Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Tom Waits performing "I Wish I Was In New Orleans"
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Lyrics to I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward) :
Well, I wish I was in New Orleans, I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
Hoist up a few tall cool ones, play some pool and listen
To that tenor saxophone calling me home
And I can hear the band begin "When the Saints Go Marching In",
And by the whiskers on my chin, New Orleans, I'll be there
I'll drink you under the table, be red-nosed, go for walks,
The old haunts what I wants is red beans and rice
And wear the dress I like so well, and meet me at the old saloon,
Make sure that there's a Dixie moon, New Orleans, I'll be there
And deal the cards roll the dice, if it ain't that old Chuck E. Weiss,
And Claiborne Avenue, me and you Sam Jones and all
And I wish I was in New Orleans, 'cause I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
New Orleans, I'll be there
Friday, January 29, 2010
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "Small Change"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Tom Waits performing "Small Change".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Tom Waits Small Change lyrics
(Got Rained on with His Own .38)
Well small change got rained on with his own .38
and nobody flinched down by the arcade
and the marquise weren't weeping
they went stark-raving mad
and the cabbies were the only ones
that really had it made
and his cold trousers were twisted,
and the sirens high and shrill
and crumpled in his fist was a five-dollar bill
and the naked mannikins with their
cheshire grins
and the raconteurs
and roustabouts said buddy
come on in
cause the dreams ain't broken down here now
now ...they're walking with a limp
now that
small change got rained on with his own .38
and nobody flinched down by the arcade
and the burglar alarm's been disconnected
and the newsmen start to rattle
and the cops are tellin' jokes
about some whore house in Seattle
and the fire hydrants plead the 5th Amendment
and the furniture's bargains galore
but the blood is by the jukebox
on an old linoleum floor
and it's a hot rain on 42nd Street
and now the umbrellas ain't got a chance
And the newsboy's a lunatic
with stains on his pants cause
small change got rained on with his own .38
and no one's gone over to close his eyes
and there's a racing form in his pocket
circled Blue Boots in the 3rd
and the cashier at the clothing store
he didn't say a word as the
siren tears the night in half
and someone lost his wallet
well it's surveillance of assailants
if that's whatchawannacallit
and the whores hike up their skirts
and fish for drug-store prophylactics*
with their mouths cut just like
razor blades and their eyes are like stilettos
and her radiator's steaming
and her teeth are in a wreck
now she won't let you kiss her
but what the hell do you expect
and the Gypsies are tragic and if you
wanna to buy perfume, well
they'll bark you down like
carneys... sell you Christmas cards in June
but...
small change got rained on with his own .38
and his headstone's
a gumball machine
no more chewing gum
or baseball cards or
overcoats or dreams and
someone is hosing down the sidewalk
and he's only in his teens
small change got rained on with his own .38
and a fistful of dollars can't change that
and someone copped his watch fob
and someone got his ring
and the newsboy got his porkpie Stetson hat
and the tuberculosis old men
at the Nelson wheeze and cough
and someone will head south
until this whole thing cools off cause
small change got rained on with his own .38
yea small change got rained on with his own .38
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Tom Waits Small Change lyrics
(Got Rained on with His Own .38)
Well small change got rained on with his own .38
and nobody flinched down by the arcade
and the marquise weren't weeping
they went stark-raving mad
and the cabbies were the only ones
that really had it made
and his cold trousers were twisted,
and the sirens high and shrill
and crumpled in his fist was a five-dollar bill
and the naked mannikins with their
cheshire grins
and the raconteurs
and roustabouts said buddy
come on in
cause the dreams ain't broken down here now
now ...they're walking with a limp
now that
small change got rained on with his own .38
and nobody flinched down by the arcade
and the burglar alarm's been disconnected
and the newsmen start to rattle
and the cops are tellin' jokes
about some whore house in Seattle
and the fire hydrants plead the 5th Amendment
and the furniture's bargains galore
but the blood is by the jukebox
on an old linoleum floor
and it's a hot rain on 42nd Street
and now the umbrellas ain't got a chance
And the newsboy's a lunatic
with stains on his pants cause
small change got rained on with his own .38
and no one's gone over to close his eyes
and there's a racing form in his pocket
circled Blue Boots in the 3rd
and the cashier at the clothing store
he didn't say a word as the
siren tears the night in half
and someone lost his wallet
well it's surveillance of assailants
if that's whatchawannacallit
and the whores hike up their skirts
and fish for drug-store prophylactics*
with their mouths cut just like
razor blades and their eyes are like stilettos
and her radiator's steaming
and her teeth are in a wreck
now she won't let you kiss her
but what the hell do you expect
and the Gypsies are tragic and if you
wanna to buy perfume, well
they'll bark you down like
carneys... sell you Christmas cards in June
but...
small change got rained on with his own .38
and his headstone's
a gumball machine
no more chewing gum
or baseball cards or
overcoats or dreams and
someone is hosing down the sidewalk
and he's only in his teens
small change got rained on with his own .38
and a fistful of dollars can't change that
and someone copped his watch fob
and someone got his ring
and the newsboy got his porkpie Stetson hat
and the tuberculosis old men
at the Nelson wheeze and cough
and someone will head south
until this whole thing cools off cause
small change got rained on with his own .38
yea small change got rained on with his own .38
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "Tom Traubert's Blues"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Tom Waits performing "Tom Traubert's Blues".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Tom Traubert's Blues
(Tom Waits 1976)
Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
Got what I paid for now
See ya tomorrow, hey Frank can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you?
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English and everything's broken
And my Stacys are soaking wet
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab's parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open
And I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you buried the dagger
Your silhouette window light
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinaman and the cold-blooded signs
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
No, I don't want your sympathy
The fugitives say that the streets aren't for dreaming now
Manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories
They want a piece of the action anyhow
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
And you can ask any sailor and the keys from the jailor
And the old men in wheelchairs know
That Matilda's the defendant, she killed about a hundred
And she follows wherever you may go
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers
The night watchman flame keepers and goodnight to Matilda too
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Tom Traubert's Blues
(Tom Waits 1976)
Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
Got what I paid for now
See ya tomorrow, hey Frank can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you?
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English and everything's broken
And my Stacys are soaking wet
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab's parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me, you tore my shirt open
And I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you buried the dagger
Your silhouette window light
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinaman and the cold-blooded signs
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
No, I don't want your sympathy
The fugitives say that the streets aren't for dreaming now
Manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories
They want a piece of the action anyhow
Go, waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
And you can ask any sailor and the keys from the jailor
And the old men in wheelchairs know
That Matilda's the defendant, she killed about a hundred
And she follows wherever you may go
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go a waltzing Matilda with me
And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers
The night watchman flame keepers and goodnight to Matilda too
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "The Ghost Of Saturday Night"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Tom Waits performing "The Ghost Of Saturday Night".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
"The Ghosts of Saturday Night"
(After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)
A cab combs the snake,
Tryin' to rake in that last night's fare,
And a solitary sailor
Who spends the facts of his life
like small change on strangers...
Paws his inside P-coat pocket
for a welcome twenty-five cents,
And the last bent butt from a package of Kents,
As he dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes
And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair.
Her rhinestone-studded moniker says, "Irene"
As she wipes the wisps of dishwater blonde from her eyes
And the Texaco beacon burns on,
The steel-belted attendant with a 'Ring and Valve Special'...
Cryin' "Fill'er up and check that oil"
"You know it could be a distributor and it could be a coil."
The early mornin' final edition's on the stands,
And that town cryer's cryin' there with nickels in his hands.
