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Friday, January 18, 2013
Felix Morrow
The GPU orders a Novel
(March 1939)
Source: Review, New International, New York, Vol.5 No.5, March 1939, page 34 Transcribed: Ted Crawford HTML Markup: David Walters Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2005. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.
Like his novels of the Chinese revolution, The Conquerors and Man’s Fate, Malraux’s Spanish book is less a novel than a fictionalized chronicle of the historical events. But with this great difference: in the Chinese novels the artist and observer put down what his trained eyes saw, with the result that he told far more than he knew: the strangling of the Chinese revolution by the Stalinist bureaucrats was unfolded before us. When the Stalinists told the workers to surrender their arms to their executioners; when the Stalinists turned the revolutionary terrorists over to the bourgeoisie—Malraux recorded such incidents indelibly. Despite his defense of the Stalinists against the Trotskyists in articles, therefore, his novels constituted an indictment of the Stalinist strategy in China.
The present “novel”, a chronicle of the early months of the Spanish civil war, dealing with events in which the Stalinists conducted themselves a thousand-fold more vilely than in China in 1925-1927, reveals that Malraux has thoroughly divested himself of the role of artist and observer. The events are carefully sifted, not by aesthetic criteria, but by the standards of the GPU. Nothing is permitted to appear which indicates the actual class forces in the Spanish struggle. Of the seizure of the factories by the workers’ committees in July 1936; the collectives organized by the peasants’ committees; the workers’ organization of the militias; the network of workers’ and peasants’ committees which were the real rulers of Spain during those early months; the great controversy whether the proletariat should go on to complete the socialist revolution or turn back to collaboration with the “liberal” bourgeoisie, as the Stalinists insisted, in order to get the Anglo-French aid which never came—in a word, of the real issues of the Spanish civil war, there is not a hint in this nook.
These omissions are supplemented by deliberate falsifications. The book opens in Madrid for one purpose: to give the reader the false impression that the fascists were first defeated here; the actual issue was first decided by the CNT workers in Barcelona July 19, 1936 when, refused arms by the government, the masses nevertheless by sheer numbers and heroism, conquered the revolting troops. Only then, with the workers triumphant and in power in Catalonia, did the government at Madrid agree to arm the workers. Malraux’s “poetic license” enables him in the first paragraph of his book to say that “the government had decided to arm the people”. When Malraux does turn to the Barcelona events, he has the effrontery to describe the fighting workers as “the forces of the Popular Front” (p.20); they were, of course, the CNT and POUM workers who were not dragged into the Popular Front by their leaders until months later and whose freedom from the Popular Front government enabled them to act independently and in spite of the Popular Front government in saving Catalonia on July 19.
It is a matter of historical record that the struggle in the Barcelona streets was entirely in the hands of the workers; the government leaders were nowhere to be seen; such police as remained loyal played an extremely minor role. But in Malraux’s book the historical record is perverted to justify the Stalinist subordination of the workers to the Popular Front government. Incredibly, the most famous event in the Barcelona fighting—the storming of the Atarazanas barracks by the masses under the leadership of the two most outstanding anarchist leaders, Ascaso and Durruti (Ascaso was killed in the battle)—receives one line in this book, and that in the form of a radio report, while pages are devoted to the exploits of the Barcelona police!
The completely fraudulent character of this book is revealed by this incident, among others:
Colonel Ximenes [commander of the Barcelona police] was in charge of the whole district, and for the last few hours the heads of the local organizations had been coming to get instructions from him... Puig (anarchist leader) entered... “Where can we be of the most use?” he asked. “I’ve a thousand men.” “Nowhere; all’s well for the moment. But they’ll be trying to get out of the barracks—from Atarazana anyhow. You’d better stay around for half an hour; you men may come in very handy any moment.” (p.29.)
Only a corrupt, consciously dishonest agent, could have written these lines. The CNT was master of Barcelona in those hours; a CNT leader no more thought of asking Ximenes for orders than he would have asked the fascist generals.
The real relationship of forces may be indicated by the discreet statement of the bourgeois Esquerra leader, Jaime Miravittles, explaining why the CNT-controlled militia committee was established:
The Central Committee of Militias was born two or three days after the [subversive] movement, in the absence of any regular public force and when there was no army in Barcelona. For another thing, there were no longer any Civil or Assault Guards. For all of them had fought so arduously, united with the forces of the people, that now they formed part of the same mass and had remained mixed up> with it. In these circumstances, weeks went by without it being possible to reunite and regroup the dispersed forces of the Assault and Civil Guards. (Heraldo de Madrid, Sept. 4, 1936)
One could confront every page of this utterly dishonest book with the documented facts. This hook is not a novel at all, but a piece of dirty work for the GPU.
Felix MORROW
Felix Morrow
Anarchism in Spain
(January 1938)
Source:New International, Vol.4 No.1, January 1938, pp.6-7. Transcription/XHTML Markup: Ted Crawford and David Walters. Copyleft: Felix Morrow Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2004. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
The appearance of Rudolf Rocker’s The Tragedy of Spain warrants a proposal to the anarchists of the English-speaking world for a basic discussion of the role of anarchism in the Spanish revolution. As events dictate, Rocker’s pamphlet is in large part a damning indictment of the bourgeois-Stalinist counter-revolution. We subscribe to every jot and tittle of that indictment. Our comrades throughout the world have undertaken as their elementary duty the defense of the CNT workers. We stand in unconditional solidarity with them against their oppressors. Our own press has largely subordinated our critical analysis of the strategy of Spanish anarchism to the immediately pressing task of rallying aid for the persecuted anarchist movement. If Rocker’s new work were but such a defense alone, we should be only too happy to solidarize ourselves with it completely.
The Tragedy of Spain is, however, more than a defense pamphlet. It is also an attempt to justify the fundamental strategy pursued by the CNT leadership. More, it “deduces” the bourgeois-Stalinist repressions from Lenin and Trotsky’s theories which “were merely pathbreakers” for Stalin, whose policies are “only the logical result of the work of his predecessors”.
No one can have failed to observe the sudden recrudescence of anarchist and syndicalist attacks on the foundations of Leninism. The struggle for Kronstadt in 1921 is revived as a burning question! Strenuous are the attempts to pronounce Stalinism the natural heir of Bolshevism. Trotsky and other comrades have analyzed such arguments and coped with them at great length. Here, I wish merely to underline one reason for the revival of this stuff: the disastrous course of the leadership of Spanish anarchism has developed a strong semi-Bolshevik current in the anarchist movement. The Friends of Durruti, supported by sections of the Libertarian Youth and the FAI, represent this tendency in Spain itself. Their recognition of the necessity for democratic organs of power (soviets) and organs of repression against the bourgeoisie and its direct allies (dictatorship of the proletariat)—lessons learned not from books but from the hard blows of the Spanish events—have spelled the end of anarchist prejudices against proletarian state power. But this is Trotskyism! The anarchist leadership outside Spain therefore seeks to immunize its followers against this tendency by identifying it with... its merciless persecutor! (Inside Spain, however, this method is employed but little, for the simple reason that the CNT leadership courts Stalin.) This stratagem will not save anarchism from discussing with us the question: the movement led by their Spanish comrades was the greatest single force in the Iberian proletariat; anarchism has thus received its first test on a large scale; what has that test shown?
