

(chorus)

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore

Now the labor leader's screamin'
when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason,"
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more,
No I ain't marchin' any more

***Those Who Fought For Our Commuist Future Are Kindred Spirits - On Eugene Debs- For Free Speech-He Should Have Never Spent A Minute In Jail.

Click Below To Link To An Article By Anthony Lewis On American Socialist Party Leader Eugene V. Debs' Free Speech Fight Against The Wilson Administration During World War I And The Role Of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes "Justice Holmes And The Splendid Prisoner" From The July 2, 2009 Issue Of "The New York Review Of Books".
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=22800

******

In the month of January as we honor the key revolutionary leaders of the early 20th century international labor movement Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxemburg let's not forget the struggle of the American Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs. We, in the end had a lot of political disagreements with Brother Debs, especially on the need to break with the reformists and form a revolutionary vanguard party, but we have learned from his mistakes. Needless to say we respect his courage and fortitude for standing up against the American war machine when others, including so-called socialists took at dive on the question.

The well-known perspective, at least in legal circles, of Mr. Lewis is that of a liberal advocate in defense of free speech (except, of course, when it is inconvenient to the interests of the "democratic" state) and one with a general admiration for Justice Holmes' turn on the question. Our point is simpler- Brother Debs should never have spent a minute in jail for his speech against American entry into World War I and the draft. Nor should have the many IWW, socialist and other labor militants rounded up in the governments dragnet of war oppositionists. Old Justice Holmes was a little behind the curve on this one, even on the constitutional question.

Two points always come to mind around Debs' struggle during World War I. One is, although we are now older and wiser about running for executive office in the bourgeois state, that I still always love that picture of him campaigning for President Of The United States from his cell in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. That may be the only honorable, if politically incorrect, way to campaign for such an office. Second, the Debs fight, as this Lewis article vividly points out, also brings home the point about the labor movement relying on the good offices of the courts. We use them, and rightly so, but we depend on our own organizations and mobilizations to win our battles.

*Once Again- The Slogan Is Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of U.S. Troops From Iraq- Get The Planes Revved Up Now

Click On Title To Link To National Public Radio Segment On The Status, The Real Status, Of Troop Withdrawal In Iraq. The Title Of This Entry Gives My Political Prescription. At This Late Date What More Can Be Said. Obama- Get 'Em Out.

**********************

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- No Black-Bordered Obituary For Defense Secretary Robert McNamara

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- No Black-Bordered Obituary For Defense Secretary Robert McNamara 

A Link To "New York Times" July 6, 2009 Obituary For Robert McNamara. The Point Of This Link Is To Teach The Next Generation To Know The "Rational" Kind Of Monster We Have To Boot Out In Order To Get The Just World WE Desperately Need.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all


Commentary (July 6, 2009)

The recent death, at 93, of Kennedy/Johnson Vietnam War-era War Secretary Robert McNamara has been met with a number of tributes in the bourgeois media about his role as architect of various Cold War military policies in defense of the American Imperial state. That is to be expected for those sources. There is, apparently, an unwritten rule that one does not speak ill of the dead in those circles. Including legitimate war criminals. And in the normal course of events that might be an appropriate response. But one Robert Strange McNamara is of a different stripe.

After a life time of public service to the bourgeois state Mr. McNamara, seemingly, late in life started to worry about his eternal soul and the harm that he had done to it by trying, as an example, to wipe the country of Vietnam, North and South at the time, off the face of the earth with his incessant strategic bombing policy. After exhibiting some qualms late in the Johnson presidency (and around the time of TET 1968) he was booted upstairs to become President of the American-dominated World Bank. Nice soft landing for a war criminal, right?

And who called him a war criminal? Well, of course, this writer did (and does). And so did many of the anti-war activists of the 1960’s. Those calls are to be expected (and might be considered to constitute a minimum response to his egregious policies). But, surprise, surprise late in life, after serious reflection, McNamara implied, haltingly to be sure, in his memoirs (a review of which is re-posted below) that that might have been the case. However, unlike some of his compadres at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunals and other such venues, Mr. McNamara died quietly in his bed.

