AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Paul Krugman Discovers Marx (and Misses the Point)
by Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer Email: sanfrancisco (nospam) workerscompass.org (verified)	12 Dec 2012
In his recent New York Times op-ed piece, Princeton professor and regular columnist for The New York Times, Paul Krugman observed: The American economy is still, by most measures, deeply depressed. But corporate profits are at record high. It’s simple: profits have surged as a share of national income, while wages and other labor compensation are down. The pie isn’t growing the way it should — but capital is doing fine by grabbing an ever-larger slice, at labor’s expense.
And then he adds with almost shocked incredulity: “Wait — are we really back to talking about capital versus labor? Isn’t that an old-fashioned, almost Marxist sort of discussion, out of date in our modern information economy?” This is exactly the conflict that Marx identified as the fundamental, inescapable contradiction of the capitalist system that would eventually create the conditions of its downfall: there is a tendency for the owners of businesses, the capitalists, to accumulate ever-vaster wealth while the people who work for them experience a declining standard of living. Marx supported this conclusion by offering a description of the fundamental operating mechanism of capitalism. Capitalism is based on the principle of private ownership and competition. Private businesses compete with one another for customers, and those who fail to attract a sufficient number eventually perish. But in order to attract customers, businesses must maximize the quality of their product while minimizing its price. If two products embody the same quality but one is cheaper, customers, in pursuit of their self-interest, will purchase the cheaper version, all other factors being equal. This means that capitalists must constantly attempt to minimize the price of their product simply for the sake of their own survival. If a business devises a way to lower costs, it can capture the market. But, as Marx pointed out, labor costs are a huge factor in determining the price of a product. So those businesses that minimize labor costs can prevail in the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism. For this reason, a downward pressure on wages and benefits is always operating to one degree or another. But Krugman made no reference to this aspect of Marx’s analysis and instead identified two other factors that contribute to the growing inequality in wealth between capitalists and workers, both of which are discussed by Marx. The first factor involves the introduction of technology into the labor process, i.e. “labor-saving” technology. In other words, machines replace workers or reduce the amount of skill required in the labor process. To give a current example, software has been developed that analyzes legal documents at a fraction of the time it takes lawyers while costing much less. Accordingly, many well-paid lawyers lose their jobs to such software. Living during the industrial age, Marx supplied many such examples. Krugman referred to his second explanatory factor that increases inequality between capitalists and labor as the “monopoly power” of large corporations where “increasing business concentration could be an important factor in stagnating demand for labor, as corporations use their growing monopoly power to raise prices without passing the gains on to their employees.” Here Krugman is approaching the heart of Marxist theory. Krugman is basically arguing that large corporations use their power to override purely economic trends and simply demand that their employees work for less. But this is precisely the point of Marxism, although from the other direction. Marx persistently argued that capitalism could not function without the willingness of the working class to perform the work. When workers organize and engage in collective action by withholding their labor, the balance of power shifts in favor of the workers who can then demand higher wages as a condition for their return to work, as the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) recently did on the West Coast and the teachers did in Chicago. Amazingly, Krugman never mentions the decline of organized labor as a huge factor explaining the decline of the standard of living of working people, adding that there has been so little discussion of these developments. But others, especially former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, have discussed these trends and identified the decline of labor as a major factor. In the 1930s when labor unions were tenaciously fighting for working people, huge gains were made in terms of salaries and benefits. They conducted militant sit-down strikes and mobilized tens of thousands of people from the community to support labor’s struggles. Their successes were to a large degree responsible for the emergence of the so-called middle class that thrived in the 1950s and 1960s. Workers who are organized, acting both collectively and forcefully, can change the economic landscape. But once organized labor becomes complacent and relaxes its guard and ceases to struggle, the laws of capitalism ineluctably grind down their gains and the growing inequality returns until workers again rise up. Marx argued that eventually workers would see the futility of this repeating cycle, reject capitalism altogether, and begin to construct a socialist society built on entirely humanistic and democratic principles. In a recent New York Times article on unionizing workers at the bottom of the pay scale, a union organizer was quoted as saying, “We must go back to the strategies of nonviolent disruption of the 1930s.” Currently organized labor is all but dying out. Strikes are like an endangered species. Rather than engaging in militant struggles, union members are urged to elect Democrats who then call on workers to accept sacrifices. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has called on working people “to fight like hell” to resist cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But these are just words. To this date, the unions have failed to mobilize their members to stage massive demonstrations across the country against cuts to these popular social programs – demonstrations that could culminate in hundreds of thousands of working people descending on Washington, D.C. to make their demands clear to the Obama administration and the rest of the politicians. Without the unions taking the lead in this struggle, there is little individual workers will be able to accomplish. And if the unions refuse to return to their more militant roots but remain invisible, economists like Paul Krugman will continue to ignore their existence and overlook their current historic failure to defend working people. For more articles visit us at http://workerscompass.org