We contend that the Spanish events have demonstrated the complete bankruptcy of anarchism as a guide to the proletariat on the road to a socialist society. I shall briefly outline some necessary points of discussion:
I. Anarchism becomes class collaborationism in the period of social revolution.
During the period of stable bourgeois rule, anarchist hatred of oppression spurs it to struggle against capitalism. But in the crucible of the revolution, when the bourgeoisie can only weather the flames by offering to collaborate in building the “new society”, anarchist opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat is revealed as a “non-class” ideology, in other words, class collaborationist. Why didn’t the CNT take power on July 19, 1936, or propose the assumption of power by democratic organs with franchise limited to worker and peasant? Note the answer of Rudolf Rocker—who is concededly the most important figure in world anarchism. Arguing against the Stalinist myth that the CNT was trying to take power in May 1937, Rocker says:
“If the CNT-FAI had really entertained any such plans, they had for a long time after the 19th of July the best opportunity to put their wishes into effect, for their tremendous moral and physical superiority over every other faction was such that simply no one could have resisted them. They did not do so, not because they lacked the strength, but because they were opposed to any dictatorship from whichever side it proceeded. “
Note that the anarchist criterion is not conditioned by the specific Spanish situation; it is a blueprint for all revolutions: class collaboration with any section of capitalists who do not take arms in hand against the masses (they do not because they have not yet the strength!) is at the very heart of the anarchist conception of the road to socialism. Thus the Spanish anarchists—and all who follow them in the future—rehabilitate the bourgeoisie before the masses, nurture them, give them time to restore their strength—and to turn and crush the masses.
II. A coalition government is inevitably anti-working class.
Rocker is less than entirely honest—to put it no more strongly—in writing a pamphlet which does not once comment on the significant fact of CNT participation in the Valencian and Catalonian governments! These coalitions with the bourgeoisie, instruments of class collaboration during a revolutionary period, were the most important means whereby the bourgeois-Stalinist bloc recouped the power from the masses. They did so by the simple device of arrogating more and more power to the government, i.e., to the old bourgeois state for which the CNT served as a “red front”; and they did so with the direct approbation of the CNT leadership.
Rocker is guilty of a vulgar anti-Stalinism which does not take into account the role of the bourgeois state, for which Stalinism merely served as the most efficient bloodhound.
“If one can bring any reproach against the leading persons in the CNT-FAI,” says Rocker, “it is that they accorded these false ‘brothers’ [the Stalinists] a greater confidence than they deserved, and that under the pressure of desperate circumstances they let themselves be drawn into making concessions which could only prove disastrous to them later.”
This, and other equally vague statements of the same kind, remind one of those academic admissions of error which Stalinism gives as lip-service to critical Marxism, but the exact contents of which are discreetly left for future turns and twists. The fact is that the basic crimes of the CNT leadership were committed during the first weeks of the Generalidad government (September 26 on), when the Stalinists were still hopelessly weak in Spain and when no Russian arms had yet arrived. What were those basic crimes? Joining with the bourgeois-Stalinist bloc in issuing a series of decrees wiping out the revolution: the decrees dissolving the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias and turning its powers over to the Ministries of Defense and Public Order; the decree dissolving all the revolutionary committees throughout Catalonia; the decree establishing municipal governments based on fixed ratios of representation from the various parties; the decree disarming the workers; the decree providing for compensation to the landlords and factory owners; the decrees militarizing the militias under the bourgeois military code. I mention only those decrees which the bourgeoisie proposed and the C.N.T. approved. I shall not even mention those necessary measures for the social revolution which the CNT failed even to propose (nationalization of banks, land, etc., etc.).
Can one speak of this systematic legislation, approved by the CNT, as an “error”? No, CNT approval flowed from a basic tenet of anarchism: the refusal to distinguish between workers’ states and bourgeois states, hence CNT collaboration in a bourgeois state, CNT approval of legislation to strengthen the bourgeois state against the workers. The crimes of the CNT leaders cannot be laid to their trustfulness in the Stalinists. As a matter of fact, I can adduce page and chapter to demonstrate that they understood who their Stalinist confrères were. Much deeper were the roots of this collaboration with reformists and bourgeois counter-revolutionaries: it flows from anarchist theory.
III. There is today in Spain a corrupt, degenerate anarchist bureaucracy.
Doctrinairism can explain much: leaders pursuing false theories will not admit the falsity of their theories, despite the impact of events. But this is not the only explanation for the present course of the CNT leadership. Fifteen months of class collaboration, of occupying bourgeois governmental posts, etc., has crystallized a bureaucratic layer in the CNT which feels its affinity with the communist and socialist bureaucracies rather than with the masses of the CNT. Despite all the experiences of the first coalition governments, this CNT bureaucracy seeks only to return to the government, under the face-saving formula of the “anti-fascist” front, which is nothing but a re-baptized People’s Front. This bureaucracy concealed from the workers on the barricades in the May days the government’s sending of troops from Valencia, the Generalidad’s violation of its agreements, the massacre at Tarragona, etc., etc.—intent only on getting the workers to capitulate. This bureaucracy calls upon the masses to put its faith in Caballero—the same Caballero who headed a government which boycotted Catalonian economy, prevented systematic development of a war industry in Catalonia, starved the Aragon front of arms, established political censorship of the workers’ press, organized praetorian forces in the Assault, Civil guards and carabineros, etc., etc. This bureaucracy praised Stalin, suppressed all criticism of the Moscow trials, and thus facilitated the bloody work of Stalin’s hangmen. This bureaucracy did not lift a finger to save the Friends of Durruti, its contenders for leadership of the CNT, from being outlawed by the government. One can no longer speak of this CNT bureaucracy as just making mistakes.
Yet anarchist comrades, particularly in the English-speaking world, in the name of unity of action, of defense of the Spanish workers, remain silent about these crimes and thus join in bearing the responsibility for them. While the late Camillo Berneri and Joaquin Ascaso, among others, have not hesitated in Spain publicly to denounce the policies of the CNT bureaucrats, while more and more local papers of the CNT movement speak out, we find the American anarchists especially silent about the tragic course of the CNT. Who is served by such silence? Certainly not the masses of any country. Certainly not the theoretical foundations of the revolution in any country. We have opened the discussion. What do the anarchists have to say?
