"The Times Are Out Of Joint"- I Am Already Tired, Heartily Tired, Of The Obamiad

Commentary

Well, never let it be said that this blogger doesn’t give everyone his or her “fifteen minutes of fame”, as the late Andy Warhol is said to have put it. That goes for the lowliest worker to the American imperial president. With the exception of the very pressing issue of the fight against the Obama Afghan war policy, both as to troop escalation and funding, this writer has held off from in-depth comment about the new regime. However, ever since the dust has settle on the last Inaugural ball, if not before then I have had this aching feeling that something is not right here. As the headline to this entry says- “the times are out of joint”.

Readers of this space are aware that the fundamental political axis that drives the commentary here is an oppositional anti-capitalist perspective. Thus, last fall, during the lead up to the November 2008 presidential elections I called for a NO vote for Obama, McCain, Nader (Independent) or McKinney (Green). However, Obama’s victory led me to a ‘feeling’ that a new wind was blowing in the American political universe that, sooner or later would, accrue to the benefit of leftist militants. I encapsulated that ‘feeling’ in the slogan, somewhat jokingly- "After Obama, Us". The truth of that slogan right now is neither here nor there for what concerns me is that right from the Inaugural Address this Obama ship has been listing, badly. I came of political age with John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address with its soaring rhetoric and call to the “better angels of our nature” in modern times. Although I long ago, as I have detailed elsewhere in this space over the past year or so, gave up on the Democratic Party as a vehicle for social change that speech still stands as a benchmark for bourgeois political rhetoric.

And this is not merely some nostalgia for the good old days (that did not exist, in any case). Nor is it a rebuke at the new technologies that have created the Obama aura or changed the nature of the way bourgeois electoral politics are practiced here. What bothers me is rather those continuing pictures from places like New Orleans, Detroit or other “Rust Belt” cities where formerly employed, mainly black, workers are lining up for charity, or in order to fight ‘pursue’ minimum wage careers as places like Wal-Mart. Or the continuing occupation of the black ghettos by hostile police forces prone to shoot first and ask questions later, as recent headlines have made apparent in places like Oakland, California . The outlines of that alleged “post-racial” society that was supposed to be ushered in by Obama are beginning to look very thin on the ground.

On another front we can all have a good laugh over the arrogance of the muffed Cabinet choices, grind our teeth at Obama’s emphasis of the forces that are to benefit form his stimulus package and rage at the misplaced mechanics of the financial bail-out plans that continue to reward those finance capitalists who got us into this fix in the first place. All of the above have given me a very different ‘feeling’ from that of last fall that Obama and his cohorts are in way over their heads. Only in comparison with the out-going Bush regime do they look good. That, my friends, is a very low bar to cross. All of this makes me think that we may not have the luxury of that “After Obama, Us” slogan. We had best get to that task of building a workers party that fights for a workers government. Pronto.

*In Honor Of The 229th Anniversary Of The French Revolution- The Pre-Revolutionary Period- William Doyle's View

Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For The French Revolution. As Always With This Source It Is A Good Place To Start In Order To Look Elsewhere For More Specific, And Sometimes More Reliable, Information.

Book Review

The Origins Of The French Revolution, Second Edition, William Doyle, Oxford University Press, 1989

This year marks the commemoration of the 227th Anniversary of the great French Revolution. Democrats, socialists, communists and others rightly celebrate that event as a milestone in humankind’s history. Whether there are still lessons to be learned from the experience is an open question that political activists can fight over. None, however, can deny its grandeur. Well, no one except those closet and not so closet royalists and their epigones who screech in horror and grasp for their necks every time the 14th of July comes around. They have closed the door of history behind them. Won’t they be surprised then the next time there is a surge of progressive human activity?

********

All great revolutions, like the French revolution under review here, are capable, especially when they are long over, of being analyzed from many prospectives. Moreover, official and academic historian have no other reason to exist except to keep revising the effects that such revolutions have had on future historical developments. Left wing political activists, on the other hand, try to draw the lessons of those earlier plebeian struggles in order to better understand the tasks ahead. As part of that understanding it is necessary to look at previous revolutions not only from the position of how it effected the plebes but to look at from the position of those who do not see the action of the plebeian masses as decisive, at least for the French Revolution. If one wants to get a feel for the old way of looking at history from the top down then you can do no better than to look at the fairly recent example of Professor William Doyle’s “Origins Of The French Revolution”.

If one, like this reviewer, spends his or her time looking at the base of society (here the urban sans culottes, the landless peasants and displaced village artisans)to see how those forces were brought to political life, organized, made politically effective (if only for a time, as noted above, before they as individuals like society in general also run out of revolutionary steam) and how they put pressure on their leaderships and how those leaderships responded to those pressures then one downplays the other social forces that are in play in a revolutionary period. Great revolutions, however, create all kinds of turmoil in layers of society that previously were dormant or were in control, although shakily. In that regard, virtually a sure sign that a pre-revolutionary situation exists is when a portion of the old ruling elite (or their agents) begins to make revolutionary noises.

Professor Doyle has taken that important insight and made it one of his central arguments, that is , in the end the upwardly mobile, self-improving nobility (the meritocracy in today’s terms) in France rather than being frustrated with the old regime just wanted to tweak things here or there in order to make it more efficient. This is where his emphasis on looking at the effect of policies at the top of society leads him to a false conclusion. If revolutions merely occurred just because of the question of problems with circulation of elites then the plebeian masses of the cities (led by the sans culottes here) and those of the countryside (the peasants and village artisans) could not have been brought onto the political stage in their wake.

That said, Professor Doyle is not alone in favoring this argument. I noted in a review of Professor Simon Schama’s “Citizen" for last year’s commemoration a very similar, if more lengthy and wide ranging argument. So in the end here is the real reason to grab this book with both hands. Part I of this work contains an incredible essay by Professor Doyle on the state of historical writing on the revolution since 1939 (up to 1988, the time of the second edition). He goes through the ebb and flow of various theories too numerous to detail here. Let us put it this way. If you want to find out the sources for various views on the French Revolution, at least in the academy, then this is your prime source. For that, if not for the general argument of the book, kudos Professor Doyle.

******

Here is William Wordsworth's famous ode to the beginning of the French revolution full of all the youthful enthusiasm such a world historic event can elicit. That he, like many another former 'friend' of revolutions over the ages, went over to the other side when things got too hot does not take away from his efforts here.

The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—

Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

William Wordsworth

*Once Again, Out In The Be-Bop Night-See Jack Run- The Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Elections of 1960, A 50th Anniversary, Of Sorts

*Once Again, Out In The Be-Bop Night-See Jack Run- The Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Elections of 1960, A 50th Anniversary, Of Sorts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/jfk-election-50-photos_n_780421.html

Click on the headline to link to a Huffington Post entry on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's victory in the 1960 American Presidential Elections.

Markin comment:

A few weeks ago I mentioned, in an entry that amounted to a nostalgic 1960s Boston kid time trip down political memory lane, the following that links in with this entry posted under the sign of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kennedy’s presidential election victory election over one Richard Milhous Nixon, the arch-political villain of the age:

“During the course of the afternoon that event (the Patrick campaign event), and the particular locale where it was staged, brought back a flood of memories of my first serious organized political actions in 1960 when, as a lad of fourteen, I set out to “save the world.” And my soul, or so I thought at the time, as well. That was the campaign of our own, Jack Kennedy, as he ran for president against the nefarious sitting Vice President, one Richard Milhous Nixon. In the course of that long ago campaign he gave one of his most stirring speeches not far from where I stood on this Saturday (near the Hynes Center).