Defeating “Right to Work”
by Mark Vorpahl Email: portland (nospam) workerscompass.org (verified)	16 Dec 2012
The passage in Michigan of the anti-worker legislation grotesquely misnamed “Right to Work” (RTW) should be putting the entire nation on red alert. The downward pressure on the standard of living such bills unleash on the vast majority extend well beyond the union ranks. The bill’s success in Michigan, a pivotal state for organized Labor, indicates the unfolding of a national campaign by RTW’s backers.
Like the looming cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and other necessary social programs targeted by a bi-partisan Grand Bargain, this RTW campaign demonstrates that all expectations workers have held in regards to maintaining “the American way of life” are under attack by the big business powers behind our political system. Unless we are prepared to unite and fight these efforts by any means necessary, the lives of future generations will be rendered short and mean for the sake of corporate profit. The mettle for this fight was abundantly evident at Michigan’s state capital in Lansing on the day the RTW was passed. Up to 1,200 gathered to have their opposition heard. They were greeted with pepper spray by the police and arrogant indifference by RTW’s backers. This was endured by the protesters in spite of the fact that the passage of the bill was largely viewed as inevitable. The determination to turn around the one-sided class war against RTW’s supporters exists. What is necessary is the political perspective and strategies to win. RTW’s Results While labor law necessitates that unions represent all workers under their jurisdiction, RTW laws mean that workers at the workplace where a union exists are not required to join the union and therefore are not required to pay dues, meaning that the union has less money to finance its campaigns. Nevertheless, when the union negotiates a contract at this workplace, those who are not in the union benefit from it just as much as those who are in the union. As a result, the union is divided into “dues payers” and “free loaders,” weakening their ability to take united action in their own interests. Union organizing becomes focused more on overcoming this division rather than advancing collective strength. Consequently, the downward pressure results not only for union workers’ wages and rights, but also non-union workers as well. The Economic Policy Institute has reported that employees in RTW states earn $1,500 less annually. This does not include the erosion of benefits, rights, and safety standards. In regards to the significance of RTW being approved in Michigan, Brad Plumer of the Washington Post wrote: The right-to-work bill in Michigan is also an indicator of a broader trend in the United States. As Rich Yeselson details, Michigan is one of the most heavily unionized states in the country, with 17.5 percent of workers belonging to a union. The United Autoworkers is one of the most storied unions in the country. If Michigan, of all places, is no longer safe from sweeping revisions to its labor laws, then none of the remaining pro-union states in the Midwest and Northeast are immune. In a country where the strength of organized labor has already been dwindling for decades, that’s a major change. Corporate Extremism Given the extremist corporate agenda behind RTW in Michigan, it is no wonder why it was signed so quickly without a single public hearing in a lame duck session. It took a sucker punch to get it passed. Any show of a genuinely democratic process would allow for its likely defeat. It is for this reason that Michigan’s RTW also had a $1 million appropriation attached to it. State law prevents the repeal of spending bills through a popular vote. Who are the forces behind Michigan’s RTW? United Auto Workers President Bob King has said that the Koch brothers and Amway owner Dick Devos “bullied and bought their way to get this legislation in Michigan.” While the exact behind the curtain schemes may never be known, there can be little doubt that King is correct. The Koch brothers and Devos are major political players for the 1%, and it is only the 1% who benefit from RTW. This elite claims that RTW encourages business growth in the states it is enacted. While the evidence for this is dubious, to say the least, RTW will result in higher profits and lower wages because business owners will more easily be able to pay their workers less in the absence of a strong union that could push against increased exploitation. This situation is hardly a recipe for economic recovery. Seventy percent of the U.S. economy depends on domestic consumption. If workers are less able to afford the goods and services created for this consumption, in part, because of RTW laws, the economy will contract rather than expand. This suits the 1% fine since they maintain their wealth and increase their power over the political system. For workers it is a race to the bottom. Given this, and that Michigan’s RTW passage will likely be attempted in other states, it is necessary to prepare in advance to combat such measures. Fighting Back In Michigan, there is talk of recall efforts aimed at those who voted for RTW as well as defeating Governor Synder in 2014. Similar efforts in Wisconsin failed to reverse Governor Walker’s attacks on public workers’ wages, benefits, and collective bargaining rights. The strategy contributed to derailing a social movement and knocking the wind out of it once the votes were counted. These results were largely because Walker’s Democrat opponent, Tom Barrett, agreed with the Governor that the state’s budget needed to be balanced at public workers’ expense — he only disagreed with eliminating collective bargaining. This difference was not enough to convince Wisconsin voters to dump the devil they knew for another. In Michigan, as long as efforts to reverse RTW are focused on supporting corporate Democrat Party politicians, the same fate is inevitable. A different source of power must be put into play other than the ability to turn out votes. A strategy to reverse RTW in Michigan, and prevent anti-worker laws in other states must be based on politically independent mass action. That is, they must aim to build the largest possible demonstrations, occupations, and, if need be, strikes. If the policies of a government attack the well-being of workers and their communities, then these workers must, in an organized and strategic way, prove themselves to be ungovernable until these policies are sent to the shredder. Unions are the only existing organizations that have the institutional capacity to act in the interests of all workers and lead such struggles. Acts of civil disobedience that involve only a few hundred will not challenge the economic elite and their political policies by themselves, even if led by the unions. Such acts are easily contained by the cops and courts, and can, consequently, result in demoralization. Rather than being side-tracked by such tactics, Labor must seek to educate and mobilize its own membership, in alliance with other grass roots organizations, on the issues that affect all workers. That is, Labor must spare no costs in building an independent social movement by mobilizing tens of thousands to get out into the streets. Like the RTW, the looming Grand Bargain cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other public programs seeks to make workers pay for the failures of a system geared towards huge profits for the 1%. If Labor’s leadership was aiming to mobilize millions of working people against these cuts, it would be better prepared to defeat RTW in Michigan and elsewhere. That is because such an effort would create an active national network that could spring into action the moment Governor Synder announced his willingness to sign onto RTW. The future is at stake to a degree perhaps never seen before in the U.S. The boldness of our campaigns need to match this challenge. For more articles visit us at http://workerscompass.org