Felix MORROW
As indicated in the article of Felix Morrow, the Editors of The New International are ready to open its pages to a discussion article on the subject by a responsible advocate of the policy of the Spanish anarchists.
The Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense
Formed in 1966, the Black Panther Party for
Self Defense was the largest Black revolutionary organization that has ever
existed.
Famous for taking up guns in defense against police
brutality, the Panthers had many other little-known sides to their work. They
organized dozens of community programs such as free breakfast for children,
health clinics and shoes for children.
Such was their success that they rapidly grew to a size of 5,000 full time
party workers, organized in 45 chapters (branches) across America. At their
peak, they sold 250,000 papers every week. Opinion polls of the day showed the
Panthers to have 90% support amongst Blacks in the major cities. Their impact on
Black America can be measured by the response of the state. J. Edgar Hoover,
then head of the FBI described them as "the number one threat to the internal
security of the United States".
In this chapter, we will be looking at the formation of the Panthers, their
program and activities, but more importantly, what marked the Panthers out to be
different from all other organizations, what led them to be the inspiration to
generations around the world to join the struggle against oppression.
The Civil Rights Movement
The formation of the Panthers was the direct result of the
development of the civil rights movement which had already been in full swing
for more than a decade before they were created.
The movement had largely been based in the south and around demands for
desegregation of the busses, schools, waiting rooms and lunch counters. Hundreds
of thousands had been mobilized to participate in the demonstrations, sit-ins
and freedom rides. Both from the police, local white mobs and the Ku Klux Klan,
civil rights protesters faced the constant threat of brutal attack or even
death. Despite this, the guiding philosophy of the civil rights leaders - in
particular Martin Luther King - remained one of civil disobedience and passive
resistance.
The increasing ferocity of the violence put a great strain on the movement.
Contrasting views on a strategy for Black liberation began to emerge. Stokely
Carmichael was prominent among those who opposed passive resistance and
represented the feelings of a new generation of Blacks who felt that the
peaceful approach was played out.
Alongside the mainstream civil rights was another current: much smaller than
King's movement but still with significant numbers were the Black Muslims. The
Nation believed in separation instead of integration and were completely opposed
to passive resistance. Their radical ideology was appealing but they refused to
participate in the civil rights movement or to become involved in the activities
of non-Nation members.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X saw the limitations of both the Muslims and
King's strategy of non-violence. He saw the need to embrace the social and
economic issues and he attempted to put forward a more coherent strategy than
any Black leader up to that point. It was against this background of upheaval
that the Black Panther Party was created. The Panthers took the revolutionary
philosophy and militant stand of Malcolm X, they were determined that although
Malcolm X had been cut down, they would make his ideas come alive.
The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. They
met in the early sixties whilst at Meritt Junior College in West Oakland. The
civil rights movement had ignited Black America: Seale and Newton were no
exception. Both were active in Black politics for several years before they came
together to form the Panthers. Bobby Seale was part of RAM (Revolutionary Action
Movement) and both Seale and Newton became involved in a college-based group
called the Soul Students Advisory Committee. These experiences were critical in
the formation of the ideology of the Panthers as it led to them rejecting the
philosophy of what they called the cultural nationalists.
In Seize the Time, Bobby Seale explains,
"Cultural nationalists and Black Panthers are in conflict in many
areas. Basically, cultural nationalism sees the white man as the oppressor and
makes no distinction between racist whites and non-racist whites, as the
Panthers do. The cultural nationalists say that a Black man cannot be the enemy
of the Black people, while the Panthers believe that Black capitalists are
exploiters and oppressors. Although the Black Panther Party believes in Black
nationalism and Black culture, it does not believe that either will lead to
Black liberation or the overthrow of the capitalist system, and are therefore
ineffective."
Cultural nationalism was a powerful current in the Black movement and one
which influenced Malcolm X in his early years as a Black Muslim. The
nationalists rejected the integrationist approach and believed in separation
from whites.
In forming the Panthers, Seale and Newton made a clean break with both the
integrationist and the separatist approach. They argued instead that the
economic and political roots of racism were in the exploitative capitalist
system and that the Black struggle must be a revolutionary movement to overthrow
the entire power structure in order to achieve liberation for all Black people.
Under pressure from the mass civil rights struggle, the government had made
certain concessions: promoting Black officials, mayors, Congressmen etc., but no
lasting improvement to the daily lives of most Black people had taken place. In
fact, whilst segregation laws had been broken down, the level of poverty had
actually increased. Black unemployment was higher in 1966 (after more than a
decade of struggle) than in 1954.
32% of Black people were living below the poverty line in 1966.
71% of the poor living in metropolitan areas were Black.
By 1968, two-thirds of the Black population lived in ghettos.
The Panthers realized that the movement needed to progress beyond the battles
for desegregation and to address the fundamental economic problems that people
faced in their daily lives. They were the first independent Black organization
to have a clear analysis of the type of society we live in: one in which a small
class hold all the economic and political power and use it to exploit the
majority.
Bobby Seale said,
"We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with
solidarity. We do not fight exploitative capitalism with Black capitalism. We
fight capitalism with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more
imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism."
This was the guiding philosophy of the Black Panthers. But critical to their
development was the knowledge that it was not enough to have the right theories,
that this must be translated into a concrete set of demands that people can
relate to and a clear course of action to achieve those demands. And so the
first task of Seale and Newton was to sit down and write a program for the
Panthers.
October 1966 Black Panther Party Platform and Program
What We Want What We Believe
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black
community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to
determine our destiny.
2. We want full employment for our people.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give
every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white
American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production
should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the
people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a
high standard of living.
3. We wand an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding
the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was
promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black
people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our
many communities. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has
taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we
feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our
Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives
so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing
for its people.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this
decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history
and our role in present-day society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge
of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society
and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military
service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not
fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are
being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect
ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist
military, by whatever means necessary.
7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of
Black people.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing
Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community
from racist police oppression and brutality. The second amendment to the
constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore
believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.
8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal state, county and city
prisons and jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and
prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a
jury of their peer group or people from their Black communities, as defined by
the constitution of the United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States constitution so
that black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US
constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a
person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental,
historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select
a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have
been and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the
"average reasoning man" of the Black community.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And
as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be
held throughout the Black colony in which only Black colonial subjects will be
allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of Black people
as to their national destiny.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
the laws of nature and nature's God entitle, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these
rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter such
principles, and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
As soon as the program was written, they printed 1,000 copies and went out
onto the streets to distribute them. Seale, Newton and their first member, Bobby
Hutton put their months paychecks together to rent an old shop front as a base
for operations. They painted up a sign saying Black Panther Party for Self
Defense and on January 1, 1967 the office was opened. Weekly meetings and
political education classes were held to spread the word, and so the first
chapter of the Panthers was formed.