Although gathering troops (read: high school and college students) for that speech was not my first public political action of that year, a small SANE-sponsored demonstration against nuclear proliferation further up the same street was but I did not help to organize that one, the Kennedy campaign was the first one that hinted that I might, against all good sense, become a serious political junkie. Ya, I know, every mother warns their sons (then and now) and daughters (now) against such foolhardiness but what can you do. And, mercifully, I am still at it. And have wound up on the right side of the angels, to boot.

The funny thing about those triggered remembrances is that as far removed from bourgeois politics as I have been for about the last forty years I noticed many young politicos doing their youthful thing just as I did back then; passing out leaflets, holding banners, rousing the crowd, making extemporaneous little soapbox speeches, arguing with an occasional right wing Tea Party advocate, and making themselves hoarse in the process. In short, exhibiting all the skills (except the techno-savvy computer indoor stuff you do these days before such rallies) of a street organizer from any age, including communist street organizers. Now if those young organizers only had the extra-parliamentary left-wing politics to merge with those organizational skills. In short, come over to the side of the angels.

But that is where we come back to old Jack Kennedy and that 1960 campaign. Who would have thought that a kid, me, who started out walking door to door stuffing Jack Kennedy literature in every available door in 1960 but who turned off that road long ago would be saying thanks, Jack. Thanks for teaching me those political skills.”

And not just that thanks for heralding the break-out, or at least the attempted break-out of my 1960s generation from the Eisenhower-Nixon cold war death trap. See, at the time of the great attempted break-out from the confines of bourgeois society and the tracked career path all kinds of people seemed like they could be allies, and Jack Kennedy seemed a kindred spirit. I will not even mention Bobby, that one still brings a little tear to my eye. But enough of nostalgia we still have to fight to seek that newer world, to hear that high white note before everything comes crashing down on us.

*******
Below is an American Left History blog entry, dated, Thursday, August 23, 2007, entitled ON COMING OF POLITICAL AGE-Norman Mailer's The Presidential Papers to give a little flavor to the above commentary.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

ON COMING OF POLITICAL AGE-Norman Mailer's "The Presidential Papers"

Click on the headline to link to a "The New York Times" obituary for American writer Norman Mailer article, dated November 10, 2007.

COMMENTARY/BOOK REVIEW

THE PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS, NORMAN MAILER, VIKING, 1963

At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Hemingway as the preeminent male American prose writer of the 20th century. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels, like The Deer Park, in his time I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might partially admit, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I recently re-read his work on the 1960 political campaign-the one that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon- that is the center of the book under review. There are other essays in this work, some of merely passing topical value, but what remains of interest today is a very perceptive analysis of the forces at work in that pivotal election. Theodore White won his spurs breaking down the mechanics of the campaign and made a niche for himself with The Making of a President, 1960. Mailer in a few pithy articles gave the overview of the personalities and the stakes involved for the America of that time.

Needless to say the Kennedy victory of that year has interest today mainly for the forces that it unleashed in the base of society, especially, but not exclusively, among the youth. His rather conventional bourgeois Cold War foreign policy and haphazard domestic politics never transcended those of the New and Fair Deals of Roosevelt and Truman but his style, his youth and his élan seemingly gave the go ahead to all sorts of projects in order to ‘‘seek a newer world”. And we took him up on this. This writer counted himself among those youth who saw the potential to change the world. We also knew that if the main villain of the age , one Richard Milhous Nixon, had been successful in 1960 as he graphically demonstrated when he later became president we would not be seeing any new world but the same old, same old.

I have been, by hook or by crook, interested in politics from an early age. Names like the Rosenbergs, Joseph McCarthy, Khrushchev and organizations like Americans for Democratic Action and the like were familiar to me if not fully understood then. I came of political age with the 1960 presidential campaign. Mailer addresses the malaise of American political life during the stodgy Eisenhower years that created the opening for change-and Kennedy and his superb organization happily rushed in. These chances, as a cursory perusal of the last 40 odd years of bourgeois presidential politics makes painfully clear, do not come often. The funny thing is that during most of 1960 I was actually ‘Madly for Adlai’, that is I preferred Adlai Stevenson the twice defeated previous Democratic candidate, but when the deal went down at the advanced age of 14 I walked door to door talking up Kennedy. Of course, in Massachusetts that was not a big deal but I still recall today that I had a very strong sense I did not want to be left out of the new age ‘aborning’. That, my friends, in a small way is the start of that slippery road to the ‘lesser evil’ practice that dominates American politics and a habit that took me a fairly long time to break.

Mailer has some very cutting, but true, remarks about the kind of people who populate the political milieu down at the base of bourgeois politics, those who make it to the political conventions. Except that today they are better dressed and more media savvy nothing has changed. Why? Bourgeois politics, not being based on any fidelity to program except as a throwaway, is all about winning (and fighting to keep on winning). This does not bring out the "better angels of our nature." For those old enough to remember that little spark of youth that urged us on to seek that "newer world" and for those too young to have acquired knowledge of anything but the myth Mailer’s little book makes for interesting and well-written reading.

* A 'Gonzo' Bibliography- The Works Of Hunter S. Thompson At A Glance

 A 'Gonzo' Bibliography- The Works Of Hunter S. Thompson At A Glance

http://www.biblio.com/author_biographies/2112859/Hunter_S_Thompson.html

Click on title to link to something like a complete list of works (as of 2009) of the late Hunter S. Thompson.

Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet, and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.

After completing that project, or maybe while completing it I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.

The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it seems relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included hopefully for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.           

************      

Zack James comment, Summer of 2017                

Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion, photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful expression.

That project subsequently got me started thinking about the late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of 1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.     

Here is what is important today though, about how the dots get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today. Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are you when we need, desperately need, you.       

*******

Zack James comment, Summer of 2017 

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In the times of this 50^th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20^th of this year.   

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  

Markin comment:

Anytime you need to read something funny about late 20th-early 21st century American bourgeois politics and culture grab some Hunter. He got me through many a tough night. He, and his savage wit, are missed by this writer, for sure.

November 22, 1963-Frankie’s Cry Of The Banshee-For The Class Of 1964 Everywhere

November 22, 1963-Frankie’s Cry Of The Banshee-For The Class Of 1964 Everywhere

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry covering the background to the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 for those too young to remember that event.

Frankie Riley comment:

Well you, the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964, knew this was coming at some point. That date, November 22, 1963, is etched, one way or another, is the minds of the generation of ’68 forever. Some events form the signposts for every generation. For our parents, the Class of 1964 parents, it was starving or semi-starving, hitting the western roads or just marking time through the Great Depression and slogging, gun in hand, through World War II, or waiting anxiously at home, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For today's kids it is the dastardly heinous criminal acts around 9/11 and the permanent "war against terrorism" that seems to color every political move made these days. For us it was the Cold War “red menace” Soviet Union space race throw-up satellite Sputnik and, in the end, the political horrors emanating from the Irish tragic Kennedy assassination. The cry of the banshee out in the wilds, on the wild oceans, and careening the wild winds.