Not so fortunate were the millions of Vietnamese peasants and workers who bore the onslaught of the maximum fire-power the American military could lay down. No, there will be no final justice in this sorry old world until a future American Workers Republic pays real justice (and serious cash) to the people of Vietnam. As for Robert Strange McNamara, if the worst that happened to him was a “bad conscience” he got off easy.

******

Reposted below is a review of Robert Strange McNamara’s memoirs and of a documentary “Fog Of War” used by him in order to help “the second draft” of history of his legacy.

Reposted From April 30, 2009 Entry

The Fog Of War, Part II- War Secretary Robert McNamara’s View Of His Handiwork in Vietnam

Book Review

In Retrospect: The Tragedy And Lessons Of Vietnam, Robert Strange McNamara with Brain VanDeMark, Random House, 1995

Anyone who had caught the Friday March 27, 2009 headlines is aware that the Democratic Party-run Obama government has called for some 4,000 additional troops for Afghanistan and what they, euphemistically, call civilian support teams in order to bolster the sagging regime of “Mayor of Kabul” Karzai. Those numbers are in addition to the 17,000 extras already committed by the Obama regime in February. Does the word escalation seem appropriate here?

One of the problems of having gone through the Vietnam experience in my youth (including periods of lukewarm support for American policy under John F. Kennedy, a hands-off attitude in the early Lyndon B. Johnson years and then full-bore opposition under the late Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford regimes) is a tendency to view today’s American imperial policy in the same by-the-numbers approach as I took as a result of observing the Vietnam War as it unfolded. There are differences, some of them hugely so, between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Just as, I have previously noted in this space, there are differences between Vietnam and the recently “completed” Iraq War. (Hey, I’m just going by what the media tells me is going on. They wouldn’t lead us astray, would they?)

But, I keep getting this eerie feeling in the back of my neck every time I hear, or see, anything concerning Afghanistan coming out of this new Obama administration. They appear clueless, yet are determined to forge ahead with this policy that can only lead to the same kind of quagmire than Vietnam and Iraq turned into. That is where the analogies to Vietnam do connect up. In this regard, I have recently been re-reading Kennedy/Johnson War Secretary Robert Strange (that’s his middle name, folk, I didn’t make it up and didn’t need to) McNamara’s memoirs, written in 1995, of his central role in the development of Vietnam policy, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam”.

Obviously McNamara has put his own ‘spin’ on his personal role then in order to absolve himself (a little) before history. That is to be expected. What comes through crystal clear, however, because in the final analysis McNamara still doesn’t get it, is that when you’re the number one imperial power all the decisions you make are suppose to fall into place for your benefit because you represent the “good guys”. Regardless of what you do, or do not, know about the internal workings of the situation at hand. The Kennedy/Johnson administrations were almost totally ignorant of the internal working of Vietnamese society. That is why I have that eerie, very eerie, feeling about this Obama war policy.

In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were very necessary in his case and hence he had to go to the prints in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his “ghost writer” not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 8o something, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic “The Best and The Brightest”.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the “lessons” to be drawn from experiences (eleven in all by the way). Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate “war criminal” to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery. Yet, like that freshman course there are things to be learned despite the professor and more to learn, if only by reading between the lines, than he or she wanted to express.

McNamara presents his take by dividing the Vietnam War buildup, at least at the executive level, into periods; the early almost passive Kennedy days; the post Kennedy assassination period when Lyndon Johnson was trying to be all things to all men; the decisive post-1964 election period; and, various periods of fruitless and clueless escalation. It is this process that is, almost unwittingly, the most important to take from this world. Although McNamara, at the time of writing was an older and wiser man, when he had power he went along with ever step of the “hawks”, civilian and military. He led no internal opposition, and certainly not public one. This is the classic “good old boys” network where one falls on one’s sword when the policy turns wrong. And he is still scratching his head over why masses of anti-war protesters chanted “war criminal” when they confronted him with his deeds. And then listen to the latest screeds by current War Secretary Gates concerning Afghanistan. It will sound very familiar.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to read this book if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defended their state then, and now.