Berkeley's Free Speech Movement
by Stephen Lendman Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified)	19 Dec 2012
freedom
Berkeley's Free Speech Movement by Stephen Lendman Free expression in all forms are fundamental in democratic societies. All other freedoms are risked without free speech, a free press, freedom of thought, culture, intellectual inquiry, and right to challenge government authority peacefully. In the 1960s, anti-war and civil rights activism inspired Berkeley's Free Speech Movement (FSM). It began in 1964. UC Berkeley students protested banned on-campus political activity. They demanded free expression and academic freedom rights. Unprecedented student activism followed. FSM was a student initiative. Faculty, administration and local government officials joined. UC students earlier protested House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC: 1947 - 1975) anti-communist witch hunts. Berkeley's 1964 fall term included several dozen students returning from Mississippi's "Freedom Summer." Racially motivated discrimination and violence horrified them. They bonded with other student activists. Berkeley's activist SLATE (1958 - 1966) was precursor to FSM. Civil rights and International Workers of the World (IWW) leaders supported it. So did Joan Baez and Bettina Aptheker. She later became UC Santa Cruz Feminist Studies Professor. Activism is traditional at Berkeley. It began long before FSM. Iconoclasts and free-thinkers challenged hidebound societal notions and practices. Muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens studied at Berkeley. So did novelist Frank Norris and Spanish Civil War Abraham Lincoln Brigade commander Robert Merriman. In the early 1920s, faculty activists revolted. An Academic Senate followed. Shared governance at that time was unprecedented. The tradition lives. Student groups since the 1930s protested against emerging fascism, banned leftist speakers, capital punishment, and a statewide UC loyalty oath. In 1949, university regents approved it. It required faculty, staff and student employees to declare in writing no connection to the Communist Party. Opposition arose. Regents relented. In 1952, California's Supreme Court sided with fired university employees for refusing to sign. These and similar events were precursor to FSM. Activism is traditional at Berkeley. It's an idea whose time came long ago. More than ever it's needed across America to challenge fast eroding rights. Ironically, 1960s Berkeley protests helped elect Ronald Reagan. In 1966, he became governor. He promised to "clean up" student unrest. In spring 1969, he sent National Guard troops and state police to People's Park. On "bloody Thursday" May 15, a violent confrontation ensued. Many dozens were injured, some seriously. Reagan declared a state of emergency. Public anger arose. Months later, Reagan defended his action. "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with," he said. "No more appeasement." On May 4, 1970, the disease spread east. Ohio National Guard troops murdered four Kent State protesters. Nine others were seriously wounded. Berkeley activism continues. Jewish/Palestinian issues are highlighted. On December 10, ACLU's Northern California affiliate wrote the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR). It concerns a July 9, 2012 complaint filed by attorneys Joel H. Siegel and Neal M. Sher for UC grads Jessica Felber and Brian Maissy. In March 2011 they sued the university. They alleged a hostile Jewish student environment. They claimed Palestine solidarity activism creates "a disturbing echo of incitement, intimidation, harassment and violence carried out under the Nazi regime and those of its allies in Europe against Jewish students and scholars….during the turbulent years leading up to and (during) the Holocaust." Saying so exceeded reason and then some. It was way over the top. Northern California's US District Court agreed. In December, it dismissed the case. It ruled that: "The administration has engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the opposing parties in an attempt to ensure that the rights of all persons are respected, and to minimize the potential for violence and unsafe conditions." Felber and Maissy claims about Palestinian campus activism marginalizing Jewish rights don't wash. The ACLU got involved. It's concerned about First Amendment rights. Its letter said the Northern California branch was involved "in a number of instances in which similar claims have arisen as a result of the activities of pro-Palestinian and/or pro-Israeli student groups on campus." "It acknowledges that these can be hard cases, but warns that the present Complaint 'raises constitutional red flags.' " (It) consistently ignores 'paramount constitutional message(s).' " The US Supreme Court ruled "the First Amendment (to mean) that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Plaintiff claims were dismissed. The District Court said publicly expressed "political speech and expressive conduct" are constitutionally protected. Dissatisfied, attorneys filed an OCR Complaint. Jewish student discriminatory harassment is reflected in activities like annual "Apartheid Week," they claimed. Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association organize mock checkpoints. They're erected to simulate occupation harshness. The ACLU letter added: "The allegations of this Title VI complaint reflect either a profound misunderstanding of the First Amendment, or an attempt to persuade the government to use its power to restrict speech based on its content and political viewpoint." Title VI is codified in the 1964 Civil rights act. It assures nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs. Section 601 states: "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." In October, the Department of Education began investigating plaintiffs' complaint. It stressed that doing so "in no way implies that (it) made a determination with regard to its merits." ACLU's main concern is for First Amendment rights. Compromising them would have a chilling effect on campus activism nationwide. Free expression would be threatened. ACLU Northern California Legal Director Alan L. Schlosser wrote the letter. He said campus activism "convey(s) a political viewpoint about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza - that it is discriminatory against Palestinians, and that it is unjust, coercive, (and) oppressive." Whatever views Felber and Maissy hold, First Amendment rights are inviolable. "Speech that criticizes the State of Israel and its policies and actions, or even questions its right to exist as a Jewish State in the region, cannot constitute the basis for government restriction or regulation." "Speech on public issues occupies the highest rung on the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection." "The First Amendment protects speech, no matter now offensive or disturbing it is to some people." "In fact, First Amendment protections are most important when speakers take controversial or unpopular positions that might arouse strong feelings, passions, and hostility." "There are no sacred cows when it comes to the First Amendment's protection for political messages or viewpoints." Activist speech in all forms is protected. Pro-Israeli activism may be as freely expressed as others do for Palestine. Constitutional law prohibits inhibiting either. Censorship in any form is abhorrent and illegal. Harsh criticism often is most important. Voltaire defended it. "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," he said. In Texas v. Johnson (a 1989 flag burning case), Justice William Brennan wrote the majority opinion, saying: "(I)f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Former US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said: "Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression (regardless of its) ideas.…subject matter (or) content….Our people are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship." Freedom activists nationwide express similar sentiments. Free expression in all forms exceeds all other rights in importance. The ACLU urged prompt Department of Education action. It said government scrutiny of student activism could compromise it. It remains to be seen what follows. Police state repression targets fundamental freedoms. First Amendment rights may be compromised. America stands a hair's breath from full-blown tyranny. On arrival it'll be wrapped in an American flag. Doing so won't mitigate its harshness. In today's climate of permanent war, state-sponsored fear, and erosion of fundamental rights, expect recrimination against non-believers to follow. Freedom in America hangs by a thread. Compromised First Amendment rights assures losing all others. It may be nearer than most expect. The possibility should arouse mass activism to defend what's too important to lose. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
See also: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

The Folly of Afghan War: Oscar Wilde 132 Years Ago
by Poet Coalition Against War (No verified email address)	26 Dec 2012
What Wilde wrote 132 years ago is true today.. The Afghan war is violent, evil, illegal, stupid.



