***Out In The Corner Boy Night- Rock 'Em Daddy, Be My Be-Bop Daddy-But Watch Out-Belatedly For Elvis Presley

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

This is the way Betsy McGee, an old time, very old time Clintondale Elementary School flame (locally known as the Acre school, and everybody knew what you were talking about, everybody around Clintondale anyway), and now (1961, in case anybody reads this later) a fellow sophomore classmate at North Clintondale High, wanted the story told, the story of her ill-fated brother, twenty-two year old John “Black Jack” McGee so this is the way it will be told. Why she wanted me to tell the story is beyond me, except that she knows, knows even in her sorrows, that I hang around with corner boys, Harry’s Variety Store corner boys, although I am more like a“pet,” or a “gofer,” than a real corner boy. But that story has already been told, told seven ways to Sunday, so let’s get to Black Jack’s story.

John “Black Jack” McGee like a million guys who came out of the post-World War II Cold war night and came out of the no prospect projects, in his case the Clintondale Housing Project (the Acre, okay, and hell’s little acre at that to save a lot of fancy sociological talk stuff), looking for kicks. Kicks anyway he could get them to take the pain away, the pain of edge city living if he was asked, by the way, politely asked or you might get your head handed to you on a platter asked. Needless to say Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff even when he was nothing but another Acre teenage kid, with a chip, no, about seven chips, on his wide shoulders. Needless to say, as well, there was nothing that school could teach him and he dropped out the very day that he turned sixteen. As a sign of respect for what little North Clintondale High taught him threw a rock through the headmaster’s window and then just stood there. The headmaster did not made peep one about it (he was probably hiding under his desk, he is that kind of guy) and Black Jack just walked away laughing. Yes, Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff all the way around. That story made him a legend all the way down to the Acre school, and so much so that every boy, every red-blooded boy, in her class made his pitch to get along with Betsy.

The problem with legends though is unless you keep pace other legends crowd you out, or somebody does some crazy prank and your legend gets lost in the shuffle. That’s the way the rules are, make of them what you will. And Black Jack, wide shouldered, tall, pretty muscular, long brown hair, and a couple of upper shoulder tattoos with two different girls’ names on them was very meticulous about his legend. So every once in a while you would hear a rumor about how Black Jack had “hit” this liquor store or that mom and pop variety store, small stuff when you think about it but enough to stir any red-blooded Acre elementary schoolboy’s already hungry imagination.

And then all of sudden, just after a nighttime armed gas station robbery that was never solved, Black Jack stepped up in society, well, corner boy society anyway. This part everyone who hung around Harry’s Variety knew about, or knew parts of the story. Black Jack had picked up a bike (motorcycle, for the squares), and not some suburban special Harley-Davidson chrome glitter thing either but a real bike, an Indian. The only better bike, the Vincent Black Lightning, nobody had ever seen around, only in motorcycle magazines. And as a result of having possession of the“boss” bike (or maybe reflecting who they thought committed that armed robbery) he was “asked” (if that is the proper word, rather than commissioned, elected, or ordained) to join the Acre Low-Riders.

And the Acre Low-Riders didn’t care if you were young or old, innocent or guilty, smart or dumb, or had about a million other qualities, good or bad, just stay out of their way when they came busting through town on their way to some hell-raising. The cops, the cops who loved to tell kids, young kids, to move along when it started to get dark or got surly when some old lady jaywalked caught the headmaster’s 'no peep' when the Low Riders showed their colors. Even “Red” Doyle who was the max daddy king corner boy at Harry’s Variety made a very big point that his boys, and he himself, wanted no part of the Low-Riders, good or bad. And Red was a guy who though nothing, nothing at all, of chain-whipping a guy mercilessly half to death just because he was from another corner. Yes, Black Jack had certainly stepped it up.

Here’s where the legend, or believing in the legend, or better working on the legend full-time part comes in. You can only notch up so many robberies, armed or otherwise, assaults, and other forms of hell-raising before your act turns stale, nobody, nobody except hungry imagination twelve-year old schoolboys, is paying attention. The magic is gone. And that is what happened with Black Jack. Of course, the Low-Riders were not the only outlaw motorcycle “club” around. And when there is more than one of anything, or maybe on some things just one, there is bound to be a "rumble" (a fight, for the squares) about it. Especially among guys, guys too smart for school, guys who have either graduated from, or are working on, their degrees from the school of hard knocks, the state pen. But enough of that blather because the real story was that the Groversville High-Riders were looking for one Black Jack McGee. And, of course, the Acre Low-Riders had Black Jack’s back.

