ON Memphis Minnie's Birthday-*The King Of Bottleneck Blues- The Work Of Tampa Red

Click on title to link to information about the life and work of Tampa Red.

CD Review

The Guitar Wizard: Tampa Red, Tampa Red, Columbia Legacy series, Sony Music, 1994

If the sincerest form of flattery is imitation then there is no question that the legendary bottleneck blues guitarist Tampa Red has been flattered by whole generations of latter day bottleneck guitarists, including some rather traditional country and western musicians, western swing artists like the well-respected Bob Wills bands and many modern rock instrumentalists. And with good reason. Although the case for greater showmanship can be argued of behalf of the legendary Mississippi Delta guitar artist Bukka White the Tampa Red picking style on that old National steel guitar has been subject of more imitation. Bukka brings his breakneck speed on the guitar with his breakneck lyrics to create a better and bouncier presentation but I will concede the point that for pure guitar virtuosity the nod goes to Brother Red.

And for those who do not believe me then merely check out the following tracks on this Columbia legacy equivalent of Tampa Red’s greatest hits. How about “Big Fat Mama”, “Don’t Leave Me Here” and “You Can’t Get That Stuff No More” done with Georgia Tom Dorsey in the days before Tom got religion. Or if you want to hear a solo then how about the classic “Turpentine Blues” and the two “Sugar Mama” tracks here. Some of the entries here are blues classics, some are then topical novelty songs that every genre produces but all have the Tampa Red trademark. Now you get it. Right?

Got To Leave My Woman Trk 22 Dsc 2 3:13 song 45
Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker)
Aurora, Illinois, Monday, March 14, 1938 Leland Hotel Top Floor
Tampa Red- vocal, piano, Willie Bee James - guitar
Album: The Bluebird Recordings - Tampa Red 1936 - 1938
2 Disc set RCA 07863 66722-2 1997 BMG
Transcriber: Awcantor@aol.com


Meet me down in the bottom
Mama, bring my shoes and clothes
Meet me down in the bottom
Mama, bring my shoes and clothes
I ain't got very many
But I got so fer to go

And the only one thing
That keep me so worried in mind
Now, the only one thing
That keep me so worried in mind
I've got to go leave
The woman I love, behind

Now, I don't mind leaving
But I got to be gone so long
I don't mind leaving
But I got to be gone so long
They got me 'cussed of murder, mama
An I ain't done nothin' wrong

Big sky's folding
And it can't be long 'fore day
Big sky's a-folding
And it can't be long 'fore day
Oh, goodbye baby
I must be on my way

When I write you a letter, mama
Mama, answer me in a telegram
When I write you a letter
Mama, answer with a telegram
'Cause I will not be contented, mama
Until I get you where I am.

Delta Woman Blues Trk 7 Dsc 2 3:03 song 30
Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker)
Aurora, Illinois, Oct. 11, 1937 Leland Hotel Top Floor
Tampa Red- vocal, guitar & piano, Willie Bee James - guitar
Album: The Bluebird Recordings - Tampa Red 1936 - 1938
2 Disc set RCA 07863 66722-2 1997 BMG
Transcriber: Awcantor@aol.com



I'm goin' back to the delta
That's where I belong
I'm goin' back to the delta
That's where I belong
If old bad luck an trouble
Don't keep me far to long

I'd rather be down in the delta
Than any place I know
I'd rather be down in the delta
Than any place I know
Because I don't feel happy
No other place I go

My little woman in the delta
Sho' was good to me
My little woman in the delta
Sho' was good to me
Well, she was a good kind-hearted
As one poor gal could be

I'm goin' back to the delta
Fall down on my knees
Gonna ask my delta woman
To forgive me if she please

I'm goin' back to the delta, woo-ooo
Goin' to fall down on my knees
I'm gonna ask my delta woman
To forgive me if she please.

I've tested with all-a my women
From here to Mexico
But my woman in the delta
She's the sweetest gal I know

I've tested with all-a my women, woo-ooo
From here to Mexico
But my little woman in the delta
She's the sweetest gal I know.

When The One You Love Is Gone Trk 2 Dsc 2 3:04 Song 25
Tampa Red (Hudon Whittaker)
Aurora, Illinois, Tues. May 4, 1937 Leland Hotel Top Floor
Tampa Red- vocal & piano, Willie Bee James - guitar
Album: The Bluebird Recordings - Tampa Red 1936 - 1938
2 Disc set RCA 07863 66722-2 1997 BMG
Transcriber: Awcantor@aol.com


Ain't it lonesome when the one you love is gone?
Ain't it lonesome when the one you love is gone?
Well, you cannot help but to worry
I know you're bound to weep and moan

My night so lonely
And my days are plenty blue
My nights are lonely
And my days are plenty blue
Well, I can't find no contentment
No matter what I do

Umm, if I could just explain
Umm, if I could just explain
Well, but I'm upset and I'm bothered
And my heart is full of pain

(instrumental)

Come back, baby
And I won't be bad no mo'
Come back, baby
And I won't be bad no mo'
Well, I will string along wit' you, baby
No matter where you will go.

Seminole Blues Trk 12 Dsc 2 3:03 Song 35
Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker)
Aurora, Illinois, Oct. 11, 1937 Leland Hotel Top Floor
Tampa Red- vocal, piano & guitar, Willie Bee James - guitar
Album: The Bluebird Recordings - Tampa Red 1936 - 1938
2 Disc set RCA 07863 66722-2 1997 BMG
Transcriber: Awcantor@aol.com


My baby's gone, won't be back no mo'
She won't be back no mo', whoa-ooh
My baby's gone, she won't be back no mo'
She left this mo'nin', she caught that Seminole

I got the blues so bad
It hurt my tongue to talk
It hurt my tongue to talk, ooh-ooh
The blues so bad
It hurt my tongue to talk
I would follow my baby
But it hurt my feet to walk

(instrumental) slide guitar

She gimme her love
Even let me draw her pay
She let me draw her pay, yeah
She give me her love
Even let me draw her pay
She was a real good woman
But unkindness drove her 'way

(instrumental) slide guitar

I've got the Seminole blues
Leaving on my mind
Leaving on my mind, whoa-ooh
Seminole blues, leaving on my mind
I'm goin' to find my baby
If I have to ride the blind.

We Gonna Get High Together Trk 14 Dsc 2 3:07 song 37
Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker) And The Chicago Five
Aurora, Illinois, March 14, 1938 Leland Hotel Top Floor
Tampa Red- vocal,& guitar, unk - trumpet
poss. Bill Owsley - tenor sax, prob. Blind John Davis - piano
unk string bass (poss. imitation sb)
Album: The Bluebird Recordings - Tampa Red 1936 - 1938
2 Disc set RCA 07863 66722-2 1997 BMG
Transcriber: Awcantor@aol.com


There are you and here am I
We would be silly to sit an sigh
Okie-dokey, darlin' you and I
Are gonna get high together

Ev'rytime I look at you
I picture things that we could do
Drink up dear and don't be blue
We gonna get high together

When the band begin to play it
And the gang begin to sway it
Then we will begin the latest
Just messin' around
Darlin' truckin' on down

Then after drinkin' some-a this and that
I may decide to take ya to my flat
Turn out the light an make it tight like that
We're gonna get high together

(instrumental)

'Yas, yas' I hear ya, Mr. Sax Man

'Everybody, rock' 1:14

'Ah-ha, oh yeah, oh yeah'

'I hear ya talkin' to me'

(piano)

'I'm lookin' at that piano man'

'Ah-ha, yeah'

'Oh yeah'

(trumpet)

Ah-ha

That's it

There are you and here am I
We would be silly
Just to sit an sigh
Okie-dokey, darlin' you and I
Are gonna get high together

Evrytime I look at you
I picture things that we could do
Drink up dear and don't be blue
We gonna get high together

When the band begins to play it
And the gang begins to sway
Then we will begin the latest
Just messin' around, darling
Truckin' on down

Then after drinkin' some a-this and that
I may decide to take ya to my flat
Turn out the light and make it tight like that
We gonna get high together, yas.

