From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L's- Karl Liebknecht's Preface To "Militarism And Anti-Militarism"

Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
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Karl Liebknecht
Militarism & Antimilitarism


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Preface

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A few weeks ago Die Grenzboten reported a conversation between Bismarck [1*] and Professor Dr Otto Kämmel which took place in October 1892, and in which Bismarck, the “Hero of the Century”, himself tore off the mask of constitutionalism in his very own cynical style. Among other things, he said:

In Rome, whoever put himself outside of the law was banished, aqua et igne interdictus; in the Middle Ages he was said to be outlawed. Social-Democracy ought to be treated in a similar way: it should be deprived of its political rights, of its right to participate in elections. I would have gone that far. The Social-Democratic problem is in fact a military problem. Social-Democracy is being treated with an extraordinary lack of serious attention at present. It is now attempting – with success – to win over the non-commissioned officers. In Hamburg a large part of the troops already consists of Social-Democrats, since the local people have the right to join only the local battalions. What if these troops should one day refuse to obey the Kaiser and to fire on their fathers and brothers? Would we then be forced to mobilize the Hanover and Mecklenburg regiments against Hamburg? In that case we should have something like the Paris Commune on our hands. The Kaiser then took fright. He told me that he did not want one day to be called the “Kartätschenprinz” – the shrapnel prince – like his grandfather, and did not want to wade up to his ankles in blood’ at the very beginning of his reign. At the time I told him: “Your Majesty will have to go in much deeper if you draw back now!”

“The Social-Democratic problem is a military problem.” This is the whole point; it says more and goes much deeper than von Massow’ s cry of distress: “Our only hope is the bayonets and cannons of our soldiers.” [1] “The Social-Democratic problem is a military problem. That is the keynote of all the tunes sung by the firebrands. Anyone who had not yet been convinced by the earlier indiscretions of Bismarck and Puttkamer, by the speech to the Alexander regiment [2*], by the Hamburger Nachrichten and the thoroughbred Junker, von Oldenburg-Januschau, would have had his eyes opened by the Hohenlohe-Delbruck revelations which were corroborated around the end of the year through the county court judge Kulemann, and by the cruel words of Bisrnarck cited above.

The Social-Democratic problem – in so far as it is a political problem – is in the last resort a military problem. This should be a constant reminder to Social-Democracy and a tactical principle of the first rank.

The enemy at home, Social-Democracy, is “more dangerous than the enemy abroad, because it poisons the soul of our people and wrests the weapons from our hands before we have even lifted them.” This is how the Kreuz-Zeitung of January 21, 1907, proclaimed the sovereignty of class interests over national interests in an electoral struggle which was waged “under the banner of nationalism”! And this electoral struggle was carried on in the face of an ever-increasing menace to electoral and trade-union rights, and of “Bonaparte’s sword”, which Prince Bülow [3*] waved around the heads of the German Social-Democrats in his New Year’s Eve letter in order to frighten them; it was carried on in the face of a class struggle raised to white heat. [2] Only someone who was blind and deaf could deny that these signs, as well as many others, indicate the approach of a storm or even of a hurricane.

The problem of the struggle against “militarism at home” has therefore taken on an importance of a most pressing kind.

The elections of 1907 were, however, also fought on the national question, on the colonial question, and over chauvinism and imperialism. And they showed how miserably weak, in spite of all this, was the resistance of the German people to the pseudo-patriotic rat-traps laid by these contemptible business patriots. They taught us what pompous demagogy can be pressed into use by the government, by the ruling classes and by the whole howling pack of “patriots” whenever “things most holy” are concerned. These elections provided the proletariat with some necessary enlightenment, causing it to question its own role and teaching it about the relation of social and political forces. They educated it, and freed it from the unfortunate “habit of victory”; and they excited a welcome force resulting in a deepening of the proletarian movement and of our understanding of the psychology of the masses with regard to national campaigns. Certainly the causes of our so-called setback, which was actually not a setback and puzzled the victors more than the vanquished, were manifold; but there is no doubt that precisely those sections of the proletariat which are contaminated and influenced by militarism, which are already at the mercy of government terrorism – for example, the state workers and junior officials – have formed an especially firm obstacle to the extension of Social-Democratic influence.

This also raises sharply, as far as the German labour movement is concerned, the question of anti-militarism and the question of the youth movement and of the education of young people, and ensures that these points will receive more attention in future.



