***Yes, You Better Boot That Thing- Early Women Blues Singers From The 1920s

A YouTube's film clip of Victoria Spivey performing "TB Blues". Wow.

CD REVIEW

Better Boot That Thing: Great Women Blues Singers Of The 1920’s, BMG Music, 1992
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.

I have tried elsewhere in this space to redress that grievance by reviewing the works of the likes of Memphis Minnie, Ida Cox and Ivy Anderson, among others. I also have scheduled a separate appreciation of one of the four women featured on this CD, Alberta Hunter. This CD format thus falls rather nicely in line with my overall intention to continue to highlight some of these lesser known women artists. Moreover, as fate would have it, this compilation included the work of Victoria Spivey, a singer that I have mentioned elsewhere and have wanted to discuss further. Finally, the conception of the producers here is enhanced by breaking up the CD into two parts-the urban blues part represented by Hunter and Spivey and the country blues part represented by Bessie Tucker and Ida May Mack. While both this trends have always shared some common roots and musicality they also represent two distinct trends in blues music as reflected in the increasing urbanization of the American black population in the 20th century.

Let’s use the urban/country divide as a frame of reference. The smoother style of Hunter and Spivey obviously reflected the need to entertain a more sophisticated audience that was looking for music that was different from that country stuff down home. And that laid back style was seemingly passé in the hectic urban world. Tucker and Mack reflect that old time country hard work on the farm, hard scrabble for daily existence found, as well, in the songs of their country blues male counterparts. What unites the two strands is the personal nature of the subject matter- you know, mistreating’ men, cheatin’ guys, two-timing fellas, money taking cads, squeakin’ man-stealing women friends, the dusty road out of town, and just below the surface violence and mayhem, threaten or completed. And that is just an average day’s misery.

So what is good here? I won’t spend much time on Alberta because I have looked at her work elsewhere but please give a listen to “My Daddy’s Got A Brand New Way To Love,” the title tells everything you need to know about this song and is classic Alberta. Of course for Bessie Tucker you need, and I mean need, to hear the title track “Better Boot That Thing” and then you will agree that you, man or woman, best stay home and take care of business. As for Ida May I flipped when I heard her saga of a fallen woman as she moans out on “Elm Street Blues” and her lament on “Wrong Doin’ Daddy”. However, what you really want to do is skip to the final track and listen to “Good-bye Rider” which for the nth time concerns the subject of that previously mentioned advice about “not advertising your man.” to your friends.

Victoria is just too much on “Telephoning The Blues,” again on that two timing man, wronged woman theme. “Blood Hound Blues” demonstrates that she was not afraid to tackle some thorny issues, including a reverse twist here about a woman driven to kill her hard-hearted physically abusive man, was jailed, escaped and is on the lam as she sings this song. The song that knocked me out on this more socially-oriented theme is her “Dirty Tee Bee Blues” about the tragic suffering of a gal who went the wrong way looking for love and adventure and now must pay the price. Powerful stuff.

A special note on Victoria Spivey. I have mentioned, in a review of some film documentaries (four altogether) entitled “American Folk Blues Festival, 1962-1966” that were retrieved a few years ago by German Cinema and featured many of the great blues artist still alive at that time on tour in Europe, that Victoria Spivey had a special place in the blues scene not only as a performer and writer (of songs and goings-on in the music business) but that she was a record producer as well (Spivey Records).

Back in the days when music was on vinyl (you remember them, right?) I used to rummage through a second hand- record store in Cambridge (talk about ancient history). One of my treasured finds there was a Spivey Records platter featuring Victoria, the legendary Otis Spann (of Muddy Waters’ band), Luther “Guitar” Johnson, and a host of other blues luminaries. She, like her black male counterpart impresario Willie Dixon (who she occasionally performed with), was a pioneer in this business end of the blues business, a business that left more than its fair share of horror stories about the financial shenanigans done to “rob” blues performers of their just desserts. That, however, is a tale for another day.

***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin -That High White Note-Take Two

As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one such story.  

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Every guy, maybe every gal too, who has ever picked up some raw-boned trumpet, some hammered sax, or some runaway trombone, some brass thing, dreams in his (or her, okay) deepest dreams, the ones that count, about blowing that high white note. The one that says that guy is one with the instrument, is meshed, melted, mended with that metal. As that big cloud note that note that blows out some café door and works its way down the barren black starless night  back streets and curls on out into some foam-flecked ocean slashed by the waves (and early morning too that hour just before the dawn when the boys really kick out the jams). Duke had it, Charley and Miles had it, Lionel on a good night had it, the Count off and on, Artie, Benny maybe, maybe working that side of the street it was (is) a touchy thing to talk about except when you heard it rip out snarling and gnashing  in the night you knew, knew what being just south of heaven must have been like when this earth first sounded out.      