Apparently, and Betsy was a little confused about this part because she did not know the “etiquette” of biker-dom, brother John had stepped into High-Rider territory, a definite no-no in the biker etiquette department without some kind of truce, or peace offering, or whatever. But see Black Jack was “trespassing” for a reason. He had seen this doll, this fox of a doll, this Lola heart-breaker, all blonde hair, soft curves, turned-up nose, and tight, short-sleeved cashmere sweater down at the Adamsville Beach one afternoon a while back and he made his bid for her. Now Black Jack was pretty good looking, okay, although nothing special from what anybody would tell you but this doll took to him, for some reason. What she did not tell him, and there is a big question still being asked around Harry’s about why not except that she was some hell-cat looking for her own strange kicks, was that she had a boyfriend, a Groversville guy doing time up the state pen. And what she also didn’t tell him was that the reason her boyfriend,“Sonny” Russo, was in stir was for attempted manslaughter and about to get out in August. And what she also did not tell him was that Sonny was a charter member of the High-Riders.

Forget dramatic tension, forget suspense, this situation, once Sonny found out, and he would, sooner or later, turned into “rumble city," all banners waving, all colors showing. And so it came to pass that on August 23, 1961, at eight o’clock in the evening the massed armies of Acre Low-Riders and Groverville High-Riders gathered for battle. And the rules of engagement for such transgressions, if there is such a thing, rules of engagement that is rather than just made up, was that Sonny and Black Jack were to fight it out in a circle, switchblades flashing, until one guy was cut too badly to continue, or gave up, or… So they went back and forth for a while Black Jack getting the worst of it with several cuts across his skin-tight white tee-shirt, a couple of rips in his blue jeans, bleeding but not enough to give up.

Meanwhile true-blue Lola is egging Sonny on, egging him on something fierce, like some devil-woman, to cut the love-bug John every which way. But then Black Jack drew a break. Sonny slipped and John cut him, cuts him bad near the neck. Sonny was nothing but bleeding, bleeding bad, real bad. Sonny called it quits. Everybody quickly got the hell out of the field of honor, double-quick, Sonny’s comrades helping him along. That is not the end of the story, by no means. Sonny didn't make it, and in the cop dust-up Lola, sweet Lola, told them that none other than lover-boy Black Jack did the deed. And now Black Jack is earning his hard knock credits up in stir, state stir, for manslaughter (reduced from murder two).

After thinking about this story again I can also see where, if I played my cards right, I could be sitting right beside maybe not-so-old-flame Betsy, helping her through her brother hard times, down at the old Adamsville beach some night talking about the pitfalls of corner boy life while we are listening to One Night of Sin by Elvis Presley on the old car radio. What do you think?

National Lawyers Guild
Massachusetts Chapter, Inc.
14 Beacon St., Suite 407, Boston, MA 02108
tel. 617-227-7335 • fax: 617-227-5495 • nlgmass@igc.org

_____________________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE_____________________________________________________________________________
Contact:
Elaine Sharp, Board of Directors Urszula Masny-Latos, Executive Director
617-680-9553 617-227-7335


THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD, MASSACHUSETTS CHAPTER,
CALLS ON THE GOVERNMENT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT TO EXPLAIN

CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR WARRANTLESS SEARCHES AND SEIZURES

Boston, Friday, April 26, 2013: The National Lawyers Guild, Massachusetts Chapter (NLG) continues to express its sympathy to those who were wounded and to those who lost family members in the April 15 bombings and in the events of the following days. We join in the hope for recovery and healing.

While we appreciate that public safety rules usually serve a legitimate purpose in times of crisis in order to protect and maintain an orderly society, our legal system includes other important protections derived from the U.S. Constitution. Those protections must be upheld, especially in the aftermath of crisis. Indeed, those protections are designed for times of crisis. If constitutional protections are denied to some of us, they may one day be denied to all of us.