Usually, when discussing these milestone events the question asked centers on where you were or what you were doing on that fateful day. I do not need to ask that question here. I know where you were, at least most of you. Unless you were sick, legitimately or otherwise, playing hooky, legitimately or otherwise, or on a field trip, legitimately or otherwise, you were sitting in some dank classroom as the old craggy-faced, rum-besotten (as least we all suspected that and which was later confirmed when he was arrested for drunk driving about seven times), headmaster, one Mr. Donald O’Toole, came over the P.A. system to announce the news of the shooting of President Kennedy. What I would find interesting is not what your current take is on that event, whether you were a Kennedy partisan or not, but how you reacted at the time. Here is the story of my reaction:

In the fall of 1960, for most of us our first year at North, a new wind was blowing over the political landscape in America with the Kennedy nomination and later his election victory over Richard Nixon. If you want the feel of that same wind pay attention to the breezes that I sense coming from today's youth, a little anyway if they can stop that eternal, infernal texting and look up for a minute. Maybe that wind grabbed you in 1960. It did me. Although some people that I have met and worked with over the years swear that I was born a “political junkie” the truth is that 1960 marked my political coming of age.

One of my forms of 'fun' as a kid was to write little 'essays' on political questions. You know, like-Should Red China (remember that term) be admitted into the United Nations? Or, are computers going to replace workers and create high unemployment? (I swear that I wrote stuff like that. I do not have that good an imagination to make this up. It also might explain one part of a very troubled childhood.)

In any case, I kept these little 'pearls of wisdom' in a little notebook. Within a couple of days after the Kennedy assassination I threw them all away, swearing off politics forever. Well, I did not hold to that promise. I have also moved away from that youthful admiration for JFK (although I will always hold a little spot open for brother Robert-oh, what might have been.) but I can still hear the clang as I threw those papers in the trash barrel.
*******
So naturally if Frank Riley has anything to say on any subject, from dung beetles to one-worldism, just like in the old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor nights, one Peter Paul Markin has to put his face into the conversation. Here, as usual, is his lame take on the Kennedy days from an entry he wrote in 2010. In other words he refuses to give us any new stuff but, christ, just the same old, same old. Here it is if you can stand it:

“Peter Paul Markin, Class of 1964:

A while back [October, 2010] I mentioned, in an entry that amounted to a nostalgic 1960s Boston kid time trip down political memory lane, the following that links in with this entry posted under the sign of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kennedy’s presidential election victory election over one Richard Milhous Nixon, the arch-political villain of the age:

“During the course of the afternoon that event [the Massachusetts governor’s race where President Obama was to speak at a rally in behalf of Deval Patrick’s reelection at the Hines Center in Boston], and the particular locale where it was staged, brought back a flood of memories of my first serious organized political actions in 1960 when, as a lad of fourteen, I set out to “save the world.” And my soul, or so I thought at the time, as well. That was the campaign of one of our own, Jack Kennedy, as he ran for president against the nefarious sitting Vice President, one Richard Milhous Nixon. In the course of that long ago campaign he gave one of his most stirring speeches not far from where I stood on this Saturday.

Although gathering troops (read: high school and college students) for that long ago speech was not my first public political action of that year, a small SANE-sponsored demonstration against nuclear proliferation further up the same street was but I did not help to organize that one, the Kennedy campaign was the first one that hinted that I might, against all good sense, become a serious political junkie. Ya, I know, every mother warns their sons (then and now) and daughters (now) against such foolhardiness but what can you do. And, mercifully, I am still at it. And have wound up on the right side of the angels, to boot.

The funny thing about those triggered remembrances is that as far removed from bourgeois politics as I have been for about the last forty years I noticed many young politicos doing their youthful thing just as I did back then; passing out leaflets, holding banners, rousing the crowd, making extemporaneous little soapbox speeches, arguing with an occasional right wing Tea Party advocate, and making themselves hoarse in the process. In short, exhibiting all the skills (except the techno-savvy computer indoor stuff you do these days before such rallies) of a street organizer from any age, including communist street organizers. Now if those young organizers only had the extra-parliamentary left-wing politics to merge with those organizational skills. In short, come over to the side of the angels.

But that is where we come back to old Jack Kennedy and that 1960 campaign. Who would have thought that a kid, me, who started out walking door to door stuffing Jack Kennedy literature in every available door in 1960 but who turned off that road long ago would be saying thanks, Jack. Thanks for teaching me those political skills.”

And not just that thanks for heralding the break-out, or at least the attempted break-out of my 1960s generation from the Eisenhower-Nixon cold war death trap. See, at the time of the great attempted break-out from the confines of bourgeois society and the tracked career path all kinds of people seemed like they could be allies, and Jack Kennedy seemed a kindred spirit. I will not even mention Bobby, that one still brings a little tear to my eye. But enough of nostalgia we still have to fight to seek that newer world, to hear that high white note before everything comes crashing down on us.”
*******
And here is more from Mr. Markin under cover of a book review from 2007. This guy is too much, way too much-Frank Riley.

On Coming Of Political Age-Norman Mailer's "The Presidential Papers"

Commentary/Book Review

The Presidential Papers, Norman Mailer, Viking, 1963

At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Hemingway as the preeminent male American prose writer of the 20th century. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels, like The Deer Park, in his time I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might partially admit, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I recently re-read his work on the 1960 political campaign-the one that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon- that is the center of the book under review. There are other essays in this work, some of merely passing topical value, but what remains of interest today is a very perceptive analysis of the forces at work in that pivotal election. Theodore White won his spurs breaking down the mechanics of the campaign and made a niche for himself with The Making of a President, 1960. Mailer in a few pithy articles gave the overview of the personalities and the stakes involved for the America of that time.

Needless to say the Kennedy victory of that year has interest today mainly for the forces that it unleashed in the base of society, especially, but not exclusively, among the youth. His rather conventional bourgeois Cold War foreign policy and haphazard domestic politics never transcended those of the New and Fair Deals of Roosevelt and Truman but his style, his youth and his élan seemingly gave the go ahead to all sorts of projects in order to ‘‘seek a newer world.” And we took him up on this. This writer counted himself among those youth who saw the potential to change the world. We also knew that if the main villain of the age , one Richard Milhous Nixon, had been successful in 1960 as he graphically demonstrated when he later became president we would not be seeing any new world but the same old, same old.

I have been, by hook or by crook, interested in politics from an early age. Names like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Joseph McCarthy, Khrushchev and organizations like Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the like were familiar to me if not fully understood then. I came of political age with the 1960 presidential campaign. Mailer addresses the malaise of American political life during the stodgy Eisenhower years that created the opening for change-and Kennedy and his superb organization happily rushed in. These chances, as a cursory perusal of the last 40 odd years of bourgeois presidential politics makes painfully clear, do not come often. The funny thing is that during most of 1960 I was actually ‘Madly for Adlai’, that is I preferred Adlai Stevenson the twice- defeated previous Democratic candidate, but when the deal went down at the advanced age of 14 I walked door to door talking up Kennedy. Of course, in Massachusetts that was not a big deal but I still recall today that I had a very strong sense I did not want to be left out of the new age ‘aborning.’ That, my friends, in a small way is the start of that slippery road to the ‘lesser evil’ practice that dominates American politics and a habit that took me a fairly long time to break.