Some guys, some guys like hard-nosed private eye Michael Philip Marlin, a guy who covered the sun-ridden streets of Los Angeles back in the day, back when the town was livable for the natives, before the war, World War II if you are asking, came and blew the high notes, hell, the low notes to perdition maybe picked up the blow, took some brass in hand, as a kid but could never quite get the hang of it, could never dream about that high white note. Could only know that it was out there for Duke or Charley to snap up. And so Marlin wound up picking up brass of a different sort, empty slug shells from a wayward gun out in the sullen steamy Los Angeles night after some maddened episode that he had no control over either. Still Marlin, tone deaf to the music grift, always loved to listen to The Bill Baxter Be-Bop Hour featuring artists live, guys who would come in on an off-night or after a gig out of WJDA in the high desert night around Riverside midnight until dawn. Loved to listen to see if some guy just for a minute could hit that damn high white note.    

John “King” Leonard hit that high white note, hit it a number of times like maybe he owned it or something. Marlin heard the King, nobody ever called him anything but the King all the way back to his high school days in Chi town, one night and knew exactly what it meant then when heaven beckoned. Marlin also heard from the Baxter show that the King was to be playing at Jack Reed’s Club Lola over near the Santa Monica Pier for the next several weeks and knew he would make time to catch the King live and in person. Strangely Marlin got to meet the King in person well before that club date opening although it had nothing to do with high white notes, heaven, or even curling sounds beating off the ocean’s edge, but rather too much noise, too much racket.

Times, like for everybody else, were hard in the 1937 private eye market and so Marlin the never work nine- to- five- for- another- guy king had to lower his standards and work the graveyard shift as the house peeper for John Reed’s low- rent hotel (a no tell hotel in the parlance of the business), the Taft (which hadn’t been fixed up since about that fat man’s presidential administration). Since everybody was trying to save dough in 1937 Reed had the King stay in his hotel rather than some five-star digs like he expected but to make up for that slight provided him with plenty of female company. That kind of trade-off appealed to the King because if he craved anything besides seeking that high white note it was diving under those silky sheets with women, lots of women.

The King with his angel- blown horn as a lure had no want for female companionship, lots of it, and no want either of one- night stands and then off to some other twist in some other town. You know the routine. Love them and leave them that has been going on since Adam and Eve time, maybe before. In any case one night, or rather one morning about three o’clock, some of the hotel guests were squawking that the King and his entourage were raising holy hell, loud holy hell, booze holy hell, reefer madness holy hell, and please somebody stop the madman.  And newly-minted graveyard shift house-peeper Marlin was the stopper no questions asked and no quarter given. When the King pulled rank he unceremoniously booted him out the door.          

Of course a big ego guy like the King squawked to Jake Reed and Marlin in turn was out on his ear, out on cheap street, worrying about the rent and figuring he might have to do divorce work, key-hole peeping, keep the wolves from the door. Keyhole peeping being in season, Great Depression or not. But that was not the end of Marlin’s relationship with one King Leonard. See the King had an opening act, a honey, his for the asking or so he thought, opening act, a torch singer, good too, named Delia Day, who it turned out would not give him the time of day. Nada, nothing. But the King was a hard guy to say no to or to take no for an answer and so he headed to Delia’s digs one night to wait for her to come home after a gig over at the hot spot Café  Florian where she was working smoothing out her act for the Club Lola front gig.

When Delia got home and went into her bedroom to change there was the King laid out in his splendor on her bed, that high white note closed off to him except pearly gates work. Laid out in his undergarments, very dead with a couple of slugs through the heart, if he had a heart. Through the heart with her gun that she kept in her night stand for protection, a gun given to her by Jack Reed when she asked for one. And the King was positioned in such a way that it looked, well, looked like some lovers’ quarrel, a domestic dispute. Naturally nobody believed that Delia just walked in and found the King in his very dead condition, not after the King had bragged to one and all that “he had had some of that” and so they threw her in the jailhouse to sweat out a confession from her. The L. A. cops figuring they had an easy score gave her the third degree but she would not tumble and so they kept her in the slammer as a “material witness.”

Marlin who had also followed Delia’s career, once he found out the King was dead and Delia was set to take the big step-of for the crime, sensed that things did not add up, that somebody or somebodies had the frame fit right around her. So windmill-chasing Marlowe came to the rescue. It didn’t take long for him to figure the whole scheme out though since it had to be the work of amateurs once he gave the bedroom a once over and talked to a couple of the King’s female companions, amateurs, street hookers working their way down from the look of them with their reefer madness eyes with some special grievance up their sleeves. And they did in the persons of two guys who worked at Jack Reed’s hotel. The King liked his women, no question, liked to love them and leave them after he had used them up. The two guys at the hotel happened to be the brothers of one of the King’s used ups, a young woman from the sticks, Joan Brown, who they said took what the King said as pure gold and when he dumped her committed suicide. 