In The Golden Age Of The Musical-Miss Judy Garland And Mickey Rooney’s “Babes On Broadway” (1941)- A Film Review

In The Golden Age Of The Musical-Miss Judy Garland And Mickey Rooney’s “Babes On Broadway” (1941)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Zack James

Babes On Broadway, starring Miss Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, 1941

I don’t want to get into how I wound up doing this review since I am neither a fan of Broadway musicals nor much into older black and white movies but I do feel the need to mention that I mentioned to Greg Green, the current site manager, that somebody should do a review of a Miss Judy Garland film in light of what Allan Jackson has recently said about one of the reasons that he went to San Francisco among other places out West after he was disposed of in an internal fight at this publication in 2017. That reason Allan had wound up in that town was to borrow, if possible, since he still had pressing alimony and college tuition payments due some money from Madame La Rue or Miss Judy Garland two people he had helped in the pass to tide him over until better times.

That Miss Judy Garland part was not the real song and dance Judy Garland but a drag queen, a gay guy, Timmy Riley whom he had known in the old growing up days in the Acre section of North Adamsville where they grew up. Where I grew as well knowing these guys only through my oldest brother, Alex, who was friends with all of them in high school. Timmy too although he had only found out about Timmy being gay and being a drag queen (not necessarily the same thing at all) quite recently since Timmy had flown the old town in the late 1960s a few years after high school when he could no longer suppress his real desires once his parents disowned him and kicked him out of the family house (and went to their respective deaths cursing his unhallowed devil name with specific requests that he not be allowed to attend their funeral Masses or anything else when they passed). On that basic I made my suggestion to in a way honor Timmy and his early travails and to see why he gravitated, as other drag queens have, toward the character of Miss Garland on the runway. I didn’t volunteer for the job but here I am with it nevertheless.

The late 1930s, 1940s really were the golden age of the musical, the song and dance centered genre as witnessed here and as witnessed in the slew of films done by Fred Astaire with a few dance partners. One would be hard-pressed to think of such an array of talent doing song and dance stuff much pass the 1950s with Gene Kelly and his various partners. Now such doings come as a surprise after some smash hit on Broadway begs to be taken to the silver screen. Part of it is that Tin Pan Alley folded long ago as did the treasured art of serious songwriting for popular non-teen  consumption. Names like Cole Porter, the Gershwin Brothers, Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern, of course, Irving Berlin and the like (although this musical production songwriting cohort was anchored by Brother, Can You Spare A Dime writer Yip Harburg who would later take serious heat when the Red Scare scalp-hunters were in vogue looking under every bed for commies).        

This film moreover in the time-honored Hollywood tradition (emulated by others when Hollywood ruled the roost alone) was part of a trilogy dealing with this same subject matter-mainly star-struck kids trying to make it on the Great White Way and never having to return except in triumph to Hoboken, Peoria, Winnemucca, Richmond, Albany and all points east and west. Let’s face it the song and dance part is what 1941 audiences paid good money for not some has-been half-assed script which wouldn’t hold together on its own without the music. So Tommy, Mickey’s role is the ball of fire (literally if on name only) ready to bring Broadway to her knees if can only get a “hook,” something to hang his hat on for an idea. See even though he thought he was a ball of fire there were twelve million others as well and, well, the producers weren’t looking for untried young kids from nowhere.

Lightbulb idea. Perform a show on their own. For a cause, for charity (helping inner city kids get some fresh country air for a few weeks the hook). The thing got off the ground no problem especially when the romantic interest Penny, Miss Garland’s role, comes on board after deep-sixing the big freeze she had for old Tommy at first. Needless to say after the twelve necessary snafus that threatened to cancel the show were cleared the thing worked and all aboard went to real Broadway and the big lights. For today’s audience though the last segment, the last bright idea would not go down well, not at all. Tommy, Penny, and a whole lot of white breads don blackface to perform a minstrel show. WTF. 

WTF as well is why Timmy Riley who I barely remember but who was at our house many times decided that he would hitch his star as a drag queen to that of Miss Garland. She could sing and dance but there was something not there there that I could not quite put my finger on but was scratching my head over when I thought about it later. In any case as Allan Jackson told me Timmy is running the number one drag club in Frisco and turning away tourist business dying to see the show like crazy. And yes Timmy lent Allan the money to keep the wolves from his door just like Allan did when Timmy was on the ropes.

A View From The International Left-Australia: Racist Outcry over China’s “Influence”

Workers Vanguard No. 1134	18 May 2018

Australia: Racist Outcry over China’s “Influence”

We reprint below an article from Australasian Spartacist No. 234 (Autumn 2018), newspaper of the Spartacist League of Australia, section of the International Communist League.

Following months of U.S.-led sabre rattling and imperialist provocations against North Korea and China, the Australian federal government and sections of the bourgeois media have been whipping up a racist, anti-communist scare campaign against “undue” Chinese influence in Australia and the region. Citing reports of Chinese government interference in Australia’s political affairs, in December the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, proposed new laws against “foreign interference” that radically expand the definition of treason and espionage. If passed, these sinister laws would ban “foreign entities” and non-citizens from donating to political groups (and unions), and establish a witchhunting “foreign agents” registry with jail terms for those who fail to register. The laws are so broad they have provoked widespread condemnation, from industry groups to media organisations. They can also serve to more easily ensnare and criminalise unionists and leftists. They have fed into the distrust and hostility that has been stirred up against the Australian Chinese population and drawn the ire of the Chinese government.

In January, Australia’s minister of international development, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, lashed out against the Chinese bureaucratically deformed workers state—by far the largest and most powerful of the remaining countries where capitalism has been overthrown—denouncing it for “duchessing” [flattering] the region’s politicians and building “useless buildings” and “roads to nowhere.” The senator’s comments echoed a chorus of right-wing xenophobes who have taken to labelling Chinese investment a “predatory” plan to offer loans, create indebtedness and thereby threaten the sovereignty of countries in the region. According to this fiction, China would gradually displace Australian influence in its own “backyard” and ultimately threaten Australia itself. What particularly irks these reactionary “little Australia” nationalists is that China today is a significant economic and military power that cannot be easily pushed around.

The current outburst of anti-China chauvinism also takes place in the context of Washington’s campaign to blame China for the economic malaise of U.S. capitalism. In late February, president Donald Trump threatened to impose up to U.S.$60 billion in tariffs against some 1,300 Chinese-made imports. Trump’s brazen economic and military belligerence, combined with the Australian government’s own shrill campaign against Chinese interference in the region, has been met with horror by significant sections of the Australian capitalist ruling class. They do not want to be caught in a trade war between their great power ally, the U.S., and their major trading partner, China.

In early March, the Australia China Business Council (ACBC) slammed the federal government’s foreign influence bill, warning that it would damage economic ties between the countries. Mining magnate Andrew Forrest bemoaned that much of the current Australian debate about China “fuels distrust, paranoia and a loss of respect” and demanded it “has to stop.” The refusal by powerful segments of the Australian ruling class to back the outpouring of anti-China bellicosity has somewhat constrained the more open expressions of chauvinism and belligerent militarism, with the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, refusing to endorse Fierravanti-Wells’ comments on China.

Furthermore, some seven weeks after Turnbull’s much-vaunted “100 years of mateship” tour to the U.S., the Australian government is yet to respond to Trump’s very public request that Australia join the U.S. in “freedom of navigation” military provocations against China in the South China Sea. Working in tandem with allies such as Australia and Japan, the ultimate aim behind such “exercises” is to enable a naval blockade of China, closing off shipping lanes and preventing Chinese naval forces from breaking out into the Pacific Ocean. We Trotskyists stand with China in any clashes over the islands and their Chinese installations which constitute a key component of the military defence of China.

While today a wing of the capitalist rulers baulks at the creation of any discord with China, in the event of a military conflict between China and the U.S. there can be no doubt who the Australian bourgeoisie would side with. Sharing the U.S.’s strategic aim for capitalist restoration in China, much of the Australian bourgeoisie, however, prefer to do this on the economic instalment plan, continuing to enrich themselves through investment in and lucrative trade with China. At the same time they pursue their own predatory neocolonial interests in the region while ensuring that the Australian military continues to play its role as a counterrevolutionary gendarme under the U.S. umbrella.