The following work is the elaboration of a paper read by the author on September 30, 1906, to the first conference of the German Young Socialist League in Mannheim. It does not pretend to offer something new; it is simply intended to be a compilation of material which is already known or even commonplace. Nor does it claim to be exhaustive. The author has attempted, as far as he is able, to collect the disconnected material scattered throughout the newspapers and periodicals. Thanks above all to our Belgian comrade de Man it has been possible to provide at least a brief account of the and-militarist and youth movement in the most important countries.

If here and there errors have crept in, they should be excused on account of the difficulty of coping with the material, but also on account of the frequent unreliability of the sources, which are often even contradictory.

In the realm of militarism things are in constant flux at the present time, so that, for example, the information given below on the French and English military reforms will certainly soon be overtaken by events.

That is even more true of anti-militarism and the proletarian youth movement, the newest manifestations of the proletarian struggle for freedom, which are everywhere developing quickly, and making pleasing headway in spite of setbacks. Since this work was set up in type it has been learned that the Finnish Young Socialist Societies held their first congress in Tammerfors on December 8 and 9, 1906, where a Young Workers’ League was founded which will be attached to the Finnish Labour Party and whose special task, apart from the education of the young workers in class-consciousness, will be the struggle against militarism in all its aspects.

People will be inclined to complain that the theoretical basis of our work is too slight and the historical depth not sufficient. Against this it ought to be said that the pamphlet has a topical political task, that of promoting anti-militarist thought.

Many people again will be unhappy with the accumulation of countless, often apparently unimportant details, especially in connection with the history of the Young Socialist movement and of and-militarism. This dissatisfaction may be justified. The author, however, stoned from the assumption that it is first of all through details that one is able to gain a living insight into the upward and downward movement in organizational development and into the invention and modification of tactical principles, and to put them to use in the desired manner – the more so since it is precisely details which present the main difficulty in anti-militarist agitation and organization.

Dr Karl Liebknecht
Berlin
February 11, 1907


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Table of Contents | Next Section


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Footnotes
1. See Arendt’s Deutsches Wochenblatt, middle of November 1896, and the Sozialdemokratische Partei-Correspondenz, year II, no.4.

2. On the evening of the second ballot (February 5, 1907) troops of the Berlin garrison were provided with live cartridges and held ready to march. It is known that on June 25, 1905, the last time the second ballot was held, the Pioneers appeared in Spandau in the Schönwalder Strasse in order to “bring to their senses” the workers excited by the election result.


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Additional notes by the translator
1*. BISMARCK, GRAF VON (1815-1898). Minister President of Prussia from 1862, he was responsible for the political direction of the creation of the German Empire, of which he was effectively founder and first Chancellor. Based his strength for many years on the National Liberal Party, during which period he initiated the so-called Kulturkampf against the Catholic Centre. Later moved away from and attacked the National Liberals, without being able to replace them as a political support. Fell in 1896, soon after the accession of the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II.

2*. ALEXANDER REGIMENT SPEECH. The speech of Wilhelm II to the Kaiser Alexander Regiment on March 28, 1901, containing the words: “You are ... so to speak the bodyguard of the King of Prussia, and you must always be ready, day and night, to put your life at risk, to spill your blood for your king! ... If it should happen that the city rises up against its rulers, the regiment must punish this improper conduct of the people towards its king with the bayonet.”

3*. BÜLOW, PRINCE VON (1849-1929). Imperial Chancellor from 1900 to 1909, succeeding Hohenlohe. Resigned in 1909 after pressure from Conservative and Centre Parties, and was replaced by Bethmann-Hollweg.

*Walking Down Those Mean Teen Streets-"Street Corner" Society Then and Now

Click On Title To Link To "Rebel Without A Cause" Website.

Commentary

One never knows what subject matter will come bubbling up to the surface in this space from comments on yesterday’s amorphous memories through to today’s harsh social reality. Sometimes they merge so that I can make my usual cogent and witty comment on them. Case in point. Recently I found myself on one of my infrequent visits to a suburban shopping mall. A moderately upscale one if I can judge by the well-known national brand stores that are located there, in any case, one that seemed not different from any other of the ones that seem to dot the landscape of every outer urban area in America. That social characterization of the mall may be neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things but, perhaps, what went on there may be more common than I assume. You are entirely free to add your own observations on this one if you have had any mall experiences.