These brothers, whose bedroom set-up antics only the cops could miss were something out of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, got everything wrong. They assumed that Delia was the one who took the King away from their sister when she in fact hated the King. So they set the frame on her by killing the King in her bedroom. They moreover assumed that the King had abandoned their sister base do on her word. The realty when it came out later was it was she who walked out on King, walked out with a drummer from his band,  and was looking to fix him for her own reasons having to with a couple of off-hand beatings she had taken from him when he was doped up .  Her suicide was very related to the fact that she was pregnant be another man later who actually had abandoned her, and not the drummer who was a junkie prince. See she was a tramp on her own but brothers being brothers couldn’t see little sis that way.

The only thing they got right was their getaway once Marlin put the scheme together. Marlin was able to follow them as far as Portland and then lost their trail out in the woods beyond that town. They were never found. Maybe they got away, maybe they got eaten up by the dense and foreboding forests up that way. The King though, the King lived on in his records played over that radio on WJDA .  Every once in a while they would play the King on his signature song, Banana Blues, and Marlowe would ponder over the fact that even a rat like the King should be allowed to go to heaven to blow that high white note one more time like he did on that number.              

***The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…

 

 

…and memories of that girl (or guy you fill it in but I, male, am telling this story) who got away, the one that you spied in the hallway in school, who kind of looked, well, interesting, and then you, relying on your boys’ lav Monday morning before school talkfest about what did or did not happen that previous weekend found out that she was “spoken for,” unapproachable anyway, and you let it go at that. Moved on to the next furtive glance and then put that in the back of your mind. Always wistful though when you saw her down that now forlorn corridor, wishing that she could be your friend what with what lay ahead as the war clouds of the world were gathering and you knew you had do something about it, about stopping the night of the long knives.

Or still dreaming about that night when another she, a she from work downtown all beautiful and alluring, who kept making glances your way, especially after you got your number picked and were getting ready to head out, but who was also very married, married to a guy, a guy your brother hung out with, whose number had already been picked and was on his way to Europe, told you in no uncertain terms that you were her choice to keep the morale of the boys at home up and took you around the world one night. You then slogging it out in some basic training hellhole getting, ah, funny feelings thinking about that and about whether she would still be interested in keeping morale up when you get leave before shipping off to that same Europe.      

Or try this- you were married to another and yet another she, maybe alluring, maybe not, but available could be coaxed into doing her “duty” to keep the morale of the boys waiting for their numbers to be called and meeting in a crowded bar, a little drunk, a little flirty and not particularly worried about marital status what with the shortage of men around kind of led you to that room and showed you like that beautiful and alluring fluff what was what.

Or maybe story-book Hollywood bill of fare all misty and good that girl next store who would not give you a tumble but would talk to you for hours, go to the dances with you, share a soda, drop nickels in the jukebox but who, drunk, sober, or in between would not do her duty although if you came back alive them, well, we will see buster.

Or one of a thousand other reasons for parting, some good, some bad but in misty future time regret, after accounts were settled and the world, your world anyway, got back to jukeboxes and furtive glances, regretted for that maybe first love, she of the hallway school looks, she of the alluring downtown look, she of the coax-able disposition, she of the frosty no, and why things hadn’t worked out.

Or maybe a she (remember a male speaking) thinking, thinking too hard for the times, although war could not banish longing thinking  looking out over some Eastern harbor watching the endless rows of troop ships anchored or setting sail as far as the eye could see sending that high school corridor flame’s sweetheart to some mangled beach, that beautiful and alluring office mate’s beau to some busted bridge (she will catch seven kinds of hell if that GI hubby ever finds out), that available woman’s last fling to some muddy fox-hole, that Johnnie next door freezing his ass off in the gunner’s turret over some European sky to fight the good fight against the night-takers.  And Western harbors thinking universal home fire girl dreams about that guy coming back, coming back in one piece to take up their dream. And he in some muddied trench, some dank cave, some frozen beach-head, catching flak over some hostile blood red sky thinking whether she will be waiting, waiting alone, for him. Thus this song to get one by on that cold, lonely remembrance night.          

 

You Can’t Go Home Again, Can You

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman, Hullsville Class Of 1964

No he, Peter Paul Markin, would not be going after all, not going to the scheduled 50^th Anniversary North Adamsville Class of 1964 reunion to be held at the swanky Adams Hotel Deluxe over Thanksgiving weekend.  (Apparently that holiday weekend a very usual occasion for such events across the country, a time when old-time rooted families might still gather together in the old hometowns or just to take advantage of the generally taken long weekend.) He announced the news to me, to the candid world as he called it (or me) in his usual odd-ball historical literary snarl, something that I have grown used to, grown to deeply discount, to block out okay, so maybe I did not get the full import of his screed, one night when we were cutting up torches at our favorite watering hole.