Defend the Gains of the 1949 Chinese Revolution

In the 19th century, China was carved up and lorded over by competing imperialist powers. This resulted in brutal exploitation for generations of Chinese. The 1949 Revolution changed all this. The peasant-based People’s Liberation Army, led by Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) overthrew the imperialist-backed bourgeois-nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang. It smashed the capitalist state, sweeping away the rule of the bourgeoisie and landlords, and lifted the heavy yoke of imperialist subjugation from the Chinese masses. This led to the development of a collectivised economy that laid the basis for enormous social progress for the worker and peasant masses, not least women.

However, in contrast to the 1917 Russian Revolution, which was carried out by a class-conscious proletariat guided by the internationalism of Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks, the Chinese workers state was deformed from its inception under the rule of the CCP regime. Resting atop the workers state, this nationally narrow, parasitic and bureaucratic caste modelled itself on the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, which had usurped political power from the Soviet proletariat in a political counterrevolution beginning in 1923-24.

Like their Kremlin counterparts before them, successive Chinese regimes have pushed the Stalinist, nationalist dogma of “socialism in one country” or in the words of current Chinese president Xi Jinping, building “Socialism with Chinese characteristics, for a new era.” The corollary of this is their illusory quest for “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism. The pursuit of this anti-Marxist fantasy helps prop up the global bourgeois order. It has consistently undermined the defence of the workers states, not least through the betrayal of proletarian, revolutionary opportunities internationally.

Over time the Stalinist misleaders have invited imperialist investment into the country, given up the state monopoly of foreign trade and instituted far-reaching “market reforms.” Nevertheless, despite these major capitalist inroads, China’s economy as a whole is not organised on the basis of capitalist production for profit. It remains dominated by state-controlled banks, and the core of industry is collectivised, an historic gain for the world’s working class that the imperialists strive to overturn.

Since the 1949 Revolution, China has gone from being a backward peasant country to a majority urban one, lifting some 600 million people out of poverty and creating a powerful industrial proletariat. Testifying to the superiority of a collectivised economy over production for profit, China’s economy surged ahead during the world capitalist economic crisis that erupted in 2007-08. Nonetheless, China remains a country of extreme contradictions, with great backwardness and a widening disparity in wealth. A nascent capitalist class now exists on the mainland. Although they have no cohered political leadership, this bourgeois layer increases the danger of internal capitalist counterrevolution. The social contradictions in China are growing and, when they do blow, either capitalist counterrevolution or workers political revolution will be posed.

As Leninist-Trotskyists who fight for world socialist revolution, we stand for the unconditional military defence of China, and the other bureaucratically deformed workers states of North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba against imperialist attack and internal capitalist counterrevolution. While we support the Chinese deformed workers state’s right to trade in order to procure what it needs to further its development, we also know that the Stalinists invariably pursue economic advancement in a narrow, nationalistic way.

In contrast, revolutionary Marxists such as Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks recognised that while the workers state might be compelled to strike trade deals and diplomatic agreements with capitalist states, they never confused this with the task of the communist party to lead the struggle for international working-class revolution. The fight to defend and extend the social gains won through the Chinese Revolution requires an additional revolution, a workers political revolution, to sweep away the ruling bureaucracy and establish a genuinely internationalist, communist leadership based on workers and peasants councils. Socialism—a society of material abundance—cannot be built in a single country but requires workers rule internationally, particularly in the most industrially developed countries.

Australian Imperialist Terror in the Region

The campaign against Chinese influence in the region is a racist and anti-communist beat-up—in reality, China’s investment is very small compared with the Japanese and Western imperialist powers. It also takes some chutzpah for an Australian federal minister to denounce the Chinese for building “useless” infrastructure given the role of Australian imperialism in the region. It has been one of unmitigated colonial terror and oppression, from the 19th century kidnapping of Pacific Islanders to work as indentured labour, to colonial terror in PNG [Papua New Guinea], to the more recent military incursions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Acting as top cop of the southwest Pacific and junior imperialist partner to the U.S., Australia has been in a blood-drenched, anti-communist military alliance with the U.S. since 1951. Under the ANZUS [Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty] pact, which particularly targeted the former Soviet degenerated workers state, the U.S. and Australian military slaughtered millions of workers and peasants from Korea to Vietnam to “contain” pro-Communist insurgencies that broke out across Asia following the military defeat of Japanese imperialism in WWII and the unravelling of British and other colonial rule. In 1965-66 Australia’s security forces collaborated with the CIA to help orchestrate an anti-Communist massacre in Indonesia. This bloodbath crushed the Indonesian Communist Party and served to “stabilise” Southeast Asia under the heel of imperialism at the cost of more than a million lives.

Today, under the U.S. alliance, Australia is engaged in its biggest military build-up since World War II. Most of this is naval and much of it will be heavily integrated with U.S. military systems. The U.S. was scheduled to deploy close to 1,600 Marines in Darwin from April, the largest number since the initial agreement for a base was negotiated by the [Julia] Gillard Labor government in 2011. The highly secretive U.S. Pine Gap spy base, stationed in the Northern Territory, is part of a string of military and intelligence bases that target China extending in an arc from central Asia to South Korea. In late January, Australia backed a new U.S. defence strategy that targets Russia and China as a greater threat to national security than “Islamic terrorism.” As part of our perspective to smash the ANZUS alliance through workers revolution and to defend China we demand: All U.S. bases and Marines out of Australia now! Not one person, not one cent for the Australian imperialist military! Australia get out of the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Middle East!

Xenophobic Attacks on Chinese Students

Anti-China fearmongering has targeted local Chinese businessmen, accused of being beholden to the CCP and of seeking to influence local politicians through donations. This led to the resignation of right-wing ALP [Australian Labor Party] senator Sam Dastyari last year, long smeared by the government benches and in the media as a stooge of China. The xenophobia being whipped up is having a particularly nasty impact on Chinese students studying in Australia. Last year, the head of ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation], Duncan Lewis, reportedly warned legislators that “We need to be very conscious of the possibilities of foreign interference in our universities,” adding that this “can go to the behaviour of foreign students… [and] of foreign consular staff.” His comments are part of an ongoing crusade against so-called Chinese influence on campuses. This has seen the Australia China Relations Institute at the University of Technology, Sydney, as well as the Confucius Institutes—Chinese-government-sponsored language and cultural centres on campuses—marked out as “suspect.”

The McCarthyite fiction being peddled is that universities are particularly vulnerable to infiltration by the Chinese government. Education is Australia’s third largest export (after coal and iron ore) and many universities are financially reliant on full-fee paying international students, almost one-third of whom are Chinese. Numbering some 160,000, Chinese students are increasingly portrayed by reactionary forces as either potential dupes of, or spies for, the Chinese government. Supposedly “brainwashed” Chinese students, under the thumb of Chinese agents or consular staff, are penetrating Australian campus life and using their collective economic clout to pressure university administrations to tamp down on academic “freedoms.” Thus, the story goes, these students are deliberately undermining, if not gutting, Australia’s “democratic values” from within on behalf of the “evil puppet-masters” of the CCP.

These wild claims appear to rest on the fact that some Chinese students have dared to challenge disparaging and/or false assertions that university lecturers have made about China. One case reported in the New York Times(15 November 2017) was that of a Chinese student at Melbourne’s Monash University who condemned a quiz question in a business class where the so-called correct answer was, “Chinese officials are truthful only when careless or drunk.” The student’s complaint was picked up by the Chinese Consulate and pressure was brought to bear on the campus administration. It speaks volumes about the current climate that a professor at an elite university in a major city in Australia would propagate such piggish insults and think that it would go unchallenged.

