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Friday, June 14, 2013
Free Lynne Stewart Now!
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Thursday, June 13, 2013
***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night -The
Girl With The Brown-Hazed Eyes
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
He
desired her from the first minute that he saw her that sunny summer night on the Cambridge Common in that strange
odd-ball year of 1967, the year of his high school graduation summer, the summer of a topsy-turvy world gone mad, gone mad with hubris,
fights breaking out over everything, and
nothing. The summer of love in some quarters, all flowers and angel halos, a little
of the flow over on Boston Common but mainly in Frisco and points west. But his
mind was not focused on such exotic flowery dream-infested things that day, at
least not before he met her to hang his desire on and maybe form some cosmic
charge with that sweet summer after all.
Back to reality though, the hard
reality, the fighting words hard reality of 1967. He had been mulling over this or
that thing while walking around the paths of the park nodding, as if
in some unspoken solidarity, to
the various mainly American Revolutionary War
and Civil War dignitaries holding memorial forth in that historic space. Strangely his mulling
seemed in deep contrast to the heroic
mold of the statues before him since he was trying to order his small wedge-shaped universe to see what it would look like, would look like now
that he was coming of draft age. Draft age and not going to college just yet, and maybe never, since his family had no dough and hadn’t had any for a long time, as least for frills like college,
having eked out a working poor existence in one of the low rent North Cambridge
tenements and,
truth too, his marks in school had not
scholarship worthy. So he
had to decide whether to enlist in the Army and make the best of it while that
bloody war in Vietnam was blazing and blasting everything in sight, turning that whole country to cinders from the look of the nightly news,
and the body bags coming back, including a few from the neighborhood, having
been all chewed up in some rotten jungle. Maybe if he enlisted he would finally
draw a break, maybe
he would wind up as a clerk in some German outpost, some NATO frontline waiting out the Russkies with hands on triggers but
with no bloody treks through some exploding countryside and death right there at
every step. Hell, he thought maybe he
would just wait
it out and allow himself to be drafted (quaint way to put cannon fodder) when his number came up. Or maybe just chuck it all and drift to Canada and exile. That last option was
against all ingrained family, neighborhood and working -class ethos
probabilities but the times were desperate.
But
enough of his military options, or lack of options, because this sketch is not
about his military problems but about his big eyes, no, that is not exactly right, his big eyes for her big eyes. Yes, that’s better, closer to the nub. He just flat-out desired her the girl that he would
dub –before he met her up close, “the girl with brown hazed-eyes” for even at a
distance of one hundred feet or so he could see that she was
a rare find- and trouble, trouble with a big T. He didn’t mind a little trouble
since the aforementioned military things on his mind was
real trouble and so he would play, or try to play this scene out.
It
wasn’t that she was beautiful, not in the Norte Americana beautiful all blonde
and thin-boned waspy ice cold beautiful that caused him some restless lonely nights with a forsaken sweaty pillow trying to
figure some angle to defrost that vision. Nor beautiful either in
the boyhood neighborhood red-headed or brunette Irish Catholic frail (girl, okay, frail used in the corner boy hanging night in the
neighborhood practically since there was a neighborhood because he had first
heard it used by his grandfather who was an original denizen) and loaded up with that frail-hood
about a million years’ worth of novenas and rosary beads to etch the fine Irish features
into hard desire. No this was something different, something new, something new
in the trouble line. Clearly she was from the south,
south of the border, probably Mex (which is what she turned out to be), maybe
with a mix of a thousand years (he wasn’t exactly sure of that number but it sounded about right) of Spanish conquistador rapes mixed in
with ten thousand years of Indian thumps. All brown as a berry (not beachfront hotel tan
brown like those Nordic ice queens of his dreams
all tanned up at
some walking daddy’s expense, father or “uncle” in Saint Tropez or the Bahamas
and not red brown tanned like those fair-skinned Irish girls soaking up sun on
plebeian beaches filled up with nearby from hunger amusement
parks).