Mailer has some very cutting, but true, remarks about the kind of people who populate the political milieu down at the base of bourgeois politics, those who make it to the political conventions. Except that today they are better dressed and more media savvy nothing has changed. Why? Bourgeois politics, not being based on any fidelity to program except as a throwaway, is all about winning (and fighting to keep on winning). This does not bring out the "better angels of our nature." For those old enough to remember that little spark of youth that urged us on to seek that "newer world" and for those too young to have acquired knowledge of anything but the myth Mailer’s little book makes for interesting and well-written reading.

*From The Archives- Why I Will Not Be A United States Presidential Candidate In 2012...Or 2016

Click on title to link to Spartacist No. 61 Spring 2009,a publication of the International Communist League, for a very full discussion about the question of running for executive offices in the capitalist state, "Marxist Principles and Electoral Tactics", that forms the backdrop to my commentary.

Media Flash: A. F. Markin, long time anti-capitalist, pro-socialist militant and creator of the blog “American Left History”, has announced today that under no conditions will he be a candidate for President of the United States in 2012. Paraphrasing the great 19th century Northern Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman, Markin stated that 'if drafted he will not run and if elected he would not serve' in that post. He, however, did not rule out the possibility of running for some legislative office like the United States Senate or House of Representatives.

Commentary

I know that the long suffering readers of this blog have been waiting breathlessly for me to announce my intentions for the presidential campaign of 2012. Wait a minute! What kind of madness is this on my part to impose on readers who I am sure are still recovering from the shell-shock of that seemingly endless and mendacious 2008 presidential campaign. Well… Okay, as usual I want to, for good or ill, make a little point about running for the executive offices of the bourgeois state now that I have gotten ‘religion’ about the necessary of radicals and revolutionaries NOT to do so. I think this point can really be driven home today now that we have a ‘progressive’ Democratic president, one Barack Obama, as a foil.

I have detailed the controversy and checkered history in the international workers movement, and especially in the Communist International in its heroic days in the early 1920's, surrounding the question of whether radicals and revolutionaries, on principle, should run for these executive offices of the bourgeois state. I need not repeat that argument here. (See June 2008 Archives, "If Drafted I Will Not Run, If Elected I Will Not Serve-Revolutionaries and Running For Executive Offices", dated June 15, 2008). I have also noted there the trajectory of my own conversion to the position of opposition to such runs. Previously I had seen such electoral efforts as good propaganda tools and/or basically harmless attempts to intersect political reality at times when the electorate is tuned in. Always under the assumption made clear during the campaign that, of course, if elected one would not assume the office.

In any case, I admit to a previously rather cavalier attitude toward the whole question, even as I began to see the wisdom of opposition. But having gone through the recent presidential campaign and, more importantly, the inauguration and installation of a ‘progressive’ black man to the highest office attainable under the imperium I have begun to wipe that smirk off my face.

Why? I have hardly been unaware throughout my leftist political career that Social Democratic and Communist (Stalinist/Maoist varieties especially) Party politicians have, individually or in popular front alliances with capitalist parties, wreaked havoc on working people while administrating the bourgeois state. I have, in particular, spent a good part of my political career fighting against the notion of popular front strategies as they have been forged in the past, disastrously in places like Spain during the Civil War in the 1930’s or less disastrously in France in the 1980’s. However, this question of the realities of running the imperial state in America really hit home with the coming into office of Barack Obama.

Certainly, Obama did not have, and in the course of such things could not have any qualms about administering the bourgeois state, even if such toilsome work contradicted his most basic principles. Assuming, for the sake of argument here, that Obama is not the worst bourgeois politician, progressive or not, that has come down the pike. Already, in a few short weeks in office, he has escalated the troop levels in Afghanistan. He is most earnestly committed to bailing out the financial heart of the imperial system, at the long term expense of working people. Where is the room for that vaunted ‘progressive’ designation in all of this? Oh yes he has is against torture and illegal torture centers. That, dear readers might have passed for progressive action- in the 17th century. Jesus, is there no end to this madness in taking grandstanding kudos for stuff that Voltaire would have dismissed out of hand. So the next time someone asks you to run for President of the United States (or governor of a state or mayor of a city)take the Markin pledge - Just say NO!

***A Master Of The American Historical Novel- Gore Vidal's 1876 (Hail To The Thief)

BOOK REVIEW

Hail To The Thief

1876: A Novel, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1976

Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible.

That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the old bourgeois historical novelist and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics are somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period (I don’t think he ever got over being related to Jacqueline Kennedy) he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.

In 2008, a presidential election year, it may not be inappropriate to look back to an earlier time when a presidential election was seriously in dispute. No, not the hanging chads of Florida in 2000 but the granddaddy of bourgeois electoral boondoggles with the Electoral College victory (but not popular vote) of Ohio Governor Rutherfraud B. Hayes over Governor Samuel Tilden of New York in 1876. Vidal, as is his style, combines fictional characters with the makings and doings of real characters who brought the American experience to the brink of another 'civil war' just shortly after the end of the truly bloody one that preserved the union and abolished slavery in 1865. He does this by using a literary man, a long time American expatriate ( in France) journalist (who else, right?) the fictional Charles Schuyler to narrate (and who also narrated Vida'’s novel Burr back in the early part of the century) the scenes. To add motive to his literary efforts and carry the story line along, dear Charles, is desperate for Governor Tilden to win the presidency so that he can return to Europe in some style as an American ambassador to France under a Tilden administration.

Along the way brother Schuyler (and his noble, but penniless, widowed daughter Emma) brings into focus the beginnings of the dominance of the “robber barons”, up close and personal, that we have heard about from our high school history tests, during the last part of the 19th century. Interestingly, this novel is populated with plenty of characters who came of political age during the immediate Civil War period and who populated the Lincoln administration or the various Union military commands of the Civil War period. Gone are those political figures like Seward, Chase and obviously Lincoln who actually led that political fight. This is the age of the upstart General Grant, for better or worst.

This is, moreover, a period that had more than its fair share of political graft and boondoggles. Seemingly half the book is spend explaining why some politician be he a Grant Administration official, Roscoe Conkling, James Blaine or some other ‘angel of mercy’ should not be behind bars. Today’s politicians seem tame compared to these giants of out-front, in-your-face corruption. In the end, one is not really surprised when the America presidency goes on sale to the highest bidder- it’s just another day of politics. All of this with the American Centennial celebration as a backdrop. Fortunately Vidal tells this tale with some wit and some kind of hope that all will work out for the best- in short this American Republic the “last, best hope of mankind” will muddle through. Remember the 2000 presidential election though as a sobering thought about how far we have not come. That undemocratic but decisive Electoral College is still there, for starters. More on Vidal’s works later.

Sometimes You Wind Up Uniting With The Devil And His (Or Her) Grandmother- A Short Note On The United Front Tactic- On Ron Paul And “Hands Off Iran”

Recently in Boston, as part of a nation-wide effort a demonstration was called for Saturday February 4, 2012 with a central slogan of “Hands Off Iran,” an appropriate action considering the incessant drum-beat coming from important imperialist sources about the need for someone, somehow to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity (Guess who?). Of course the “ usual suspects” showed up for the demo- the assorted peace groups well-known to this writer, the socialists of various hues also known to this writer, and new, well, fairly new, the now familiar contingents from the Occupy movement.