There are plenty of poison pens ready to stimulate the anti-China frenzy. One of the more wretched and much promoted examples (pushed by key members of the parliamentary committee reviewing Turnbull’s espionage laws) is the book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia. Written by Greens supporter and Charles Sturt University professor, Clive Hamilton, this book drips with “yellow peril” racism and anti-communist prejudice. In the vilest traditions of “White Australia,” Hamilton pushes the lurid fantasy that Australian educational institutions and industry are being penetrated and overtaken by “agencies serving the Chinese Communist Party,” even posing the threat that Australia could become a “tribute state of the resurgent Middle Kingdom”! Of course, at the same time he praises local Chinese anti-communists such as John Hugh from “Australian Values Alliance.” With strong backing from the bourgeois media, this sinister outfit successfully mobilised in 2016 to close down concerts organised in Sydney and Melbourne to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death.

Hamilton’s book is so repugnant that it has been lauded by the fascist Australia First party. The campaign against Chinese influence in Australia is grist to the mill for numerous racist and fascist forces. Last October, a group of Chinese students were bashed in Canberra. Meanwhile the Hitler-loving Antipodean Resistance have been campaigning to drive Chinese students off campuses. What’s needed are union-centred mobilisations, alongside all the fascists’ intended victims, to clean this scum from the streets.

In response to the wave of hostility against Chinese students, last year the Chinese Consulate in Sydney issued a safety warning about studying in Australia. The Chinese government has also cancelled meetings between its officials and Australian university leaders. Such is the growing concern that six vice-chancellors from elite Australian universities are travelling to China in May in an attempt to repair the damage and improve relations in higher education. Recent developments have also troubled elements of the Australian bourgeoisie who see Chinese students not simply as “cash cows” but as potential pro-imperialist propagandists and/or operatives.

Laborite Union Tops Back Anti-China Campaign

Much of the Laborite union bureaucracy marches in lockstep behind the anti-China campaign. This was exemplified in 2015 when, along with their ALP parliamentary brethren, they led a chauvinist outburst against the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement calling on the government to defend “Aussie” jobs and to “Stop the China FTA.” The arch-protectionist Australian manufacturing union (AMWU) railed against “cheap Chinese imports that…do not meet Australian standards.”

Ructions have developed between the protectionist and more hawkish “left” union tops and some Labor parliamentarians enamoured with the opportunities Chinese demand has provided Australian capitalism. The latter crowd are represented by ALP elder statesmen like former prime minister Paul Keating and former foreign affairs minister Bob Carr. The likes of Keating and Carr promulgate the lie that what benefits the large mining magnates and Australian capitalist system as a whole will have a trickle-down effect to the benefit of workers. Meanwhile, under pressure from their proletarian base to defend jobs and conditions, the protectionist union misleaders advance another lie—that unemployment can be solved if workers unite with their bosses to defend Australian industry against competitors and employ “local” labour first.

The union tops’ protectionism is a cover for their prostration before the bosses’ attacks on unions, jobs and conditions. They have scarcely lifted a finger to organise the growing numbers of unorganised workers, many of whom are vulnerable and deeply exploited immigrant, youth and women workers in casual and insecure jobs. When applied to China this protectionism is particularly pernicious in that it serves to line workers directly up behind their own imperialist rulers against a deformed workers state. A major campaign by the AMWU today is “The Force Behind Our Forces.” Calling to “Maintain Our [Military] Forces” and complaining about lack of planning and investment in “defence jobs,” the AMWU declares: “Our uniformed Defence Forces rely on a ‘silent army’ of civilian workers to support them…. To safeguard national security, Australia needs a civilian workforce capable of designing and maintaining a variety of military equipment.”

In opposition to such wretched nationalism and militarism, workers should be guided by the understanding that their true allies are not the “local” bosses but workers across the country and internationally. Gains that have already been won by the proletariat must be defended. In defence of the unions and the Chinese deformed workers state, a class-struggle leadership of the unions would organise workers (including those who build military vehicles and vessels) in protest against Turnbull’s vicious new security and espionage laws. Such a leadership would link opposition to state repression with the struggle to maintain the strength and integrity of the working class. Against unemployment, it would demand a shorter work week with no loss in pay to spread the available work around. This would be tied to the demand for a massive program of public works, paid at full union wages, to replace the dilapidated schools, hospitals and public transport systems, and provide decent housing for all. Such demands will not be granted by the capitalist rulers but point to the need for workers revolution to get rid of the whole rotting capitalist system.

We of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) stand in political opposition to the nationalist union misleaders and their reformist left tails such as Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia who have all backed the union tops’ chauvinist anti-China campaign (see “Defend the Gains of the 1949 Chinese Revolution!” ASp No. 228, Autumn 2016). It is no surprise that these “little Australia” reformists regularly call for a vote to the anti-communist, anti-China Greens who have long championed the demand to bring Australian “troops home” in order to defend Australian imperialist interests in the region.

In contrast to these opponents of revolutionary Marxism, we stand sharply opposed to the current chauvinist anti-China outcry and in defence of the gains of the anti-capitalist revolutions against our own imperialist rulers. Our model is the Russian Revolution of 1917. The young Soviet workers state of Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Party was based on the principle that workers of the world should unite against their capitalist oppressors. Only the expropriation of the capitalist rulers internationally holds out the possibility of a world free of exploitation, oppression and war. For that to occur we need to build a reforged Fourth International, world party of socialist revolution.

Puerto Rico: Primero de Mayo Policía ataca manifestantes ¡Por el derecho a la independencia!

Workers Vanguard No. 1134	18 May 2018

Puerto Rico: Primero de Mayo

Policía ataca manifestantes

¡Por el derecho a la independencia!

Por segundo año consecutivo, un paro nacional en el Día Internacional de los Trabajadores paralizó gran parte de Puerto Rico, cuyo pueblo empobrecido ha sufrido bajo el yugo de la opresión colonial de EE.UU. durante mucho tiempo. Hartos de los ataques incesantes contra las necesidades básicas y los servicios públicos, miles de sindicalistas, estudiantes y otros activistas tomaron las calles de San Juan y otros lugares para protestar contra las más recientes medidas de austeridad salvaje dictadas por Washington y su Junta de Supervisión y Administración Financiera, conocida como la Junta. Este organismo, establecido por la administración de Obama en 2016, está ferozmente resuelto a saquear las pensiones, cerrar escuelas y hacer la vida después del Huracán María aún más miserable para los trabajadores y los oprimidos, todo con el fin de que los bancos y fondos de cobertura de EE.UU. puedan cobrar la enorme deuda de la isla. Bajo órdenes de la Junta, el pago de la matrícula ha aumentado más del doble en la Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR).

Marchando desde distintos puntos, los manifestantes del Primero de Mayo en San Juan se reunieron en la Milla de Oro, donde la Junta y varias instituciones financieras tienen sus oficinas. Más de mil policías en equipo antidisturbios, muchos en motocicleta, flanquearon las calles y formaron barricadas. Cuando un contingente, formado en su mayoría por estudiantes e izquierdistas, intentó proceder a la oficina central del odiado Banco Popular, la policía antidisturbios y un equipo SWAT repentinamente los atacó a macanazos, con balas de goma, gas pimienta y gases lacrimógenos. Jubilados, sindicalistas y sus hijos lloraban y luchaban por respirar mientras que el gas se extendía por toda el área y la policía bloqueaba rutas de escape.

La policía persiguió a los manifestantes hasta Río Piedras, donde está el plantel principal de la UPR, soltando gas lacrimógeno frente a una residencia para ancianos y tomando una vivienda por asalto sin orden de allanamiento. Unas 20 personas fueron arrestadas y detenidas en distintas comisarías, dificultando que otros activistas les ayudaran. Esa noche, el Partisan Defense Committee, una organización de defensa legal y social asociada con la Spartacist League, emitió una declaración en protesta en español e inglés, la cual se distribuyó en San Juan. El PDC declaró: “Denunciamos esta campaña de terror. El estado quiere silenciar a todos aquellos que se oponen a las medidas hambreadoras dictadas por los amos coloniales de Estados Unidos e impuestas por el gobierno capitalista de Puerto Rico”.