Oscar Wilde's poem Ave Imperatrix was published in 1881 and is an antiwar poem decrying Britain's 2nd invasion of Afghanistan in 1878. In 1842, only 1 British soldier survived in retreating from an invasion of Afghanistan. Currently Cameron keeps 9000 troops imperiled in an evil and illegal war in Afghanistan. Rudyard Kipling's poem copies Wilde's title. It was written in 1882 and glorifies imperial invasion and colonization. Wikipedia articles on the war as are those of the Washington Post and most tv networks in the US, biased in favor of the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. The Afghans have taught Alexander the Great, Turks, Russian Tsars, the Soviet Union,, and now the Americans and for the 3rd time the Brits painful lessons in respecting sovereignty. "In 1843, the British army chaplain Rev. G.R. Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous (First) Anglo-Afghan War, of which he was one of the very few survivors. He wrote that it was "a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated”. Gleig, George R. Sale's Brigade In Afghanistan, John Murray, 1879, p. 181. Poster's note: With the exception of the namecalling regarding Russia, Wilde's poem is imho magnificent. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). Poems. 1881. 3. Ave Imperatrix SET in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide? The earth, a brittle globe of glass, 5 Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pass, Like shadows through a twilight land, The spears of crimson-suited war, The long white-crested waves of fight, 10 And all the deadly fires which are The torches of the lords of Night. The yellow leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well, With gaping blackened jaws are seen 15 Leap through the hail of screaming shell. The strong sea-lion of England’s wars Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, To battle with the storm that mars The star of England’s chivalry. 20 The brazen-throated clarion blows Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, And the high steeps of Indian snows Shake to the tread of armèd men. And many an Afghan chief, who lies 25 Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, Clutches his sword in fierce surmise When on the mountain-side he sees The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes To tell how he hath heard afar 30 The measured roll of English drums Beat at the gates of Kandahar. For southern wind and east wind meet Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, England with bare and bloody feet 35 Climbs the steep road of wide empire. O lonely Himalayan height, Grey pillar of the Indian sky, Where saw’st thou last in clanging fight Our wingèd dogs of Victory? 40 The almond groves of Samarcand, Bokhara, where red lilies blow, And Oxus, by whose yellow sand The grave white-turbaned merchants go: And on from thence to Ispahan, 45 The gilded garden of the sun, Whence the long dusty caravan Brings cedar and vermilion; And that dread city of Cabool Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet, 50 Whose marble tanks are ever full With water for the noonday heat: Where through the narrow straight Bazaar A little maid Circassian Is led, a present from the Czar 55 Unto some old and bearded khan,— Here have our wild war-eagles flown, And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; But the sad dove, that sits alone In England—she hath no delight. 60 In vain the laughing girl will lean To greet her love with love-lit eyes: Down in some treacherous black ravine, Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. And many a moon and sun will see 65 The lingering wistful children wait To climb upon their father’s knee; And in each house made desolate Pale women who have lost their lord Will kiss the relics of the slain— 70 Some tarnished epaulette—some sword— Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields 75 With all the flowers the dead love best. For some are by the Delhi walls, And many in the Afghan land, And many where the Ganges falls Through seven mouths of shifting sand. 80 And some in Russian waters lie, And others in the seas which are The portals to the East, or by The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. O wandering graves! O restless sleep! 85 O silence of the sunless day! O still ravine! O stormy deep! Give up your prey! Give up your prey! And thou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won, 90 O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield For every inch of ground a son? Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, 95 And will not yield them back again. Wave and wild wind and foreign shore Possess the flower of English land— Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. 100 What profit now that we have bound The whole round world with nets of gold, If hidden in our heart is found The care that groweth never old? What profit that our galleys ride, 105 Pine-forest-like, on every main? Ruin and wreck are at our side, Grim warders of the House of pain. Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? Where is our English chivalry? 110 Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, And sobbing waves their threnody. O loved ones lying far away, What word of love can dead lips send! O wasted dust! O senseless clay! 115 Is this the end! is this the end! Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead To vex their solemn slumber so; Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, Up the steep road must England go, 120 Yet when this fiery web is spun, Her watchmen shall descry from far The young Republic like a sun Rise from these crimson seas of war. Ave Imperatrix! Rudyard Kipling (Written in March 1882) ________________________________________ FROM every quarter of your land They give God thanks who turned away Death and the needy madman’s hand, Death-fraught, which menaced you that day. One school of many made to make Men who shall hold it dearest right To battle for their ruler’s sake, And stake their being in the fight, Sends greeting humble and sincere— Though verse be rude and poor and mean— To you, the greatest as most dear— Victoria, by God’s grace Our Queen! Such greeting as should come from those Whose fathers faced the Sepoy hordes, Or served you in the Russian snows, And, dying, left their sons their swords. And some of us have fought for you Already in the Afghan pass— Or where the scarce-seen smoke-puffs flew From Boer marksmen in the grass; And all are bred to do your will By land and sea—wherever flies The Flag, to fight and follow still, And work your Empire’s destinies. Once more we greet you, though unseen Our greeting be, and coming slow. Trust us, if need arise, O Queen, We shall not tarry with the blow!

New issue of The Internationalist is out
by Internationalist Group Email: internationalistgroup (nospam) msn.com (verified) Phone: 212-460-0983 Address: Box 3321 Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008 USA	28 Dec 2012
24 pages of revolutionary Trotskyist views you can't get anywhere else, US$0.50. Subscriptions by mail US$10. For copies contact your local Internationalist supporter, call 212-460-0983 (New York City) or 971-282-7903 (Portland, OR), or write to internationalistgroup (at) msn.com. Send literature requests and payment to Mundial Publications, Box 3321 Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008 USA.
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Get The Internationalist November-December 2012! 24 pages of revolutionary Trotskyist views you can't get anywhere else, US$0.50. Subscriptions by mail US$10. For copies contact your local Internationalist supporter, call 212-460-0983 (New York City) or 971-282-7903 (Portland, OR), or write to internationalistgroup (at) msn.com. Send literature requests and payment to Mundial Publications, Box 3321 Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008 USA. In this issue: * A Capitalist Disaster: Class, Race and Hurricane Sandy * No Choice for Workers in Capitalist Election Shell Game * Los trabajadores de Hot and Crusty triunfan con contrato que abre camino * Zionist Mass Murderers Strike Again: Defend Gaza! * Barack Obama's Global Assassination Bureau * Defend the ILWU! * Don't Fall for the Mediation Trap! Mobilize for a Nationwide ILWU-ILA Port Strike * Chicago Teachers: Strike Was Huge, Settlement Sucks * UFT Censors Opposition to Obama Endorsement * Fast Food Workers Need a Whopping Raise And a Fighting Union! * For A Class-Struggle Fight Against Poverty Wages! * Walmart Walkouts Show Potential for Class Struggle * For Real Solidarity with Bangladesh Workers * Working Families Party: Putting Lipstick on a Pig * South Africa: Bloody Mine Massacre Unmasks ANC Neo-Apartheid Regime * For a South African Internationalist Trotskyist Group * Hot and Crusty Workers Win With Groundbreaking Contract
See also: http://www.internationalist.org/