Brown down to her nipples is what he
thought, Black and long straight hair (straight to envious Nordic girls desperately trying to iron their locks to be fit in hair company
fashion around Harvard Square) worn with a becoming single red rose
aslant her head. Wearing jeans, tight,
and the most colorful blouse, a peasant blouse some girl had told him when he had
asked about such things of an old flame the
first time he saw one blazing up the Square night, colorful in the way things were
colorful in those crazy years, purples, maizes, magentas, off-oranges things
like and topped off with big ruby red lips that only highlighted that dark
skin. Well those lips did not exactly top thing off because what did were those
sparkling laughing black eyes of her. Eyes that would when lit like he observed at that first glance
would send many
a man before some gallant firing- squad with not a
murmur for just one kind look. And hence the focus of his desire.
So he
determined to go up to her, to find out about her, to look for trouble if he
could find it was the way he thought about it. As he approached her she
gave him a huge smile and so he thought things were looking good. Then straightforward she asked him what he needed, what he wanted, what he desired
with those dancing eyes of hers. Eyes that up close he realized were
dancing not only because that was their natural state but because she was high,
high on something, some drug of choice in that good night. He was sure it
wasn’t marijuana (grass, herb, tea, or whatever it is called in your
neighborhood) because that tended to had a dulling effect on the eyes (that
stoned effect everybody called it) that he knew from his own experience. And it was not
some LSD or mescaline because she was far too together for that so maybe coke,
morphine, or something else not really widely used in the Norte Americano
night, something exotic from down south. He decided not
to foul things up by caddishly saying he desired her so he asked what she had
in mind.
And then
she, Rosalita when he asked her name although that
could have just been a street moniker to avoid hassles since she looked very
much like a Rosalita to gringo eyes, laid her trip on him. Seems that she was involved in
some student exchange program between her school, her college or some kind of school, down in Sonora, Sonora, Mexico and Harvard
University and while she was here she figured that she would do some “business”
for her brother. That business was selling various drugs of choice to the
gringos starving for good weed, good sister, and a little morphine for those
with more exotic tastes. So what did he want? Hell, he said to himself, she was just a little drug dealer, just like about half the kids in
Cambridge these days, and probably more than a few others on the Commons (most
of the others there, the ones with the short hair and
colorful dress were just gut-busting cops trying to make some easy collars),
and so her big smile and those now somewhat dimmer eyes were just good business
practices.
He asked
her what she was using, and she slyly said a little of this and a little of
that. Then he noticed some track marks, made darker by the brownness of her
skin, marks that could only mean one thing-heroin, horse, H, boy, bad stuff,
bad stuff he remembered from seeing a movie about drug addiction in school,
about the hell of cold turkey, about what the ghost of H does to you, stuff
that was plentiful down south, but was fringe man with
a golden arm Nelson Algren stuff up here. Up Norte. Stuff used by white hipsters hanging around the Square trying
to “walk with the king,” they said. They kept on the low but he would see them on
his two in the morning jaunts into the Hayes-Bickford constantly rubbing their
noses. Or used by low-lifes in downtown Boston, mainly hookers and their cheapjack
walking daddies trying to get kicks on Route 66 they said. He asked her about it, about why she was using the stuff but she was non-committal jut saying “different
strokes for different folks.” And as she asked him again what he wanted he
noticed that those eyes of her were getting muddier, getting more subdued, and
he sensed although he did not know this for sure that she would need another
fix shortly. He waved her off with a “later” and she went in the other
direction to hawk her wares.
As he
walked to Harvard Station grab the bus to
head home he
thought about those brown-hazed- out eyes, thought about those tracks, and
thought that what she told him about
being an exchange student was just so much fluff, was just talk. What he
figured to himself was that she
was strung out enough to need dough badly for her habit, for her kicks, but not strung out enough to lower herself to doing back alley street tricks like those hookers
downtown yet.