While taking care of my business there (if shopping for an appropriate gift for a special occasion is business rather than something akin to a visit to the dentist) I noticed several teenage boys about fifteen or sixteen (and possibly a couple of younger teenage girls on the periphery, it was not clear to me at that moment what their relationship to the scene was) being harassed and told unceremoniously to move on from their “hang out” benches by a couple of rent-a-cops. There was the usual back and forth "macho" talk before the boys left the area. From all appearances (which I later confirmed independently) these kids were from some kind of middle class families, were something like professional “mall rats” and had all the cultural attributes of today’s “youth nation”. You know-the right sneakers, the right technological gizmos (including the ubiquitous Sidekick) and the right tribal “language”. In short, these kids were being harassed and threatened for hanging out while being teenagers.

Needless to say there is nothing new under the sun here. It is apparently a rite of passage in post-modern bourgeois society to steamroll the young at every opportunity. Of course this little episode that I witnessed allows me to segue into a tale of my own youthful “hanging out” for a couple of years in the early 1960’s. Obviously my tale is not centered on shopping malls which were just coming, for better or worst, into vogue. No, this is a tale of hanging around street corners. Or rather, a street corner as the etiquette of the day (enforceable by fists, if the occasion warranted) set the parameters of who “hung” where. Well, for my bravos and me this spot happened to be a very popular pizza parlor at the corner of two main streets of the section of town that I grew up in. Religiously, on Friday and Saturday nights seemingly at any time of the year , for that couple of years, we could be seen in or just out in front of that establishment “holding up the wall” by the automobile traffic going by. And just as religiously, the store owner or someone else would, on occasion, call the police to have us removed. Sometimes, just to keep in shape, the police would just do it on their own authority. And our offense- hanging out while being teenagers. Sound familiar?

The upshot of all this is that my boyos and I got something of an undeserved reputation for being “hard guys”. Oh sure, a couple of the guys wore the then common footwear for tough guys - big black engineer boots complete with silver buckets- that the ‘real’ motorcycle gang types wore. And we certainly affected a James Dean/Marlon Brando existential air about ourselves, without knowing what the hell it was all about. And, sorry to say, a couple of the guys later turned in some very wrong directions. However, in the main, we were just asserting, as of right, all the approved outward bravado of 1950’s alienated white working class youth.

A funny sidebar to our ‘reputation’ was that a Boston area graduate sociology student who was doing research on “street corner” youth society heard about us and interviewed us. And we were more than willing to comply with our ‘stories’, maybe too willingly. Now, for those who are unfamiliar with the times or with a film like "Rebel Without A Cause” starring the above-mentioned James Dean as the consummate alienated middle class youth, not only was mainstream society concerned about the “red menace” but also about this disturbing drift of that era’s “youth culture” toward nihilism.

At the working class level (and below) that translated into a concern about juvenile delinquency, especially the fascination with small-time crime, fast cars, booze, and ‘babes’. Actually, that too sounds familiar, right? So we probably piled it on for our very proper middle class professor. She later sent us a copy of her paper. I am a lot more jaded by such things now and nonplussed by the methodologies used to argue academic theories but I remember reading her thesis ( Ya, I liked to read that kind of stuff even then.) and scratching my head in disbelief about her narrative. Something, as I would later discover from reading, out of Nelson Algren. A vivid imagination is not confined to the literary types. Nothing new there either, right?

But let’s get to the real point of my entire ‘thesis’. What were we, young unattached teenage boys, doing "hanging out” at that corner with all that traffic flowing by? Well, for one thing when we went inside the joint the pizza was great-and cheap. For another it had a great jukebox where one could hear all the hits of those days, as long as the nickels held out. But who is fooling who here. We were standing there looking at (and for) girls going by. Are you shocked? And to bring this little tale to an end I’ll come forward to today again. I mentioned, rather obliquely, in describing the recent scene that I witnessed the presence of a couple of teenage girls on the periphery. Well, what do you think those teenage boys were doing “hanging out” at the mall? Hello.

*From The Depths Of Memory- A Personal Note On Youthful Romance

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Vladimir Mayakovsky, the great Russian poet who is mentioned in the entry below.

Markin comment:

Not all the entries in this space are connected to politics, although surely most of them can be boiled down into some political essence, if you try hard enough. The following is one of those instances where trying to gain any “political traction”, or as I am fond of saying drawing any “lessons” would be foolhardy. I should also note that this entry is part of a continuing, if sporadic, series of “trips down memory lane” provoked by a fellow high school classmate who has been charged with keeping tabs on old classmates and their doings, even those of old-line communists like this writer. Go figure?