That spot these days, the days since we have both returned to the Boston area and have re-ignited our old time friendship, is Jimmy’s Bar & Grille over in Centerville a few miles south of the respective towns where we grew up, and about thirty miles from downtown Boston if anybody is asking. We had been talking about the old days, the old high school days when we had met, met down at a rock and roll dance at the Surf Ballroom in my hometown of Hullsville. Met after pursuing the same girl, ah, young woman who eventually gave both of us the air. But our friendship, close or faraway as times changed, lingered on. Now in the great scheme of things, the great mandala of life out in the real world such a decision as Markin made (everybody always called him Markin and not that Peter Paul Markin thing that only his mother and, I think, one prissy ex-wife called him, like he was some Mayflower swell rather than to the “projects” born and so Markin) naturally would take a back seat to serious matters like the fight against war and pestilence, the struggle to keep body and soul together that preoccupies most minds most of the time, and being mindfully thoughtful about the three great tragedies of human existence-hunger, sex, and death.

Notwithstanding those heavy precedent- takers, no, emphatically no, Markin would not be going back to his old hometown that weekend to see the old gang. See the old gang collectively for probably the last effective time that clan would be able to gather on a significant occasion what with death, disability, forgetfulness and just plain fright at the idea of a next time taking their toll. That the next significant milestone, the 75^th , assuming that the mania for oddball celebration years like 30^th , 45^th , and 60^th , or worst 38^th ,48^th or 68^th has no taken root they would all be at or approaching ninety-three. A very scary thought, the thought of holding a reunion at some assisted living site or nursing home. No thank you then either he can safely be quoted as saying that night as well.

Strangely, and I quizzed him on the subject that night, several years before, I can remember Markin telling me, that  under the influence of some old town family members passing he had returned to North Adamsville after many years absence. As a result of roaming around the old neighborhoods, around the old memory sites, or places that triggered memories he had exhibited a spurt of old town patriotism, some old bleeding of school colors red and black, some old time nostalgia for sacred youth places and quirky roots memories. More, a fervent desire to put together some occasion, not necessarily a tradition-filled full-blown official reunion like has been done since Horace Mann’s time, maybe before, but a collective gathering of those in the area to mark the passing of time, mark some memory mist youthful occasions and, frankly to gather some information, insights, observations on what they had been through back in the day, back in those hectic angst and alienation-filled school days.

Markin had told me at that time, and we had had several good laughs about his answers, that he had actually answered (patiently answered, believe me, unusual for him when it is not his own project), extensively answered a series of questions posed through an Internet classmates site by the chairwoman of the Class of 1964 45^th Reunion Committee (see what I mean by odd-ball year celebrations) to her fellow classmates about a whole range of questions. [And no, he would not be going, did not go to, had had no intention of going to that odd-ball year reunion unlike the 50^th that he was really aiming at with his answers.]You know the usual suspect questions about work history, family history, any distinctions creditable to old North, and the role played by the old school in keeping you off the streets, off welfare and out of prison (sorry). He waved those questions off out of hand in maybe a sentence, no more. After all three divorces, a checkered work history, and half a dysfunctional family not speaking to you, and maybe wishing you were in jail can be summarily written off with few words.

What he did respond to were more thoughtful questions about dreams and ambitions (Jesus, right up Markin’s wheelhouse), disappointments, thoughts on mortality, and most importantly, questions directly related to the old days like what did you think of certain school clubs, sport teams, school dances (particularly the annual Fall Frolics and the Spring Follies), and several other school- specific events that I have forgotten about and I did not think important before I decided to write this screed, He went wild, went crazy, stopped the presses, he said. He wrote sketch after sketch, some long some short, about the school dances, his wall-flower status before he got his courage up, his girl shy courage, at some last dance trigger moment. About his lackluster running career, and the stellar performances of his running mate, Bill Brady, and their mutual jock-inspired devotion to the football team neither could ever come close to making. About his befuddlement over the segregated, boy-girl segregated, bowling teams, the vagaries of the mythical Tri-Hi-Yi, the inanity of white socks and white shorts for gym garb, the sex question, circa 1960 and the role that Adamsville Beach played in resolving that question. Endlessly as well about corner boy life in about twelve varieties, the place of rock and roll in the teenage universe then. Fluff but answered.