Pigs in a blanket sixty-nine cents,
Eggs - roll 'em over and a package of Kents,
Adam and Eve on a log, you can sink 'em damn straight,
Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can't be late.
And the early dawn cracks out a carpet of diamond
Across a cash crop car lot
filled with twilight Coupe Devilles,
Leaving the town in a-keeping
Of the one who is sweeping
Up the ghost of Saturday night...
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
"The Ghosts of Saturday Night"
(After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)
A cab combs the snake,
Tryin' to rake in that last night's fare,
And a solitary sailor
Who spends the facts of his life
like small change on strangers...
Paws his inside P-coat pocket
for a welcome twenty-five cents,
And the last bent butt from a package of Kents,
As he dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes
And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair.
Her rhinestone-studded moniker says, "Irene"
As she wipes the wisps of dishwater blonde from her eyes
And the Texaco beacon burns on,
The steel-belted attendant with a 'Ring and Valve Special'...
Cryin' "Fill'er up and check that oil"
"You know it could be a distributor and it could be a coil."
The early mornin' final edition's on the stands,
And that town cryer's cryin' there with nickels in his hands.
Pigs in a blanket sixty-nine cents,
Eggs - roll 'em over and a package of Kents,
Adam and Eve on a log, you can sink 'em damn straight,
Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can't be late.
And the early dawn cracks out a carpet of diamond
Across a cash crop car lot
filled with twilight Coupe Devilles,
Leaving the town in a-keeping
Of the one who is sweeping
Up the ghost of Saturday night...
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "Diamonds On My Windshield"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Tom Waits performing "Diamonds On My Windshield".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Tom Waits Diamonds On My Windshield Lyrics
Diamonds on my windshield
Tears from heaven
Pulling into town on the Interstate
Pulling a steel train in the rain
The wind bites my cheek through the wing
Fast flying, freway driving
Always makes me sing
There's a Duster tryin' to change my tune
Pulling up fast on the right
Rolling restlessly, twenty-four hour moon
Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head
Wishing he was home in a Wiscosin bed
Fifteen feet of snow in the East
Colder then a welldigger's ass
Oceanside it ends the ride, San Clemente coming up
Sunday desperadoes slip by, gas station closed,
Cruise with a dry back
Orange drive-in the neon billin'
Theatre's fillin' to the brim
Slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin
Metropolitan area with interchange and connections
Fly-by-nights from Riverside
Black and white plates, out of state,
Running a little bit late
Sailors jockey for the fast lane
101 don't miss it
Rolling hills and concrete fields
The broken line's on your mind
Eights go east and the fives go north
The merging nexus back and forth
You see your sign, cross the line,
Signalling with a blink
The radio's gone off the air
Gives you time to think
You ease it out and you creep across
Intersection light goes out
You hear the rumble
As you fumble for a cigarette
Blazing through this midnight jungle
Remember someone that you met
One more block; the engine talks
And whispers 'home at last'
It whispers, whispers, whispers
'home at last', home at last
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Tom Waits Diamonds On My Windshield Lyrics
Diamonds on my windshield
Tears from heaven
Pulling into town on the Interstate
Pulling a steel train in the rain
The wind bites my cheek through the wing
Fast flying, freway driving
Always makes me sing
There's a Duster tryin' to change my tune
Pulling up fast on the right
Rolling restlessly, twenty-four hour moon
Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head
Wishing he was home in a Wiscosin bed
Fifteen feet of snow in the East
Colder then a welldigger's ass
Oceanside it ends the ride, San Clemente coming up
Sunday desperadoes slip by, gas station closed,
Cruise with a dry back
Orange drive-in the neon billin'
Theatre's fillin' to the brim
Slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin
Metropolitan area with interchange and connections
Fly-by-nights from Riverside
Black and white plates, out of state,
Running a little bit late
Sailors jockey for the fast lane
101 don't miss it
Rolling hills and concrete fields
The broken line's on your mind
Eights go east and the fives go north
The merging nexus back and forth
You see your sign, cross the line,
Signalling with a blink
The radio's gone off the air
Gives you time to think
You ease it out and you creep across
Intersection light goes out
You hear the rumble
As you fumble for a cigarette
Blazing through this midnight jungle
Remember someone that you met
One more block; the engine talks
And whispers 'home at last'
It whispers, whispers, whispers
'home at last', home at last
*Save The Date- March 4th- Defend Education Day Of Action!
Click on the title to link to a "Boston Indymedia" announcement about a Defend Education Day Of Action on March 4, 2010.
Markin comment:
Places like California, Massachusetts and the like that used to be in the forefront of education in capitalist America are now in the forefront of taking a beating from declining state revenues, and, frankly, concern about public education now that it is seen as a "waste" by the charter school movement, and others. There is plenty wrong with the public schools, particularly the minority-heavy city schools, but starving public education is the last thing that any society should be doing, capitalist or communist. In 2010 to make massive cuts in public education and get away with it shows just how far down this capitalist system, which at one time saw massive public education as its salvation, has gone. Well, we will change that when we communists get our chance but for now defend public education, tooth and nail.
Markin comment:
Places like California, Massachusetts and the like that used to be in the forefront of education in capitalist America are now in the forefront of taking a beating from declining state revenues, and, frankly, concern about public education now that it is seen as a "waste" by the charter school movement, and others. There is plenty wrong with the public schools, particularly the minority-heavy city schools, but starving public education is the last thing that any society should be doing, capitalist or communist. In 2010 to make massive cuts in public education and get away with it shows just how far down this capitalist system, which at one time saw massive public education as its salvation, has gone. Well, we will change that when we communists get our chance but for now defend public education, tooth and nail.