The party began to grow not only because an organization of that character
with a clearly worked out program was needed at that time but because they based
themselves in the community, working with the people, for the people. They had
an office, they had the ten point platform and program - now was time to put
that program into action.
Self Defense
The Panthers decided to take up their constitutional right
to carry arms and to implement Malcolm X's philosophy of self-defense, by
patrolling the police. They did this at a time when severe police brutality was
common - the police would beat down and kill Blacks at random. They would even
recruit police from the racist south to come and work in the northern ghettos.
On one occasion, whilst on patrol, they witnessed an officer stop and search
a young guy. The Panthers got out of their car and went over to the scene and
stood watching their guns on full display. Angrily, the policeman began to
question them and tried to intimidate them with threats of arrest. But Huey P.
Newton had studied the law intimately and could quote every law and court ruling
relevant to their situation.
Huey stood there with a law book in one hand and a gun in the other and told
the "pigs" about his constitutional right to carry a weapon as long as it was
not concealed. He told them about the law and said that every citizen had the
right to observe a police officer carry out his duty as long as they stood a
reasonable distance away. And he told them about the Supreme Court ruling which
defined that distance.
A crowd gathered and watched this whole scene in amazement. The Panthers made
it clear that they were not looking for a shoot-out and that they would only use
their guns in self-defense. They took the opportunity to distribute copies of
their ten point program, inform people of the Panthers ideology and invite them
to their political meetings. Meanwhile, the flustered and nervous cop took the
opportunity to get the hell out of there.
The gun had a huge psychological effect, both on the Black community and the
police. For the police, it reversed the fear that they so enjoyed creating in
others. But for the Black community, it fired their imagination, people felt
empowered by seeing Black brothers and sisters protecting their interests.
There were two sides to the carrying of guns though, most people saw it as a
positive move but others were put off by the militaristic image. On the other
side, many brothers in particular, came to the Panther office purely for the
gun, the Black uniform - the whole image. When this happened, the Panthers would
simply explain that the Black struggle was about a whole lot more than just
picking up the gun: it was about educating yourself and then others, about
organizing the community programs, selling the newspaper and serving the people.
At the same time, they would get the brother to work in the nursery for a while,
looking after the children while other members went out on party business. In
this way, they tried to make sure that people understood the Panther ideology
and that they got a balanced view of what it was all about.
Community Programs
The programs were of key importance in the Panthers
strategy. Firstly, they demonstrated that politics was relevant to peoples lives
- to feed a hungry child, give out food, clothing and medical care showed that
the Panthers related to people's needs. Secondly, it showed what could be
achieved if you were organized. The programs achieved a great deal with very
limited resources but it also raised in peoples minds how much more could be
achieved if they had the resources available to the government and the business
corporations. Some people have criticized the community programs saying it was
not a revolutionary thing to do but Bobby Seale answers this clearly.
"A lot of people misunderstand the politics of these programs; some
people have a tendency to call them reform programs. They're not reform
programs; they're actually revolutionary community programs. A revolutionary
program is onset forth by revolutionaries, by those who want to change the
existing system for a better system. A reform program is set up by the existing
exploitative system as an appeasing handout, to fool the people and to keep them
quiet. Examples of these programs are poverty programs, youth work programs and
things like that."
The first program the Panthers organized was the Free Breakfast for Children
Program. Lesley Johnson explains how this led her to get involved in the
Panthers.
"Well, one of the things that I could immediately respect and admire
the party for, was its Breakfast for School Children Program. You know my
parents were both workers, my father was a shipper and my mother, she worked
cleaning clothes, rubbing the spots out, what was known as a spotter. And there
were times when I was growing up, the week's oatmeal or whatever would run out
and I went to school hungry. So that I could really appreciate what the party
was doing."
The Panthers would go out and get donations of food from businessmen. Any
chain of stores that refused even a small donation would be boycotted. Leaflets
would be produced and distributed in the community exposing that business.
The programs usually took place in a church hall. Party members would have to
work very hard, starting work at 6am every day. They would prepare breakfast,
serve children, they would usually sing some songs with them and then, when the
children left, they would have to clear the place up and go out to collect
provisions for the next day.
The FBI
The success of the Panther's political activities and
community programs and their huge growth and influence and membership soon
brought them under fire from the American state. The FBI intensified the
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) against them. Nearly every office in
the country was raided at some point. In Chicago, all the food provisions for
the breakfast program were burnt out. During one raid in the spring of 1968,
Bobby Hutton, the party's first member, came out with his hands up. The police
shot him in the head and killed him. The attacks became even more vicious in
1969. On December 4, at 1am, the police burst into Fred Hampton's apartment and
opened fire in the bedroom where he lay sleeping with his pregnant girlfriend.
Another Panther called out that a pregnant sister was in the room and the police
paused their firing. Deborah Johnson recalls:
"One of the policemen grabbed my robe and threw it down and said
'what do you know, we have a broad here.' Another man grabbed me by the head and
shoved me into the kitchen. I heard a voice from another part of the apartment
saying 'he's barely alive', or 'he'll barely make it'. Then I heard more shots.
A sister screamed from the front. Then the shooting stopped. I heard someone say
'he's as good as dead now.'"
In 1969 alone, 25 Panther members were killed. But the FBI's operations went
further. Aside from the constant arrests of Panther members which disrupted the
work of the organization and drained them financially, the FBI infiltrated the
party and manufactured rivalries and disputes between different members.
Today, some would explain the demise of the Panthers as due to the successful
operations of the FBI. Undoubtedly, this placed an enormous strain on the
organization but there are many countries in the world where political
opposition faces even greater repression from the state. Without underestimating
the difficulties, they cannot entirely account for the fall of the Panthers.
There are a number of factors which contributed.
Women in the Panthers
The role of women within the Panthers was an area with
many problems. At one point, women comprised 70% of the membership of the
organization. Yet, all the leading positions were occupied by men. This is not a
petty point because it illustrated the different roles that men and women took
on. It seems that many women were confined to secretarial, administrative,
childcare or other traditional roles whilst men were encouraged to develop the
political ideas, speaking and leadership abilities. Also, some of the brothers
complained that they were not taking directions from a woman! At other times it
was found that accusations of being a counter-revolutionary were spread about a
woman just because she did not want to sleep with someone.
These problems would have cut the Panthers off from a whole layer of Black
women who were not prepared to put up with this nonsense. However, we have to
see that sexist attitudes were not unique to the Panthers - it is something that
occurs in all organizations because it is related to the oppressive nature of
this society and the way in which it exploits women. The Panthers did take
action against these attitudes but they did not fully succeed - equality in the
party was never achieved. And you cannot be a true community organization,
fighting the oppression of society if women are being oppressed within your
organization.