Here is the beauty of his answers though, the beauty of Markin really. He answered, or he told me he answered everything put before him by that relentless chairwoman, even making stuff up if he did not remember, or could have cared less about something back then, like Glee Club or the Chess Club. Here was the best one, and I can attest to this one because I was actually present with him that night down at the Surf Ballroom at one of those frequent rock and roll dances we both attended. He felt compelled to write about the senior year Thanksgiving Football Rally in 1963 held the night before the game against the hated cross-town rival blue and white Adamsville High since he really did bleed Red Raider black and red around the football team. He wrote this long screed that several people thought was an excellent description of the event, that it had brought back some nice memories especially from someone who remembered so many details. Of course as you now know this was made out of whole cloth since he was not within twenty miles of the event. That’s Markin                                  

Some answers though were actually thoughtful, another aspect of Markin as well, his beauty if you will. He movingly, if briefly, wrote about the John F.  Kennedy assassination that cast a dark shadow over that senior year, over the fresh breeze brought down that Camelot represented and that I had also felt bereaved by down in my hometown. About missing out on the Great Books Club because they were, uh, nerds, about the odd-ball class photographs, before and after, about some teachers, English teachers I think, that he sent delayed kudos too, about his love of the sea (me too). About like I said before, dreams and ambitions. The best one, at least the one I remember him showing me at the time was simply entitled, A Walk Down Dream Street, which dealt with Billy Brady and his habit, penniless, no car, no girl, sitting on the granite steps of the high school on warm, sultry nights talking about their dreams for the future, their jail-break from the unhappy homes they came from, about how they were going to do this and that to make their marks in the world. Small dream stuff as he recalled, but dreams, nicely written, with the virtue (if it can be called that) that he, they, actually did do that talking as Billy confirmed when I met him for the first time a few years ago.         

So you can see that Markin was clearly at peace with himself and ready to go to that reunion based on that box full of memories. Moreover, Markin had put together his own survey at that time looking for more in-depth information although that project kind of died on the vine due to apathy, poor response from classmates, and his own need to push on to a more pressing project at the time. Last year in another spurt of old town devotion he pulled that survey together with much better results since he really worked hard to contact, through the beauty of the Internet, as many classmates as possible working off of the 1964 Magnet yearbook. Then one night in December, as we sat down at Jimmy’s, a local watering hole we frequent of late, he laid out to me the reasons why he was not going, could not possibly go, what did he say, oh yeah, he empathically could not go. Later I got to thinking about his long trail of reasons and came to agree with his conclusions. My recollections of that night’s conversation, maybe not quite the way he put the matter but close, followed under our common sign that, unfortunately, you cannot go home again.       

Friday, Nov 15, 2013 Boston Veterans For Peace Again Forced to March Behind the Official Pro-War Veterans Day Parade About one hundred members of Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans For Peace and their supporters, marched on Veterans Day.  As in years past, VFP is forced to march well behind the official pro-war Veterans Day parade, separated at the end by Boston police on motorcycles. The pro-war parade organizers reject the VFP because they are anti-war. Additional photos of Boston Parade Back to Top Thanks to VFP Chapters Who Participated in VFP's National call to "Ring Eleven Bells for Peace" The National office received reports of Armistice Day events  in Charlottesville NC, London UK, Indianapolis IN, Manchester NH, Daytona Beach FL, St Paul MN, Roxboro NC, San Jose CA, Iowa City IA, Evansville IN, Chicago IL, Milwaukee WI, Santa Monica CA, Boston MA, Traverse City MI, Cape Cod MA, Portland OR, Hyannis MA, San Francisco CA and New York NY. VFP Chapter 72 in Portland OR (Video) VFP Chapter 91 in San Diego CA ( Video) VFP Chapter 101 in South Bay/Peninsula CA (Video) VFP Chapter 134 in Tacoma WA (Report) VFP Members in London UK (Article) VFP Members in Missoula MT (Article) VFP Members in Traverse City MI (Article) Gerry Condon's Armistice Day Interview with Scott Harris on WPKN radio in Bridgeport, Connecticut (Audio) Back to Top

Clarification:
This story was updated to include a quotation that was substituted for one that appeared in the original version online. The quotation, attributed to a law enforcement official, was replaced with another from the same interview because the original quotation created the erroneous impression that the official was saying Julian Assange would not be arrested if he came to the United States. The official said Assange would not be arrested on U.S. charges. He did not address any possible extradition request from another country.

Assange not under sealed indictment, U.S. officials say

View Photo Gallery — The saga of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: Assange, responsible for one of the largest leaks of classified U.S. documents, has been holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London since June 2012, when he was granted diplomatic asylum.

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By Sari Horwitz, Published: November 18 E-mail the writer

Federal prosecutors have not filed a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, despite persistent rumors that a nearly three-year-old grand jury investigation of him and his organization had secretly led to charges, according to senior law enforcement sources.
“Nothing has occurred so far,” said one law enforcement official with knowledge of the case. “But it’s subject to change. I can’t predict what’s going to happen. The investigation is ongoing.”