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The South Vitenamese National Liberation Front From The Vietnam War Era
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front that took a heavy toll on the American forces and in turn took many, many casualties.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "Big Joe And Phantom 309"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Red Sovine performing "Big Joe And Phantom 309".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Big Joe and Phantom 309 Lyrics
well you see I happened to be back on the east coast
a few years back tryin' to make me a buck
like everybody else, well you know
times get hard and well I got down on my luck
and I got tired of just roamin' and bummin'
around, so I started thumbin' my way
back to my old hometown
you know I made quite a few miles
in the first couple of days, and I
figured I'd be home in a week if my
luck held out this way
but you know it was the third night
I got stranded, it was out at a cold lonely
crossroads, and as the rain came
pouring down, I was hungry, tired
freezin', caught myself a chill, but
it was just about that time that
the lights of an old semi topped the hill
you should of seen me smile when I
heard them air brakes come on, and
I climbed up in that cab where I
knew it'd be warm at the wheel
well at the wheel sat a big man
I'd have to say he must of weighed 210
the way he stuck out a big hand and
said with a grin "Big Joe's the name
and this here rig's called Phantom 309"
well I asked him why he called his
rig such a name, but he just turned to me
and said "Why son don't you know this here
rig'll be puttin' 'em all to shame, why
there ain't a driver on this
or any other line for that matter
that's seen nothin' but the taillights of Big Joe
and Phantom 309"
So we rode and talked the better part of the night
and I told my stories and Joe told his and
I smoked up all his Viceroys as we rolled along
he pushed her ahead with 10 forward gears
man that dashboard was lit like the old
Madam La Rue pinball, a serious semi truck
until almost mysteriously, well it was the
lights of a truck stop that rolled into sight
Joe turned to me and said "I'm sorry son
but I'm afraid this is just as far as you go
You see I kinda gotta be makin' a turn
just up the road a piece," but I'll be
damned if he didn't throw me a dime as he
threw her in low and said "Go on in there
son, and get yourself a hot cup of coffee
on Big Joe"
and when Joe and his rig pulled off into
the night, man in nothing flat they was
clean outa sight
so I walked into the old stop and
ordered me up a cup of mud sayin'
"Big Joe's settin' this dude up" but
it got so deathly quiet in that
place, you could of heard a pin drop
as the waiter's face turned kinda
pale, I said "What's the matter did
I say somethin' wrong?" I kinda
said with 8a half way grin. He said
"No son, you see It'll happen every
now and then. You see every driver in
here knows Big Joe, but let me
tell you what happened just 10 years
ago, yea it was 10 years ago
out there at that cold lonely crossroads
where you flagged Joe down, and
there was a whole bus load of kids
and they were just comin' from school
and they were right in the middle when
Joe topped the hill, and could
have been slaughtered except
Joe turned his wheels, and
he jacknifed, and went
into a skid, and folks around here
say he gave his life to save that bunch
of kids, and out there at that cold
lonely crossroads, well they say it
was the end of the line for
Big Joe and Phantom 309, but it's
funny you know, cause every now and then
yea every now and then, when the
moon's holdin' water, they say old Joe
will stop and give you a ride, and
just like you, some hitchhiker will be
comin' by"
"So here son," he said to me, "get
yourself another cup of coffee, it's on the
house, you see I want you to hang on
to that dime, yea you hang on to that
dime as a kind of souvenir, a
souvenir of Big Joe and Phantom 309"
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Big Joe and Phantom 309 Lyrics
well you see I happened to be back on the east coast
a few years back tryin' to make me a buck
like everybody else, well you know
times get hard and well I got down on my luck
and I got tired of just roamin' and bummin'
around, so I started thumbin' my way
back to my old hometown
you know I made quite a few miles
in the first couple of days, and I
figured I'd be home in a week if my
luck held out this way
but you know it was the third night
I got stranded, it was out at a cold lonely
crossroads, and as the rain came
pouring down, I was hungry, tired
freezin', caught myself a chill, but
it was just about that time that
the lights of an old semi topped the hill
you should of seen me smile when I
heard them air brakes come on, and
I climbed up in that cab where I
knew it'd be warm at the wheel
well at the wheel sat a big man
I'd have to say he must of weighed 210
the way he stuck out a big hand and
said with a grin "Big Joe's the name
and this here rig's called Phantom 309"
well I asked him why he called his
rig such a name, but he just turned to me
and said "Why son don't you know this here
rig'll be puttin' 'em all to shame, why
there ain't a driver on this
or any other line for that matter
that's seen nothin' but the taillights of Big Joe
and Phantom 309"
So we rode and talked the better part of the night
and I told my stories and Joe told his and
I smoked up all his Viceroys as we rolled along
he pushed her ahead with 10 forward gears
man that dashboard was lit like the old
Madam La Rue pinball, a serious semi truck
until almost mysteriously, well it was the
lights of a truck stop that rolled into sight
Joe turned to me and said "I'm sorry son
but I'm afraid this is just as far as you go
You see I kinda gotta be makin' a turn
just up the road a piece," but I'll be
damned if he didn't throw me a dime as he
threw her in low and said "Go on in there
son, and get yourself a hot cup of coffee
on Big Joe"
and when Joe and his rig pulled off into
the night, man in nothing flat they was
clean outa sight
so I walked into the old stop and
ordered me up a cup of mud sayin'
"Big Joe's settin' this dude up" but
it got so deathly quiet in that
place, you could of heard a pin drop
as the waiter's face turned kinda
pale, I said "What's the matter did
I say somethin' wrong?" I kinda
said with 8a half way grin. He said
"No son, you see It'll happen every
now and then. You see every driver in
here knows Big Joe, but let me
tell you what happened just 10 years
ago, yea it was 10 years ago
out there at that cold lonely crossroads
where you flagged Joe down, and
there was a whole bus load of kids
and they were just comin' from school
and they were right in the middle when
Joe topped the hill, and could
have been slaughtered except
Joe turned his wheels, and
he jacknifed, and went
into a skid, and folks around here
say he gave his life to save that bunch
of kids, and out there at that cold
lonely crossroads, well they say it
was the end of the line for
Big Joe and Phantom 309, but it's
funny you know, cause every now and then
yea every now and then, when the
moon's holdin' water, they say old Joe
will stop and give you a ride, and
just like you, some hitchhiker will be
comin' by"
"So here son," he said to me, "get
yourself another cup of coffee, it's on the
house, you see I want you to hang on
to that dime, yea you hang on to that
dime as a kind of souvenir, a
souvenir of Big Joe and Phantom 309"
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "Nighthawks At The Diner"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Tom Waits performing "Nighthawks Postcards (From Easy Street)".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)
(Tom Waits 1975)
Goodness gracious...my bass player should be chained up somewhere
I wanna take you on a kind of inebriational travelogue here
Well, ain't got no spare, you ain't got no jack, you don't give a shit you ain't never coming back
Maybe your standing on the corner of 17th and Wazee Streets, yeah
Out in front of the Terminal bar there's a Thunderbird moving in muscatel sky
You've been drinking cleaning products all night
Open for suggestions
It's a kinda about eh...well it's kinda about going down to the corner and say
'Well I'm just going down to the corner to get a pack of cigarettes I'll be back in a minute'
Yeah, check out the street and it looks likes kinda of a...
kinda of a blur drizzle down the plateglass
And there's a neon swizzle stick stirring up the sultry night air
Looks like a yellow biscuit of a buttery cue ball moon
Rollin' maverick across an obsidian sky
As the busses go groanin' and wheezin',
Down on the corner I'm freezing
On a restless boulevard in a midnight road
I'm across town from EASY STREET
With the tight knots of moviegoers and out of towners on the stroll
The buildings towering high above
Lit like dominoes or black dice
Used car salesmen dressed up in Purina Checkerboard slacks
And Foster Grant wrap-around
Pacing in front of rainbow EARL SCHLEIB $39.95 merchandise
Like barkers at a shooting gallery
They throw out kind of a Texas Guinan routine
"Hello sucker, we like your money just as well as anybody else's here
Come on over here now
Let me put the cut back in your strut and the glid back in your slide
Now climb aboard a custom Oldmobile and let me take you for a ride"
Or they give you the P.T. Barnum bit
"There's a sucker born every minute
you just happened to be comin' along at the right time you know
come over here"
Well you know, all the harlequin sailors are on the stroll
In a search of "LIKE NEW," "NEW PAINT,"
And decent factory air and AM-FM dreams
And all the piss yellow gypsy cabs
That stack up in the taxi zones and the're waiting like pinball machines
To be ticking off a joy ride to a magical place
Like truckers welcome diners
With dirt lots full of Peterbilts and Kenworths and Jimmy's and the like
They're hiballin' with bankrupt brakes
Man, the're over driven and the're under paid
The're over fed and the're a day late and a dollar short
Christ I got my lips around a bottle and I got my foot on the throttle
And I'm standing on the corner
Standing on the corner like a "just in town" jasper
I'm on a street corner with a gasper
Looking for some kind of Cheshire billboard grin
Stroking a goateed chin, using parking meters as walking sticks On the inebriated stroll
With my eyelids propped open at half mast
But you know over at Chubb's Pool Hall and Snooker
Well it was a nickle after two, yea it was a nickle after two
And in the cobalt steel blue dream smoke
Why it was the radio that groaned out the hit parade
And the chalk squeaked and the floorboards creaked
And an Olympia sign winked through a torn yellow shade
Old Jack Chance himself leaning up against a Wurlitzer
And he was eyeballing out a 5 ball combination shot
Impossible you say? Hard to believe?