Trotsky once noted, as his most famous biographer Issac Deutscher related, and which is most prominently addressed by him in the last chapter of his seminal work, "Literature and Revolution", that of the three great tragedies of life- hunger, sex, and death-the modern labor movement had taken up the struggle against hunger as its goal. Trotsky also noted that under conditions of material abundance in a future communist society that the other two questions would be dealt with in a much more rational manner. Well, as this tale of my youth's thwarted 'passions' demonstrates it cannot come soon enough. Resolving the tangled questions of sex and love, moreover, will be a lot more interesting that the infernal struggle against international capitalism, racism, sexism, and the myriad other social ills that we are duty-bound to fight today. That too is worth the fight.

*******

For Margaret G. - In Lieu Of A Letter

I make no claim to any literary originality. I will shamelessly ‘steal’ any idea, or half-idea that catches my fancy in order to make my point. That is the case today, as I go back in time to my elementary school days down at the old school in the X housing project. Part of the title for today’s entry and the central idea that I want to express is taken from a poem by the great Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky.

So what do a poet who died in 1930 and a moonstruck kid from the 'projects', growing up haphazardly in 1950s America, have in common? We have both been thrown back, unexpectedly, to childhood romantic fantasies of the “girl who got away”. In my case, Margaret G., as the title to this entry indicates. I do not remember what triggered Mayakovsky’s memories but mine have been produced via an indirect school Internet connection. In this instance, damn the Internet. I do not know the fate of Margaret G., although I fervently hope that life has worked out well for her. This I do know. For the time that it will take to write this entry I return to being a smitten, unhappy boy.

Mayakovsky would, of course, now dazzle us with his intoxicating use of language, stirring deep thoughts in us about his unhappy fate. I will plod along prosaically, as is my fate. Through the dust of time, sparked by that Internet prod, I have hazy, dreamy memories of the demure Margaret G., mainly as seemed from afar through furtive glances in the old schoolyard at the elementary school(which is today in very much the same condition as back then) . This is a very appealing memory, to be sure, of a fresh, young girl full of hopes and dreams, and who knows what else.

But a more physical description is in order that befits the ‘real time’ of my young ‘romance’ fantasies. Margaret G. strongly evoked in me a feeling of softness, soft as the cashmere sweaters that she wore and that reflected the schoolgirl fashion of those seemingly sunnier days. And she almost always wore a slight suggestion of a smile, working its way through a full-lipped mouth. And had a voice, just turning away from girlishness to womanhood, which spoke of future conquests. I should also say that her hair… But enough of this. This is now getting all mixed up with adult dreams of childhood. Let the fact of fifty years' remembrances speak to her charms.

Did I ‘love’ Margaret G.? That is a silly thought for a bashful, ill-at-ease, ragamuffin of a project boy and a ‘princess’ who never uttered two words, if that, to each other, ever. Did I ‘want’ Margaret G.? Come on now, that is the stuff of adult dreams. Did Margaret G. disturb my sleep? Well, yes, she was undoubtedly the subject of more than one chaste dream, although perhaps not so innocent at that. But know this. Time may bury many childhood wounds but there are not enough medicines, not enough bandages on this good, green earth to stanch some of them. So let’s just leave it at that. Or rather, as this. For the moment it takes to finish this note I am an unhappy man and… maybe, for longer.

From The Archives (2009)-Capitalist America- Give Youth Work, Or Move On Over!

Click On To Title To Link To The Leon Trotsky Archives For 1938 Under The Transitional Program Concerning A Sliding Scale Of Wages (Popularly Known As "30 For 40")As An Example Of The Way To Address The Problem Di cussed Below.

Commentary

Make no mistake this site, as a general proposition, is fiercely and relentlessly dedicated to the propaganda struggle for a socialist future. But sometimes we have to agitate for some immediate and pressing needs. In this case the need to make sure the youth, and particularly minority youth, has meaningful work. In a society that goes on something of a principle of ‘last hired and first fired ‘(except when it is cheaper to keep the new labor) in its labor practices this latest capitalist recession is hitting the youth disproportionately.

That said, I recently heard an interesting, if disturbing, program on National Public Radio’s “Talk Of The Town” where the subject was PBS “Dateline’s” upcoming program, hosted by Judy Woodruff, concerning the various ways today’s 20-somethings are coping with (or not coping with) this, for them, first serious economic downturn. I heard plenty of anecdotal evidence for why this capitalist really has outlived its usefulness and must be replaced. But that is a subject for another day and one can go elsewhere in this space for various commentaries on the general socialist program. What I want to do is make a few points on the struggle of today’s youth for jobs.