News :: War and Militarism
19th Century Wars Of The British Empire
by Quit Afghanistan (No verified email address)	30 Dec 2012
The British empire invaded Afghanistan three times in the 19th Century. As we head further into the 21st Century, the US and Britain have not yet learned our lessons.
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19th Century Wars Of The British Empire There were at least 81 wars in which the British Empire was involved in invading other countries in the 19th Century. Whether the Wikipedia article calls the British Empire 1. the United Kingdom 2. the British empire 3. the British East India Company or 4. India (which was occupied for 150 years by the British) one wonders which was the most bellicose nation in the world? In numbers of conflict... the UK? in casualties... the US? Now the British government is involved for the third time in the invasion of AFghanistan. The violence is diminished with semantic obfuscation by capitalist historians using terms such as 'rebellion, bombardment, expedition, uprising'. Part 1 1. Between 1799 and 1815 the British Empire was constantly involved in fighting Napoleon in at least 7 different campaigns. 2. 1801 to 1805 British empire fights the Kingdom of Koya 3. 1802 to 1805 The Second Anglo Maratha War… the British East India Company fights the Maratha Confederacy 4. 1803 to 1805 British empire fights Kingdom of Kandy 5. 1803: British empire fights several European nations in what is called Emmet's Insurrecton 6. 1806-7 British invasions of the Rio de la Plata 7. 1806-7 British fight the Ashanti Fante War 8. 1806-11 Vellore "Mutiny" British E. India Company 9. 1807 to 1812 Anglo Russian War 1807 to 1812 10. 1807 to 1809 Anglo Turkish War 11. 1808 to 1810 Rum Rebellion against New S. Wales 12. 1810 to 1817 Conquest of Madagascar 13. 1810 to 1820 Punjab War British E. India Co. (which operated like a rogue intelligence agency) 14. 1811 Invasion of Java British E India Co. 15. 1811 Fourth Xhosa War 16. 1811 Ga-Fante War 17. 1812 War of 1812 between Britain and US 18. 1814 to 1816 Gurka War British E. India Co. 19. 1815 Second Barbary War 20. 1815 Second Kandyan War 21. 1817 to 1818 Third Anglo Maratha War British E India Co. 22. 1817 Pernambucan Revole British empire 23. 1821 to 1832 Greek War of Independence 24. 1823 to 1831 First Anglo Ashanti War 25. 1823 to 1826 First Anglo Burmese War 26. 1828 to 1834 the Liberal Wars as the British fought King Pedro IV 27. 1832 Black Hawk War 28. 1833 to 1840 First Carlist War 29 1834 to 1836 Sixth Zhosa War 30 1837 to 1838 Lower Canada Rebellion (Those in power describe revolutions as riots, rebellions, uprisings, mutinies, mob action etc.) 31 1839 to 1842 1st of 4 invasions of Afghanistan, the fourth ongoing as this is typed…. This was cited as British E India Co. but thousands of British soldiers were killed.. only 1 left alive. 32 1839 to 1842 First Opioum War Britain v China 33 1839 to 1851 Civil War in Uruguay. British involved. 34 1843 Wairau Affray British settlers fight native New Zealanders 35. 1845 to 1846 First Anglo-Sikh War (one of many different wars in British invasion of India) 36 1845 to 1846 Flagstaff War Once again British fight native New Zealanders 37. 1846 Another campaign of Britain against native New Zealanders 38. 1846 to 1847 Seventh Zhosa War 39. 1846 to 1848 Mexican American War Britain involved against Mexicans 40. 1846 to 1848 Wanganui Campaign 4th campaign against native New Zealanders 41. 1848 to 1849 Second Anglo Sikh War 42. 1850 to 1864 Britain v China war called Taiping Rebellion 43 1850 to 1853 Eighth Xhosa War in Southern Africa 44. 1852 to 1853 Second Anglo Burmese War 45. 1853 to 1874 Britain v China this time called "The Miao Rebellion" 46. 1853 to 1856 Crimean War 47. 1856 to 1857 British war with Nicaragua and the Republic of Sonora 48. 1856 to 1860 Second Opium War in China as the British imperialists distributed opium to the Chinese (and earlier smallpox infected blankets to American Indians) 49. 1856 to 1857 Anglo Persian War 50. 1857 to 1858 Mistakenly called India's first war of independence or the Rebellion of 1857… the Indians ever since the invasion by Britain had been fighting the invaders in different areas of the country 51. 1858 Coeur D'Alene War 52. 1858 Fraser Canyon War (British troops arrived when war over) 53. 1861 to 1865 American Civil War… Britain despite having abolished slavery in 1832, gave aid to the South 54. 1861 to 1867 Franco Mexican War Britain helped France 55. 1863 to 1864 Bombardment of Shimonoseki and Kagoshima in Japan by British 56. 1863 to 1864 Second Anglo Ashanti War 57. 1864 British military support for the New Zealand government campaign against native New Zealanders.. called the Tauranga campaign 58. 1864 to 1865 British Empire wars against Bhutan 59. 1865 to 1868 Second Basuto War (in Africa) 60. 1865 to 1868 East Cape War British settlers in New Zealand help government attempt to crush Native New Zealanders 61. 1865 British naval expedition involves itself in Japanese Civil War at Hyogo 62. 1867 to 18764 A civil war within Malaysia called the Selangor Civil War... British soldiers helped the losing side 63. 1868 "Expedition" to Abyssinia in which British empire warred with Ethiopia 64. 1868 to 1872 British settlers continue to help New Zealand government massacre Native New Zealanders called Te Kooti's War 65. 1869 The British empire helped Canada war against Native Canadians. 66. 1873-1874 Third Anglo Ashanti War in West Africa 67 1877-1879 The Ninth Xhosa War directed by the British empire against the Xhosa Gcaleka tribe of Southern Africa 68. 1878-1880 Second Anglo Afghan War (third Anglo Afghan war raging in 2012) 69. 1879 Anglo Zulu War in Africa 70. 1880-1881 First Boer War British empire against South African Republic 71. 1881-1899 Anglo Sudan War 72. 1883-1914 Anglo-Nigerian War called the Ekumeku War by some 73. 1888 British empire invaded Sikkim 74. 1893-1894 British war against tribes of what is now called Zimbabwe called by some the First Matabele war 75. 1894-1896 the 4th Anglo Ashanti War directed against the Ashanti of West Africa 76. 1896 Anglo-Zanzibar War 77. 1896-1897 Second Anglo-Zimbabwe War (in what was then called the Second Matabele War) 78. 1897 Invasion by British empire of Benin (termed by proponents of empire an 'expedition' 79. 1897-1898 Third Anglo-Afghan War (the 4th is being carried on 2 days from the 2013 New Year with 9000 troops sent by PM Cameron of the UK to Afghanistan. 80. 1899-1901 another Anglo-China War called The Boxer Rebellion 81. 1899-1902 Second Anglo-S African War called The Boer War -saiom shriver- Footnote There are many more not yet listed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%931899 The Russian antiwar painter Vereshchagin portrayed the execution of Indian freedom fighters attempting to regain control of their own country in 1857. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vereshchagin-Blowing_from_Guns_in_British_Indi\ a.jpg http://www.google.com/search?q=paintings+of+vereshchagin&hl=en&client=fi&\ hs=AL6&tbo=u&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=b6bgUMH2C\

Photos/Video-Boston First Night 2013 Against the Wars
by Michael Borkson Email: nosanctions (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)	01 Jan 2013
Boston,Mass.-Dec. 31, 2012: Boston anti-war activists held a peace vigil in Copley Square, Boston in the midst of Boston's New Years Eve 2013 festivities.