One week has passed since the lock down of Watertown, as well as Boston and other areas. This lock down and the widespread use of warrantless searches and seizures imposed by law enforcement on Friday, April 19, 2013 were unprecedented in our nation’s history.

We are concerned about the widespread use of searches and seizures, in particular, warrantless entries into and searches of many homes, sometimes with guns drawn, without any articulable suspicion to believe that the bombing suspect was located in any particular home. These widespread searches and seizures, executed by heavily armed officers who more closely resembled special forces military units than they did law enforcement officers, occurred over a 20-block area of Watertown and in the context of a total lockdown of that area, and a more voluntary lockdown of the entire City of Boston, among other places.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects us from just this sort of behavior by the Government, as does the Constitution of the Commonwealth.

The United States Constitution, Amendment IV states,

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Similarly, the Declaration of the Rights of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part the First, Article XIV states,

"Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures, of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. All warrants, therefore, are contrary to this right, if the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or affirmation; and if the order in the warrant to a civil officer, to make search in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons, or to seize their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest, or seizure: and no warrant ought to be issued but in cases, and with the formalities prescribed by the laws."

The Supreme Court has carved out a narrowly tailored exception to the requirement of a search warrant, applicable when law enforcement officers are in hot pursuit of a fleeing felon. However, hot pursuit may be invoked only when officers are in immediate and continuous pursuit of a suspect from the scene of the crime. Here, the officers simply shut down a large area and began indiscriminate invasions of every home in that area over the course of a full day. Ultimately, the suspect was never even found in that locked down area. Thus, any claim of hot pursuit is unconvincing. Based on the facts at this time, we do not believe that this or any other exception to the warrant requirement was justified here.

As a legal organization, we are especially concerned that these actions of law enforcement could be used as precedent for the further erosion of the public’s constitutional rights. Indeed, the Boston Police are already seeking more cameras and drones to saturate the area with surveillance ability “to prevent a similar attack in the future”. If the police can shut down an entire city in pursuit of one suspect, albeit a dangerous one, what use of force will they consider to be justified when faced with a similar or greater threat? If we do not take a stand to protect our constitutional freedoms now, they will continue to erode.

The National Lawyers Guild, Massachusetts Chapter calls on the Massachusetts Government and all law enforcement agencies - federal, state and local - involved in these searches and seizures to explain to the public what grounds justified the forcible lock down of an entire town for a full day and why constitutional protections were ignored.

The NLG, Massachusetts Chapter also invites any person subject to these searches and seizures to speak with us about your experiences and about your legal rights.

The National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest and human rights bar organization in the United States with a goal to “serve the people to the ends that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.”

TODAY! Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield - Scahill, Goodman, Chomsky

When: Saturday, April 27, 2013, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Where: Harvard University, Science Center B, 1 Oxford St, Cambridge

Please join us for a discussion of Jeremy Scahill’s important new book Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield (Nation Books, April 23, 2013).

http://map.harvard.edu/mapserver/campusmap.htm

Please join investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, author Noam Chomsky, and Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman for the special discussion of Scahill's ground breaking new book Dirty Wars.

Jeremy Scahill is National Security Correspondent for the Nation magazine and author of the New York Times best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill is a frequent guest on a wide array of programs, appearing regularly on The Rachel Maddow Show, Real Time with Bill Maher and Democracy Now! He has also appeared on Fresh Air, ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, PBS NewsHour and Bill Moyers Journal. Scahill’s work has sparked several congressional investigations and won some of journalism’s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for his book Blackwater. He is also the subject of the film Dirty Wars (http://dirtywars.org/), an official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The film opens in theaters June 7 through Sundance Selects.

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/), a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and author of numerous books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Imperial Ambitions, What We Say Goes, Interventions, and Hopes and Prospects.

In Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times best-seller Blackwater, takes us inside America’s new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies.

Drawn from the ranks of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors, the CIA’s Special Activities Division and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret commandos working in more than one hundred countries. Funded through “black budgets,” Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals and direct drone, AC-130 and cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy. Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration that “the world is a battlefield,” as Scahill uncovers the most important foreign policy story of our time. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond, Scahill reports from the frontlines in this high-stakes investigation and explores the depths of America’s global killing machine. He goes beneath the surface of these covert wars, conducted in the shadows, outside the range of the press, without effective congressional oversight or public debate. And, based on unprecedented access, Scahill tells the chilling story of an American citizen marked for assassination by his own government.