Then he remembered that thing she said “that different stokes for different
folk” thing when she also said that
“hey, the world is tough to deal with, tough for a Mexicana chick to
deal with, and so I need a little something to keep the world from breaking my
will, something I am in charge of. ” When he smirked a
slight smirk of some deep-seeded
disapproval at her (mainly because he felt that he would
have seven levels of hell to pay for hanging with a junkie) she said this- “ I
can’t go into your world hermano, I have got to be real, and being real takes a
lot out of you, okay amigo.”
Yes, he thought the world really does take a big
piece out of you, and maybe she was right to shut out the blues anyway she
could, find any port she could find to put a break on her sorrows. Then he
thought, thought almost out loud as his bus headed into the station that he
desired her, desired those brown hazed –out eyes, and he would like some demon
junkie seek her out again tomorrow, seek her out in the golden blaze night and
take his chances…
Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- "America,
Where Are You Now...."-Stepphenwolf's "Monster" –For The
Fighters Of The International Working Class
Steppenwolf
Markin comment on the lyrics here:
Steppenwolf was one of the most political of the rock groups
brought forth by the new musical sensibility of the counter-cultural movement
in the mid to late 1960s. The narrative here in Monster reads like a capsule
history of the American experience up until the 1960s. And a powerful call, a
call that should resonate today, for the older generation (now us) to come and
help the young fight against the monster of American imperialistic capitalism
that is driving us all to the bottom. A theme song for all the movements
springing up around this wicked old world.
************
Monster/Suicide/America
Lyrics
Steppenwolf
Words
and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom
(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
But she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
Then once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem "friendly" and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they were paying no mind
'Cause the people "got" fat and "grew" lazy
now their vote "is like a" meaningless "Tune"
"You know they talk about law "about" order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
But she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
Then once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem "friendly" and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they were paying no mind
'Cause the people "got" fat and "grew" lazy
now their vote "is like a" meaningless "Tune"
"You know they talk about law "about" order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
The Labor Party Question In The United States- An
Historical Overview-Fight For A Worker Party That Fights For A Workers
Government
Click on the headline to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archives for an
online copy of his 1940s documents on the labor party question in the United
States in his time.
From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin
These notes (expanded) were originally presented as The Labor Question in the United States at a panel forum on the question on Saturday August 4, 2012 by a radical historian familiar with this history. As a number of radicals have noted, most particularly organized socialist radicals, after the dust from the fall 2012 bourgeois election settles, regardless of who wins, the working class will lose. Pressure for an independent labor expression, as we head into 2013, may likely to move from its current propaganda point as part of the revolutionary program to agitation and action so learning about the past experiences in the revolutionary and radical labor movements is timely.
These notes (expanded) were originally presented as The Labor Question in the United States at a panel forum on the question on Saturday August 4, 2012 by a radical historian familiar with this history. As a number of radicals have noted, most particularly organized socialist radicals, after the dust from the fall 2012 bourgeois election settles, regardless of who wins, the working class will lose. Pressure for an independent labor expression, as we head into 2013, may likely to move from its current propaganda point as part of the revolutionary program to agitation and action so learning about the past experiences in the revolutionary and radical labor movements is timely.
I had originally expected to
spend most of the speech at the forum delving into the historical experiences,
particularly the work of the American Communist Party and the American
Socialist Workers Party with a couple of minutes “tip of the hat” to the work
of radical around the stillborn Labor Party experiences of the late 1990s.
However, the scope of the early work and that of those radicals in the latter
work could not, I felt, be done justice in one forum presentation. Thus these
notes are centered on the early historical experiences. If I get a chance, and
gather enough information to do the subject justice, I will place notes for the
1990s Labor Party work in this space as well.
*********
The subject today is the Labor
Party Question in the United States. For starters I want to reconfigure this
concept and place it in the context of the Transitional Program first
promulgated by Leon Trotsky and his fellows in the Fourth International in
1938. There the labor party concept was expressed as “a workers’ party that
fights for a workers’ government.” [The
actual expression for advanced capitalist countries like the U.S. was for a
workers and farmers government but that is hardly applicable here now, at least
in the United States. Some wag at the time, some Shachtmanite wag from what I
understand, noted that there were then more dentists than farmers in the United
States. Wag aside that remark is a good point since today we would call for a
workers and X (oppressed communities, women, etc.) government to make our
programmatic point more inclusive.]