The membership of the Panthers was 5,000. This seems pretty low when you
consider all they achieved but the reason is that those 5,000 members were all
full-time! You could not be a member of the organization unless you were
unemployed or prepared to give up your job. It is a sign of the tremendous
commitment that the Panthers inspired, that they had 5,000 full-time workers but
they would definitely have had a much, much larger membership if they had
allowed students and people who were working to join. In effect they cut
themselves off from hundreds of thousands of people who would have supported
them. This also set themselves apart from the rest of the community.
Revolutionary Black Workers Groups
At that point in time, there were several radical Black
workers groups such as DRUM (Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement), DODGE - named
after the car plant in Detroit and ELARUM (Eldron Avenue Revolutionary Union
Movement). They organized large numbers of revolutionary Black workers. Although
they had some Black caucuses within the trade unions, the Panthers did not
sufficiently develop this aspect of the work. It was of particular importance
because the Black working class are critical in the struggle for Black
liberation.
The Panthers were one of the few groups who understood the whole basis of
American society had to be transformed. It was this understanding that gave them
a revolutionary outlook. But this alone, guarantees nothing. The clarity of
ideas which enables the development of a coherent and effective strategy is
essential in accomplishing the task of the overthrow of capitalism. We would
argue that there were many confused ideas in the Black Panther Party. Some
believed they could develop on the basis of a struggle conducted by a small
armed minority and didn't have a strategy for building a mass organization which
could be sustained over a longer period.
Huey Newton says in Revolutionary Suicide
"But we soon discovered that weapons and uniforms set us apart from
the community. We were looked upon as an ad hoc military group, acting outside
the community fabric and too radical to be a part of it. Perhaps some of our
tactics at the time were extreme; perhaps we placed too much emphasis on
military action."
This was particularly important as they had reached their high point at the
time of the ebbing of the huge civil rights movement. Had the organization been
developed with a more long term perspective then the Black Panthers would have
been in a position to put themselves at the head of a mass resurgence of
radicalism amongst the Black population or even in wider American society. This,
above all demonstrates the need for a clear forward view of how events will
unfold in society. That is why a careful and disciplined study of events is an
important aspect of shaping the outlook of any revolutionary organization.
The Panthers have left us with an invaluable experience. Their dedication,
will and bravery in the face of what might have appeared as insurmountable odds
is an example which any serious Black activist or revolutionary should be proud
to follow. They were the highpoint of the civil rights movement.
Adrian Wood & Nutan Rajguru
Marxist History: USA: Black Panther Party
The Ten-Point Program
We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine The Destiny Of Our Black
Community.
We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to
determine our destiny.
We Want Full Employment For Our People.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated
to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the
White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of
production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community
so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people
and give a high standard of living.
We Want An End To The Robbery By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we
are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two
mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder
of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be
distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in
Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million
Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million
Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.
We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing
to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into
cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make
decent housing for its people.
We Want Education For Our People That Exposes The True Nature Of This
Decadent American Society. We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History
And Our Role In The Present-Day Society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a
knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position
in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything
else.
We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the
military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will
not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people,
are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect
ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist
military, by whatever means necessary.
We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by
organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black
community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore
believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self- defense.
We Want Freedom For All Black Men Held In Federal, State, County And
City Prisons And Jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many
jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In Court By A
Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black Communities, As Defined
By The Constitution Of The United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States
Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer
group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious,
geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the
court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the
Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries
that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black
community.
We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Written: October 15, 1966 Source:War Against the Panthers, by Huey P. Newton,
1980 Transcription/Markup & corrections:
MIM/Brian Baggins Online Version: Marxist History
Archive (marxists.org) 2001
Note: Corrections to the MIM transcription have been made in
this version. The MIM version had some errors, most notably point ten contained
a fabrication of unknown origin, describing the parties "Major Political
Objective, A United Nations Supervised Plebiscite". This
has been removed. The present version is checked word for word according to the
version found in War Against the Panthers, by Huey P. Newton, 1980.
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
***********
Since September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hocand sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now! *********** The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial now scheduled for June 2013. The news on his case over the past several months (since about April 2012) has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including recent defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial (Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at 900 plus days and will be over 1000 days by the time of trial), a motion still not ruled on as of this writing.
The defense has also recently pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.
The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention been that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary).(Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanged that reflected poorly on that profession.) The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered.That motion has also not been ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter- motions and a cause for further trial delay.
A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods
Judge Lind, the military judge e who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.
Some other important recent news, this from the November 2012 pre-trail sessions, is the offer by the defense to plead guilty to lesser charges (wrongful, unauthorized use of the Internet, etc.) in order to clear the deck and have the major espionage /aiding the enemy issue (with a possibility of a life sentence) solely before the court-martial judge, Judge Lind (the one who has been hearing the pre-trial motions, not some senior officer, senior NCO lifer-stacked panel). Also there has been increased media attention by mainstream outletsaround the case (including the previously knowingly oblivious New York Times), as well as an important statement by three Nobel Peace Laureates(including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails. Check the Bradley Manning Support Network -http://www.bradleymanning.org/for details and future updates.
Judge limits Manning’s whistle-blower defense, pretrial confinement nears 1,000 days
After partially granting the government’s motion to preclude motive from the trial, Judge Lind heard arguments from both parties for the defense’s motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial. Today is Bradley Manning’s 964th day in jail without trial. Manning returns to court February 26, 2013. By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. January 16, 2013.
Supporters rally outside Ft. Meade, MD.
Military Judge Denise Lind ruled that PFC Bradley Manning will be able to show evidence of his noble motives at potential sentencing; however, during the merits portion of the trial, to decide guilt or innocence, the defense’s abilities are very narrow. Then, she ruled, the defense will only be able to discuss Manning’s motive to show that he didn’t know giving information to WikiLeaks meant he was “dealing with the enemy.” This limits the defense’s ability to prove Manning was a whistle-blower when countering the government’s harshest charge, ‘aiding the enemy,’ which carries a life sentence.
Judge Lind deferred a ruling on whether the defense would be allowed to present evidence of overclassification to dispute the ‘aiding the enemy’ charge.
Following those announcements, both parties argued for the defense’s motion to dismiss charges based on a lack of a speedy trial. On Manning’s 964th day in prison awaiting trial, government prosecutors attempted to justify the extensive delays, contending that they were duly diligent and that the scope and complexity of the case necessitate a lengthy pretrial confinement.