Perhaps out of the realm of possibility? Nah
Cause he'll be stretchin' out long tawny fingers
Out across a cool green felt in a provocative golden gate
He got a full table railshot that's no sweat
And I leaned up against my bannister
And wandered over to the Wurlitzer and I punched A-2
I was lookin' for maybe 'Wine, Wine, Wine' by the Night Caps
Starring Chuck E. Weiss or maybe...
Maybe a little something called 'High Blood Pressure'
By George 'cryin' in the streets' Perkins, no dice
"Cause that's life," that's what all the people say
Your riding high in April, seriously shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm standing underneath a buttery moon That's all melted off to one side
It was just about that time that the sun came crawlin' yellow out of a manhole
At the foot of 23rd Street and a dracula moon in a black disguise
Was making its way back to its pre-paid room at the St. Moritz Hotel
(scat)
The El train tumbled across the trestles
And it sounded like the ghost of Gene Krupa
With an overhead cam and glasspacks
And the whispering brushes of wet radials on wet pavement
With a traffic jam session on Belmont tonight
And the rhapsody of the pending evening
I leaned up against my bannister
And I've been looking for some kind of an emotional investment
With romantic dividends, yeah kind of a physical negotiation is underway
Well, as I attempt to consolidate all my missed weekly rendezvous
Into one-low-monthly payment, through the nose, yeah
With romantic residuals and legs akimbo
But the chances are that more than likely
Standing underneath a moon holding water
I'll probably be held over for another smashed weekend
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)
(Tom Waits 1975)
Goodness gracious...my bass player should be chained up somewhere
I wanna take you on a kind of inebriational travelogue here
Well, ain't got no spare, you ain't got no jack, you don't give a shit you ain't never coming back
Maybe your standing on the corner of 17th and Wazee Streets, yeah
Out in front of the Terminal bar there's a Thunderbird moving in muscatel sky
You've been drinking cleaning products all night
Open for suggestions
It's a kinda about eh...well it's kinda about going down to the corner and say
'Well I'm just going down to the corner to get a pack of cigarettes I'll be back in a minute'
Yeah, check out the street and it looks likes kinda of a...
kinda of a blur drizzle down the plateglass
And there's a neon swizzle stick stirring up the sultry night air
Looks like a yellow biscuit of a buttery cue ball moon
Rollin' maverick across an obsidian sky
As the busses go groanin' and wheezin',
Down on the corner I'm freezing
On a restless boulevard in a midnight road
I'm across town from EASY STREET
With the tight knots of moviegoers and out of towners on the stroll
The buildings towering high above
Lit like dominoes or black dice
Used car salesmen dressed up in Purina Checkerboard slacks
And Foster Grant wrap-around
Pacing in front of rainbow EARL SCHLEIB $39.95 merchandise
Like barkers at a shooting gallery
They throw out kind of a Texas Guinan routine
"Hello sucker, we like your money just as well as anybody else's here
Come on over here now
Let me put the cut back in your strut and the glid back in your slide
Now climb aboard a custom Oldmobile and let me take you for a ride"
Or they give you the P.T. Barnum bit
"There's a sucker born every minute
you just happened to be comin' along at the right time you know
come over here"
Well you know, all the harlequin sailors are on the stroll
In a search of "LIKE NEW," "NEW PAINT,"
And decent factory air and AM-FM dreams
And all the piss yellow gypsy cabs
That stack up in the taxi zones and the're waiting like pinball machines
To be ticking off a joy ride to a magical place
Like truckers welcome diners
With dirt lots full of Peterbilts and Kenworths and Jimmy's and the like
They're hiballin' with bankrupt brakes
Man, the're over driven and the're under paid
The're over fed and the're a day late and a dollar short
Christ I got my lips around a bottle and I got my foot on the throttle
And I'm standing on the corner
Standing on the corner like a "just in town" jasper
I'm on a street corner with a gasper
Looking for some kind of Cheshire billboard grin
Stroking a goateed chin, using parking meters as walking sticks On the inebriated stroll
With my eyelids propped open at half mast
But you know over at Chubb's Pool Hall and Snooker
Well it was a nickle after two, yea it was a nickle after two
And in the cobalt steel blue dream smoke
Why it was the radio that groaned out the hit parade
And the chalk squeaked and the floorboards creaked
And an Olympia sign winked through a torn yellow shade
Old Jack Chance himself leaning up against a Wurlitzer
And he was eyeballing out a 5 ball combination shot
Impossible you say? Hard to believe?
Perhaps out of the realm of possibility? Nah
Cause he'll be stretchin' out long tawny fingers
Out across a cool green felt in a provocative golden gate
He got a full table railshot that's no sweat
And I leaned up against my bannister
And wandered over to the Wurlitzer and I punched A-2
I was lookin' for maybe 'Wine, Wine, Wine' by the Night Caps
Starring Chuck E. Weiss or maybe...
Maybe a little something called 'High Blood Pressure'
By George 'cryin' in the streets' Perkins, no dice
"Cause that's life," that's what all the people say
Your riding high in April, seriously shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm standing underneath a buttery moon That's all melted off to one side
It was just about that time that the sun came crawlin' yellow out of a manhole
At the foot of 23rd Street and a dracula moon in a black disguise
Was making its way back to its pre-paid room at the St. Moritz Hotel
(scat)
The El train tumbled across the trestles
And it sounded like the ghost of Gene Krupa
With an overhead cam and glasspacks
And the whispering brushes of wet radials on wet pavement
With a traffic jam session on Belmont tonight
And the rhapsody of the pending evening
I leaned up against my bannister
And I've been looking for some kind of an emotional investment
With romantic dividends, yeah kind of a physical negotiation is underway
Well, as I attempt to consolidate all my missed weekly rendezvous
Into one-low-monthly payment, through the nose, yeah
With romantic residuals and legs akimbo
But the chances are that more than likely
Standing underneath a moon holding water
I'll probably be held over for another smashed weekend
Thursday, January 28, 2010
*On The Late Professor Howard Zinn- A Guest Commentary
Click on the title to link to a "United For Justice And Peace" Website political and personal tribute from Paul Shannon for long-time radical activist and Boston University Professor Howard Zinn who recently passed away.
*Leftist Political Activist And Historian Professor Howard Zinn Passes Away
Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry, dated January 28, 2009, reviewing a documentary on Professor Howard Zinn, "A View From The Old Radical Tradition- Howard Zinn".
Markin comment:
See linked article for my take on the importance of Howard Zinn to the local Boston left scene.
Historian-activist Zinn dies
Globe Staff / January 28, 2010
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist whose books such as “A People’s History of the United States” prompted a generation to rethink the nation’s past, died yesterday in Santa Monica, Calif., where he was traveling. He was 87, and lived in the Newton village of Auburndale. His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he had a heart attack.
“He’s made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,” Noam Chomsky, the activist and MIT professor, said last night. “He’s changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can’t think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect.”
Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn’s writings “simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation.”
“He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant,” Chomsky said. “Both by his actions and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement.”
For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers - many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out - but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.
As he wrote in his autobiography, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” (1994): “From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than ‘objectivity’; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.”
Certainly, it was a recipe for rancor between Dr. Zinn and John Silber, former president of Boston University. Dr. Zinn, a leading critic of Silber, twice helped lead faculty votes to oust the BU president, who in turn once accused Dr. Zinn of arson (a charge he quickly retracted) and cited him as a prime example of teachers “who poison the well of academe.”
Dr. Zinn was a cochairman of the strike committee when BU professors walked out in 1979. After the strike was settled, he and four colleagues were charged with violating their contract when they refused to cross a picket line of striking secretaries. The charges against “the BU Five” were soon dropped.