Video

The Post's Sari Horwitz reported that federal prosecutors haven't filed a sealed indictment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. But, she explains, that doesn't mean the path forward for him is clear.

Timeline: Assange and WikiLeaks

The Justice Department, at least for now, appears to be drawing a distinction between those who were government employees or contractors and were required by law to protect classified information and those who received and published the material.
The Justice Department has unsealed an indictment charging former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden under the Espionage Act. Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong and then Russia, leaked tens of thousands of documents about U.S. surveillance programs that have led to reports in The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, among other publications around the world.
“Snowden was a person who swore an oath, an employee of the National Security Agency,” said a second senior U.S. official, drawing a line between Snowden’s legal obligations and responsibility and someone like Assange.
Federal officials said the grand jury investigation has not been closed, and a spokesman for WikiLeaks said the organization drew no comfort from the fact that there was no sealed indictment.
“We will treat this news with skepticism short of an open, official, formal confirmation that the U.S. government is not going to prosecute WikiLeaks,” said Kristinn Hrafnsson, the spokesman. “It is quite obvious that you can shake up an indictment in a very short period of time.”
Hrafnsson added, “Unfortunately, the U.S. government has a track record of being deceptive and of choosing its words carefully on this issue and other issues as well.”
Assange, who published documents from one of the largest leaks of classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents, has been living in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London since June 2012, when he was granted political asylum.
The Australian national sought asylum after he lost a series of court battles in Britain to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual assault. There is still a warrant in Sweden for his arrest. A small office at the Ecuadoran Embassy, which is under constant watch by British police, has been converted into his private living area.
Assange and his associates have maintained that he was unwilling to travel to Sweden because he feared that he would ultimately be extradited to the United States to face possible charges under the Espionage Act.
“My focus of attention is on the U.S. case — the continuing grand jury investigation,” Assange told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper last month. “That is what I have received full political asylum in relation to. I assume the Swedish case will disappear of its own accord in due course.”
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case.
In 2010, WikiLeaks received an enormous cache of classified U.S. documents from Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst serving in Iraq. The documents included military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, diplomatic cables, assessments of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility and video of a U.S. helicopter firing on a group of people, including a Reuters cameraman, in Baghdad. The anti-secrecy group worked with the New York Times, the Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel to publish the material.
Manning was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 and sentenced by a military judge to 35 years in prison this August after he was convicted of violating the Espionage Act, among several counts.
After Manning was convicted, Zachary Terwilliger, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, said a grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks was ongoing. But he would not comment on whether there was a sealed indictment or whether Assange had been charged.
During Manning’s court-
martial, military prosecutors portrayed Assange as an “information anarchist” who encouraged Manning to turn over classified material. They also argued that WikiLeaks cannot be considered a media organization that was acting in the public interest.
Michael Ratner, an attorney for Assange, and civil liberties groups said at the time that it was increasingly likely that the United States would prosecute Assange as a co-conspirator.
“Either there [are] charges already, which I think is very possible, or they now have this and they can say they have one part of the conspiracy,” Ratner told The Post in July.

Julie Tate contributed to this report.

BOSTON FIRST NIGHT AGAINST THE WARS 2013-2014 EDUCATIONAL

Come celebrate the close of 2013 with First Night Against All Wars! 

Join a growing coalition of people dedicated to ending all forms of oppression !

Noon
until 6pm

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Facebook
page

First
Night Against All Wars

https://www.facebook.com/firstnightagainstallwars

Meeting
first at 565 Boylston St. Community church of Boston and then walking on over to
our set up location on the steps of the Boston Public Library (corner of
Boylston & Dartmouth starting
at Noon till six after the parade).

We'll
have free hot chocolate and snacks for passersby who stop to pick up your
literature. We're also going to have a bright sticker that has broad appeal and
that everyone opposed to these wars can wear.

We're
organizing an educational action that reaches the 100,000s of people who will be
in Boston to celebrate First Night. We want to welcome them. We want to
celebrate.

But
we also want everyone to be fully conscious of the many wars:

• Wall
Street and Government's War on Us!

•The
wars on women. •The wars on people of color and immigrants. •The wars on working
people. •The wars in Africa and Middle East. •The war on the environment.

These
are all connected!

Help
make this happen!

To
help with the planning and organizing, please call "Dan the Bagel Man", Daniel
Kontoff, at 857-272-6743.

Daniel.Kontoff@yahoo.com

Our
second planning meeting will be on Monday, December 16 at 6:30 PM at the
Community Church 565 Boylston Street Copley Square

BOSTON FIRST NIGHT AGAINST THE WARS 2013-2014 EDUCATIONAL

Come celebrate the close of 2013 with First Night Against All Wars!
Join a growing coalition of people dedicated to ending all forms of oppression !