Hey, when those of us who are not 20-something were young and carefree we all, or most of us anyhow, had our share of makeshift jobs in order to survive or to keep us off the streets. Some of us, including this writer, almost made a religion out of keeping just this side of “skid row”. Being footloose and fancy free is a youthful rite of passage, after all (and probably would be more so under a socialist regime). That, however, is not what the callers to this talk show were addressing as they related their stories. What they had to say about their survival skills reflects very well one their individual abilities to adjust to a world that they certainly have not made. They are making career changes, taking odd-ball jobs, retuning home to live in order to cut down on expenses and even that old chestnut, going back to school to ‘reinvent’ themselves.

Okay, that is the good part. But here is where I want to reflect on what the irrationality of the capitalist system has begot. From what I heard there is an incredible amount of social value stored up in today’s youth. Moreover, an incredible amount of social capital has been used to produce these very high priced future contributors to society. No rational society could, or would let this go to waste in the way that it seems to be doing in the current crisis. Wouldn’t a slogan like “30 For 40”, the old radical labor movement idea of redistributing the available work among those , employed and unemployed, hat need it with no loss in pay be just about right at this time. As for the future, to all those young callers-in I will tell you right now that a socialist society would certainly know how to use your skills- “to the max”. Join us in that fight.

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From The Transistional Program

Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

Political Thoughts in the Summer Doldrums

Of This and That

Commentary

Just a couple of observations to while away the summer doldrums.

California Gay and Lesbian Marriage Vote

Earlier this year the California Supreme Court held that, as a matter of state law, legislation on the books that discriminated against gays and lesbians on the question of the democratic right to marriage was unconstitutional. As in Massachusetts, there was furious backlash by various right-wing elements, some organized religions notably the Catholic Church, other usual suspects on this issue and the usual quota of married (or, as is usually the case, re-married) heterosexual types who can’t breath right if marriage is not defined in law, society and the eyes of god as the bonding of one male and one female human being.

Needless to say, such groups have some resources and have enough wherewithal to have this issue placed on the ballot this November. As the presidential race in California is likely to be a walkover for Obama this fight may get more than its share of attention. At this point I am not sure how this initiative petition question will appear on the ballot so I do not know how to call the vote (any help here?). In any case, we want to vote against the overriding of the court’s action down with both hands. Defend, extend the democratic right of gays and lesbians to marry (Markin adds -and good luck to them, they will need it. We are already starting to see gay and lesbian divorces in Massachusetts, just like heterosexuals).


**Integration of the American military

Within the past couple of weeks there has been a ceremony in Washington, D.C. honoring the 60th Anniversary of President Harry S. Truman’s signing of an executive order integrating the armed forces of American imperialism. While militant leftists have a very definite position in opposition to American governmental foreign and military policy we nevertheless, until working people take power, have a very definite interest in fighting for equal access and rights for all in almost any bourgeois institution. We do not encourage people to join the military but if they do then the full range of rights and opportunity should be open to them. That premise also underlines our position on the question of gays in the military (the current ‘see no evil’ policy is not an example of equal access but a bandage) and permitting women soldiers to become combat troops.

In one article about this commemoration that I read an interesting point was made that while blacks (who the original order was directed toward integrating) make up a proportionally larger (at least until recently due to the Iraqi quagmire) part of the various branches of the services than in the population as a whole they are underrepresented in the higher echelons of the military (senior NCOs and General Staff officers). Despite, the occasional Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama story this remains a deeply race-divided society with blacks STILL disproportionately at the bottom of the pile. Our job is to rectify that when the above-mentioned working people take power. And pronto.

I would also be remiss here in a comment about the American military machine if in the summer of 2008 after more than five years of constant war I did not put a reminder that our task is still- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal From Iraq And Afghanistan of All American/Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries! Make that pronto, as well.

*** The Youth Vote

Although I have, in general, sworn off observations on the American presidential campaigns, such as they are, I have recently come across some statistical information that only verifies what I have been trying to point out about future political possibilities for extra-parliamentary militant leftists. Polls have shown that Barack Obama has significant leads among the young over Republican John McCain in several key states in the upcoming elections. Moreover that trend applies to the national picture, as well.