As US leaders draw the country deeper into conflicts across the globe, setting the world stage for enormous destabilization and blowback, Americans are not only at greater risk—we are changing as a nation. Scahill unmasks the shadow warriors who prosecute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of unaccountable violence that is now official policy: victims of night raids, secret prisons, cruise missile attacks and drone strikes, and whole classes of people branded as “suspected militants.” Through his brave reporting, Scahill exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles to keep hidden.

Praise for Dirty Wars:

“There is no journalist in America who has exposed the truth about US government militarism more bravely, more relentlessly and more valuably than Jeremy Scahill. Dirty Wars is highly gripping and dramatic, and of unparalleled importance in understanding the destruction being sown in our name.”
—Glenn Greenwald, New York Times best-selling author and Guardian columnist

“Dirty Wars tells us, with convincing detail and much new information, what has been done in the name of America since 9/11.”
—Seymour Hersh

“Dirty Wars is the most thorough and authoritative history I’ve read yet of the causes and consequences of America’s post-9/11 conflation of war and national security. I know of no other journalist who could have written it: For over a decade, Scahill has visited the war zones, overt and covert; interviewed the soldiers, spooks, jihadists, and victims; and seen with his own eyes the fruits of America’s bipartisan war fever. He risked his life many times over to write this book, and the result is a masterpiece of insight, journalism, and true patriotism.”
—Barry Eisler, novelist and former operative in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations

Free. General admission. Attendance is first come, first served.

Sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, the ACLU of Massachusetts, Nation Institute, American Friends Service Committee, the Cambridge Peace Commission, and the Community Church of Boston.

For more information about the book, film, and Scahill, visit:
http://dirtywars.org/

Refusing to Kill: Refuseniks from Around the World Speak Out The Monthly Peace & Justice Film Series When: Thursday, May 2, 2013, 6:45 pm to 9:00 pm Where: Central Square Library • 45 Pearl St • Central Sq T • Cambridge REFUSING TO KILL Refusiniks from around the world speak out Produced by Payday, a network of men working with the Global Women's strike "I'd rather go to prison for desertion than kill a child by mistake", Sgt Camilo Meja, US army. Sentenced to a year in prison for refusing to return to Iraq. Refuseniks and their families, supporters and other anti-war protesters around the world, from the Second World War, wars in Africa, Vietnam, Palestine and the two Gulf wars tell their stories. Only 2% of soldiers shoot to kill. So the military needs to brainwash the 98% who don't. Everywhere people are drafted into the military by law or poverty. Those who refuse to kill are punished, jailed, sometimes killed. In spite of that, there is a growing movement of refuseniks supported by their loved ones usually women. Parking Nearby--Municipal Garage and street parking Women's International League for Peace and Freedom & Cambridge Peace Commission Refreshments will be served For more information: 617 244-8054

Join us at Fort Meade! June 1, 2013. Buses from Baltimore, MD, Washington DC, and New York City.

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Get on a bus for Bradley on June 1st RSVP for your seat today from Baltimore, MD, Washington DC, and NYC. Buses have been organized from Baltimore, MD, Washington DC, and New York City. Reserve your seat today! The campaign to free Army whistle-blower Bradley Manning has stayed strong for three long years, thanks to your support. From thousands of letters and calls directed to top military officials, to hundreds of protests around the world, including at Quantico which led to Bradley being transferred to more humane prison conditions, supporters have gathered together to give Bradley a real chance at the life he deserves. Now we are asking you to join us at the gates of Fort Meade, where Bradley's trial will begin. Join us at Ft. Meade, MD on June 1, 2013, for a mass demonstration in support of the heroic 25 year-old soldier who exposed war crimes and disturbing foreign policy through the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning will have spent over three years in prison by the start of his trial -- 11 months of which were spent in solitary confinement. The UN has issued a report calling his treatment cruel, inhuman and degrading. Top military officials have the power to reduce Bradley’s sentence. However, they have done everything in their power to distract public attention from this case. Reporters have complained they have less access to these proceedings than Guantanamo Bay military tribunals. Let's show the military and President Obama the public support that exists for our most prominent American whistle-blower, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning! Don't let the military get away with unjust persecution, abuse, and sending a whistle-blower to prison for life. Bradley is in prison for us, let's get out to Ft. Meade for him! Bus from Baltimore, MD Leaving June 1st at 11:30 am from the 2640 Space at 2640 St. Paul Street, Baltimore. Contact baltimore@bradleymanning.org, or better yet, reserve your seat today ($10). Bus from New York City Leaving early June 1st from NYC (time and pickup location TBA). Reserve your seat today ($20). Bus from Washington, DC Leaving June 1st at 11:30am from in front of Union Station, Washington, DC. Contact malachy@bradleymanning.org, or better yet, reserve your seat today ($10). Located outside these cities, but interested in organizing others to go to Ft. Meade? We are offering small grants to help with organizing buses and vans to carpool to Ft. Meade for June 1st!