Noon until 6pm
Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Facebook page
First Night Against All Wars
https://www.facebook.com/firstnightagainstallwars

Meeting first at 565 Boylston St. Community church of Boston and then walking on over to our set up location on the steps of the Boston Public Library (corner of Boylston & Dartmouth starting at Noon till six after the parade).

We'll have free hot chocolate and snacks for passersby who stop to pick up your literature. We're
also going to have a bright sticker that has broad appeal and that everyone opposed to these
wars can wear.

We're organizing an educational action that reaches the 100,000s of people who will be in Boston
to celebrate First Night. We want to welcome them. We want to celebrate.

But we also want everyone to be fully conscious of the many wars:

• Wall Street and Government's War on Us!
•The wars on women.
•The wars on people of color and immigrants.
•The wars on working people.
•The wars in Africa and Middle East.
•The war on the environment.

These are all connected!

Help make this happen!

To help with the planning and organizing, please call "Dan the Bagel Man", Daniel Kontoff, at 857-272-6743.

Daniel.Kontoff@yahoo.com

Our second planning meeting will be on Monday, December 16 at 6:30 PM at
the Community Church 565 Boylston Street Copley Square

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Pierre Broue -In Honor Of Slain Trotskyist Leader Rudolf Klement
 

…Most social and political organizations, and communist vanguard parties, national sections and international configurations alike above all, depend on the education and preservation of cadre for continuity and for preparation for the tasks at hand. For the revolutionary surge in the final analysis. Occasional militancy in good times by individuals who then go off and something else does not made revolutions in the modern era, successful ones anyway. (Yes, I have resurrected the Bolshevik-Menshevik split here, and with good reason.) That was why Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, hell even Kautsky and Bernstein, stressed the role of cadre. And that is where the sliver of cadre who adhered to the Fourth International, or rather the decimation of that sliver of cadre, including the murders of Trotsky and the man honored here, Rudolf Clements, in the late 1930s tells a lot of the story about the essential stillbirth of that organization. A hard lesson to draw, but a necessary one.     

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

 

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

 

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the worthwhile from the chaff.

*****************
 

Rudolf Klement

This short biographical sketch, or rather obituary, of Klement is translated by Ted Crawford from a piece entitled Quelques Proches Collaborateurs de Trotsky by Pierre Broué in the Cahiers Leon Trotsky, No.1, January, 1979, and is published herewith the author’s permission for the first time in English.