DVD REVIEW

The Fog of War, starring former Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara, 2003

In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, former Kennedy and Johnson Administration Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were not enough and hence he had to go before the cameras in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his interviewer not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 85, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic The Best and The Brightest.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the `lessons' to be drawn from experiences. Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's Freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate `war criminal' to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to watch this film if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defend their state.

Anti-War Slogans For The Obama Regime-U.S. Hands Off The World!

Commentary

I previewed these comments on November 12, 2008. As Senator Barack Obama takes office as the 44th President of the United States these are fighting slogans for those who want to struggle against war and American imperialism. More, much more later.

This is one of those short and sweet commentaries because frankly it has all been said before and merely bears repeating here:

Okay, now the “anti-war” Democratic presidential candidate has won and on January 20, 2009 will succeed to the office of American imperialist president-in-chief. That means, well-intentioned or not, Senator Barack Obama will be the new sheriff in town, and will act accordingly. So, just to steal a little of the Senator’s thunder, for surely the election of a black person to the highest office in historically racially tense America is significant, if for no other reason that to not forget what this struggle is all about. First and foremost- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal From Iraq and Afghanistan. Hands Off Iran. Hands Off Pakistan, and just to be on the safe side- U.S. Hands Off The World! Sorry, Senator but there are no “100 day” honeymoons on this front. More importantly, anti-warriors are you listening? And are you ready to fight Obama under those slogans when he comes up short?

*Where Have All The Anti-War Protesters Gone?

Commentary

October 11, 2008 marked the sixth anniversary of the United States Senate’s signing off on authorization for President Bush’s war on Iraq. That date and March 20th (the date of the start of the actual invasion of Iraq in 2003) seem to be the focal points for the spring and fall “anti-war” campaign seasons each year. As such one would have expected a huge outpouring of anti-war sentiment on Saturday to “keep fire” under the feet of the various so-called ‘anti-war’ Democrats in the struggle to end the war. Or, at least, to end the funding of the war that so many of them had promised to stop in the Congressional campaign of 2006.

Not so, at least at the local gathering here at the Boston Common. At most a few hundred protesters showed up, mainly the tried and true veterans of the movement. I found myself talking mostly to old anti-warriors from past campaigns. The rather ‘shocking’ part of this sad spectacle was that in the very first lead up action in opposition to the war in the summer of 2002, when the Bush Administration started seriously beating the public tom-toms for war, there were actually more (and varied) people present at the first local demonstration. What has happened to that vaunted ‘street’ anti-war movement?

Well, the short answer, as always in a presidential election year, is that the focus shifts to parliamentary politics. Especially true this year, as year Barack Obama, the Democratic standard bearer, is “committed” to ending the war in Iraq (and shifting the forces and resources to Afghanistan, as the small print of his position reads. But who are we to quibble over such a detail). Moreover, the main anti-war coalitions like Troops Out Now and United For Peace and Justice (or is it justice and peace?) have purposefully, as they do in every presidential fall season, refrained from mass demonstrations in Washington and other major cities so as not to upset people (read, mainly Democrats) with such wild and outlandish slogans such as immediate withdrawal from Iraq AND Afghanistan.

That is the real nub of the matter. The vast majority of the “movement”, such as it is, really believes that one of the lessons that should have been learned from the vast Vietnam War-era protest was to keep off the streets and let the parliamentary road work its ‘magic’ as the way to end the Iraq war. We know now, painfully, the results of that strategy- almost six years of non-stop war. And if we are at all honest no end is in sight. Of course, to be fair there are other reasons for the dwindling number of protests and protesters but let’s address the one reason that we have control over. A new anti-war leadership has to be thrown up and a new strategy of serious opposition has to be embarked on (The odd thing is that even the vaunted current commitment to the parliamentary road has not been seriously organized). In any case- until that day- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops and Their Mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan is still the order of the day. Forward.