What was unusual was the presence of a contingent of supporters of Ron Paul, the Republican Congressman and current presidential contender. Unusual in that when push comes to shove we of the left be on opposite sides of the barricades (and in that same position with other more “leftist” elements as well). But not that day. That day the central slogan of “Hands Off Iran” applied as a draw to hardened anti-imperialist leftists and quirky right-wing libertarians alike. So while no one needed to buy into the Ron Paul rationale (see leaflet from demonstration below) for being there and the Ron Paul supporter who spoke received some boos, some justly deserved boos, this was a principled united front. See, on some rare occasions you can unite with the devil and his (or her) grandmother. Let that be a leftist politics 101 lesson for young, and old.
***********

What Should Antiwar Progressives do in 2012?

By now most everyone at this Day of Action knows that Obama is not the lesser evil. He is in fact the "more effective evil" as Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report labels him since he has carried on and expanded the wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa while largely silencing opposition from progressives.

What is to be done then? Let us begin with the proposition that the highest duty of those of us living in the heart of the U.S. Empire is to stop the sanctions and endless wars that kill so many people - over a million in Iraq alone and that after hundreds of thousands more died there, 500,000 children among them, in the Clinton era sanctions. A second obligation is to preserve our civil liberties so that we can fight against war and for whatever we think is decent at home.

Only one candidate for the presidential race stands for these two principles and has done so consistently for decades. That candidate is Ron Paul.

But, you may say, Ron Paul is not a progressive and I am.
Elections must be approached tactically not theologically. First of all Ron Paul is not for eliminating Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security. So those who rely now on the social safety net are safe. But Paul does want to allow young people to opt out of these programs should he wish to do so. As long as we have our freedoms - of speech and assembly -he will not succeed in that. We will win that argument. And the Dems as an opposition might even start to fight for those programs rather than undermine them as they are doing now - with Obama's cuts in the payroll tax which finances these programs. People hang on to these programs once they have them.

So we have a moral obligation to support Ron Paul in order to stop the slaughter of innocents worldwide by the US Empire,

What should we do? Here in MA one should vote for Paul in the primary. There is no real contest in the Dem primary and no sense in voting for someone there. It is far better for Ron Paul to get the nomination than Newt or Mitt, the latter being a near perfect clone of Obama. And every vote for Ron Paul moves the Republican Party closer to principles of civil liberties and anti-interventionism.

You can vote in the Republican primary if you are registered as "unenrolled" or Republican. We should all do so as soon as possible. And it would be better to register as Republican since in that case one can have a voice in determining the delegates to the Republican convention. The delegates are pledged to the winner of the primary ON THE FIRST BALLOT at the nominating convention. After that they are free to vote as they see fit. If there is a deadlocked convention, Ron Paul can win if enough delegates are in his camp. Do you want to influence the process? Then REGISTER REPUBLICAN BY FEBRUARY 15. That is the first step. To find out more, contact John.Endwar@gmail.com

Finally this is not just a candidacy, but a movement with a plan to grow and a dedicated following of young voters. Help build this movement. Register "R" and support Ron Paul. Deadline is Feb. 15.

Join us in the Boston Chapter of ComeHomeAmerica. http://www.meetup.com/CHA-Boston/

From The Renegade Eye Blog-"The fall of Strauss-Kahn"

The fall of Strauss-Kahn

Written by Greg Oxley in Paris
Thursday, 19 May 2011

How the mighty have fallen! Whatever the truth of the allegations of sexual assault and rape brought against him in New York, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is guilty of horrific crimes. As the head of the IMF, he is guilty of the political rape of the working people and the poorest sections of society in many underdeveloped countries. He is guilty of the rape of Greece and Portugal. Before finding himself in prison, he contributed to locking millions of people into a living hell. His brutal “remedies” inflict suffering and hardship on the poor in order to protect the interests of the bankers, the capitalists, the rich.

There is absolutely nothing “socialist” about Dominique Strauss-Kahn. At the time of his arrest, he was on his way to Europe to finalise the austerity measures to be imposed on Portugal and also discuss plans with Sarkozy and Merkel for new attacks on pensions and public spending cuts throughout the “eurozone”. For Greece, he demanded a draconian policy of public spending cuts, wage cuts, sackings, attacks on pensions and benefits, and privatisations. The Papandreou government carried out the policy, but not fast enough for Strauss-Kahn. He sent his emissaries to Greece to insist on speeding up the privatisations and the attacks on workers’ living standards. This was the only way, he said, to restore the confidence of capitalist investors.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was not only Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. If opinion polls are to be believed, he was also the “favourite” for the presidential elections next year in France. He was certainly a “favourite” of the capitalist class! No efforts have been spared to promote the image and build support for “DSK”. The intention behind this campaign was quite clear. The capitalists wanted to secure his nomination as the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. Of all the “left” candidates, the media told us, he was in the best position to defeat Sarkozy. This was a classic case of manipulation of public opinion with a view to national elections. In 2007, the media industry promoted Ségolène Royal, one of the most blatantly pro-capitalist of the leading figures in the Socialist Party, and then, once she had won the nomination, turned against her and campaigned to ensure victory for Sarkozy. In the event that the SP had won the elections, the capitalists would have a reliable representative in power, whose policies were almost identical to those of Sarkozy himself. Now, after four years in power, Sarkozy is discredited, and a victory for the Socialist Party in the 2012 election is a real possibility. The capitalist class wanted to ensure that whatever the result of the elections, the government would be in the hands of proven defenders of their interests. They counted on Strauss-Kahn as a man who, at the head of a “socialist” government, would apply the same reactionary policies in France as he applied to Greece, and who would firmly resist pressure “from below” to carry out measures in the interests of the workers. Now Strauss-Kahn is out of the picture, and possibly for a long time. His downfall has delighted working class militants throughout France.

From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky- On German Bonapartism

Leon Trotsky
German Bonapartism
(October 1932)

Written in exile in Turkey, October 30 1932.
Bulletin of the Opposition, No.32, December 1932.
Translated for The Militant, December 24, 1932.

The elections to the Reichstag put the “presidential government to a new critical test.” [1] It is useful, therefore, to remind ourselves of its social and political nature. It is precisely through the analysis of such concrete and, at first glance, “sudden” political phenomena as the government of Papen-Schleicher, that the Marxist method reveals its invaluable advantages.

At one time we defined the “presidential” government as a species of Bonapartism. It would be incorrect to see in this definition the chance outcome of a desire to find a familiar name for an unfamiliar phenomenon. The decline of capitalist society places Bonapartism – side by side with fascism and coupled with it – again on the order of the day. Previously we have characterized the government of Brüning as a Bonapartist one. Then, in retrospect, we narrowed the definition to a half, or pre-Bonapartist one.

What did other Communists and in general “left” groups say in this connection? To await an attempt at a scientific definition of a new political phenomenon from the present leadership of the Comintern would of course be naive, not to say foolish. The Stalinists simply place Papen in the fascist camp. If Wels and Hitler are “twins,” then such a trifle as Papen is altogether not worth breaking one’s head about. This is the same political literature that Marx called vulgarian and which he taught us to despise. In reality fascism represents one of the two main camps of civil war. Stretching his arm to power, Hitler first of all demanded the relinquishing of the street to him for seventy-two hours. Hindenburg refused this. The task of Papen-Schleicher: to avoid civil war by amicably disciplining the National Socialists and chaining the proletariat to police fetters. The very possibility of such a regime is determined by the relative weakness of the proletariat

The SAP rids itself of the question of the Papen government as well as of other questions by means of general phrases. The Brandlerites preserved silence on our definition as long as the matter concerned Brüning, that is, the incubation period of Bonapartism. When, however, the Marxist characterization of Bonapartism confirmed itself fully in the theory and practice of the presidential government the Brandlerites came out with their criticism: the wise owl of Thalheimer takes flight in the late hours of the night.