Ho hum you say. Well, in part, you would be right just on the basis of the age difference between McCain and Obama. To speak nothing of some of their policy differences and personal technological capacities (Obama can work an iPOd. McCain, apparently, is still using a transistor radio). However, I would point out that one Richard M. Nixon in 1972, a time beyond the high water mark of the 1960’s yet still within memory of those days, split the then just passed 26th Amendment –enhanced youth vote with George McGovern. And George McGovern was far, far to the left of anything that Obama has been saying (or, as of late, not saying).

In short, youth as a segment of society is not always left, not always progressive or for that matter not always even political. What the above-mentioned statistics tell me though is that something more like the swirl around John Kennedy in 1960 is forming and not the resignation and acceptance of defeat represented by Nixon’s reelection in 1972 by a significant segment of the young. As I pointed out in a recent small commentary on Obama’s rush to the right in order to gain ‘victory’ we will get our share of the political spoils once the disillusionment with Obama sets in (as a look at his social networking site will already confirm) with all the weighty social problems confronting this society still in need of solution.

The Paradox of the Sidekick Generation

Okay, I know I am going to get roasted once again by the old fogies of my generation, the generation of ’68, but I like the breath of fresh air that is coming from today’s youth. That, at this moment, gets its fullest expression in their support in sizable numbers for the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Now let me go through the numbers. No, I do not believe that the election of Obama is the solution to our problems. No, I do not believe that the Democratic Party is the vehicle for social change in the 21st century. No, I do not believe that youth as they have expressed themselves thus far are going to be able to solve the problems confronting us in the 21st century. Are we clear so far? A critical mass of youth though is forming that may just do that. That is what I like to think about today.

What I do not like about today’s youth is their expressed disdain for our old political visions. You know, the culture wars that we have been fighting for the past forty years to try to save a few human and civil rights from the demons of the right whose conception of society is that of a prison camp. We might not have been successful in getting our program through. We may have made every political mistake in the book in fight for such things as black civil rights, the fight against the death penalty, against war, for women’s rights, and so forth but we fought and that is the lesson that today’s youth seemingly has not learned. To create social change one must fight for it, tooth and nail.

A recent article in the February 3, 2008 Sunday Boston Globe brought this fierce truth home. The article interviewed students at Wellesley College and Yale University (admittedly not today’s average youth and selected because those were Hillary Clinton’s alma maters). Almost universally they were either dismissive or ignorant of the struggles of the past that we fought out. We were viewed as too confrontational, too argumentative and sin of sins, well, too political. I do believe we have some work to do here.

That said, what youth can do, or more particularly today a small section, is to take their first blush understanding that there is a need for social change and move on from there to find social, and thereafter socialist, solutions to the problems that ail us. Now back to my generation as a reference point. As the now numerous memoirs of some of the leading lights of the time have noted most of us took the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1960 as a signal that it was alright to fight for social change. Did we assume that we could do that solely by the parliamentary path? At first, probably. Did we think that Kennedy’s program would provide the answers? In the end, hell no, a thousand times no. As a comparison that is the significance of Obama. And it is significant. The winds of change do blow.

Below is a repost of a commentary that I did last year that in connection with the above commentary can stand together as the first shots of the political fight to win the youth to social activism.

On Political Trends Among American Youth

COMMENTARY

WELL, BACK IN MY DAY WE………

Although a number of my political efforts these days are linked to appealing to the youth to learn the lessons of our history, working class history, I make no bones about feelings of trepidation when I take up the subject of youth, their hopes and their aspirations. That said, I recently read an interesting review article based on polls taken of youth (18-24) and their political aspirations. The major conclusion of the article was that today’s youth are trending (the poll’s expression, not mine) to vote Democratic in greater numbers than previous youth generations. A couple of minor conclusions were that youth have more potential impact on politics today than my generation, the generation of 1968, and that the current more technologically savvy generation was not reachable by traditional methods of communication and thus political organizations needed to catch up with the wave. Fair enough. Let me make some observations.


The generation of 1968 made every mistake in the political book. And that ain’t no lie. In our defense I will add that we were in uncharted waters facing such legitimate political monsters as Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace who were fully capable of using all of the methods of political repression. Nevertheless we tried non-violent protest in the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King. We tried peaceful protest against Vietnam under Dr. Spock and others. We tried parliamentary politics under Bobby Kennedy and Gene McCarthy. We tried to drop out with Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary and other counter-cultural heroes. We tried to make music the revolution. When things started to get grim in 1967 we tried to ‘raise’ the Pentagon. When things got grimmer still we tried to act as a second front for the Vietnamese National Liberation Front. When they got really grim we were ready to declare revolutionary war on America. Ah, those were the days. We were, however, for a number of reasons, politically defeated. A defeat from which we still have not recovered.

