*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Phil Och's "Love Me, I'm A Liberal"- Some Songs Are Timeless-Ouch, Phil!

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.

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Markin comment:

This is a continuation of entries for folksinger/songwriter Phil Och's who back in the early 1960s stood right up there with Bob Dylan in the protest songwriting category. The entries on this date testify to that. 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.

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This may not be Phil's best song but time has done nothing to diminish its razor-edged point.


Love Me, I'm a Liberal Lyrics

E A E A
I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
E C#m
Tears ran down my spine
E A E
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
F#7 B7
As though I'd lost a father of mine
E A E
But Malcolm X got what was coming
G#m A
He got what he asked for this time
E C#m A B7 E
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democtratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

***Books To While Away The Class Struggle By-From The Pages Of "Dissent"- An Irving Howe Literary Criticism Primer

Click on the headline to link to a 'Wikipedia" entry for "Dissent" magazine, a journal that Irving Howe, the social-democratic literary critic was instrumental in producing from the 1950s on until his death.


Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin

Book Review

Irving Howe: Selected Writings 1950-1990, Irving Howe, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1990

A couple of years ago, as part of a series of some youthful recollections triggered by a fellow high school classmate who was looking for a far different type response, more banal and routine family stuff mainly, I dragged out memories of my first associations with the name Irving Howe and his New York-based journal, “Dissent”, that I frequently read at the local branch of the library. The points there can rightly serve as background of Howe’s selected writings, mainly from “Dissent”, under review here:


“In two recent commentaries I have done my fair share of kicking Professor Irving Howe, the late social democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around. And I am not finished by any means. (See "The Retreat of the “Greatest Generation” Intellectuals" and "Who ‘Lost’ the Sixties?" in the May 2008 archives) But today, as this is as is oft-quoted a confessional age, I have a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about my connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it takes to write this commentary up I will call an armed truce with the shades of the professor.

Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent". The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read latter left me cold but there you have it.

Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro". I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his Howe biography notes that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.

The funny thing about reading "Dissent", at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was suppose to be an independent 'socialist' magazine. Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water.


Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Trotskyist world view. As I noted last year I have been a Marxist since 1972. But after some 150 years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. This year marks my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution", a section called "On Dual Power". I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars- the truce is over.”

That said, it is again time to call a truce, or at least a momentary “ceasefire” as I briefly mention how good Professor Howe can be when he is away from the class struggle and deep in reflection on his specialty, American literary traditions, important Western canon authors and even, occasionally, a gem about the trials and tribulations of past history of the generic socialist movement in America.

This selection includes provocative essays on the benighted William Faulkner; the heroic Soviet writer, Isaac Babel; unkindly digs at the reputation of Theodore Dreiser; the then unjustifiably much neglected Sholom Aleichem; a very justifiably angry Richard Wright, a quirky view of George Eliot; and, Jewish characters in Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist”. Not bad, right?

And then, less successfully, some more generic essays about his crowd, the malaise of, mainly Jewish, New York intellectuals of the 1950s. Also an objectivist apologia for the failure of socialist ideas to take roots in the mainstream of American political life thus retrospectively (and prospectively as well) absolving himself, and his crowd, from a share of the responsibility for its then current failure by “farming” out the task to the American imperial state, the "State Department socialism' that is still with us. I guess with that last phase the "ceasefire" is over. But read this book if you want to know what high-grade literary criticism was like before the zany deconstructionists held sway.

* Sometimes It Takes A Song To Tell The Political Truth- Lead Belly's "Bourgeois Blues"

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Lead Belly performing "Bourgeois Blues". Those offended by the "n" word, as I am for a whole bunch of current social, political and personal reasons, hold your noses BUT listen this is the artist at work. Let him tell it his way.

Markin comment:

Some days it takes a song to kind of put things in political perspective. I ran across this old Lead Belly tune written by him after he was constantly subject to Jim Crow legal and social segregation sanctions in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. Although today there is a black face in the White House for most blacks (just look at the scary unemployment numbers for blacks for one thing), other minorities and the rest of us this song is a simple truth about where we stand today. Change the "n" word and it fits many of us. Time to get moving on that socialist agenda to turn things around. And by the way, Mr. President, get the troops the hell out of Afghanistan now.


"Bourgeois Blues"

Me and my wife went all over town
And everywhere we went people turned us down
Lord, in a bourgeois town
It's a bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

Well, me and my wife we were standing upstairs
We heard the white man say'n I don't want no niggers up there
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

Home of the brave, land of the free
I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

Well, them white folks in Washington they know how
To call a colored man a nigger just to see him bow
Lord, it's a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

I tell all the colored folks to listen to me
Don't try to find you no home in Washington, DC
'Cause it's a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

*A Man Who Spoke The Bitter Truth- Honor Malcolm X

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Malcolm on Black Nationalism in 1964. This, my friends is not on the same page as Martin Luther King's dream. Malcolm had his political faults but King's 'turn the other cheek' toadyism was not one of them.

COMMENTARY/DVD REVIEW

MALCOLM POSED THE QUESTION-WHICH WAY FORWARD FOR THE BLACK LIBERATION STRUGGLE? OUR ANSWER- BLACK LIBERATION THROUGH THE FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM

FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH.