Pocas horas después del arrasamiento por la policía, el gobernador puertorriqueño Ricardo Roselló, un lacayo de los colonialistas estadounidenses, exigió que los organizadores del Primero de Mayo, sindicalistas y otros, denunciaran la “violencia” de los manifestantes. En respuesta, los dirigentes sindicales en la coalición Pueblo Unido, los principales organizadores de la marcha en la Milla de Oro, defendieron públicamente a todos los manifestantes. Se organizó una manifestación de emergencia y todos los detenidos han sido liberados. En algunos casos el estado ha decidido no presentar cargos. Otros de los arrestados tienen audiencias programadas en los próximos días. ¡Manos fuera de los manifestantes del Primero de Mayo!

Una y otra vez, la policía puertorriqueña, conocida como la Uniformada, ha atacado brutalmente manifestaciones sindicales. Apenas unos días antes del paro nacional, el 27 de abril, maestros de la Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) fueron golpeados con macanas y rociados con gas pimienta mientras formaban un piquete fuera del Departamento de Educación. El pasado noviembre, 21 miembros de la FMPR fueron arrestados dentro del edificio mientras marchaban hacia la oficina de la Secretaria de Educación Julia Keleher, quien abiertamente pregona como modelo a Nueva Orleans después del Huracán Katrina. En esa ciudad, los maestros sindicalizados, en su mayoría mujeres negras, fueron desechados mientras casi todo el sistema de escuelas públicas fue remplazado con las antisindicales escuelas chárter.

Los maestros de Puerto Rico están enzarzados en una batalla encarnizada no sólo por su sustento sino por la existencia misma de la educación pública. A pesar de la experiencia directa de violencia policiaca al servicio de las fuerzas de privatización capitalistas, los dirigentes sindicales apelan a los policías como compañeros víctimas de la austeridad, como compañeros trabajadores. El día después del paro nacional, la líder del sindicato de maestros Educamos propuso: “Si quieren nuestro apoyo a sus reclamos de un sueldo justo y que se les respete su retiro, no pueden ponerse del lado de los ricos ni de los corruptos que han saqueado al país y nos han llevado a la bancarrota”.

Los policías no son en ningún sentido trabajadores ni posibles aliados de los trabajadores y los oprimidos. Cuando los policías se movilizan por sus salarios y pensiones es para poder imponer aún más la represión total. Puerto Rico es una sociedad dividida en clases, y la policía una parte central del estado burgués que asegura la dominación del capital sobre los obreros. Al mantener “la ley y el orden”, los policías son la primera línea en la imposición del sistema de subyugación colonial y los matones de la burguesía local. Cualquiera que sea su origen social, incluyendo aquellos que provienen de un origen social pobre o trabajador, los policías funcionan como rompehuelgas. Las asociaciones policiales no tienen lugar en el movimiento obrero.

Por algo la proporción entre policías activos y los habitantes de Puerto Rico es más del doble del promedio nacional en EE.UU. Desde sus orígenes en 1899, el año siguiente a la invasión y toma de posesión del país por EE.UU., la Policía de Puerto Rico (PPR, entonces la Policía Insular) tuvo como tarea ayudar a mantener bajo la bota a los sujetos coloniales de Washington. La PPR siempre ha respaldado a los amos estadounidenses, incluso durante la sangrienta guerra contra los independentistas que duró décadas. En la Masacre de Ponce en 1937, los policías abatieron a tiros a 19 simpatizantes independentistas e hirieron a más de 200 personas.

El Primero de Mayo del año pasado, la PPR arrestó a la activista Nina Droz bajo cargos fabricados y la entregó al gobierno federal. Después de enfrentar un año de sufrimiento y humillación, Droz sigue encarcelada sin derecho a fianza, y aún espera sentencia (ver, “¡Libertad para Nina Droz!”, traducción de Workers Vanguard, No. 1128, 23 de febrero). Es notable que maestros de la FMPR han tomado su causa. Marchas recientes exigiendo libertad para Droz (y para Ana Belén Montes, una oficial de inteligencia para EE.UU., encarcelada por defender a Cuba) en Puerto Rico han recibido cobertura en los medios de comunicación locales. Nuestros camaradas repartieron la traducción en español del artículo de Workers Vanguard defendiendo a Droz en las protestas del Primero de Mayo y en varios planteles de la UPR.

Antes del Huracán María, los imperialistas estadounidenses habían privado al país de infraestructura básica y de recursos esenciales. Ocho meses después, Puerto Rico está lejos de la recuperación; un testimonio es el estado extremadamente precario del sistema eléctrico. Más de 22 mil puertorriqueños aún carecen de servicios eléctricos. El 18 de abril, Puerto Rico una vez más tuvo un apagón después de un sencillo y evitable accidente causado por un subcontratista. La mayoría de los semáforos están apagados en San Juan, incluso a lo largo de la Milla de Oro. Mientras tanto, la próxima temporada de huracanes se acerca rápidamente.

El resentimiento hacia el trato colonial de Puerto Rico se vio claramente el Primero de Mayo. Como revolucionarios marxistas, favorecemos la independencia de Puerto Rico, la cual asestaría un golpe resonante al imperialismo estadounidense. La lucha contra la opresión colonial de Puerto Rico necesariamente se dirigirá contra los agentes locales del imperialismo y podría servir como palanca para la revolución socialista y para establecer una república obrera. Tales luchas resonarían a lo largo del Caribe, América Latina y Estados Unidos.

Al mismo tiempo, reconocemos que muchos puertorriqueños tienen opiniones encontradas sobre el tema de la independencia; un fuerte sentimiento de identidad nacional a menudo está acompañado de temor a perder la posibilidad de vivir y trabajar en EE.UU. (lo que les permite mandar remesas a Puerto Rico), y de sumirse en una pobreza más profunda. Por eso, enfatizamos el derecho de Puerto Rico a la independencia.

Muchos más puertorriqueños viven en EE.UU. que en Puerto Rico, formando una parte importante de la clase obrera multirracial, especialmente en Nueva York y Florida. Estos trabajadores puertorriqueños representan un vínculo viviente entre las luchas del proletariado en el centro imperialista estadounidense y su colonia más grande. Los sindicatos y el movimiento obrero en Estados Unidos deben luchar en defensa de las masas trabajadoras y estudiantes de Puerto Rico contra la represión y opresión colonial.

Los maestros sindicalizados de Puerto Rico han encontrado inspiración en las recientes huelgas estatales de los educadores en Virginia Occidental y otros estados. La privación general de la educación pública es solamente uno de los ejemplos de cómo la clase dirigente capitalista de Estados Unidos es el enemigo tanto de los trabajadores en EE.UU. como en Puerto Rico. Lo que se necesita es una lucha conjunta contra la privatización, por educación pública gratuita y por cancelar la deuda que está estrangulando a las masas puertorriqueñas.

Las luchas contra la rapaz burguesía estadounidense deben ser dirigidas hacia su derrocamiento a través de la revolución proletaria. El dominio internacional de la clase obrera liberará a la humanidad de la dominación imperialista y sentará las bases para erradicar la pobreza. Nuestra perspectiva es construir partidos leninistas en EE.UU., Puerto Rico y más allá, cuya meta es establecer el poder obrero.

A View From The American Left- Puerto Rico May Day Cops Attack Demonstrators For the Right of Independence!

Workers Vanguard No. 1134	18 May 2018

Puerto Rico May Day

Cops Attack Demonstrators

For the Right of Independence!

For the second year in a row, a national work stoppage on international workers day shut down much of Puerto Rico, whose impoverished people have long suffered under the yoke of U.S. colonial oppression. Fed up with relentless attacks on basic needs and public services, thousands of trade unionists, students and other activists took to the streets of San Juan and elsewhere to protest against the latest savage austerity measures dictated by Washington’s Financial Oversight and Management Board, known as the “junta.” This body, established by the Obama administration in 2016, is hell-bent on looting pensions, closing schools and making life post-Hurricane Maria even more miserable for workers and the oppressed, all so U.S. banks and hedge funds can collect on the island’s massive debt. Under the directive of the junta, tuition at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) has more than doubled.