Defense lawyer David Coombs followed, arguing that the government has violated Manning’s right to a speedy trial as afforded by the U.S. constitution, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Rules for Court Martial. Under RCM 707, the government has 120 days from arrest to arraign a detainee. Prosecutors took more than 600 days to arraign Manning, but their delays have been excluded by the court-martial Convening Authority, Col. Carl Coffman. But the defense argues Col. Coffman, who’s legally bound to make an independent determination on whether the delays the government requests are reasonable, was essentially a rubber stamp, signing off on one government request after another without urging prosecutors to speed their progress.
Furthermore, the defense says prosecutors waited months and months for government agencies to complete classification reviews of documents Manning’s accused of leaking, and should have proceeded with Manning’s Article 32 pretrial hearing with the evidence it already had.
Prosecutors justifying their extensive delays. Sketch by Clark Stoeckley, Bradley Manning Support Network.
Article 10 of the UCMJ, more stringent than the Constitution’s 5th amendment, dictates that the prosecution must act diligently throughout the case, from arrest through to conviction or dismissal. The defense pointed to dozens of days where the government didn’t act at all, and far more when it “dragged its feet.” Manning was arrested on May 27, 2010, but prosecutors didn’t urge classification authorities to complete their reviews until March 18, 2011.
To rebut the defense’s claims, government prosecutor Ashden Fein downplayed the defense’s claims that it waited nearly a year to move reviews along. He said the government couldn’t have acted earlier, because WikiLeaks was releasing documents attributed to Manning throughout 2010 – even though it knew which documents it wanted to charge months before it referred the second set of charges on March 1, 2011.
Judge Lind will rule on the defense’s speedy trial motion by the next hearing, February 26 through March 1, 2013, by which time Manning will have been in jail for more than 1,000 days. Unlike last month’s Article 13 ruling, when Judge Lind awarded the defense 112 days credit toward a potential sentence, the speedy trial ruling affords no intermediary solutions. The judge can deny the motion altogether, dismiss charges with prejudice and Manning would walk free, or dismiss charges without prejudice, allowing the government to recharge the same offenses.
New York City, 1950s New Jack City for the jack-worthy, not big enough for million- worded jacks (or jills), not in the end. In the end he, they, needed the road, the wide open roads west, the transcontinental riff calling, the Route 6, 66, 666 (the lattera pact with the devil, or the devils’ master, some deal to write that second million words ofthe legend-in-the- making), the great thruways aborning. Passing (if they could ever get that first hitchhike ride out of the city) dusty dutch red barn farms, steel cities achingly filled with lonesome story bus stops and stinking urinals, dirty , and always too big passengers in the next seat who snored, who spread their mass on fallow shoulders, passing auto cities filled with hungry, great depression hungry workers looking to make their first down payments on a dream, a dream car to quell their restless search, and maybe some little white picket fenced house to anoint their red scare cold war night, to be on the right side of the angels for once. Shoving into hog butcher to the world Chi town, all brawny and beef, all a place to move west, and move fast to avoid Joliet blues like a million Muddys coming from old Parchman’s Farm Mississippi Delta south up highway 61 , down along the silty big muddy and then to the great expanse, the Dakotas with their forlorn look, and their young desperate to head west and become drugstore movie stars, following their okie-arkie brethren further south who made the trek a generation before and were now stranded in some Pomona shopping plaza wondering what the hell it was all about, or roaming those Pacific coast highways in their jalopies, their hot money hot rods looking for the heart of Saturday night, or lucky boys, searching for that perfect wave down in the LaJollas of the world .
Pushing, ever pushing west, on into junction Denver searching for the ghost of the cowboy past in Larimer Street pool halls, barrooms, and chip joints (and maybe an untoward whorehouse), looking for golden all-American Old West cowboy dreams. Onward out of the flame-thrown Rockies and down into dinosaur death Utah and then Nevadas, Winnemucca dry holes a specialty just don’t get caught out there on that hitchhike road. And then land’s end golden gate rust pacific rim of the world Frisco town and flowers and blossoms in the foggy North Beach night. But all this later.For now though life is, life is New Jack City, and the strange neon night rhythms.
Time Square, eternal home to every Hoboken hipster forced to flee for non-payment of rent, every Ithaca spinster angel looking for some Boston marriage far from prying eyes, every broken dream okie farm boy useless on the dust bowl farm and itching to get at those women, those easy city women he heard about on the radio or in some forbidden magazine, after a steady diet of dried- out high hell fundamentalist girls aching for the lord and a fistful of kids to take away the empty soul of the black, true black starless prairie nights after a proper marriage, every arkiebeauty queen who could not survive the rarified airs of“take it all off sister”or beingass-pinched by hot rod valley boys waiting impatiently for hamburgers and fries in the blossoming Hollywood car hop nights and who couldn’t go home to Helena, every drifter, grafter, grafter and midnight sifter working the flamed never-ending lights of hell. Lit up, neon- lit, gas-lit, 24/7/365-lit, lit to the gills, lit against the jack-rolling crime night (see above for candidates, jack-rollers in waiting, if the occasion arises) back alley big city simplicity itself just some chain, or an off-hand pipe, behind the knees, crumple easy to the ground, grab the dough, up and out to some whore blow, dope blow, whisky blow.
Out in the flamed, never ending lights of hell-lit up, lit against the gang night, Central Park mainly, and some off streets down in Little Italy and up in high Harlem, 125th Street anyway, lit against the rough trade Genet night sailor boys fresh from the wharves, Hudson wharves, East River wharves, flush with just off the boat pay-off cash, looking for chain-whip kicks, some diva delight, some fresh leather boy too. Lit against the sad sin sexless sex night, some anonymous Lansing, Muncie, Omaha corn-fed young thing, maybe like her older arkie sister a beauty queen who headed east instead of west to get into the theater or some concert hall, shapely, good legs, working hips, tired of light-less farms and farm fields headed to the big city, headed up 42nd street instead of Broadway or the Village and wound up with big faded dreams calling out “hey mister, want a good time,” or maybe stoned to the gills just nods, stoop nods, symbolically showing a good time just by her uniform, that split pea dress showing plenty of thigh, those long black nylon stockings, and that kewpie doll smile, all yours for the price of a needle, a room, and some pimp’s damn cut or, hell, when the spiral goes down some quickie back alley head and a quick napkin spit wipe, jesus. Watch out for the jack-rollers honey though, especially watch out for those damn jack-rollers you earned your money, earned it hard, and she maybe thinking to herself if old farm boy love Roy could see me now, later to be turned over to some Jersey whorehouse and work by the bell. Go home sister, go home, now.New Jack was just too big for you.