The Very Rich Are Very Different From You And Me- With Richard Gere’s Arbitrage In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Scotty Fitzgerald, the king hell king writer of the American Jazz Age back in the 1920s, once famously said that the very rich (not just the average rich who could just be junk car dealers from Bronx or something) are different, well no, are very different from you and me. And you know he was right, right like he was on a lot of things, Jay Ganz Great Gatsby things, Tender is the Night things, This Side of Paradise things, since he wrote about that group that he had more than a passing acquaintance with in his time. The main thing, the main concern of this sketch anyway, is that the very rich are untouched by things that you and I would take the fall for in a n instance and wind up doing some hard time, some Sing Sing, Shawshank, you name the joint time. That brings us up to super-rich Wall Street financier Robert Ludlow and the way he skated clear, clear as day from more felony charges that the King’s County D.A.’s office had space for. Yah, he walked, walked like some connected mafia don right out onto the street and never missed a beat. Never.

You don’t know Robert Ludlow, Robert Ludlow the big Wall Street holy- roller, mumbo-jumbo man who has taken over (and gotten rid of ) more companies that you can shake a stick selling off the assets at huge profits? Yes, that Robert Ludlow from Ludlow Enterprises (or whatever corporate shell name he is using just now). Yah, you probably don’t know him now that I think about it. Not the specific name but you do know the wreaking havoc with your mortgage, your retirement savings, and your credit card too. That you know. He and his Wall Street crony crowd, and maybe that is all you have to know to follow along. Some other names are bigger, better known in the prints but he was thick as thieves with them. So, yes, I agree with you they all should be hanging off some lampposts somewhere but Robert’s story is a little bit quirkier so let’s focus on him.

When dough is around, big dough, people, people with some ideas, maybe good ideas, maybe bad ideas, but ideas gravitate to that pole of attraction. It was no different in Robert’s case except he had fatal thing for arty type women, beautiful arty type women looking for a little help, and willing to give a little something in return. (Come on now you knew a woman was involved, don’t be naïve.) And Arlette, fresh dewy Arlette straight off the plane from some Paris art gallery, dropped right into his lap one night at an opening. Of course he helped her since like I said he was also fatally attracted to having affairs with those arty type women. He once said something about looking for his inner soul- mate, his opposite, some foolish ying and yang thing. But we know it was sex, and nothing but sex that drove him. And yes he had a very nice but very not young wife and kids and all that but that was all for public relations. What Robert was really was just an old fashion alley cat. And made no apologizes for it.

But alley- catting around and wheeler-dealing can sometimes get complicated, very complicated even for guys like Robert Ludlow. See like a lot of guy on the street Wall Street or Jump Street he tried to squeeze every deal for what it was worth. Some you win, some you lose. Same with Robert. Except lately he had been on a losing streak, a few bad deals, a couple of guys who couldn’t be bought, troubles in the global market. Enough bad stuff so that he had to bail out, sell his company. Of course nobody, nobody on this good green earth wants a company, even Ludlow Enterprises, with cash flow problems except at a deep, deep discount so he had his people cook the books. Cook the books big time. That part wasn’t so unusual he had done it before on a smaller scale, although not to one of his own companies. So he was down for ten to twenty easy over in Danbury on the various white collar felony counts.