Marching from different gathering points, May Day protesters in San Juan converged on the Milla de Oro (Gold Mile), where the junta and various financial institutions have their offices. Over 1,000 cops in full riot gear, many with motorcycles, lined the city streets and formed barricades. When one contingent made up mostly of students and leftists tried to proceed to the despised Banco Popular headquarters, riot cops and a SWAT team suddenly unleashed an assault of macanazos (nightstick blows), rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas. Retirees, union members and their children cried and gasped for air as gas spread throughout the area and police blocked escape routes.

Cops chased protesters all the way back to Río Piedras, where the main UPR campus is located, releasing tear gas in front of a retirement home and storming a residence without a warrant. Some 20 people were arrested and held at several different police stations, making it difficult for activists to assist them. That night, a protest statement in Spanish and English was issued by the Partisan Defense Committee, a legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League, which we distributed in San Juan. It declared: “We denounce this campaign of terror. The state wants to silence all those who oppose the starvation measures imposed by the U.S. colonial masters and enforced by the capitalist government of Puerto Rico.”

A few short hours after the cop rampage, Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rosselló, a lackey of the U.S. colonialists, demanded that union and other May Day organizers condemn the protesters’ “violence.” In response, union leaders in the Pueblo Unido coalition, the main organizers of the Milla de Oro rally, publicly defended all protesters. An emergency demonstration was organized and everyone arrested has been released. In some cases, the state has decided not to press charges. Others arrested have hearings scheduled in upcoming days. Hands off the May Day protesters!

Time and again, the Puerto Rican police, known as La Uniformada, have brutally attacked union protests. Just a few days before the national work stoppage, on April 27, teachers represented by the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) were clubbed and pepper-sprayed while picketing outside the Department of Education. Last November, 21 FMPR members were arrested inside the building, marching to the office of Education Secretary Julia Keleher, who openly touts New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as a model. In that city, unionized teachers, overwhelmingly black women, were thrown on the scrap heap as anti-union charter schools all but replaced the public school system.

Puerto Rico’s teachers are locked in a bitter battle not only for their livelihoods but also for the very existence of public education. Despite the direct experience of police violence in the service of the capitalist forces of privatization, union leaders appeal to the cops as fellow victims of austerity, as fellow workers. The day after the national work stoppage, the head of the Educamos teachers union offered: “If they want our support for their demands for fair pay and that their retirement benefits be honored, they can’t put themselves on the side of the rich and corrupt who have sacked the country and brought us to bankruptcy.”

The cops are not workers or potential allies of working people and the oppressed in any sense. When the cops mobilize for their pay and pensions, it is to be better able to mete out all-sided repression. Puerto Rico is a class-divided society, and the police are a core part of the bourgeois state that ensures the domination of capital over labor. Maintaining “law and order,” they are the front-line enforcers of the system of colonial subjugation and the hired guns of the local bourgeoisie. Whatever their social origins, including those from poor or working-class backgrounds, the cops function as strikebreakers. Police associations have no place in the workers movement.

The ratio of Puerto Rico’s active police officers to residents is more than twice that of the U.S. national average for a reason. From its origins in 1899, the year after the U.S. military invaded and took possession of the country, the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD, then the Insular Police) was tasked with helping keep Washington’s colonial subjects under its heel. The PRPD has always backed up the U.S. overlords, including in their decades-long bloody war on independentistas. In the 1937 Ponce Massacre, these cops gunned down 19 independence supporters and wounded more than 200 people.

Last May Day, the PRPD arrested activist Nina Droz on trumped up charges and handed her over to the Feds. After enduring a year of suffering and indignities, Droz remains incarcerated without bail, still awaiting sentencing (see “Free Nina Droz!” WV No. 1128, 23 February). Notably, the FMPR teachers have taken up her cause. Recent marches throughout Puerto Rico demanding freedom for Droz (and for Ana Belén Montes, a U.S. intelligence officer imprisoned for aiding Cuba) have received local media coverage. Our comrades distributed a Spanish-language translation of the WV article in defense of Droz at the May Day protests and on UPR campuses.

Before Hurricane Maria, the U.S. imperialists had starved the country of basic infrastructure and essential resources. Now eight months on, Puerto Rico is a long way from recovery, as witnessed by the extremely fragile state of the electric grid. Over 22,000 Puerto Ricans have not yet even had their power restored. On April 18, Puerto Rico once again plunged into darkness after a simple, avoidable accident by a sub-contractor. Most traffic lights are dead in San Juan, including along the Milla de Oro. Meanwhile, the next hurricane season is fast approaching.

Resentment at the colonial treatment of Puerto Rico was on vivid display on May Day. As revolutionary Marxists, we favor independence for Puerto Rico, which would strike a resounding blow against U.S. imperialism. The fight against colonial oppression in Puerto Rico would necessarily be directed at the local agents of imperialism and could act as a lever for socialist revolution and the establishment of a workers republic. Such struggles would reverberate throughout the Caribbean, Latin America and the U.S.

At the same time, we recognize that many Puerto Ricans are of mixed opinion on the matter of independence; a strongly felt national identity is often accompanied by a fear of losing the ability to live and work in the U.S. (which allows for remittances to be sent back to Puerto Rico), and of plunging into deeper poverty. Therefore, we stress the right of independence for Puerto Rico.

Many more Puerto Ricans now live in the U.S. than in Puerto Rico, forming an important component of the multiracial working class, particularly in New York and Florida. These Puerto Rican workers represent a living link between the struggles of the proletariat in the U.S. imperialist center and its largest colony. The trade unions and workers movement in the U.S. must fight to defend the working masses and students of Puerto Rico against repression and colonial oppression.

Puerto Rico’s unionized teachers have drawn inspiration from recent statewide strikes by educators in West Virginia and other states. The generalized starving of public education is but one example of how the U.S. capitalist ruling class is the enemy of both workers in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico. What is needed is joint struggle against privatizations, for free public education and to cancel the debt, which is choking the Puerto Rican masses.

Struggles against the rapacious American bourgeoisie must be directed toward its overthrow through proletarian revolution. International working-class rule will liberate humanity from imperialist domination and lay the basis for the eradication of poverty. Our perspective is to build Leninist parties in the U.S., Puerto Rico and beyond whose goal is to establish workers power.

On Memphis Minnie's Birthday-Out In the 1930s Be-Bop Barrelhouse Blues Night- Memphis Minnie Is Front And Center-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Memphis Minnie performing her classic Hoodoo Lady Blues

CD Review

Memphis Minnie, In My Girlish Days, 1991

One of the interesting facts about the development of the blues is that in the early days the recorded music and the bulk of the live performances were done by women, at least they were the most popular exponents of the genre. That time, the early 1920’s to the 1930’s was the classic age of women blues performers. Of course, when one thinks about that period the name that comes up is the legendary Bessie Smith. Beyond that, maybe some know Ethel Waters. And beyond that-a blank. Yet the blues singer under review, Memphis Minnie, probably had as a productive career as either of the above-mentioned names. And here is the kicker. If you were to ask today’s leading women blues singers like Bonnie Raitt or Maria Muldaur about influences they will, naturally, give the obligatory Bessie response, but perhaps more surprisingly will also praise Ms. Minnie to the skies.

This compilation, while not technically the best, will explain the why of the above paragraph. Minnie worked with many back-up players over the years, some good some bad, but her style and her energy carried most of the production. She was the mistress of the double entendre so popular in old time blues- you know, or you better ask somebody, phrases like “put a little sugar in my bowl”. The best of the bunch here are Bumble Bee, Down Home Girl and the classic In My Girlish Days. Listen on.

On The 50th Anniversary- On Bobby Kennedy- A Personal View From The Left On The Anniversary Of His Assassination

On Bobby Kennedy- A Personal  View From The Left On The  Anniversary Of His Assassination

Commentary

Every political movement has its ‘high holy days’, its icons and its days of remembrance. We on the international labor left have our labor day-May Day. We pay tribute each January to the work of Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht. Some of us remember the assassination by Stalin of the revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940. Others celebrate November 7th the anniversary of the Russian revolution in 1917. The Democratic Party in the United States is no exception to those symbols of group solidarity. They have their Jefferson- Jackson dinners, their nomination conventions and their remembrances of their modern political heroes like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman and so forth.