The Stuttgart Arbeitertribüne teaches us that Bonapartism, raising the military-police apparatus over the bourgeoisie in order to defend its class domination against its own political parties, must be supported by the peasantry and must use methods of Social Democracy. Papen is not supported by the peasantry and does not introduce a pseudo-radical program. Therefore, our attempt to define the government of Papen as Bonapartism “does not fit at all.” This is severe but superficial.

How do the Brandlerites themselves define the government of Papen? In the same issue of the Arbeitertribüne there are very timely announcements of the lecture of Brandler on the subject: Junker-monarchical, fascist or proletarian dictatorship? In this triad the regime of Papen is presented as a Junker-monarchist dictatorship. This is most worthy of the Vorwärts and of vulgar democrats in general. That titled German Bonapartists make some sort of little private presents to the Junkers is obvious. That these gentlemen are inclined to a monarchistic turn of mind is also known. But it is purest liberal nonsense that the essence of the presidential regime is Junker monarchism.

Such terms as liberalism, Bonapartism, fascism have the character of generalizations. Historical phenomena never repeat themselves completely. It would not have been difficult to prove that even the government of Napoleon III, compared with the regime of Napoleon I, was not “Bonapartist” – not only because Napoleon himself was a doubtful Bonaparte by blood, but also because his relations to the classes, especially to the peasantry and to the lumpenproletariat were not at all the same as those of Napoleon I. Moreover, classical Bonapartism grew out of the epoch of gigantic war victories, which the Second Empire [2] did not know at all. But if we should look for the repetition of all the traits of Bonapartism, we will find that Bonapartism is a one-time, unique occurrence, i.e., that Bonapartism in general does not exist but that there once was a general named Bonaparte born in Corsica. The case is no different with liberalism and with all other generalized terms of history. When one speaks by analogy of Bonapartism, it is necessary to state precisely which of its traits found their fullest expression under present historical conditions.

Present-day German Bonapartism has a very complex and, so to speak, combined character. The government of Papen would have been impossible without fascism. But fascism is not in power. And the government of Papen is not fascism. On the other hand, the government of Papen, at any rate in its present form, would have been impossible without Hindenburg who, in spite of the final prostration of Germany in the war, stands for the great victories of Germany and symbolizes the army in the memory of the popular masses. The second election of Hindenburg had all the characteristics of a plebiscite. Many millions of workers, petty bourgeois, and peasants (Social Democracy and Center) voted for Hindenburg. They did not see in him any one political program. They wanted first of all to avoid civil war, and raised Hindenburg on their shoulders as a superarbiter, as an arbitration judge of the nation. But precisely this is the most important function of Bonapartism: raising itself over the two struggling camps in order to preserve property and order. It suppresses civil war, or precedes it or does not allow it to rekindle. Speaking of Papen, we cannot forget Hindenburg, on whom rests the sanction of the Social Democracy. The combined character of German Bonapartism expressed itself in the fact that the demagogic work of catching the masses for Hindenburg was performed by two big, independent parties: the Social Democracy and National Socialism. If they are both astonished at the results of their work, that does not change the matter one whit.

The Social Democracy asserts that fascism is the product of Communism. This is correct insofar as there would have been no necessity at all for fascism without the sharpening of the class struggle, without the revolutionary proletariat without the crisis of capitalist society. The flunkeyish theory of Wels-Hilferding-Otto Bauer has no other meaning. Yes, fascism is a reaction of bourgeois society to the threat of proletarian revolution. But precisely because this threat is not an imminent one today, the ruling classes make an attempt to get along without a civil war through the medium of a Bonapartist dictatorship.

Objecting to our characterization of the government of Hindenburg-Papen-Schleicher, the Brandlerites refer to Marx and express thereby an ironic hope that his authority may also have weight with us. It is difficult to deceive oneself more pathetically. The fact is that Marx and Engels wrote not only of the Bonapartism of the two Bonapartes, but also of other species. Beginning, it seems, with the year 1864, they more than once likened the “national” regime of Bismarck to French Bonapartism. And this in spite of the fact that Bismarck was not a pseudoradical demagogue and, so far as we know, was not supported by the peasantry. The Iron Chancellor was not raised to power as the result of a plebiscite, but was duly appointed by his legitimate and hereditary king. And nevertheless Marx and Engels are right. Bismarck made use in a Bonapartist fashion of the antagonism between the propertied classes and the rising proletariat overcoming in this way the antagonism within the two propertied classes, between the Junkerdom and the bourgeoisie, and raised a military-police apparatus over the nation. The policy of Bismarck is that very tradition to which the “theoreticians” of present German Bonapartism refer. True, Bismarck solved in his fashion the problem of German unity, of the external greatness of Germany. Papen however so far only promises to obtain for Germany “equality” on the international arena. Not a small difference! But we were not trying to prove that the Bonapartism of Papen is of the same caliber as the Bonapartism of Bismarck. Napoleon III was also only a parody of his pretended uncle.

The reference to Marx, as we have seen, has an obviously imprudent character. That Thalheimer does not understand the dialectics of Marxism we suspected long ago. But we must admit we thought that at least he knew the texts of Marx and Engels. We take this opportunity to correct our mistake.

Our characterization of the presidential government rejected by the Brandlerites, received a very brilliant confirmation from a completely unexpected and in its way highly “authoritative source. With regard to the dissolution of the “five-day” Reichstag, DAZ (Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, organ of heavy industry) quoted in a long article on August 28 the work of Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte – for what purpose? No more and no less than to support the historical and political right of the president to put his boot on the neck of popular representation. The organ of heavy industry risked at a difficult moment drinking from the poisoned wells of Marxism. With a remarkable adroitness the paper takes from the immortal pamphlet a long quotation explaining how and why the French president as the incarnation of the ”nation” obtained a preponderance over the split-up parliament. The same article in the DAZ reminds us most opportunely of how in the spring of 1890 Bismarck developed a plan for a most suitable governmental change. Napoleon III and Bismarck as forerunners of presidential government are called by their right name by the Berlin newspaper, which – in August at least – played the role of an official organ.

To quote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in reference to the “July 20 of Papen” is of course very risky, since Marx characterized the regime of Napoleon in the most acid terms as the regime of adventurists, crooks, and pimps. As a matter of fact, the DAZ could be liable to punishment for a malicious slander of the government. But if we should leave aside this incidental inconvenience, there remains nevertheless the indubitable fact that historic instinct brought the DAZ to the proper place. Unfortunately one cannot say the same of the theoretical wisdom of Thalheimer.

The Bonapartism of the era of the decline of capitalism differs utterly from the Bonapartism of the era of the ascension of bourgeois society. German Bonapartism is not supported directly by the petty bourgeoisie of the country and village, and this is not accidental. Precisely therefore, we wrote at one time of the weakness of the government of Papen, which holds on only by the neutralization of two camps: the proletariat and the fascists.

But behind Papen stand the great landowners, finance capitalists, generals – so rejoin other “Marxists.” Do not the propertied classes in themselves represent a great force? This argument proves once more that it is much easier to understand class relations in their general sociological outline than in a concrete historical form. Yes, immediately behind Papen stand the propertied heights and they only: precisely therein is contained the cause of his weakness.