Boston, Mass.-Dec. 31, 2012: About 20 peace activists braved the cold and held an anti-war informational vigil in Copley Square right before the Boston First Night New Years Eve 2013 parade. Stop the War and Free Bradley Manning stickers were passed out to the crowds passing by, as well as very visible peace banners and signs displayed. Video: http://youtu.be/3Gv9-HAMgnI Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/protestphotos1/sets/72157632395401277/detai/ From the organizers announcement-- FIRST NIGHT AGAINST THE WARS - DEC. 31, COPLEY SQ. LIBRARY, CORNER BOYLSTON & DARTMOUTH, 3 PM - 6 PM VIGIL, FOLLOWED BY MARCHING IN THE FIRST NIGHT PARADE. Bring banners, signs. Please make copies of handout on Boston UNAC's website below and bring to distribute. Please send to your lists, post on website, Facebook, twitter.. FIRST NIGHT AGAINST THE WARS! A New Year’s Resolution for 2013: A YEAR OF PEACE, NOT WARS AND OCCUPATIONS! As another year of US and Israeli wars and occupations comes to a close leaving tens of thousands dead and injured and many more living in terror from Gaza to Pakistan, we call on all people of conscience to remember the suffering caused in our name and to join the struggle for peace. Only mass outrage and action can change this deadly path of violence. Join us as we make our voices heard in the new year and make the following demands: Stop the drones! No cut-backs! Stop surveillance! No U.S. intervention in Syria or Iran! No unconditional aid to Israel! Contact us to learn more and to join the struggle to build a broad-based peace movement in Boston and beyond. www.BostonUNAC.org Boston United National Antiwar Coalition, www.UNACpeace.org Stop the Wars Coalition Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, www.jvp-boston.org Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, www.smedleyVFP.org Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, www.BCPRights.org Boston Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, www.boston.wilpf.org Boston United for Justice with Peace Coalition, www.justicewithpeace.org Code Pink Greater Boston, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Boston-Code-Pink/121137594607441

On The 150th Anniversary Of The Emancipation Proclamation-“We Are Coming Father Abraham 200, 000 Strong”- Honor The Massachusetts 54th Regiment (Volunteer)

… “make way, make way, give way, the Massachusetts 54^th Honor Guard is coming through, make way,”yelled a grizzled veteran, a grizzled veteran of his generation’s own unloved war who had turned a strange corner for peace as he waited to form up to march on Armistice Day 2012 with the brethren against maddened war news, and talk of war. His mind swirled back not to unloved war fights and streets fights against war but to what meant his automatic call of a moment before at the sight of that honor guard.

Thoughts of long gone snickers and barbs in Richmond town (and not just Richmond town but cotton greedy commercial whigs of Boston, those who spoke only to Cabots and to god) when Andrews declared for a regiment (and Lincoln, hell, old cracker Lincoln to hear it told, called for chain break), snicker thoughts that three-fifth of a man, hah, are you kidding, would not, could not (lacking manly presence, and stinking to high heaven of humid, moist bellum cotton suns) fight to break chains to recover that missing two-fifth, thoughts of rebel snicker that no white johnnie from some desolate Ohio River town or farm for love nor money would move one foot, move one inch, to break those chains, thoughts too of manly courage (nervous, hell, yes, nervous as every man is before bullet fights, jesus, what do you think ) before Wagner front, and tear-eyed thoughts of Captain Brown and his band of brothers before hellish Harpers Ferry fight, no rebel snickers that night.

And thoughts too of still lonely Shiloh graveyards (or you name your hundred graveyards) solid blue bled in a grey land, a foreign grey land, simple gravestones, maybe a hasty wooden cross when the dead piled up too high, names now getting harder to read for ancient eyes, and forgetful minds, thoughts of childhood postage stamps commemorations of such and such Grand Army of the Republic encampment, and then none, as time took its toll, thoughts of sturdy yeoman southern mountain men, kindred, who fought for the union, fought for Mister Lincoln, if not for his nigras, thoughts too of stirring sights at Memorial Hall of scented wood-etched names , some class years decimated, of Harvard union fallen in the hundred battlefield graveyards, but thoughts too, immense thoughts, back to that childhood time desecrated statehouse Saint Gaudens relief and proud men, proud union men marching to hell, or glory.

Yah, some things are worth fighting for, and as his finished his thoughts and readied himself to march one more time against the monsters of war he wished, wished to high heaven, that his war, his unloved war, could have produced anything but cold black marble down in D.C. …

Poet’s Corner- On The 150th Anniversary Of The Emancipation Proclamation-“We Are Coming Father Abraham 200, 000 Strong”-Robert Lowell’s “For The Union Death” -

For the Union Dead

Relinquunt Ommia Servare Rem Publicam.

The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the crowded, compliant fish.

My hand draws back. I often sign still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized

fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.

Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
a girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,

shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake.

Two months after marching through Boston,
half of the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is a lean
as a compass-needle.

He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.

He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die-
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.

On a thousand small town New England greens
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic

The stone statutes of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year-
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns…

Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his 'niggers.'

The ditch is nearer.
There are no statutes for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling

over a Mosler Safe, the 'Rock of Ages'
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
when I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.

Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessed break.

The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.

Robert Lowell

Monday, December 31, 2012

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- American Psycho Number27-Jack Webb’s “He Walked By Night”

DVD Review

He Walked By Night, starring Richard Basehart, Jack Webb, Warner Brothers, 1948

Who knows what makes a guy flip, a guy turn into a flat-out maniac, a stone-cold killer when to all the whole wicked world he looks like a guy who is just a little eccentric, a little bit of a loner, and not a guy who has an immense unfulfilled (unquenchable) grudge against the world. Then a little midnight caper, a little heist, turns sour, a cop gets a little suspicious since there have been a ton of burglaries and robberies in the neighborhood and the guy goes crazy, and the cop winds up dead, very dead.