It is somewhat ironic that at just the time that when presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a recent addition to the Democratic Party pantheon of heroes and heir apparent to the Kennedy legacy, is claiming the nomination of the party that the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy during the presidential campaign of 1968 is being remembered in some quarters. That event holds much meaning in the political evolution of this writer. The Robert Kennedy campaign of 1968 was the last time that this writer had a serious desire to fight solely on the parliamentary road for political change. So today he too has some remembrances, as well.

In the course of this year I have read (or rather re-read) and reviewed elsewhere the 1960, 1968 and 1972 presidential campaign writings of Norman Mailer and those of 1972 by Hunter Thompson. I have, additionally, written reminiscences of my own personal political evolution that point to 1968 as a watershed year personally and politically for those of us of the Generation of ’68. Just a quick thumbnail sketch of my own political trajectory that year will give the reader a flavor of the times.

I committed myself early (sometime in late 1967) to the reelection of Lyndon Johnson, as much as I hated his Vietnam War policy. Why? One Richard M. Nixon. I did not give Eugene McCarthy’s insurgent campaign even a sniff, although I agreed with his anti-war stance. Why? He could not beat one Richard M. Nixon. When Booby jumped into the race and days later Johnson announced that he was not going to run again in I was there the next day. I was a senior in college at the time but I believe I spent hundreds of hours that spring working the campaign either out of Boston, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. Why? Well, you can guess the obvious by now. He COULD beat one Richard M. Nixon.

It was more than that though, and I will mention more on that below. I took, as many did, his murder hard. It is rather facile now to say that something of my youth, and that of others who I have talked to recently about this event, got left behind with his murder but there you have it. However, to show you the kind of political year that it was for me about a week after his death I was in the Hubert Humphrey campaign office in Boston. Why? You know why by now. And for those who don’t it had one name- Richard M. Nixon.

But let us get back to that other, more virtuous, political motive for supporting Bobby Kennedy. It was always, in those days, complicated coming from Massachusetts to separate out the whirlwind effect that the Kennedy family had on us, especially on ‘shanty’ Irish families. On the one hand we wished one of our own well, especially against the WASPs, on the other there was always that innate bitterness (jealousy, if you will) that it was not we who were the ones that were getting ahead. If there is any Irish in your family you know what I am talking about.

To be sure, as a fourteen year old I walked the neighborhood for John Kennedy in 1960 but as I have mentioned elsewhere that was a pro forma thing. Part of the ritual of entry into presidential politics. The Bobby thing was from the heart. Why? It is hard to explain but there was something about the deeply felt sense of Irish fatalism that he projected, especially after the death of his brother, that attracted me to him. But also the ruthless side where he was willing to cut Mayor Daly and every politician like him down or pat them on the back and more, if necessary, to get a little rough justice in the world. In those days I held those qualities, especially in tandem, in high esteem. Hell, I still do, if on a narrower basis.

This next comment will I hope put the whole thing in a nutshell. Recently I was listening to a program commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Robert Kennedy’s assassination on National Public Radio where one of the guests was the journalist and close Kennedy friend Pete Hamill. Hamill, who was in the Los Angeles hotel celebrating the decisive California primary victory when the assassination took place, mentioned that a number of people closely associated with Kennedy at that time saw history passing through their hands in a flash. By that they meant, sincerely I am sure, that the last best change to beat Nixon and hold off the "Night of the Long Knives" had passed.

Well, if nothing else they were right in one sense and here is where one including this writer, as politically distance from Kennedy’s party as I am today, could appreciate the political wisdom of Robert Kennedy. In his incisive way Kennedy cut to the chase and through all the political baloney when he said that Richard Nixon represented the dark side of the American spirit. True words, I would only add these words-the dark spirit that the world has rightly come to fear and loathe. Forty years later and one hundred years politically wiser I can still say though - Bobby Kennedy, oh what might have been.

We Are In A Cold Civil War-Join The Anti-Fascist Resistance-For Labor/Black Action to Stop Fascists!

We Are In A Cold Civil War-Join The Anti-Fascist Resistance-For Labor/Black Action to Stop Fascists!

By Frank Jackman

Usually I place articles and announcement from various left-wing and progressive groupings that I do not necessarily agree with but think that the general radical-left liberal milieu might find of interest in a blog site dedicated to American Left History (and its complement cultural component) past and present. I have noted more than once that I usually do not comment on the views expressed and if I do have differences I can either write my own comments or if the differences are severe or reflect bad taste not post the item. Occasionally in the struggle against the ugly forces that have reared their heads in the age of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States and apparently nothing but a common criminal and maybe a sociopath, have felt the wind at their backs under his tenure I find some article or statement which I am in general agreement with and will as here take the time to express general if not total solidarity with the views expressed by others.  

The most important point made in the article belong which deals with an analysis and program to defeat the emergent serious extra-parliamentary right-wing threat is that we must learn the hard lessons of history on the question of stopping the fascist and fascistic elements in the egg. If that had been done in Germany at any point up to and including 1933 the history of the Western world could very well have taken a different trajectory and we would today probably not be faced with what looks like yet again a global right-wing counter-revolutionary movement baring its knuckles. Closer to home we have to nip the small but growing fascist threat which seemingly is turning the cold civil war we have been facing for a while now and which is getting more heated in the bud- and in the streets.

A second point to note is knowing what period we are in and who is and who is not going to benefit from the rise of the fascists (call them as they call themselves “the alt-right” it is the same damn thing that has been with us since post-World War I times). The rise of Trump was by parliamentary means-by regular bourgeois norms elections and does not represent a fascist take-over as some claim. The ruling class at this moment has not been defeated anyplace in the world militarily, at least where it would fatally hurt, as it did in Germany after their World War I defeat and that ruling class here is not now, and I emphasize not now, confronted by any militant mass left-wing movements that would threaten their power necessitating the need to go beyond their normal military/police forces to curb.   

As this cold civil war heats up there will be plenty of those in the opposition, on our side, who want to call on the government to stop the fascists, or better yet, call on the opposition party, the Democrats, to do something about the matter. Wrong. While we may unite with all who want to oppose the fascist threat on the streets, including democrats, to rely on the good offices of any establishment political organization to do our work for us is fool-hardy and in the end dangerous. We must rely centrally on our ability to gather masses of working people and the oppressed to stop these sewer rats. History shows no other way but a straight up fight to the finish or else these scumbags, excuse my vulgar usage but we are in a fierce fight and the niceties of everyday politics are not called for, will be further emboldened. Those who profess some “rational” and “reasoned” approach to deal with this life-threatening menace are doomed to the scrap heap.

Finally there is no room for being “liberal” in this fight. These fascists are not a literary/political club movement we can debate with or permit to spew their trash talk under the banner of “free speech.” Those who thought that approach might work in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s and early 1930s either had to flee into exile or found themselves in some death camp. We can give no quarter here. Period. 

So yes, for once, on this issue of fighting the emerging fascist threat I stand in solidarity with the views expressed below with its sober analysis and program to fight the menace right now.  

********

Workers Vanguard No. 1110	21 April 2017

For Labor/Black Action to Stop Fascists!

Fascists Fueled by Trump Election

Hundreds of Jewish headstones desecrated. Women wearing the headscarf attacked on the streets. Two software engineers from India shot, one fatally, in Kansas in February by a Navy vet who howled, “Get out of my country.” A Sikh American shot in his driveway in Kent, Washington, last month by a masked white man screaming, “Go back to your own country.” Timothy Caughman, a 66-year-old black man, murdered on the streets of Manhattan on March 20 by a white-supremacist who had come to New York City from Baltimore with the express purpose of killing black men.

The race-terrorists have been emboldened by the campaign and victory of the right-wing demagogue Donald Trump, and are taking their cue from the unabashed racism and anti-immigrant vitriol emanating from the White House. The ultimate aim of the fascists, including those who congregate around the “alt-right,” is racial genocide and the destruction of workers organizations, including unions and the left.