Wall Street, pass, this is not about coupon-clipping, okay. Although on other days some guys might like to kick that can down the road a bit. Madison Avenue, pass, this is not about subliminal desires and tricks, well- meaning Vance Packard to the contrary. Park Avenue, pass, well, maybe half-pass, maybe half pass looking for princesses (WASP, Jewish, does it matter as long as they are looking for down at the end of the road beat brothers, and have the money, not some trust fund tied- up and handed out nickels and dimes stuff but real cash) looking for kicks before they run off to the Hamptons and later the Connecticut shoreline bedroom communities with their soft felt hat train-catching for the city stockbroker lovers. Just kicks though, no stir time stuff, not with daddy warbucks on the warpath, not with his Pinkertons, and not with his pen dripped in ink just that minute re-writing the terms of his will. Or maybe catch some off-hand wild thing, maybe jail bail, pray to god not, looking to break out, like the beat boys and girls, from the bourgeois high society (not beat high, reefer high, benny high, boy high, cousin high) but from same old same old Fifth Avenue parties, some freak-out boarding school and Miss Prissy’s finishing school. Jesus.
Yah, a quick stop to check for those looking for jack night thrills to fill up, fill up like some gas tank, their beat souls, or looking for some golden cowboy, some fast flash wind from the west, fresh from stir, all Paul Newman beautiful, and those blue eyes, those Ladies’ Room tittle blue eyes, and someone will spell it out, bedroom eyes, new to the city, and woman hungry, take no prisoners, or maybe checking for those lookingfor some poor boy sailor boyjust off the ships just got paid Genet boys rough stuff. Down some dark wharf street, down some tavern end of the dock street, and secret dreams, but such rarified tastes are dangerous, dangerous indeed.
Up to Columbia, the university, of course, ivy-covered, respectable for a minute (before the 1960s heist of all property when it was merely an Ivy outpost in a brazen, bare knuckles city), a minute when some buzz came breezing in, the beat boys and girls came breezing in, came through the portals, hah, the groves of academia. And Jack and Allen and kindred teased the city dry, blew town, went out on the pioneer highways just like the forbears, saw majestic and crude things, did majestic and crude thing, smoked some dope, made some love, drank some cheap Tokay wine, and oh yes, unchained, unhinged Eliot and Wolfe language from it throne moorings, and created some flash beat to be listened to elsewhere, elsewhere in the land’s end rusted golden gate sun.
The Village of course (those who need to know what village just move on), the clubs and nooks already mentioned, jazz, folk rearing its head, more jazz, some poetry on an off night, the beat poets reading their beat poems to a famished world (or slender slice of it), the streets of dreams not mentioned, Bleecker, McDougall on up to Canal,the safe harbor, hell, sanctuary for those blown away by the cold war red scare night, not just reds, and pinks, and maybe white pinks, but all mother nature’s odd and damaged, the beat poem listen to hangers-on for sure, the morphine kickers looking for sure connections and some walking daddy to be-bop with when the crash came, the rough trade boys, reading Genet in some tavern back room in translation, tired of hell angels beating up on them without style, plainsong fags tired of dating someone’s sister as a favor and ready to face the cops’ bull if only to have a few nights of boy love without being run out of a Podunk town on a rail, same, same for those weary of those boston marriages and tired of wearing men’s clothing in private Beacon Street Boston rooms, art guys by the biz-illion, Jackson this, Larry that, Motherwell this and that, enough art to paint the world, all abstract and symbolic, all death to sweet Madonna slash dabbed in the night.
Movie houses, movie theaters, all sweet black and white stark, all New Jack city eight million stories stark, and, and, uh, art films for the discreet, of men in raincoats stinking of urine or Thunderbird wines, of endless overflow from Times Square (or run out) drifters, grifters, grafters, midnight sifters, hustling, always hustling like some rats on speed, of mad men and monks, and semi-monks disguised as poets, of street poet gangsters all shiny words and a gun at your head to say yes you likedthe last verse, of Gregory Corso, of muggers and minstrels, of six dollar whores for a quickie, of twelve dollar whores who will take you around the world, of neon signs, night and day, of neon cars and car -beams night and day, of trash spread every which way, of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence cloistered against 42nd Street hurts.
Of Howard Johnson’s franks, mustard, relish, onions, go ahead the works, eaten by the half dozen to curb hungers, not food hungers but hungers that dare not speak their name, not sex but fame, fresh off the Port Authority bus, of Joe and Nemo’s two o’clock fatty griddle hamburgers, the works again, please, of fags (bothering guys in public toilets, jesus), and fairies, all dressed up and rouged ready for some gentleman caller, and, shade distant dreams, of quasi-Trotskyite girl lovers taking a rest from their bourgeois travels who loved truth, truth and dark-haired revolutionary French guys from textile mill lowells, all proletarian Lowell, and can write too, write one million words on order, and perform, on cue, stalinite-worthy betrayals with some new found friend’s wife, or husband, of Siberia exile of the mind, and of second million word writes all while riding the clattering subway to and fro crosstown, not to speak of Soho or the Bronx . And of junkies of every description, morphine, speed, cocaine, and of hustlers pushing their soft wares, call your poison, step right up, of William Burroughs, of deadly terror at the prospects for the next fix, of human mules, gringos, poor boy Nuevo York gringos trying to get ahead of the curve, and just looking for kicks, face down in some dusty Sonora town dead, nameless, thankless, dead, failing to make that connection to get them well, and of off-hand Federals- forgotten murders too.Jesus suffering humanity. New Jack City.
New York City, 1950s New Jack City for the jack-worthy, not big enough for million- worded jacks (or jills), not in the end. In the end he, they, needed the road, the wide open roads west, the transcontinental riff calling, the Route 6, 66, 666 (the lattera pact with the devil, or the devils’ master, some deal to write that second million words ofthe legend-in-the- making), the great thruways aborning. Passing (if they could ever get that first hitchhike ride out of the city) dusty dutch red barn farms, steel cities achingly filled with lonesome story bus stops and stinking urinals, dirty , and always too big passengers in the next seat who snored, who spread their mass on fallow shoulders, passing auto cities filled with hungry, great depression hungry workers looking to make their first down payments on a dream, a dream car to quell their restless search, and maybe some little white picket fenced house to anoint their red scare cold war night, to be on the right side of the angels for once. Shoving into hog butcher to the world Chi town, all brawny and beef, all a place to move west, and move fast to avoid Joliet blues like a million Muddys coming from old Parchman’s Farm Mississippi Delta south up highway 61 , down along the silty big muddy and then to the great expanse, the Dakotas with their forlorn look, and their young desperate to head west and become drugstore movie stars, following their okie-arkie brethren further south who made the trek a generation before and were now stranded in some Pomona shopping plaza wondering what the hell it was all about, or roaming those Pacific coast highways in their jalopies, their hot money hot rods looking for the heart of Saturday night, or lucky boys, searching for that perfect wave down in the LaJollas of the world .