In 1997, Dr. Zinn slipped into popular culture when his writing made a cameo appearance in the film “Good Will Hunting.” The title character, played by Matt Damon, lauds “A People’s History” and urges Robin Williams’s character to read it. Damon, who co-wrote the script, was a neighbor of the Zinns when growing up.Continued...
“Howard had a great mind and was one of the great voices in the American political life,” Ben Affleck, Damon’s longtime friend and his costar in “Good Will Hunting,” said in a statement. “He taught me how valuable, how necessary dissent was to democracy and to America itself. He taught that history was made by the everyman, not the elites. I was lucky enough to know him personally, and I will carry with me what I learned from him - and try to impart it to my own children - in his memory.”
Damon was later involved in a television version of the book, “The People Speak,” which ran on the History Channel in 2009, and he narrated a 2004 biographical documentary, “Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”
“Howard had a genius for the shape of public morality and for articulating the great alternative vision of peace as more than a dream,” said James Carroll, a columnist for the Globe’s opinion pages whose friendship with Dr. Zinn dates to when Carroll was a Catholic chaplain at BU. “But above all, he had a genius for the practical meaning of love. That is what drew legions of the young to him and what made the wide circle of his friends so constantly amazed and grateful.”
Dr. Zinn was born in New York City on Aug. 24, 1922, the son of Jewish immigrants, Edward Zinn, a waiter, and Jennie (Rabinowitz) Zinn, a housewife. He attended New York public schools and was working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he met Roslyn Shechter.
“She was working as a secretary,” Dr. Zinn said in an interview with the Globe nearly two years ago. “We were both working in the same neighborhood, but we didn’t know each other. A mutual friend asked me to deliver something to her. She opened the door, I saw her, and that was it.”
He joined the Army Air Corps, and they courted through the mail before marrying in October 1944 while he was on his first furlough. She died in 2008.
During World War II, he served as a bombardier, was awarded the Air Medal, and attained the rank of second lieutenant. After the war, Dr. Zinn worked at a series of menial jobs until entering New York University on the GI Bill as a 27-year-old freshman. He worked nights in a warehouse loading trucks to support his studies. He received his bachelor’s degree from NYU, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Columbia University.
Dr. Zinn was an instructor at Upsala College and a lecturer at Brooklyn College before joining the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, in 1956. He served at the historically black women’s institution as chairman of the history department. Among his students were novelist Alice Walker, who called him “the best teacher I ever had,” and Marian Wright Edelman, future head of the Children’s Defense Fund.
During this time, Dr. Zinn became active in the civil rights movement. He served on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the most aggressive civil rights organization of the time, and participated in numerous demonstrations.
Dr. Zinn became an associate professor of political science at BU in 1964 and was named full professor in 1966.
The focus of his activism became the Vietnam War. Dr. Zinn spoke at many rallies and teach-ins and drew national attention when he and the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, another leading antiwar activist, went to Hanoi in 1968 to receive three prisoners released by the North Vietnamese.
Dr. Zinn’s involvement in the antiwar movement led to his publishing two books: “Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal” (1967) and “Disobedience and ” (1968). He had previously published “LaGuardia in Congress” (1959), which had won the American Historical Association’s Albert J. Beveridge Prize; “SNCC: The New Abolitionists” (1964); “The Southern Mystique” (1964); and “New Deal Thought” (1966).
In addition to his daughter, Dr. Zinn leaves a son, Jeff of Wellfleet; three granddaughters; and two grandsons. Funeral plans were not available.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
Markin comment:
See linked article for my take on the importance of Howard Zinn to the local Boston left scene.
Historian-activist Zinn dies
Globe Staff / January 28, 2010
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist whose books such as “A People’s History of the United States” prompted a generation to rethink the nation’s past, died yesterday in Santa Monica, Calif., where he was traveling. He was 87, and lived in the Newton village of Auburndale. His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he had a heart attack.
“He’s made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,” Noam Chomsky, the activist and MIT professor, said last night. “He’s changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can’t think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect.”
Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn’s writings “simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation.”
“He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant,” Chomsky said. “Both by his actions and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement.”
For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers - many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out - but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.
As he wrote in his autobiography, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” (1994): “From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than ‘objectivity’; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.”
Certainly, it was a recipe for rancor between Dr. Zinn and John Silber, former president of Boston University. Dr. Zinn, a leading critic of Silber, twice helped lead faculty votes to oust the BU president, who in turn once accused Dr. Zinn of arson (a charge he quickly retracted) and cited him as a prime example of teachers “who poison the well of academe.”
Dr. Zinn was a cochairman of the strike committee when BU professors walked out in 1979. After the strike was settled, he and four colleagues were charged with violating their contract when they refused to cross a picket line of striking secretaries. The charges against “the BU Five” were soon dropped.
In 1997, Dr. Zinn slipped into popular culture when his writing made a cameo appearance in the film “Good Will Hunting.” The title character, played by Matt Damon, lauds “A People’s History” and urges Robin Williams’s character to read it. Damon, who co-wrote the script, was a neighbor of the Zinns when growing up.Continued...
“Howard had a great mind and was one of the great voices in the American political life,” Ben Affleck, Damon’s longtime friend and his costar in “Good Will Hunting,” said in a statement. “He taught me how valuable, how necessary dissent was to democracy and to America itself. He taught that history was made by the everyman, not the elites. I was lucky enough to know him personally, and I will carry with me what I learned from him - and try to impart it to my own children - in his memory.”
Damon was later involved in a television version of the book, “The People Speak,” which ran on the History Channel in 2009, and he narrated a 2004 biographical documentary, “Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”
“Howard had a genius for the shape of public morality and for articulating the great alternative vision of peace as more than a dream,” said James Carroll, a columnist for the Globe’s opinion pages whose friendship with Dr. Zinn dates to when Carroll was a Catholic chaplain at BU. “But above all, he had a genius for the practical meaning of love. That is what drew legions of the young to him and what made the wide circle of his friends so constantly amazed and grateful.”
Dr. Zinn was born in New York City on Aug. 24, 1922, the son of Jewish immigrants, Edward Zinn, a waiter, and Jennie (Rabinowitz) Zinn, a housewife. He attended New York public schools and was working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he met Roslyn Shechter.
“She was working as a secretary,” Dr. Zinn said in an interview with the Globe nearly two years ago. “We were both working in the same neighborhood, but we didn’t know each other. A mutual friend asked me to deliver something to her. She opened the door, I saw her, and that was it.”
He joined the Army Air Corps, and they courted through the mail before marrying in October 1944 while he was on his first furlough. She died in 2008.
During World War II, he served as a bombardier, was awarded the Air Medal, and attained the rank of second lieutenant. After the war, Dr. Zinn worked at a series of menial jobs until entering New York University on the GI Bill as a 27-year-old freshman. He worked nights in a warehouse loading trucks to support his studies. He received his bachelor’s degree from NYU, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Columbia University.
Dr. Zinn was an instructor at Upsala College and a lecturer at Brooklyn College before joining the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, in 1956. He served at the historically black women’s institution as chairman of the history department. Among his students were novelist Alice Walker, who called him “the best teacher I ever had,” and Marian Wright Edelman, future head of the Children’s Defense Fund.
During this time, Dr. Zinn became active in the civil rights movement. He served on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the most aggressive civil rights organization of the time, and participated in numerous demonstrations.
Dr. Zinn became an associate professor of political science at BU in 1964 and was named full professor in 1966.