Under the conditions of present-day capitalism, a government which would not be the agency of finance capital is in general impossible. But of all possible agencies, the government of Papen is the least stable one. If the ruling classes could rule directly, they would have no need either of parliamentarism, or of Social Democracy, or of fascism. The government of Papen exposes finance capital too clearly, leaving it without even the sacred figleaf ordered by the Prussian Commissioner Bracht. Just because the extra-party “national” government is in fact able to speak only in the name of the social heights, capital is ever more careful not to identify itself with the government of Papen. The DAZ wants to find support for the presidential government in the National Socialist masses, and in the language of ultimatums demands of Papen a bloc with Hitler, which means capitulation to him.

In evaluating the “strength” of the presidential government we must not forget the fact that if finance capital stands behind Papen, this does not at all mean that it falls together with him. Finance capital has innumerably more possibilities than Hindenburg-Papen-Schleicher. In case of the sharpening of contradictions there remains the reserve of pure fascism. In case of the softening of contradictions, they will maneuver until the time when the proletariat puts its knee on their chests. For how long Papen will maneuver, the near future will show.

These lines will appear in the press when the new elections to the Reichstag shall already have gone by. The Bonapartist nature of the “anti-French” government of Papen will inevitably reveal itself with a new force, but also its weakness. We will take this up again in due time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The First Stirrings Of The 2012 American Presidential Campaign- Everybody Who Is Smarter Than Sarah Palin Raise Your Hand

Markin comment:

I swear I had a vision, I swear I heard a voice call to me to make a comment on the 2012 American Presidential elections right now, today. I know that we are all materialists, men and women of science, and some of us are historical materialists to boot so the siren call for some comment on my part for these bogus bourgeois elections should be the last thing that I call up as the subject of a vision. Still, remember the Ides of March and all of that. Can I, under the circumstances, afford to defy the portents?

Yes, I know, I supposedly fore swore comment of the bourgeois election cycles forever a couple of years ago once I realized that such activity was a waste of precious cyber-ink for a commentator who wanted to bring that house of cards down. But remember this. Can a man who in his jaded youth, long before the Internet brought instant results (and a bewildering onslaught of instant commentary better left for later reflection), stayed up into the wee hours wondering whether the Democrats would win the 23rd Congressional District in Texas or the 34th in California really ever truly be trusted to break the habit even if he is "recovering?"

And that bring us to the subject of that vision, or rather the subject that brought on this vision. This may seem trivial after all the build-up but here is the story. I recently ran into an old acquaintance out on the street in Boston. I noticed that he had on a Sarah Palin for President in 2012 button. Naturally I had to make comment on that political advertisement. And here is what I said, “Why would you support someone who is not as smart as you are for President?” Now I know, because I know him from way back in the day, that he is very smart so it gave him cause for pause.

Of course, when it comes to bourgeois politicians, being smart is not always relevant either way. (Witness Bush, Junior, Yalie and all, for the dunce proposition, or the other way Obama, Harvard Law and all, for the wizard proposition). So based on my further conversation with him do not be surprised if you see an announcement that unknown smart guy, Michael Mackey, is throwing his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination for President in 2012. In fact everyone smarter than Sarah Palin should consider it their duty to do so. That is my first piece of “wisdom” for the 2012 political season. Meanwhile those of us who are serious about changing the world, for the better, will continue our work to build a workers party that fights for a workers government. So everyone can have a shot at being smart, if nothing else, okay?

*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"- "The Fraud Of Bourgeois Democracy"-V.I. Lenin

Markin comment:

This one is almost self-explanatory, or should be for serious leftists militants, but just in case here is a sample of the way we look at bourgeois democracy from Comrade Lenin. Then go read the whole thing, and then especially the stuff in Left-Wing Communism-An Infantile Disorder on revolutionary work in bourgeois legislative bodies.
*******
Workers Vanguard No. 967

22 October 2010
The Fraud of Bourgeois Democracy
(Quote of the Week)

Writing at the close of World War I, Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin exposed bourgeois democracy as a cover for brutal exploitation and oppression, a facade to conceal the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Lenin’s 1918 work—a continuation of his 1917 classic The State and Revolution—polemicized against apologists for “democratic” bourgeois rule, centrally Karl Kautsky, a leading German Social Democrat who bitterly opposed the 1917 October Revolution and soviet rule (i.e., workers democracy).
********
If we are not to mock at common sense and history, it is obvious that we cannot speak of “pure democracy” as long as different classes exist; we can only speak of class democracy. (Let us say in parenthesis that “pure democracy” is not only an ignorant phrase, revealing a lack of understanding both of the class struggle and of the nature of the state, but also a thrice-empty phrase, since in communist society democracy will wither away in the process of changing and becoming a habit, but will never be “pure” democracy.)

“Pure democracy” is the mendacious phrase of a liberal who wants to fool the workers. History knows of bourgeois democracy which takes the place of feudalism, and of proletarian democracy which takes the place of bourgeois democracy....

Take the bourgeois parliament. Can it be that the learned Kautsky has never heard that the more highly democracy is developed, the more the bourgeois parliaments are subjected by the stock exchange and the bankers? This does not mean that we must not make use of bourgeois parliament.... But it does mean that only a liberal can forget the historical limitations and conventional nature of the bourgeois parliamentary system as Kautsky does. Even in the most democratic bourgeois state the oppressed people at every step encounter the crying contradiction between the formal equality proclaimed by the “democracy” of the capitalists and the thousands of real limitations and subterfuges which turn the proletarians into wage-slaves. It is precisely this contradiction that is opening the eyes of the people to the rottenness, mendacity and hypocrisy of capitalism. It is this contradiction that the agitators and propagandists of socialism are constantly exposing to the people, in order to prepare them for revolution!

—V.I. Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918)

*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Early Bolshevik Work Among Women of the Soviet East

Click on the headline to link to the article described above

Markin comment:

The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
********
Markin comment on this article:
Over the past couple of years I have placed as many still relevant social, political, literary, and cultural articles from the journal Women and Revolution as I have been able to find as a source for leftist militants to think about these questions that are not always directly related to our day to day tasks in the class struggle today. I have made some effort into trying to get as many articles about the experiences of the Soviet Union as possible because that experience is, in some senses, our only example of what could have been had things turned out a bit differently back in the early days of the Russian revolution.

A couple of general observations about the tenor of the Soviet-centered articles. First, each article starts with items and ideas that spoke to the promise of the revolution, the things that could or should have been done and that the Bolsheviks raised holy hell to try to accomplish. Second, each article notes that turning inward of the revolution and the erasing of institutions, movements, and currents that surfaced in the revolutionary period and that were slammed in the period of Stalinist degeneration of the late 1920s. Those observations should be etched in the memory or every leftist militant who wants to fight for our communist future so we do better when our chance comes.

From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard" -Once Again On Running For The Executive Offices Of The Bourgeois State

Click on the headline to link to an "American Left History" entry on the subject of this writer's mea culpa on running for the executive offices of the bourgeois state.

Markin comment:

Will this political blushing I am forced to undergo for my old position on this issue of running for the executive offices of the bourgeois state at any level never end? (See above linked post.) Of course, as pointed out in the article below, the local executive offices of the bourgeois state (in alleged contrast to the national state) is a key "hotbed" for sliding from revolution to reformism on this question.