For revolutionaries these two
algebraically -expressed political ideas are organically joined together. What
we mean, what we translate this combination as, in our propaganda is a mass
revolutionary labor party (think Bolsheviks first and foremost, and us) based
on the trade unions (the only serious currently organized part of the working
class) fighting for soviets (workers councils, factory committees, etc.) as an
expression of state power. In short, the dictatorship of the proletariat, a
term we do not yet use in “polite” society these days in order not to scare off
the masses. And that is the nut. Those of us who stand on those intertwined
revolutionary premises are few and far between today and so we need,
desperately need, to have a bridge expression, and a bridge organization, the
workers party, to do the day to day work of bringing masses of working people
to see the need to have an independent organized expression fighting
programmatically for their class interests. And we, they, need that party pronto.
That program, the program
that we as revolutionaries would fight for, would, as it evolved, center on
demands, yes, demands, that would go from day to day needs to the struggle for
state power. Today such demands focus on massive job programs at union wages
and benefits to get people back to work, workers control of production as a way
to spread the available work around, the historic slogan of 30 for 40,
nationalization of the banks and other financial institutions under workers
control, a home foreclosure moratorium, and debt for homeowners and students.
Obviously more demands come to mind but those listed are sufficient to show our
direction.
Now there have historically
been many efforts to create a mass workers party in the United States going all
the way back to the 1830s with the Workingmen’s Party based in New York City.
Later efforts, after the Civil War, mainly, when classic capitalism began to
become the driving economic norm in America, included the famous Terence
Powderly-led Knights of Labor, including some integrated black and white locals), a
National Negro Union, and various European social-democratic off -shoots
(including pro-Marxist formations). All those had flaws, some serious like
being pro-capitalist, merely reformist, and the like (sound familiar?) and
reflected the birth pangs of the organized labor movement rather than serious
predecessors.
Things got serious around the
turn of the century (oops, turn of the 20th century) when the capitalist s in
the “age of the robber barons” declared unequivocally that class warfare
between labor and capital was the norm in American society (if not expressed
that way in “polite” society). This was the period of the rise the
Debsian-inspired party of the whole class, the American Socialist Party. More
importantly, if contradictorily, emerging from a segment of that organization,
the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) was, to my mind the first
serious revolutionary labor organization (party/union?) that we could look to
as fighting a class struggle fight for working class interests. Everyone should
read the Preamble to the IWW Constitution of 1905 (look it up on Wikipedia or the IWW website) to see
what I mean. It still retains its stirring revolutionary fervor today.
The most unambiguous work of
creating a mass labor party that we revolutionaries could recognize though
really came with the fight of the American Communist Party (which had been
formed by the sections, the
revolutionary-inclined sections, of the American Socialist Party that split off
in the great revolutionary/reformist division after the success of the
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917) in the 1920s to form one based on the
trade unions (mainly in the Midwest, and mainly in Chicago with the John
Fitzgerald –led AFL). That effort was stillborn, stillborn because the
non-communist labor leaders who had the numbers, the locals, and, ah, the dough
wanted a farmer-labor party, a two class party to cushion them against radical
solutions (breaking from the bourgeois parties and electoralism). Only the
timely intervention of the Communist International saved the day from a major
blunder (Go to the <i>James P. Cannon Internet Archives</i> for
more, much more on this movement. Cannon,
and his factional allies including one William Z. Foster, later the titular
head of the Communist Party, were in the thick of things to his later red-faced
chagrin).
Moving forward, the American
Communist Party at the height of the Great
Depression (the one in the 1930s, that one, not the one we are in now)
created the American Labor Party (along with the American Socialist party and
other pro-Democratic Party labor skates) which had a mass base in places like New York and the
Midwest. The problem though was this organization was, mainly, a left-handed
way to get votes for Roosevelt from class conscious socialist-minded workers
who balked at a direct vote for Roosevelt. (Sound familiar, again?) And that,
before the Labor Party movement of the 1990s, is pretty much, except a few odd
local attempts here and there by leftist groups, some sincere, some not, was probably
the last major effort to form any kind of independent labor political
organization. (The American Communist Party after 1936, excepting 1940, and
even that is up for questioning, would thereafter not dream of seriously
organizing such a party. For them the Democratic Party was more than adequate,
thank you. Later the Socialist Workers Party essentially took the same stance.)