Here’s where it gets complicated though. Naturally a guy flying on a trapeze without a net is going to be tense, going to need a little time away with his honey (no, not the wife, Arlette) while things take their course. So he and Arlette headed upcountry, headed out of the city in her car. But like I say Robert was tired, tense, maybe a few too many scotches, and while he was driving he dozed off and went off the road into skid and roll-over. Poor Arlette was killed instantly. Of course Robert took some injuries too but he was mainly concerned about what the publicity would do to his company sell-off. So he left scene, left Arlette there without remorse.

Naturally the first thing he did was his lawyer, no, not some dink corporate lawyer who while great at mergers would get him sent to the chair if he represent Robert him but a solid criminal lawyer he had on retainer like any good businessman. And between them they put on the squeeze play. That criminal lawyer went the next day to the D.A.s office to make a deal. No publicity, no charges, Robert takes care of the funeral and family, a big, uh, donation and that is that. Or else. The or else being that Robert would no longer contribute to the D.A.s campaigns. And if that didn’t work then he would expose the several very interesting facts he knew about the D.A. and the mob, the local drug cartel (Robert had arranged the financing for a huge cartel drug buy that the D.A. closed his eyes to), and that blond he had stashed away over in Brooklyn on the county payroll. So you know now why you never heard about Robert and any accident. Nada. And the deal for his company? A big international bank, United International, bought the company and Robert walked away with a couple of hundred million for himself. Walked clear away and started making the next deal (and finding the next arty protégé). Yah, the very rich are very different from you and me.

Boston's International Workers Day 2013

BMDC International Workers Day Rally
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall
Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM
(Court St. & Cambridge St.)
T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)

To download flyer click here. (Please print double-sided)

Other May Day events:

Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston)
East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm

BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally

Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston

ANOTHER SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC LOOK AT LEON TROTSKY

 

BOOK REVIEW

TROTSKY-MEMOIR AND CRITIQUE, ALBERT GLOTZER, PROMETHEUS BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1989

As readers of this space may know I make no bones about being an admirer of the work of Leon Trotsky (see archives). I have noted elsewhere that I believe that the definitive biography of the man is Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume set. Nevertheless, others have written biographies, or in this a case a memoir and critique (naturally-the memoir alone in this case  would not sustain a book) on Trotsky that are either less balanced than Deutscher’s or come at it from a different angle with a different ax to grind. Mr. Glotzer’s take on Trotsky’s legacy is a classic post World War II social democratic one driven by the effect of the ravages of American imperialism during the Cold War on the right wing of that international political tendency.  The post war period was not kind to those who fell away from the politics that sparked their communist youth, but more on that at another time.

Despite our extreme politic differences Mr.  Glotzer’s reminiscences of how he became a communist are welcome. I am always fascinated by how those who came to political maturity a couple of generations before me and who are the real living links to the Russian Revolution felt about that event. Moreover, Mr. Glotzer is no mere chronicler of Trotsky’s life. During the 1930’s before the political temperature in the American left intellectual milieu got to hot for some  of them Mr. Glotzer was part of the leadership of the American Trotskyist movement and was a key lieutenant, factional operative and personal friend of a central founder- one Max Shachtman. That these two along with another “Young Turk” one Martin Abern spent as much time plotting for organizational control of the movement against the wily ‘bureaucratic’ old timer  and founder James P. Cannon during that time as in constructive political work is a separate issue. Needless to say only a few cryptic references to that experience surface in this work- a very selective memoir, as is usually the case. For more on that political struggle read Cannon’s The Struggle for a Proletarian Party and Trotsky’s In Defense of Marxism and make up your own mind. 