Obviously, every political generation will find its own means of expressing itself in a world that it has not made. Also fair enough. However, after a few years of opposition to this Iraq war I find that the current ‘youth’ generation seems much more politically passive and lacking in political imagination than the poll mentioned above would indicate. One of the most striking points about the survey is the apparent faith that today’s youth have in letting governmental agencies and officials resolve certain questions. By this I assume that Mr. Bush or his successor, probably Hillary Clinton at this point, is duly appointed to resolve the conflict in Iraq and such other questions as the on-going genocide in Dhafur.

In my day, while we had more than our share of illusions in the good graces of the government we were much more ready to face it down than rely on it. As a case in point, someone like Hillary Clinton (nee Rodham) who may have passed for a ‘radical’ at sedate 1960’s Wellesley would not even have gotten, nor should she have gotten, a hearing from the more thoughtful radical political types in the Boston area of the time. The time of waving the Vietnamese National Liberation Front flag at the front of anti-war marches was not Hillary’s time. Her time, if it is now, is the time of many, many defeats for progressive movements and a time of youth ‘trending’ Democratic. To put the situation in perspective I would argue that the political development of today’s youth was about what my generation’s was in 1962. Plenty of spunk, a desire to serve humanity, and plenty of illusions and faith in the ‘fairness’ of the democratic process. But, which way will they jump?

Seemingly each generation develops their own tribal language, fashions and other such cultural gradients to distinguish it from the OTHER. Once again fair enough. The survey mentioned above made an express point that today’s youth cannot be reached by traditionally methods of communication and/or advertising. And that makes sense about a generation nurtured on iPods, e-mails, chat rooms and cell phones. In short, today’s youth are light years ahead of my generation on the information super-highway. Or are they?

No one can reasonably deny that the Internet has a great potential as an aid to political development and organization. However, it is no substitute for face-to-face polemics and argument to develop strategy and to clarify political positions. From my own personal experience I find that one can spent so much time on the Internet that there is little time to get out and do the necessary political spade work. Multiply that by ubiquitous cell phone and iPod use and where is there time for organizing real people in real time. And that brings us back to that point I made above about the political passivity of this generation. If the revolution will not be televised it will also certainly not spring forth from a laptop. More on this later.

On Deflating the Youth Balloon and Obama's Campaign

Commentary

Frankly, I tremble at the thought of having to make any more comments on the 2008 presidential nominating process. I am about as far removed politically from the whirlwind of this process as it is possible to be and yet still retain a rational political posture. I, moreover, am having a hard time even getting up a sporting interest in the results and those who have been reading my commentary over the last couple of years know I live for an occasional bet on the outcome of these things. Mercifully, I do not have to actually vote for any of the subjects of the bets. Propaganda politics does indeed have it compensating virtues.

Notwithstanding those virtues, my friends, today Friday January 11 2008 I confess that I have dug something of a hole for myself. Despite my disdain for parliamentary politics, or rather my distain for those politics as the sole vehicle for attempting social change, I do like to project trends based on what is happening in the main arena of politics these days. An invaluable aid in that quest is the media’s mind-boggling fetish for polling everything that is not tied down. With proper caution some of this information is very useful. As a case in point, last week, in the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses they provided much information on the youth vote. Apparently what drove Obama over the top was his ability to grab the youth and actually have them turn up at the caucus sites. I perked up immediately on that bit of information. I suggested that this was the first national manifestation of a fresh breeze coming on. (See the entry The Winds Of Change Do Shift, January 7 2008).

Obama and his strategists are not the only ones who see (if not this year then in the near future) the importance of the youth in driving any positive social change that might occur in this country. And it has been ever so. Not just in my generation, the generation of ’68, but in the 1930’s during the Great Depression and earlier in the first part of the 20th century with the progressive labor movement. Those Wobblies who followed Big Bill Haywood and the gang were mainly footloose kids, remember. Thus, I too am interested in which way the youth is headed. The only virtue of aging, seemingly, is that I have seen more than a few political generations past by. For the most part since the 1960’s, with some notable exception around Central America and South Africa, the various youthful generations have been characterized by political quietude, or worst.

That brings us to today. After digesting the New Hampshire results it is clear that Obama grabbed his fair share of the youth vote. However, that was not enough, not nearly enough. What happened? Apparently Obama can draw the crowds in rock star fashion but, in the parlance of traditional politics, he could not seal the deal. They didn’t show at the voting booths. Fair enough. Nobody said getting the iPod generation to either the booth or the streets was going to be easy. My reflections last week on the ‘surge’ of youth should thus be tempered a little by those results, or the problems reflected in them.