The focus of his activism became the Vietnam War. Dr. Zinn spoke at many rallies and teach-ins and drew national attention when he and the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, another leading antiwar activist, went to Hanoi in 1968 to receive three prisoners released by the North Vietnamese.
Dr. Zinn’s involvement in the antiwar movement led to his publishing two books: “Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal” (1967) and “Disobedience and ” (1968). He had previously published “LaGuardia in Congress” (1959), which had won the American Historical Association’s Albert J. Beveridge Prize; “SNCC: The New Abolitionists” (1964); “The Southern Mystique” (1964); and “New Deal Thought” (1966).
In addition to his daughter, Dr. Zinn leaves a son, Jeff of Wellfleet; three granddaughters; and two grandsons. Funeral plans were not available.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
*Writer's Corner- Author Of "Catcher In The Rye" J.D. Salinger Passes Away
Click on the title to link to a "The Boston Globe" obituary for the late novelist J.D. Salinger, most famous for his novel "Catcher In The Rye".
Markin comment:
I am writing this entry after just receiving notice that the author of this book, J.D. Salinger, has just passed away at 91. I am living proof, although I am sure no alone on this account , that the teenage angst that preppie Holden Caulfield, the narrator of "Catcher In The Rye", was caught up in his immediate post-World War II generation was contagious all the way down at the bottom of society to housing project kids like me later on. Needless to say this high school assigned-reading was one of those books that I devoured at one sitting, if I recall correctly. But here is a better perspective on the book. Some books you read once and move on. Others you read, re-read and live out, including on a trip to New York a stay at the old Taft Hotel. How is that for having a more than a literary effect on the reader. Only Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” had more. So long, J.D.
Markin comment:
I am writing this entry after just receiving notice that the author of this book, J.D. Salinger, has just passed away at 91. I am living proof, although I am sure no alone on this account , that the teenage angst that preppie Holden Caulfield, the narrator of "Catcher In The Rye", was caught up in his immediate post-World War II generation was contagious all the way down at the bottom of society to housing project kids like me later on. Needless to say this high school assigned-reading was one of those books that I devoured at one sitting, if I recall correctly. But here is a better perspective on the book. Some books you read once and move on. Others you read, re-read and live out, including on a trip to New York a stay at the old Taft Hotel. How is that for having a more than a literary effect on the reader. Only Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” had more. So long, J.D.
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The Dunne Brothers Of The American Socialist Workers Party
Click on the title to link to a "Marxist Internet Archive" article, of sorts, from the IWW's Ralph Chaplin on Vincent Dunne, one of the famous Dunne brothers, stalwart labor leaders and Socialist Workers Party supporters when it counted in the 1930s and 1940's.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The Hungarian Worker-Fighters of 1956
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the events in Hungary in 1956 placed here, mainly, for background information about the reasons that we hail these fighters.I have dealt with this embryonic workers revolution more fully elsewhere and will do so in the future as well.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Fighters For The Hungarian Soviet In 1919
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Eugene Levine, Leader Of The Bavarian Soviet Republic Of 1919
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Eugene Levine,leader of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Wendell Phillips
Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for radical abolitionist Wendell Phillips
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Monday, January 25, 2010
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Bob Dylan's "Hurricane"
Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Bob Dylan performing his song in of the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, "Hurricane".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Markin comment:
On a day when we have received word from the Partisan Defense Committee about the latest legal set-back in Mumia's case a look at the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, another innocent black man, should bring home to everyone the need to focus on freedom (as opposed to the strategy of a new trial or commutation, although we use all avenues that we can use in these cases) for Mumia. Free Mumia!
Hurricane Lyrics-Bob Dylan
Pistols shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood
Cries out "My God they killed them all"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
Three bodies lying there does Patty see
And another man named Bello moving around mysteriously
"I didn't do it" he says and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbing the register I hope you understand
I saw them leaving" he says and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops"
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing
In the hot New Jersey night.
Meanwhile far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that
In Patterson that's just the way things go
If you're black you might as well not shown up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.
Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the corps
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around
He said "I saw two men running out they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates"
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head
Cop said "Wait a minute boys this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.
Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye
Says "Wha'd you bring him in here for ? He ain't the guy !"
Yes here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
Four months later the ghettos are in flame
Rubin's in South America fighting for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are putting the screws to him looking for somebody to blame
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar ?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law ?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter you saw running that night ?"
"Don't forget that you are white".
Arthur Dexter Bradley said "I'm really not sure"
Cops said "A boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talking to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail be a nice fellow
You'll be doing society a favor
That sonofabitch is brave and getting braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim".
Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It's my work he'd say and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.
All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The DA said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.
Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder 'one' guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand ?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Markin comment:
On a day when we have received word from the Partisan Defense Committee about the latest legal set-back in Mumia's case a look at the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, another innocent black man, should bring home to everyone the need to focus on freedom (as opposed to the strategy of a new trial or commutation, although we use all avenues that we can use in these cases) for Mumia. Free Mumia!
Hurricane Lyrics-Bob Dylan
Pistols shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood
Cries out "My God they killed them all"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
Three bodies lying there does Patty see
And another man named Bello moving around mysteriously
"I didn't do it" he says and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbing the register I hope you understand
I saw them leaving" he says and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops"
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing
In the hot New Jersey night.
Meanwhile far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that
In Patterson that's just the way things go
If you're black you might as well not shown up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.
Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the corps
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around
He said "I saw two men running out they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates"
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head
Cop said "Wait a minute boys this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.
Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye
Says "Wha'd you bring him in here for ? He ain't the guy !"
Yes here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
Four months later the ghettos are in flame
Rubin's in South America fighting for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are putting the screws to him looking for somebody to blame
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar ?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law ?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter you saw running that night ?"
"Don't forget that you are white".
Arthur Dexter Bradley said "I'm really not sure"
Cops said "A boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talking to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail be a nice fellow
You'll be doing society a favor
That sonofabitch is brave and getting braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim".
Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It's my work he'd say and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.
All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The DA said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.
Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder 'one' guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand ?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
*The Case Of Geronimo Pratt (ji-Jaga)- The Case Of A Framed Innocent Man
Click on to the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for ex-Black Panther Geronimo Pratt (ji-Jaga). Use the information presented here as a primer only. There is much more information about the FBI's nefarious role in this whole affair.
On a day when we have received word from the Partisan Defense Committee about the latest legal set-back in Mumia's case a look at the case of Geronimo Pratt (ji-Jaga), like the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter also highlighted today , another innocent black man, should bring home to everyone the need to focus on freedom (as opposed to the strategy of a new trial or commutation, although we use all avenues that we can use in these cases) for Mumia. Free Mumia!
On a day when we have received word from the Partisan Defense Committee about the latest legal set-back in Mumia's case a look at the case of Geronimo Pratt (ji-Jaga), like the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter also highlighted today , another innocent black man, should bring home to everyone the need to focus on freedom (as opposed to the strategy of a new trial or commutation, although we use all avenues that we can use in these cases) for Mumia. Free Mumia!
*From The Partisan Defense Committee- An Urgent Update On The Mumia Abu-Jamal Case-Free Mumia Now!
Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Website.
Markin comment:
This message is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. Keep informed about this important death penalty case for, as is mentioned below, the legal machinery is now in place to take the life of this innocent man. Free Mumia Now!
PRESS STATEMENT – 24 January 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kevin Gilroy (212) 406-4252
Mumia Is Innocent—Free Him Now!
Supreme Court of Death Rules Against Mumia Abu-Jamal
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!