That is a summary of the
historical aspects of the workers party question. The real question, the real
lessons, for revolutionaries posed by all of this is something that was pointed
out by James P. Cannon in the late 1930s and early 1940s (and before him Leon
Trotsky). Can revolutionaries in the United States recruit masses of working
people to a revolutionary labor party (us, again) today (and again think
Bolshevik)? To pose the question is to give the answer (an old lawyer’s trick,
by the way).
America today, no. Russia in
1917, yes. Germany in 1921, yes. Same place 1923, yes. Spain in 1936 (really
from 1934 on), yes. America in the 1930s, probably not (even with no Stalinist ALP
siphoning). France 1968, yes. Greece (or Spain) today, yes. So it is all a
question of concrete circumstances. That is what Cannon (and before him
Trotsky) was arguing about. If you can recruit to the revolutionary labor party
that is the main ticket. We, even in
America, are not historically pre-determined to go the old time British Labor
Party route as an exclusive way to create a mass- based political labor
organization. If we, however, are not able to recruit directly then we have to
look at some way station effort. That is why in his 1940 documents (which can
also be found at the <i>Cannon Internet Archives</i> as well) Cannon
stressed that the SWP should where possible (mainly New York) work in the
Stalinist-controlled (heaven forbid,
cried the Shachtmanites) American Labor Party. That was where masses of
organized trade union workers were to be found who still held to the old labor
traditions.
Now I don’t know, and
probably nobody else does either, if and when, the American working class is
going to come out of its slumber. Some of us thought that Occupy might be a
catalyst for that. That has turned out to be patently false as far as the
working class goes. So we have to expect that maybe some middle level labor
organizers or local union officials feeling pressure from the ranks may begin
to call for a labor party. That, as the 1990s Socialist Alternative “Justice”
Labor Party archives indicate, is about what happened when those efforts
started.
[A reference back to the
American Communist Party’s work in the 1920s may be informative here. As
mentioned above there was some confusion, no, a lot of confusion back then
about building a labor party base on workers and farmers, a two -class party.
While the demands of both groups may in some cases overlap farmers, except for
farm hands, are small capitalists on the land. We need a program for such
potential allies, petty bourgeois allies, but their demands are subordinate to
labor’s in a workers’ party program. Fast forward to today and it is entirely
possible, especially in light of the recent Occupy experiences, that some vague
popular frontist trans-class movement might develop like the Labor Non-Partisan
League that the labor skates put forward in the 1930s as a catch basin for all
kinds of political tendencies. We, of course, would work in such formations
fighting for a revolutionary perspective but this is not what we advocate for
now.]
Earlier this year AFL-CIO
President Trumka [2012]made noises about labor “going its own way.” I guess he
had had too much to drink at the Democratic National Committee meeting the
night before, or something. So we should be cautious, but we should be ready.
While at the moment tactics like a great regroupment of left forces, a united
front with labor militants, or entry in other labor organizations for the
purpose of pushing the workers party are premature we should be ready.
And that last sentence brings
up my final point, another point courtesy of Jim Cannon. He made a big point in
the 1940s documents about the various kinds of political activities that small
revolutionary propaganda groups or individuals (us, yet again) can participate
in (and actually large socialist organizations too before taking state power).
He lumped propaganda, agitation, and action together. For us today we have our
propaganda points “a workers’ party that fights for a workers (and X, okay)
government.” In the future, if things head our way, we will “united front” the
labor skates to death agitating for the need for an independent labor
expression. But we will really be speaking over their heads to their
memberships (and other working class formations, if any, as well). Then we will
take action to create that damn party, fighting to make it a revolutionary
instrument. Enough said.
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