Of course when a cop gets killed other cops are ready to work night and day 24/7/365 to bring the culprit to justice and it that process of bringing that stone-cold psycho killer to justice that drives this little film noir police procedural, He Walked By Night. They don’t start with much to work with since our psycho was very smart, had a sophisticated scheme, and was very knowledgeable about what the cops were up to as they closed in on him. And that in the end was his undoing as some very ordinary back-filling police work leads to his identification.

Funny as classically well done as this film is as a police procedural (getting the bad guys after all is what crime film noir is all about) it was not at all clear why our culprit turned on society and that failing takes away from each of the actions to try to corral him. So we will definitely have to put this in the B-film files although the scenes at the end when the cops corral our mad monk psycho are very evocative of other famous chase scenes (think The Third Man).

FIRST NIGHT AGAINST

THE WARS!

A New Year’s Resolution for 2013:

A YEAR OF PEACE,

NOT WARS AND OCCUPATIONS!

As another year of US and Israeli wars and occupations comes to a close leaving tens of thousands dead and injured and many more living in terror from Gaza to Pakistan, we call on all people of conscience to remember the suffering caused in our name and to join the struggle for peace. Only mass outrage and action can change this deadly path of violence. Join us as we make our voices heard in the new year and make the following demands:

Stop the drones!

No cut-backs!

Stop surveillance!

No U.S. intervention in Syria or Iran!

No unconditional aid to Israel!

Contact us to learn more and to join the struggle to build a broad-based peace movement in Boston and beyond.

Boston United National Antiwar Coalition, www.UNACpeace.org, BostonUNAC@gmail.com

Stop the Wars Coalition, info@stopthewars.org

Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, www.jvp-boston.org

Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, www.smedleyVFP.org

Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, www.BCPRights.org

Boston Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, www.boston.wilpf.org

Boston United for Justice with Peace Coalition, www.justicewithpeace.org

Code Pink Greater Boston, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Boston-Code-Pink/121137594607441

Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesday January 2nd, 5:00 PM

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesday January 2, 2013 From 5:00-6:00 PM

***********

The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a late - winter trial now scheduled for March 2013. The recent news on his case has centered on the many (since last April) pre-trial motions hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial (Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at 900 plus days), dismissal as a matter of freedom of speech and minimal effect on alleged national security issues (issues for us to know what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs) and dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command while Private Manning was detained in Kuwait and at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011. In December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses.

Some more important recent news from the November 2012 pre-trail sessions is the offer by the defense to plead guilty to lesser charges (wrongful, unauthorized use of the Internet, etc.) in order to clear the deck and have the major (with a possibility of a life sentence) espionage /aiding the enemy issue solely before the court-martial judge (a single military judge, the one who has been hearing the pre-trial motions, not a lifer-stacked panel). Other news includes the increased media attention by mainstream outlets around the case, as well as an important statement by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails.

Since September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’ case, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Pardon Bradley Manning Square for the stand-out’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held on each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM in order to continue to broaden our outreach at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, also renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out). Join us. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

On The 224th Anniversary- IN THE TIME OF THE REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE-Paris 1793

BOOK REVIEW

PARIS IN THE TERROR, JUNE 1793-JULY 1794, STANLEY LOOMIS, J.B. LIPPINCOTT, NEW YORK, 1964

This year marks the 223rd anniversary of the beginning of the Great French Revolution with storming of the Bastille. An old Chinese Communist leader, Zhou Enlai, was asked by a reporter to sum up the important lessons of the French Revolution. In reply he answered that it was too early to tell what those lessons might be. Whether that particular story is true or not it does contain one important truth. Militants today at the beginning of the 21st century can still profit from reading the history of that revolution.

The French Revolution, like its predecessor the American Revolution, is covered with so much banal ceremony, flag- waving, unthinking sunshine patriotism and hubris it is hard to see the forest for the trees. The Bastille action while symbolically interesting is not where the real action took place nor was it politically the most significant event. For militants that comes much later with the rise of the revolutionary tribunals and the Committee of Public Safety under the leadership of the left Jacobins Robespierre and Saint Just. Although the revolution began in 1789 its decisive phases did not take place until the period under discussion in this review, that is from June 1793 with the expulsion of the (for that time moderate) Gironde deputies from the National Convention. That event ushered in the rule of extreme Jacobins under Robespierre and Saint Just through the vehicle of the Committee of Public Safety. That regime, the Republic of Virtue, as it is known to militants since that time and known as the Great Terror to the author of the book under review and countless others, lasted until July 1794. It was in turn ousted by a more moderate Jacobin regime (known historically as the Themidorian Reaction, a subject of fascination and discussion by militants, especially the Bolsheviks, ever since).

Robespierre’s and Saint Just’s overthrow in 1794 stopped the forward progression of the revolution although it did not return it back to the old feudal society. The forces unleashed by the revolution, especially among the land hungry peasantry, made that virtually impossible. In short, as has happened before in revolutionary history, the people and programs which supported the forward advancement of the revolution ran out of steam. The careerists, opportunists and those previously standing on the sidelines took control until they too ran out of steam. Then, not for the first or last time, the precarious balance of the different forces in society clashed and called out for a strongman. Napoleon Bonaparte was more than willing to be obliging when that time came.

Mr. Loomis takes great pains to disassociate himself not just from the excesses of the period (the executions) but seemingly the whole notion of democratic revolution at that time. He essentially favors a constitutional monarchy, and let the revolution stop there. In short, a regime run by a Lafayette-type- but with brains. Great revolutions, however, do not go halfway, despite the best laid plans of humankind. That said, why would militants read this book which paints everyone to the left of the most moderate Girondists as some kind of monster or at least an accomplice? If militants only read pro-revolutionary tracts then they are missing an important part of their education- the fight against patented bourgeois mystification of events. The terror in Paris is a question that needs to be dealt with critically by us while we defend the members of the Committee of Public Safety in their efforts to defend France against internal hostile elements of the old regime and the counterrevolutionary Europe powers. And at the same time defend the Committee’s program of social democracy initiated in order to maintain their base among the sans-culottes.