On January 19, the U.S. Supreme Court took a clear step toward the legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Court vacated a 2001 decision by federal district court judge William Yohn overturning Mumia’s death sentence. Yohn’s decision had been previously upheld by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The new ruling by the Supreme Court underscores our insistence that fighters for Mumia’s freedom must place no faith in the courts, which, at every level, have colluded with the police and prosecutors to see through the execution of this innocent man.
Mumia was targeted by the police and FBI in his teenage years as a Black Panther leader and later as a journalist and MOVE supporter renowned for his searing exposés of cop brutality and racist oppression. In a blatantly racist and political frame-up, Mumia was railroaded to death row in 1982 on false charges of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Without a shred of actual evidence against him, he was convicted on the basis of phony ballistics and other manufactured “evidence,” a “confession” concocted by cops and prosecutors, massive police intimidation of witnesses and racist jury rigging. His trial was overseen by “hanging judge” Albert Sabo, who was overheard saying he would help the prosecution “fry the n----r.” To secure the death sentence, prosecutors pointed to political statements issued by Mumia as a 16-year-old Panther.
Since his trial, the courts have repeatedly tossed aside massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence, not least the confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner. Yet Mumia remains unbowed, speaking out for the oppressed and the impoverished through his death row commentaries. The Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League/U.S.—calls on trade unionists, death penalty abolitionists and all opponents of racist injustice to make their voices heard in demanding: Free Mumia now! Abolish the racist death penalty!
The Supreme Court moved against Mumia with cold calculation. Last April, it turned down Mumia’s petition to overturn his frame-up conviction. At the same time, the Court held in abeyance the arguments of Pennsylvania prosecutors to reinstate his death sentence, which had been overturned by Yohn on the grounds that Mumia’s trial jury had been given faulty sentencing instructions. The Supreme Court waited to rule against Mumia until after it reinstated the death sentence for Ohio neo-Nazi Frank Spisak, which had been overturned on similar grounds of faulty jury instructions. In effect, the high court gave the Third Circuit their marching orders to uphold Mumia’s death sentence. Alternatively, the Third Circuit could send the case back to Yohn for a hearing to consider other still-pending claims by Mumia or, less likely, reaffirm its prior decision.
The Supreme Court cynically tied together the Spisak and Mumia cases, not despite but because of their glaring differences. Spisak is a sociopath who admitted to killing his victims and made no secret of his admiration for Adolph Hitler. Mumia has always maintained his innocence and won acclaim as the “voice of the voiceless” for his powerful commentaries. The Court is consciously manipulating abhorrence of the fascist Spisak’s crimes to set a precedent for the legal murder of Mumia, a man whose “crime” was to stand up to the racist capitalist rulers. Noting how his case differed from Spisak’s, Mumia aptly told Free Speech Radio News, “The law is the tool of those in power, so how they use it doesn’t depend on the law; it depends on power.” The Supreme Court ruling will touch off new rounds of perhaps lengthy legal proceedings. But even if Mumia wins his battle against execution, the “alternative” offered by the courts is a life sentence with no possibility of parole, which, as Mumia noted in one of his prison writings, “is merely slow death.”
The court’s linking of the two cases highlights yet again how the fight for Mumia’s freedom is inseparable from the struggle to abolish the death penalty. The PDC opposes the death penalty on principle and everywhere—for the guilty as well as for the innocent. We do not accord any state the right to determine who lives and who dies.
Capital punishment is a barbaric relic of ancient codes of justice and, in the U.S., of chattel slavery. Where in medieval times those who ran afoul of Crown and Church were put to the rack or burned at the stake, today’s representatives of bourgeois “civilization” debate which combination of lethal drugs to administer to writhing prisoners strapped to death gurneys. In threatening such treatment for Mumia, the courts hark back to when black slaves could be tortured and put to death for hitting a white man in self-defense or for any other act deemed a challenge to the slaveholders. The hugely disproportionate number of black people on America’s death rows is a testament to the racist subjugation of the black population, which is fundamental to the maintenance of American capitalism. And while judges in their oak-paneled chambers decree the legal murder of the poor, minorities and working people, the police carry out the same sentence on a far greater scale as they gun down ghetto and barrio youth in the streets.
The death penalty stands at the apex of the machinery of state repression used by the tiny class of capitalist exploiters against the masses they exploit and oppress. The “justice” system threatens Mumia with the ultimate state sanction that it used against earlier militants deemed to be threats to capitalist “order”—the Haymarket Martyrs (1877), IWW militant Joe Hill (1915) and anarchist workers Sacco and Vanzetti (1927), to name a few. The state vendetta against Mumia began as part of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign to wipe out the Black Panther Party, in which some 38 Panthers were killed and hundreds of others framed up and railroaded to prison. The government’s intent was made clear in 1968 by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who warned: “The Negro youth and moderate[s] must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries.”
Mumia’s cause has been and must continue to be a focal point of the fight for abolition of the racist death penalty. Popular support for capital punishment has fallen steadily in recent years, due not least to the many cases where DNA evidence has exonerated death row prisoners. Even the conservative American Law Institute, whose death penalty guidelines were cited by the Supreme Court when it ended a brief moratorium on executions in 1976, has decided to get out of this gruesome business as ever more exposures of American injustice come to light. The Supreme Court, however, is not in the least deterred from its push to execute the innocent. Some six weeks before ruling against Mumia, the Court refused to consider the appeal of black California death row inmate Kevin Cooper despite evidence of his innocence and of a massive police frame-up. Free Kevin Cooper!
From the time we first took up Mumia’s cause more than 20 years ago, the PDC has supported the use of every possible legal avenue available to Mumia while having no illusions in the courts or any other agency of the capitalist state. Our fight has centered on the struggle to mobilize the multiracial working class in the U.S. and working people internationally, based on the fact that the proletariat is the one force in this society with the social power to effectively challenge the capitalist rulers. When Mumia faced a death warrant in the summer of 1995, worldwide protests that included trade unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers played a crucial role in staying the executioner’s hand.
Counterposed to this class-struggle strategy is the policy of many organizations--Socialist Action, the Workers World Party, the Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and others--which long centered their protests on the demand for a new, fair trial for Mumia. With the judicial appeals in which they put their faith nearly exhausted, their plea that the capitalist state deliver justice now comes in the form of petitions to Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a civil rights investigation into Mumia’s frame-up trial and to President Barack Obama to “speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
These hat-in-hand appeals to America’s top cop and imperialist Commander-in-Chief are a savage indictment of the liberal belief in the “democracy” of capitalist class rule. Holder’s Justice Department recently threw leftist attorney Lynne Stewart in prison and threatened to extend her sentence by 28 more years for staunchly defending her client, who was accused of terrorist activities. Obama openly announced his support for the death penalty in his run for the White House, including in an interview with right-wing journalist Michael Smerconish, one of the voices calling loudest for Mumia’s execution.
After eight years of the despised Bush regime, Obama took office to give a facelift to bloodsoaked U.S. imperialism. Reinforcing illusions that Obama represents “change,” the reformist left tails after the trade-union bureaucracy, whose program of seeking “friends” in the parties and state agencies of the capitalist class enemy has gravely dissipated labor’s fighting capacity. Meanwhile, the U.S. military still rains death on Iraq and Afghanistan, inmates from America’s vast prison complex to the military’s Bagram and Guantánamo Bay dungeons continue to be brutalized and tortured, and bankers get billion-dollar bailouts while workers lose their jobs and homes.
Markin comment:
This message is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. Keep informed about this important death penalty case for, as is mentioned below, the legal machinery is now in place to take the life of this innocent man. Free Mumia Now!
PRESS STATEMENT – 24 January 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kevin Gilroy (212) 406-4252
Mumia Is Innocent—Free Him Now!