The race-terrorists have played on the racist backlash against Barack Obama, America’s first black president. Obama’s eight years in office offered nothing to black and working people; the Democratic Party no less than the Republicans represents the very capitalist order that breeds fascism. During the Obama administration, conditions for black people and workers continued to worsen while cops wantonly gunned down black people on the streets. More industrial areas turned into rust bowls, while strongholds of union power continued their steep decline. Obama rigorously pursued U.S. imperialism’s war aims abroad, while ramping up the “war on terror” at home, which targets Muslims in particular. The fascist thugs feed off anger and frustration arising from economic devastation; they scapegoat black people, immigrants and minorities for the misery inflicted on the population by the capitalist rulers.

On April 15, when hundreds of “protesters” descended on downtown Berkeley for a pro-Trump rally, the fascists infesting the crowd made clear that they were out for blood. Chanting “Hitler did nothing wrong” and giving Nazi salutes, they viciously attacked antifa activists and leftists with clubs, flagpoles and knives. One viral video shows Nathan Damigo, head of the fascist group Identity Evropa, punching a woman in the face. Last June, in Sacramento, white-supremacists of the Traditionalist Workers Party and the Golden Gate Skinheads stabbed and slashed at least seven anti-fascists, sending them to the hospital. In Berkeley, anti-fascists were able to defend themselves from fascist violence but a number were injured.

Individual acts of courage are not enough to smash the fascist threat. What is needed are massive, integrated, disciplined mobilizations based on the social power of the multiracial working class. The workplace is the only real point of integration in American society, providing the potential basis for unity in struggle to defend working people and the oppressed. Black workers in particular can be the living link that unites the power of the working class with the anger of the ghettos.

The union movement has been flat on its back for many years under a misleadership that is committed to capitalism and has shackled the unions to the Democratic Party. A fight by militant unionists to organize labor/black power to crush the fascists can give the working class a taste of its social power. It is the fascists—not black people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, leftists and others—who must be made to feel the sting of fear.

Who Are These Scum?

Today, many fascist groups in the “alt-right” claim that they are something different from the Klan and Nazis. They dress in “respectable” suits and ties and promote themselves as intellectuals. One of their leading voices is Richard Spencer, führer of the innocuously named National Policy Institute (NPI). When the NPI held a conference in Washington, D.C., shortly after Trump’s election, Spencer responded to the audience’s stiff-armed Nazi salutes by declaring: “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” (the latter a translation of the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil”).

Allied with Spencer is Identity Evropa, which describes itself as an organization of “awakened Europeans” and requires that its members be of “European, non-Semitic heritage.” Its leader, Damigo, is a former Marine who was twice deployed to Iraq. After returning, he held up an immigrant taxi driver at gunpoint in San Diego in 2007, believing the man was Iraqi. While in prison for four years, he immersed himself in the writings of “former” Klansman David Duke. Before founding Identity Evropa in March 2016, Damigo—who describes black people as “inferior to whites, genetically”—was a leader of the now-defunct National Youth Front, the youth arm of the white-supremacist American Freedom Party.

Identity Evropa is currently waging a campaign, called “Project Siege,” to recruit from College Republicans. Its members have appeared at colleges and its posters and stickers have been spotted on campuses around the country. These posters consist of Greco-Roman images with slogans like, “Protect Your Heritage.” Their slick website serves as a portal for those who claim racial superiority and who deny the Holocaust. As part of their recruitment drive, Damigo, Spencer and others held a rally on 6 May 2016 at UC Berkeley, the former bastion of left-wing student protest.

Today, outfits like Identity Evropa, the Traditionalist Workers Party and others are still small. But they will strike with force, as seen in Sacramento and Berkeley. It is vital that they be crushed in the egg before they grow. Against those who call for bans on “hate speech” or who argue for “free speech” for fascists, we say that when these race-terrorists rear their heads they must be repulsed through mass protest. Fascism is not about speech or ideas; it is about racist terror. “Anti-extremism” bans, whether instituted by campus administrations or government forces, will always be used to silence leftists, anti-racists and minority activists.

Fascism in the U.S. is rooted in the defeat of the Confederacy by the Union Army in the Civil War, when 200,000 black soldiers and sailors played a key role in destroying slavery. The Klan and other race-terrorists came into being after that victory and bloodily suppressed the newly freed slaves. No less than the KKK, the fascist vermin in the “alt-right” represent a threat to the very right of black people to exist. They aim to reverse the verdict of the Civil War.

Prepare to Fight!

Unlike Germany in the 1930s, when the Nazis rose to power and went on to carry out the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, America’s capitalist rulers do not at this time feel the need to resort to fascism. The U.S. is not a defeated imperialist power, as Germany was after World War I, nor does the U.S. bourgeoisie currently face a challenge to its rule from the working class. The daily terror meted out by the cops against black people and minorities is today deemed sufficient to keep the oppressed in check. At the same time, the capitalist rulers hold the fascist shock troops in reserve, to be unleashed at times of social crisis in order to spike any prospect of revolutionary struggle by the working class.

The Trump administration is not fascist, but the fascists sure as hell have a lot of friends in high places. Trump appointed as his chief strategist Stephen Bannon, a well-known “white nationalist” who took over Breitbart News and turned it into “the platform of the alt-right,” as he boasted. Trump’s top counter-terrorism advisor, Sebastian Gorka, is reportedly a member of the Vitezi Rend, a Hungarian organization that harks back to the fascistic interwar dictatorship of Admiral Horthy—Gorka wore its medal at Trump’s inauguration ball. Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s senior advisors, joined Richard Spencer in organizing an anti-immigrant event at Duke University in 2007. He went on to work for notorious racist and defender of the Confederacy, Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general. One could go on.

Bolstered by their high-ranking friends, the fascists have put the left in their deadly sights. We of the Spartacist League were targeted earlier this year, when a fascist secretly videoed one of our comrades distributing Workers Vanguard at the D.C. inauguration protests. The fascist posted the video on YouTube and vowed to “infiltrate” our organization. In Berkeley, the fascists made it clear that they are targeting leftists by chanting “commies, off our street!” It is a matter of life and death for the left to fight for united-front actions, based on the power of the unions, to beat back the fascist threat. In such united fronts, every organization must be free to put forward its political program in the course of struggle. As Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky put it: “March separately, but strike together!”

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, much like today, the official racism of the White House encouraged the Klan and Nazis. When the fascists tried to hold rallies in major urban centers, the Spartacist League and Partisan Defense Committee initiated and organized labor/black mobilizations. From Washington, D.C., where the Klan threatened to stage an anti-immigrant provocation, to Chicago, where the Nazis took aim at a Gay Pride demonstration, and elsewhere, we succeeded in sparking protests of thousands to stop the fascists. At the core of these actions were contingents of determined workers from the multiracial unions standing at the head of the black poor, immigrants and all the intended victims of fascist terror.

These mobilizations required a constant political struggle—against the cops, courts and other forces of the capitalist state, as well as capitalist politicians. Fearing the specter of labor/black power, Democratic mayors and other officials preached “tolerance” and “peace.” They called diversionary rallies far from where the fascists intended to march while violence-baiting those who wanted to stop fascist violence. And time and again, they were joined by reformist leftists who promoted reliance on the Democrats. When, in October 1999, we issued a call to stop the Klan from marching in New York City, the International Socialist Organization refused to endorse and instead joined a diversion organized by the Democrats where they shared the platform with a Latino police association. It should be an elementary understanding for leftists that the cops are the enemy. Historically, the policeman and the Klansman have often been the same man.

What is needed is a fight to finish the Civil War through an American workers revolution that achieves the promise of black equality, the liberation of all the exploited and oppressed and puts the last nail in the coffin of the fascist killers. The labor/black mobilizations we initiated are a small example of the leadership and forces needed to build a party of our class in struggle against the capitalist enemy. In the face of the growing fascist menace, we must be prepared to mobilize.