That said, every place Mr. Loomis places a minus we do not necessarily place a plus. We need to do our own sifting out of revolutionaries from the pretenders. Mlle. Corday by all accounts was a royalist at heart before she murdered Marat. Marat was by all accounts a fanatic. You cannot, however, make a revolution without theses types. A combat-type revolutionary party, if such a party existed in Paris at the time which this writer does not believe did exist, would rein a Marat in. Danton is still an equivocal character who wanted to stop the revolution at his threshold. A Danton-Robespierre political bloc could have carried the revolution over some tough spots. That was not to be. The fault lies in the personality of Robespierre.

Moreover, the execution of the leading Hebertists was a serious mistake, as it weakened the Committee’s base of support among the sans-culottes.Robespierre and Saint Just are portrayed here as little more than monsters. But without those two figures the contours of the revolution would have been different, if it had survived the Coalition military forces arrayed against it at all. The question of the military defense of the revolution and its requirements domestically takes short shrift in Mr. Loomis’s account. That is the book’s abiding error. Robespierre headed the key administrative component of that defense. Saint Just was instrumental in the military aspect of that defense. One can rightly ask, with the possible exception of Carnot, who else could have organized that defense? One should moreover note that a revolution brings the fore all kinds of personalities, not all of them as well- adjusted as modern humankind (sic) - it however, can never be reduced solely to that factor. Thus, militants should look for other sources elsewhere in order to find ammunition in defense of Robespierre and Saint Just. Apparently, according to Mr. Loomis and others, they are in need of defending. Nevertheless, they are worthy of honor in any militant’s pantheon. Enough said.

When The Blues Was Dues- Song For Woody

…he came out of the prairies like the fire, like the wind. And like the wind no prairie could hold him long, hold him from the doing he planned to be doing, planned to be making, hell, planned, just planned. So if anybody asks you, or worse, anybody tries to tell you that his plainsong adventure was all ad lib, was put together helter-skelter with scissors and paste (real scissors and paste for those too young to remember such ancient ways of fitting a thing up, making it right against mankind imperfections, or maybe were too young to remember him except through parents, or grandparents ,or now maybe even ancient thickset, hard of hearing angel great-grandparents) , all mirrors and mirages like some snake oil salesman or carny barker, don’t believe them, just don’t.

Yah, like the wind he roamed out of those okie hills, all threadbare, all morning dust, all noon dust, all evening dust, all dust broke, all dust finished, and like a million okies before him he lit out for the west and more space (east, east had no appeal, had no sex appeal for him but was like some worked- out barren mine, a place to pass by, or die in), mountains, canyons, arroyos, rios strewn every which way, then to the flatlands past the Sierras on down to the sea, the pacific sea. And there in the valley camps, there in the wicked miserable bracero fields, sweated, back-breaking labor not fit for man no woman (although not as miserable as those played-out okie fields, now bank repossessed) he got his voice. Got the rhythm of his people not turning back (where would they go, and why, why with all hell playing out on those dusty prairies) taking one final land’s end stand before Jehovah himself. And he sang like some latter-day poet Whitman, and they listened, listened to their okie bard, as he sang of their trials and tribulations, and maybe his own.

Oh yah, sure he loved women, jesus, everybody wants to know about that even if they can’t remember the lyrics to his plainsong, loved every woman who gave him an eye, a shy eye, a bold eye, maybe even one-eye but that look, or maybe just the thought of that look, got him into many a bed, wedded bed mate (she wedded) or not. Until, until he got that okie dust feeling, that moving on down the line feeling, or maybe she thought twice about leaving Hank, or Jimmy, or Bill when he, seeing another eye cast his way, a shy, eye, a bold eye, maybe even one-eye, and saved him the bother of sneaking out that third floor back window and catching that Southern Pacific to parts unknown, yah, to parts unknown and a fresh start, as long as he could get that okie dust out of his throat and some pacific waters, foam-flecked, white-capped to wash him clean.

And then, well then, roaming and bumming, and bumming and roaming (and smoking and drinking and whoring, alright) took their toll, he lost his voice, not the physical voice but that voice that drove his plainsong, and he took to bed, took himself back east (that east that had no sex appeal, that was to be passed by, or was a place to die), and he collapsed in on himself, turned to a monster of himself before the end, the feeble end. But just before then, just that minute when that lost voice was ready to give out for good, he asked, no he begged, no he ordered, no he commanded, in one last fit of okie hubris that under no conditions, was he to be buried out in that throat-clogging okie wasteland. Nah, just throw his silly (his term) ashes over some blue-green high-flying, white wave ocean and be done with it…

***A Jeff Bridges Retrospective- “Stick It” (Yes, Stick It) - A Film Review

DVD Review

Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, Touchstone Films, 2006

Over the past few years or so, since he won the Academy Award for best actor for his role as broken down country singer/songwriter Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts I have been reviewing the cinematic work of Jeff Bridges as his films have come into my hands. Most of my reviews have been positive reflecting the very real talent and flare that Jeff Bridges brings to the movies. That said, I am at a lost for why he did the film under review, Stick It, that while marginally entertaining at times is an incredible waste of his time and talent.

Now I am not, and never have been, privy to the decisions that actors make about taking on scripts. Maybe they see something in the plot line, maybe they are looking for something a little edgy, or maybe just for the dough, not an unimportant consideration in fickle movie land. But now I can add Jeff Bridges to the vast number of very talented actors that have been in “turkeys”, for whatever reason.

Strangely, it is not the subject matter, the trials and tribulation of a troubled, ex- or maybe not so ex- gymnast (Haley Graham, played by Missy Peregrym) trying to find her place in the world, the non-monastic gymnastics training world that is off here but the subtext that the teenage rebellion of a gymnast attempting to dramatically change the way the sport is conducted has enough energy to fill an hour and one half film. It really doesn’t since an amazing amount of time is spent in various clips of gym activity. And Jeff Bridges as a washed-out (kind of) gym camp owner is in the thick of this thing as Haley’s substitute father/confessor.

There are plenty of issues (sexual, physical, psychological) that could have been raised by a close look at the cult-like elite gymnastics world (or any high-level sports training) but none, other than a silly attack on the scoring system, are addressed by a film which decided that it did not want to tackle them and played instead to a kind of campy teenage melodrama. And high talent (although poor gymnast, incredible poor, making me feel practically like a champ in comparison, a very hard task to do, and sage) Jeff Bridges got caught in the middle.