Supreme Court of Death Rules Against Mumia Abu-Jamal
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!
On January 19, the U.S. Supreme Court took a clear step toward the legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Court vacated a 2001 decision by federal district court judge William Yohn overturning Mumia’s death sentence. Yohn’s decision had been previously upheld by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The new ruling by the Supreme Court underscores our insistence that fighters for Mumia’s freedom must place no faith in the courts, which, at every level, have colluded with the police and prosecutors to see through the execution of this innocent man.
Mumia was targeted by the police and FBI in his teenage years as a Black Panther leader and later as a journalist and MOVE supporter renowned for his searing exposés of cop brutality and racist oppression. In a blatantly racist and political frame-up, Mumia was railroaded to death row in 1982 on false charges of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Without a shred of actual evidence against him, he was convicted on the basis of phony ballistics and other manufactured “evidence,” a “confession” concocted by cops and prosecutors, massive police intimidation of witnesses and racist jury rigging. His trial was overseen by “hanging judge” Albert Sabo, who was overheard saying he would help the prosecution “fry the n----r.” To secure the death sentence, prosecutors pointed to political statements issued by Mumia as a 16-year-old Panther.
Since his trial, the courts have repeatedly tossed aside massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence, not least the confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner. Yet Mumia remains unbowed, speaking out for the oppressed and the impoverished through his death row commentaries. The Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League/U.S.—calls on trade unionists, death penalty abolitionists and all opponents of racist injustice to make their voices heard in demanding: Free Mumia now! Abolish the racist death penalty!
The Supreme Court moved against Mumia with cold calculation. Last April, it turned down Mumia’s petition to overturn his frame-up conviction. At the same time, the Court held in abeyance the arguments of Pennsylvania prosecutors to reinstate his death sentence, which had been overturned by Yohn on the grounds that Mumia’s trial jury had been given faulty sentencing instructions. The Supreme Court waited to rule against Mumia until after it reinstated the death sentence for Ohio neo-Nazi Frank Spisak, which had been overturned on similar grounds of faulty jury instructions. In effect, the high court gave the Third Circuit their marching orders to uphold Mumia’s death sentence. Alternatively, the Third Circuit could send the case back to Yohn for a hearing to consider other still-pending claims by Mumia or, less likely, reaffirm its prior decision.
The Supreme Court cynically tied together the Spisak and Mumia cases, not despite but because of their glaring differences. Spisak is a sociopath who admitted to killing his victims and made no secret of his admiration for Adolph Hitler. Mumia has always maintained his innocence and won acclaim as the “voice of the voiceless” for his powerful commentaries. The Court is consciously manipulating abhorrence of the fascist Spisak’s crimes to set a precedent for the legal murder of Mumia, a man whose “crime” was to stand up to the racist capitalist rulers. Noting how his case differed from Spisak’s, Mumia aptly told Free Speech Radio News, “The law is the tool of those in power, so how they use it doesn’t depend on the law; it depends on power.” The Supreme Court ruling will touch off new rounds of perhaps lengthy legal proceedings. But even if Mumia wins his battle against execution, the “alternative” offered by the courts is a life sentence with no possibility of parole, which, as Mumia noted in one of his prison writings, “is merely slow death.”
The court’s linking of the two cases highlights yet again how the fight for Mumia’s freedom is inseparable from the struggle to abolish the death penalty. The PDC opposes the death penalty on principle and everywhere—for the guilty as well as for the innocent. We do not accord any state the right to determine who lives and who dies.
Capital punishment is a barbaric relic of ancient codes of justice and, in the U.S., of chattel slavery. Where in medieval times those who ran afoul of Crown and Church were put to the rack or burned at the stake, today’s representatives of bourgeois “civilization” debate which combination of lethal drugs to administer to writhing prisoners strapped to death gurneys. In threatening such treatment for Mumia, the courts hark back to when black slaves could be tortured and put to death for hitting a white man in self-defense or for any other act deemed a challenge to the slaveholders. The hugely disproportionate number of black people on America’s death rows is a testament to the racist subjugation of the black population, which is fundamental to the maintenance of American capitalism. And while judges in their oak-paneled chambers decree the legal murder of the poor, minorities and working people, the police carry out the same sentence on a far greater scale as they gun down ghetto and barrio youth in the streets.
The death penalty stands at the apex of the machinery of state repression used by the tiny class of capitalist exploiters against the masses they exploit and oppress. The “justice” system threatens Mumia with the ultimate state sanction that it used against earlier militants deemed to be threats to capitalist “order”—the Haymarket Martyrs (1877), IWW militant Joe Hill (1915) and anarchist workers Sacco and Vanzetti (1927), to name a few. The state vendetta against Mumia began as part of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign to wipe out the Black Panther Party, in which some 38 Panthers were killed and hundreds of others framed up and railroaded to prison. The government’s intent was made clear in 1968 by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who warned: “The Negro youth and moderate[s] must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries.”
Mumia’s cause has been and must continue to be a focal point of the fight for abolition of the racist death penalty. Popular support for capital punishment has fallen steadily in recent years, due not least to the many cases where DNA evidence has exonerated death row prisoners. Even the conservative American Law Institute, whose death penalty guidelines were cited by the Supreme Court when it ended a brief moratorium on executions in 1976, has decided to get out of this gruesome business as ever more exposures of American injustice come to light. The Supreme Court, however, is not in the least deterred from its push to execute the innocent. Some six weeks before ruling against Mumia, the Court refused to consider the appeal of black California death row inmate Kevin Cooper despite evidence of his innocence and of a massive police frame-up. Free Kevin Cooper!
From the time we first took up Mumia’s cause more than 20 years ago, the PDC has supported the use of every possible legal avenue available to Mumia while having no illusions in the courts or any other agency of the capitalist state. Our fight has centered on the struggle to mobilize the multiracial working class in the U.S. and working people internationally, based on the fact that the proletariat is the one force in this society with the social power to effectively challenge the capitalist rulers. When Mumia faced a death warrant in the summer of 1995, worldwide protests that included trade unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers played a crucial role in staying the executioner’s hand.
Counterposed to this class-struggle strategy is the policy of many organizations--Socialist Action, the Workers World Party, the Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and others--which long centered their protests on the demand for a new, fair trial for Mumia. With the judicial appeals in which they put their faith nearly exhausted, their plea that the capitalist state deliver justice now comes in the form of petitions to Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a civil rights investigation into Mumia’s frame-up trial and to President Barack Obama to “speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
These hat-in-hand appeals to America’s top cop and imperialist Commander-in-Chief are a savage indictment of the liberal belief in the “democracy” of capitalist class rule. Holder’s Justice Department recently threw leftist attorney Lynne Stewart in prison and threatened to extend her sentence by 28 more years for staunchly defending her client, who was accused of terrorist activities. Obama openly announced his support for the death penalty in his run for the White House, including in an interview with right-wing journalist Michael Smerconish, one of the voices calling loudest for Mumia’s execution.
After eight years of the despised Bush regime, Obama took office to give a facelift to bloodsoaked U.S. imperialism. Reinforcing illusions that Obama represents “change,” the reformist left tails after the trade-union bureaucracy, whose program of seeking “friends” in the parties and state agencies of the capitalist class enemy has gravely dissipated labor’s fighting capacity. Meanwhile, the U.S. military still rains death on Iraq and Afghanistan, inmates from America’s vast prison complex to the military’s Bagram and Guantánamo Bay dungeons continue to be brutalized and tortured, and bankers get billion-dollar bailouts while workers lose their jobs and homes.
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