Brother Minister: The Story Behind the Assassination of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and others, Koch Vision, 1994

Let us be clear about one thing from the start, whatever contradictions Malcolm X’s brand of black nationalism entailed, whatever shortcomings he had as an emerging political leader, whatever mistakes he made along the way as he groped for a solution to the seemingly intractable fight for black freedom he stood, and continues to stand, head and shoulders above any black leader thrown up in America in the 20th century. Only Frederick Douglass in the 19th century compares with him in stature.

No attempts by latter-day historians or politicians to assimilate Malcolm along with other leaders of the civil rights struggle in this country, notably Dr. Martin Luther King, as part of the same continuum of leadership are false and dishonest to all parties. That proposition is at least implied in this well-done documentary about the trials and tribulations of Malcolm X concerning a possible alliance with those reformist forces and mars what is otherwise a very good visual introduction to this charismatic man to new generations of those sympathetic to the real black liberation struggle.

Malcolm X, as a minister of the Black Muslims and after his break from that organization, stood in opposition to the official liberal non-violence strategy of that reformist leadership. His term “Uncle Toms” fully applies to their stance. And, in turn, that liberal black misleadership and its various hangers-on in the liberal establishment hated him when he spoke the truth about their role in white-controlled bourgeois Democratic Party politics. The “chickens were coming home to roost”, indeed!

The other axis of this film- who killed Malcolm, including the possibility that the infamous Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam was involved gets a full workout here. Although some of the ‘talking heads’ that populate such documentaries as this one have some very interesting things to say about the role of the FBI and its COINTELPRO programs against blacks and other radicals in the 1960’s (and now), Nation of Islam’s military arm- The Fruit of Islam and ‘turf’ wars none of this is central to the meaning of Malcolm’s life. Moreover, for this commentary I do not want to dwell on those aspects of this documentary


That said, who was Malcolm X? Or more properly what did he represent in his time. At one level, given the rudiments of his life story which are detailed in the Autobiography of Malcolm X and visually here, he represented that part of the black experience (an experience not only limited to blacks in immigrant America) which pulled itself by the bootstraps and turned away from the lumpen milieu of gangs, crimes and prisons into what I call ‘street’ intellectuals. That experience is far removed from the experience of what today passes for the black intelligentsia, who have run away from the turmoil of the streets. Barack Obama is only the most visible example of that flight. In liberation struggles both ‘street’ and academic intellectuals are necessary but the ‘street’ intellectual is perhaps more critical as the transmission belt to the masses. That is how liberation fighters get a hearing and no other way. In any case I have always been partial to the ‘streets’.


But what is the message for the way forward? For Malcolm, until shortly before his death, that message was black separatism-the idea that the only way blacks could get any retribution was to go off on their own (or be left alone), in practical terms to form their own nation. To state the question that way in modern America points to the obvious limitation of such a scheme, even if blacks formed such a nation and wanted to express the right to national self-determination that goes with it. Nevertheless whatever personal changes Malcolm made in his quest for political relevance and understanding whether he was a Black Muslim minister or after he broke for that group he still sought political direction through the fight of what is called today ‘people of color’ against the mainly white oppressor, at first in America and later after travels throughout the ‘third world’.

However sincere he was in that belief, and he was sincere, that strategy of black separatism or ‘third world’ vanguardism could never lead to the black freedom he so fervently desired. An underestimation of the power of an internally unchallenged world, and in the first instance American, imperialism to corrupt liberation struggles or defeat or destroy them militarily never seemed to enter into his calculations.

Malcolm’s whole life story of struggle against the bedrock of white racism in America, as the legitimate and at the time the ONLY voice speaking for the rage of the black ghettos, nevertheless never worked out fully any other strategy that could work in America, and by extension internationally. A close reading of his work demonstrates that as he got more politically aware he saw the then unfolding ‘third world’ liberation struggles as the key to black liberation in America. That, unfortunately for him, was exactly backwards. If the ‘third world’ struggles were ever ultimately to be successful and create more just societies then American imperialism-as the main enemy of the peoples of the world-then, as now had to be brought to bay. And that, my friends, whether you agree or not, requires class struggle here.

That is where the fight for black liberation intersects the fight for socialism. And I will state until my last breathe that the key to the fight for socialism in America will be the cohesion of a central black cadre leading a multi-ethnic organization that will bring that home. And it will not be from the lips of the Martin Luther Kings of today that the struggle will be successful but by new more enlightened Malcolms, learning the lessons of history, who will get what they need-'by any means necessary'.

*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"- The Fight For School Integration In Boston -A Guest Commentary

Click on the headline to link to a "Workers Vanguard" article, dated September 26, 2008, concerning the historic struggle to achieve school integration in America, and in Boston in particular.

Markin comment:

I will defer to the commentator in the linked article for now. I have my own memories and comments on this subject which I will place in this space when I get a chance. Overall though, as to the tasks necessary for the defense of the black school children in Boston, and the responses of most of the left to those tasks, it is pretty accurate.