Rudolf Alois Klement was born in 1908. Originally active in the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) he was student of philosophy at Hamburg in 1933 and from 1932 was active in the Left Opposition when Georg Jungclas, the leader of the local group asked him to go to Prinkipo to replace Jan Fraenkel and then Otto Schüssler at about the same time that Jean van Heijenoort went there. Klement could already speak five languages and immediately started to learn Russian: six months later he could do German translations from the Russian, including particularly difficult pieces, which LD thought “good”. He arrived at Prinkipo at the beginning of May 1933 and left with the Old Man in mid-July since he was allowed to stay in France with Trotsky. He then stayed with him for the whole of the latter’s legal residence in France, first in the village of Saint-Palais and afterwards in the villa Ker-Monique at Barbizon. He was one of the delegates of the LCI at the “Pre-conference of the four” on 30 December 1933 in Paris and took the minutes of the meeting which have recently been found in the Sneevliet papers in Amsterdam. At Barbizon he often drove into Paris to make contacts and to meet the courier who arrived with the mail at the office in the Rue de Louvre. We know that on 17 April his motorbike lights failed. The Police at Ponthierry arrested him and then discovered that he had not got proper documentation for his motorbike -unaware of Trotsky’s presence, they had been watching the house full of suspicious foreigners whom they feared were about to disturb the peace of the good people of Barbizon. It was this incident that revealed to the press and the public the presence of Trotsky at Barbizon and this then served as the pretext for his expulsion from France, which was ordered on 18 April but which was only put into effect when he left for Norway on 18 June 1935.
Klement did not accompany Trotsky in his wanderings after the latter left France but stayed in Paris with a short break in Brussels before coming back to the French capital to take over the headquarters of the International Secretariat, of which he had become the administrative secretary while frequently changing his pseudonym (Frédéric, Ludwig, Walter Steen, Camille, Adolphe). He did an enormous amount of work both in translating, corresponding with the sections, keeping the files and writing articles for the press and internal bulletins. As one of the leaders of the IKD (International Communists of Germany) in exile he fought against the Johre-Fischer group and ran from afar the editorial work of Der Einzige Weg. Since he was deeply involved in the internal work of the organisation he was somewhat isolated from the local French activists. The Pole, Herschl Mendel (Stockfisch), remembers him with affection in his autobiography. The portrait painted by Georges Vereeken, “Tall and pale, slightly stooped, an unexpressive face, impenetrable, with dull, half closed eyes” is at the same time both similar to, yet rather different from, that of Gérard Rosenthal: “A large man, sharp featured, rather pale, a little bent … with a short-sighted gaze behind his glasses … like his smile a little forced. He spoke little and when he did it was slowly and with an effort. He put up with discomfort without complaint. He was reserved and withdrawn, so much so that this revolutionary seemed rather timid. He was precise and tidy.”
Absolutely loyal to Trotsky he fought against LD’s adversaries in the movement, Vereeken, Raymond Molinier and Henricus Sneevliet, who all used him as a convenient Aunt Sally. In his polemics he was hard and sharp if not savage. His risky position as both an immigrant and political refugee together with the weight of his responsibilities condemned him to almost complete clandestinity. He did not seem to know how to protect himself against shifty individuals in his personal relationships – the Lithuanian Kauffman who lived with him, and who disappeared at the same time, was in all probability “the man from Grodno” whom Herschl Mendel met with Klement and whom Mendel regarded as highly suspect. After the death of Leon Sedov and then that of Erwin Wolf, the circle regrouped round him and he was really the only one who drove forward the work of the International Secretariat and in particular the task of preparing for the Founding Conference of the Fourth International. In retrospect we can perceive the shadow of the GPU close to him at this time: first when he met the agent of the GPU, Mercader, who under the name of Mornard posed as an American sympathiser or, secondly at the beginning of July when he had his briefcase stolen on the Metro which contained documents on the Fourth International. He does not seem to have sensed his danger. On 12 July he left his French comrades. Several days later, worried not to have seen him, several of them went to his flat at Maisons-Alfort where he lived under the name of Roger Bertrand: all was in order and the table was laid for an uneaten meal.
On 16 July, Jean Rous, Pierre Naville, Sneevliet and Vereeken received copies of a letter which Trotsky also got on 4 August. All had been posted in Perpignan. It seemed to be in his handwriting but the signature was a pseudonym that he had long ceased to use and it contained several possible minor clues which Trotsky thought pointed to the presence of the GPU. Later macabre events seem to disprove the fable of a "political break” with Trotsky: for on the 26th a headless human trunk with arms was fished out of the Seine at Meulan and two days later a sack containing the legs. Despite the sarcasms of l’Humanitéand the averted gaze of others who should have known better, these were the mortal remains of Klement. This story is too well known to require further elaboration.
Some years ago in his book La Guépeou dans le movement trotskyiste, Georges Vereeken opened a posthumous case against Klement which ended with the verdict, “Rudolf Klement - Agent? Certainement un lache”. None of this carries any conviction whatsoever. The only certainty is that Klement was murdered because he had been Trotsky’s secretary and a member of the International Secretariat and his murderers have never been discovered.
Pierre Broué
1. Georg Jungclas (1902-1975) an active in young socialist in Altona in 1916, in the KPD in 1919, played a notable part in the Hamburg insurrection of 1923. Expelled from the KPD in 1927, then a member of the Leninbund. He took part in September 1930 in the founding of the United Left Opposition in Germany (VLO) and led that group in Hamburg until his emigration to Copenhagen in 1933.
2. A full report of the discovery is given in Oeuvres3, novembre 1933-avril 1934, pp.132-149.
3. The police report is in the Trotsky dossier in the French National Archives.
4. Hersch Mendel, Stockfisch (1890-1968) was also known as Katz, Nathan, Belman, Victor, Karl, etc. A Jewish worker and Old Bolshevik from Poland, he founded the Left Opposition in Poland in 1932. He emigrated to Israel after the war where he wrote his autobiography, Zichrones fun a Yiddischer Revolutsioner. He had lived for a time in Paris in 1934 and returned in 1938 just before Klement’s murder.
5. Georges Verecken, La Guépeou dans le movement trotskyiste, Paris, Pensee Universelle, 1975 p.244. [English translation The GPU in the Trotskyist Movement, London, 1976]
6. Gérard Rosenthal, Advocat de Trotsky, Paris, R Laffont 1975, p,276. A facsimile of this letter has been published in the relevant volume of the Oeuvres.
8. Letter from Trotsky - 18 July 1938 - which has been published in the Oeuvres. [English translation: The Disappearance of Rudolf Klement, Writings of Leon Trotsky 1937-38, New York 1976 p63. See also A ‘Letter’ from Rudolf Klement, ibid., pp.399-400 and On the Fate of Rudolf Klement, ibid., pp.401-409.]
9. For the full account of the Klement affair read the relevant chapter in Gérard Rosenthal’s book which deals in a definitive way with this whole question.
10. Vereeken, op. cit., pp.244-321. “Rudolf Klement – An Agent? Certainly a Careless Individual.”