Nevertheless I believe that there is something on the wind going on among the youth that has been initially reflected in the energy of the Obama campaign. And if not now, soon. I do not believe that my comparison of the energy around Obama’s campaign with that of the fresh breezeof the Kennedys in my youth in the 1960’s as a catalyst for a break from the past is that far off. I stated at the end of The Winds of Change Do Shift commentary that it was not time to dust off the old Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) buttons yet. But keep a rag ready. I stand by that statement. Enough said for now.

ON POLITCAL TRENDS AMONG AMERICAN YOUTH

COMMENTARY

WELL, BACK IN MY DAY WE………

Although a number of my political efforts these days are linked to appealing to the youth to learn the lessons of our history, working class history, I make no bones about feelings of trepidation when I take up the subject of youth, their hopes and their aspirations. That said, I recently read an interesting review article based on polls taken of youth (18-24) and their political aspirations. The major conclusion of the article was that today’s youth are trending (the poll’s expression, not mine) to vote Democratic in greater numbers than previous youth generations. A couple of minor conclusions were that youth have more potential impact on politics today than my generation, the generation of 1968, and that the current more technologically savvy generation was not reachable by traditional methods of communication and thus political organizations needed to catch up with the wave. Fair enough. Let me make some observations.


The generation of 1968 made every mistake in the political book. And that ain’t no lie. In our defense I will add that we were in uncharted waters facing such legitimate political monsters as Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace who were fully capable of using all of the methods of political repression. Nevertheless we tried non-violent protest in the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King. We tried peaceful protest against Vietnam under Dr. Spock and others. We tried parliamentary politics under Bobby Kennedy and Gene McCarthy. We tried to drop out with Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary and other counter-cultural heroes. We tried to make music the revolution. When things started to get grim in 1967 we tried to ‘raise’ the Pentagon. When things got grimmer still we tried to act as a second front for the Vietnamese National Liberation Front. When they got really grim we were ready to declare revolutionary war on America. Ah, those were the days. We were, however, for a number of reasons, politically defeated. A defeat from which we still have not recovered.

Obviously, every political generation will find its own means of expressing itself in a world that it has not made. Also fair enough. However, after a few years of opposition to this Iraq war I find that the current ‘youth’ generation seems much more politically passive and lacking in political imagination than the poll mentioned above would indicate. One of the most striking points about the survey is the apparent faith that today’s youth have in letting governmental agencies and officials resolve certain questions. By this I assume that Mr. Bush or his successor, probably Hillary Clinton at this point, is duly appointed to resolve the conflict in Iraq and such other questions as the on-going genocide in Dhafur.

In my day, while we had more than our share of illusions in the good graces of the government we were much more ready to face it down than rely on it. As a case in point, someone like Hillary Clinton (nee Rodham) who may have passed for a ‘radical’ at sedate 1960’s Wellesley would not even have gotten, nor should she have gotten, a hearing from the more thoughtful radical political types in the Boston area of the time. The time of waving the Vietnamese National Liberation Front flag at the front of anti-war marches was not Hillary’s time. Her time, if it is now, is the time of many, many defeats for progressive movements and a time of youth ‘trending’ Democratic. To put the situation in perspective I would argue that the political development of today’s youth was about what my generation’s was in 1962. Plenty of spunk, a desire to serve humanity, and plenty of illusions and faith in the ‘fairness’ of the democratic process. But, which way will they jump?

Seemingly each generation develops their own tribal language, fashions and other such cultural gradients to distinguish it from the OTHER. Once again fair enough. The survey mentioned above made an express point that today’s youth cannot be reached by traditionally methods of communication and/or advertising. And that makes sense about a generation nurtured on iPods, e-mails, chat rooms and cell phones. In short, today’s youth are light years ahead of my generation on the information super-highway. Or are they?

No one can reasonably deny that the Internet has a great potential as an aid to political development and organization. However, it is no substitute for face-to-face polemics and argument to develop strategy and to clarify political positions. From my own personal experience I find that one can spent so much time on the Internet that there is little time to get out and do the necessary political spade work. Multiply that by ubiquitous cell phone and iPod use and where is there time for organizing real people in real time. And that brings us back to that point I made above about the political passivity of this generation. If the revolution will not be televised it will also certainly not spring forth from a laptop. More on this later.