Pushing, ever pushing west, on into junction Denver searching for the ghost of the cowboy past in Larimer Street pool halls, barrooms, and chip joints (and maybe an untoward whorehouse), looking for golden all-American Old West cowboy dreams. Onward out of the flame-thrown Rockies and down into dinosaur death Utah and then Nevadas, Winnemucca dry holes a specialty just don’t get caught out there on that hitchhike road. And then land’s end golden gate rust pacific rim of the world Frisco town and flowers and blossoms in the foggy North Beach night. But all this later.For now though life is, life is New Jack City, and the strange neon night rhythms.
Time Square, eternal home to every Hoboken hipster forced to flee for non-payment of rent, every Ithaca spinster angel looking for some Boston marriage far from prying eyes, every broken dream okie farm boy useless on the dust bowl farm and itching to get at those women, those easy city women he heard about on the radio or in some forbidden magazine, after a steady diet of dried- out high hell fundamentalist girls aching for the lord and a fistful of kids to take away the empty soul of the black, true black starless prairie nights after a proper marriage, every arkiebeauty queen who could not survive the rarified airs of“take it all off sister”or beingass-pinched by hot rod valley boys waiting impatiently for hamburgers and fries in the blossoming Hollywood car hop nights and who couldn’t go home to Helena, every drifter, grafter, grafter and midnight sifter working the flamed never-ending lights of hell. Lit up, neon- lit, gas-lit, 24/7/365-lit, lit to the gills, lit against the jack-rolling crime night (see above for candidates, jack-rollers in waiting, if the occasion arises) back alley big city simplicity itself just some chain, or an off-hand pipe, behind the knees, crumple easy to the ground, grab the dough, up and out to some whore blow, dope blow, whisky blow.
Out in the flamed, never ending lights of hell-lit up, lit against the gang night, Central Park mainly, and some off streets down in Little Italy and up in high Harlem, 125th Street anyway, lit against the rough trade Genet night sailor boys fresh from the wharves, Hudson wharves, East River wharves, flush with just off the boat pay-off cash, looking for chain-whip kicks, some diva delight, some fresh leather boy too. Lit against the sad sin sexless sex night, some anonymous Lansing, Muncie, Omaha corn-fed young thing, maybe like her older arkie sister a beauty queen who headed east instead of west to get into the theater or some concert hall, shapely, good legs, working hips, tired of light-less farms and farm fields headed to the big city, headed up 42nd street instead of Broadway or the Village and wound up with big faded dreams calling out “hey mister, want a good time,” or maybe stoned to the gills just nods, stoop nods, symbolically showing a good time just by her uniform, that split pea dress showing plenty of thigh, those long black nylon stockings, and that kewpie doll smile, all yours for the price of a needle, a room, and some pimp’s damn cut or, hell, when the spiral goes down some quickie back alley head and a quick napkin spit wipe, jesus. Watch out for the jack-rollers honey though, especially watch out for those damn jack-rollers you earned your money, earned it hard, and she maybe thinking to herself if old farm boy love Roy could see me now, later to be turned over to some Jersey whorehouse and work by the bell. Go home sister, go home, now.New Jack was just too big for you.
Wall Street, pass, this is not about coupon-clipping, okay. Madison Avenue, pass, this is not about subliminal desires and tricks. Park Avenue, pass, well, maybe half-pass, for those looking for jack night thrills to fill up, fill up like some gas tank, their beat souls, or maybe some Genet boys rough stuff. Columbia, the university, of course, ivy-covered, respectable for a minute (before the 1960s heist of all property when it was merely an Ivy outpost in a brazen, bare knuckles city), a minute when some buzz came in breezing in through the portals. And Jack and Allen and kindred teased the city dry, and created some flash beat to be listened to elsewhere.
The Village of course (those who need to know what village just move on), the clubs and nooks already mentioned, jazz, folk rearing its head, more jazz, some poetry on an off night, the beat poets reading their beat poems to a famished world (or slender slice of it), the streets of dreams not mentioned, Bleecker, McDougall on up to Canal,the safe harbor, hell, sanctuary for those blown away by the cold war red scare night, not just reds, and pinks, and maybe white pinks, but all mother nature’s odd and damaged, the beat poem listen hangers for sure, the morphine kickers looking for sure connections and some walking daddy to be-bop with when the crash came, the rough trade boys, reading Genet in some back room in translation, tired of hell angels beating up on them without style, plainsong fags tired of dating someone’s sister as a favor and ready to face the cops’ bull if only to have a few nights of boy love without being run out of a Podunk town on a rail, same, same for those weary of those boston marriages and tired of wearing men’s clothing in private Beacon Street Boston rooms, art guys by the biz-illion, Jackson this, Larry that, Motherwell this and that, enough art to paint the world, all abstract and symbolic, all death to sweet Madonna slash dabbed in the night.
Movie houses, movie theaters, all sweet black and white stark, all New Jack city eight million stories stark, and, and, uh, art films for the discreet, of men in raincoats stinking of urine or Thunderbird wines, of endless overflow from Times Square (or run out) drifters, grifters, grafters, midnight sifters, hustling, always hustling like some rats on speed, of mad men and monks, and semi-monks disguised as poets, of street poet gangsters all shiny words and a gun at your head to say yes you likedthe last verse, of Gregory Corso, of muggers and minstrels, of six dollar whores for a quickie, of twelve dollar whores who will take you around the world, of neon signs, night and day, of neon cars and car -beams night and day, of trash spread every which way, of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence cloistered against 42nd Street hurts.
And Howard Johnson’s frankfurts, mustard, relish, onions, go ahead the works, eaten by the half dozen to curb hungers, not food hungers but hungers that dare not speak their name, not sex but fame, fresh off the Port Authority bus, of Joe and Nemo’s two o’clock fatty griddle hamburgers, the works again, please, of fags (bothering guys in public toilets, jesus), and fairies, all dressed up and rouged ready for some gentleman caller, and, shade distant dreams, of quasi-Trotskyite girl lovers taking a rest from their bourgeois travels who loved truth, truth and dark-haired revolutionary French guys from textile mill lowells, all proletarian Lowell, and can write too, write one million words on order, and perform, on cue, stalinite-worthy betrayals with some new found friend’s wife, or husband, of Siberia exile of the mind, and of second million word writes all while riding the clattering subway to and fro crosstown, not to speak of Soho or the Bronx . And of junkies of every description, morphine, speed, cocaine, and of hustlers pushing their soft wares, call your poison, step right up, of William Burroughs, of deadly terror at the prospects for the next fix, of human mules face down in some dusty Sonora town failing to make that connection to get them well, and of off-hand forgotten murders.Jesus suffering humanity. New Jack City.