Workers Vanguard No. 960
4 June 2010

Lutte Ouvrière’s Municipal Antics

The following article is translated from Le Bolchévik No. 192 (June 2010).

In 2007, [the reformist group] Lutte Ouvrière (LO) mobilized its members for the following year’s municipal elections, insisting on the importance of getting some municipal representatives. At the end of 2007, by a majority of 97 percent, LO’s party congress adopted a resolution stating:

“Getting some municipal councillors elected is extremely important for our political influence. These elected officials are a means of rooting ourselves in a city and the axis that our local activities can orbit around….

“The conclusion is that we should try to field slates in the maximum number of localities. However, that will not stop us from examining and being open to all proposals for alliances, which we will consider depending on the situation, the local relationship of forces and the possibilities for getting elected that these alliances could really open up to us. Indeed, we have no interest in making alliances on a program of agreements with possible allies if that does not get us some people elected, or even prevents us from getting people elected, and all the more so since we have the means to run independently.”

—Lutte de Classe No. 109, December 2007

In other words, LO was ready for any dirty deal to obtain positions on municipal councils and told its members that it was going to try to negotiate for positions on “left” slates. LO went to beg the Socialist Party [SP], which in most cases said flatly no. But the PCF [French Communist Party] often accepted them on its slates, after making sure that LO would be loyal to the future municipal majority. LO eventually ran on the slates of the bourgeois mayor of Belfort, a fiefdom of [bourgeois politician Jean-Pierre] Chevènement, who served as minister of police under [former SP prime minister Lionel] Jospin.

So far, LO has more than proven that it is a reliable partner for a municipal popular front. We don’t know of any instances when LO voted against a budget. LO national spokesman Nathalie Arthaud, a member of the CP-led municipal majority running Vaulx-en-Velin (in the Lyon suburbs), justified voting for the budget “in the name of LO” during the municipal council meeting on 25 March 2009:

“Of course we are going to vote for the budget presented by the municipal majority, because we are in solidarity with the proposed orientations and choices, whether they are expressed in educational policy, support to associations, rates applied to services rendered or general orientation. The municipal majority is concerned about responding to the needs of the population and especially the underprivileged population, and for us that is essential. Beyond some disagreements on details, we share this majority’s basic choices.”

—Minutes of the Vaulx-en-Velin Municipal Council,
25 March 2009

In spite of LO’s concerns that having municipal councillors was “extremely important for our political influence,” the political influence of these municipal councillors did not reach the pages of the weekly Lutte Ouvrière, which has barely breathed a word about their performance: to our knowledge, LO wrote about them briefly three times in the space of two years. That’s why a 19 February article mentioning them takes on a very particular importance for judging their municipal politics.

The article is about Bagnolet—a municipality in the Paris suburbs—which has been controlled by the CP for decades. Bagnolet is also where an LO regional leader, Jean-Pierre Mercier (also a union bureaucrat in the PSA automobile factory at Aulnay), was elected on the slates of CP mayor Marc Everbecq in 2008. The article recounts the forcible eviction, on the mayor’s orders and in the middle of winter, of the tenants of an apartment building occupied in part by African workers. This time LO condemned the racist eviction, contrary to what they did in 2005 in a similar case in the town of Aubervilliers, which was run at the time by the CP (see our article in Le Bolchévik No. 173 [September 2005]). LO solidarizes with the victims of the Bagnolet eviction and denounces the propaganda of the town administration, which, indeed, does not hesitate to use every racist cliché in order to justify its action, calling the victims smugglers, drug dealers and pimps.

A naive reader, taking LO’s recent hypocritical rhetoric about “communism” at face value, might expect LO to denounce all its past capitulations to the PCF mayor and break its pact with the devil of bourgeois municipalism. Absolutely not! On the contrary, LO’s article states:

“A support committee was set up for the evicted people, with the Right to Housing Committee and other organizations. LO’s municipal councillors in the town participated in its creation. And the evictees were quite happy to find members of the municipal majority at their side, able to condemn the dirty tricks, even when they came from City Hall.”

In other words, LO went to the victims of the municipal government, openly declaring itself part of the very municipal council majority that was evicting them! Under these conditions, LO’s support amounted to reassuring the evictees that they really should not infer from this that the administration of capitalism is necessarily racist (whether in the hands of the PCF and LO or not). It is precisely for this kind of thing that LO is useful to the PCF mayors. The message that LO thus helps to get across is that of course you cannot run a town administration without breaking a few eggs, but in the last analysis there is always somebody in the municipal majority who will come and warm your heart (if nothing else) when you are out on the street and it’s snowing.

LO itself accurately described its conception of municipal work as reformist: “By definition, neither municipal work nor trade-union activity can be revolutionary; they are reformist” (Lutte de Classe No. 110, February 2008). LO deliberately confuses two things. One is the question of administering capitalism at the municipal level by taking part in a municipal council majority—and thus taking responsibility for what running capitalism entails, i.e., inevitably, racist discrimination in public housing; “personnel management,” including the mayor’s office laying off city workers; reducing the number of elementary school classes; cutting back childcare; raising local taxes; setting up “neighborhood police” and police stations; etc. The other is winning an election as a revolutionary proletarian opposition in order to denounce administering capitalism.

For Marxists, however, this is a fundamental difference—a difference of principle. More than 150 years ago, Karl Marx insisted that you cannot take hold of the capitalist state—which is an apparatus of oppression made up of armed bodies whose role is to maintain the dictatorship of capital—in order to make it serve the interest of the working class. This is true for the central government, and it is equally true at the lowest level of the state, the municipal level. Thus, the mayor has police powers within his territory; mayors, including PCF mayors, are the direct representatives of the capitalist state at the municipal level.

That is why Lenin always opposed municipalism, notably during the elections to the local (municipal) dumas in April 1917 in Russia. We recommend to our readers the article in the current issue of our international journal Spartacist [English-language edition No. 61, Spring 2009]. The article documents Lenin’s intransigent struggle, even though the Third International itself had come to questionable conclusions on the question of municipalism at its [1920] Second Congress. Denouncing the bourgeoisie’s institutions of local government, the resolution on parliamentarism stipulated that “to counterpose them to the organs of the state is theoretically incorrect. They are in reality organizations similar to the mechanism of the bourgeois state.” However, the resolution wrongly allowed Communist parties to hold municipal executive office.

The bourgeois state must be destroyed by a workers revolution based on new organs of power—workers councils—unconditionally opposed to the bourgeois order at all levels, national, regional and municipal. So it should be evident that the working class cannot reach this understanding if its revolutionary element itself participates in the institutions of bourgeois power, even municipal ones. From this principled opposition to executive offices of the bourgeois state flows the fact that Marxists cannot run for such posts without risking conferring legitimacy upon them in the eyes of the workers. Therefore we refuse on principle to run for executive office, be it the election of the mayor and his deputies by the municipal council or the election of the president of the republic by universal suffrage. We also refuse to seek to be a part of a parliamentary or municipal majority that takes on executive responsibility.

In contrast, for nearly 40 years LO has never failed to run a candidate for president. In 2008, they took a further step by “getting their hands dirty” at the municipal level. In fact, it is the logic of reformism to set about administering capitalism starting at the municipal level. Our perspective, on the other hand, is international socialist revolution. That perspective begins by opposing LO’s bourgeois municipalism and must end with the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will eliminate the organs of bourgeois repression at all levels, including the municipal. Down with executive offices of the capitalist state!