As always the critique of Trotsky, or more correctly, Bolshevism is centered on the question of the organizational principles of that party. That is democratic centralism or as the critics would have it bureaucratic centralism-long on the bureaucratic, short on the democratic. Trotsky is seen here to have escaped that bad practice until he linked up with the Bolsheviks in 1917. This is his original sin in the eyes of liberals and social democrats like Glotzer. The reduction of an organizational principle of a political party to the decisive reason for the degeneration of a revolution defies belief. The model for all European social democratic parties, including both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in Russia, at the turn of the 20^th century was the German party. One does  not have to read to far into the history of that party to know that even without state party to buttress its organizational practice that party was as bureaucratically run as any Bolshevik party cell. The real question then is not the principle of democratic centralism but the question of a ‘vanguard party’ versus a ‘party of the whole class’. In the end that was what the dispute in the Russian social democracy turned on. And later on the international movement, as well.  History has demonstrated, if it has demonstrated anything on this question, that a ‘party of the whole class’ with its implication of inclusiveness including backward workers can never take state power, if that was the idea of those who argued for this type of party in the first place. All of the above said, the question of bureaucracy in the process of transforming society from capitalism to socialism is one that has, in the light of the history of Stalinism has to be taken as a real question.  There are no a priori guarantees on the bumpy road to socialism but that is hardly the decisive question for now.

The rest of Glotzer’s critique is a more or less quick gloss on his politics and a rather annoying gloating over what proved to be the incorrectness of some of Trotsky’s predictions. The central argument Glotzer presents here is that capitalism rather than being in its death throes as Trotsky (and before him Lenin) suggested  still had, and has, a life and is not ready to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, those social democrats like Glotzer did more than their fair share of ideological work of behalf of preserving the imperialist status quo. Perhaps he would have been better off if he had ended his memoirs in his Communist youth in the 1930’s when he helped to try to create an international Trotskyist youth movement -that is the Glotzer who interest me. The rest I have heard a million times before. 

 

 

 

A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY

BOOK REVIEW

THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY-A CRITICAL HISTORY (1919-1957), IRVING HOWE AND LEWIS COSER, BEACON PRESS, BOSTON, 1957

I have reviewed the two volume set on the history of the early American Communist Party by Theodore Draper elsewhere in this space. There I noted that as an addition to the historical record of the period from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the formation and consolidation of the legal, above ground party in 1923 The Roots of American Communism and its companion volume detailing the period from 1923 to 1929-American Communism and Soviet Russia – are the definitive scholarly studies on the early history of the American Communist Party through the Stalinization of the American party.

The present volume by Irving Howe, who had been long time editor of the social democratic journal Dissent, and fellow professor Lewis Coser took that story up to 1957. Although Howe and Coser also covered the early period covered by Draper including the pre-World War I radical milieu, the split of the left wing of the Socialist Party, the creation of two communist parties, the underground period , the eventual reunion of the two parties, the resurfacing and finally the Stalinization of the party since I believe that Draper did an extremely thorough job on the early period I therefore will limit my comments on this book to the period after that from the ‘third period’ Communist policy of about 1929 through the Popular Front, the Stalin-Hitler Pact, and the various makeshift popular front policies of the World War II and post-war period.

That said, I will pose the same question here that I did in the Draper reviews. Why must militants read these works today? After the demise of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe anything positively related to Communist studies is deeply discounted. Nevertheless, for better or worse, the American Communist Party (and its offshoots) needs to be studied as an ultimately flawed example of a party that failed in its mission to create a radical version of society in America when it became merely a tool of Soviet diplomacy. Now is the time for militants to study the mistakes and draw the lessons of that history.

Needless to say the very title of this study gives its perspective-a critical study- and that attitude, sometimes mockingly, sometimes with disgust at Communist strategy and tactics mars this work as one would expect from a political opponent of communism. But we are after all political people (assuming that today’s reader of such material has to be political) and we know how to take those kinds of opponent remarks in stride. The book nevertheless provides a wealth of information about what was going on in the American Communist party, how subservient it was to Moscow at any particular time and the difficulties inherent in a radical approach to American labor politics during that period (and now for that matter).

For my money the most important contribution in this volume is the study of the ‘third period’. For those unfamiliar with the terminology Communist International language, codified in its theses and tactics, had set 1917-1924, the first period, as one of revolutionary opportunities, 1924-28, the second period, of capitalist stabilization and beginning about 1929 the ‘third period’-the collapse of capitalism and the final confrontation between the two main forces in world politics- the bosses and the workers. A good shorthand way to describe this period was the slogan- Class Against Class. Well we all know the results- the most important being the victory of Hitler in Germany without so much as a fight by the working class. I will confess that in my youth I was very drawn to ‘third period’ Comintern politics, that is, until I got hold of a copy of Leon Trotsky’s The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany and realized that the whole Stalinist policy was a house of cards. There were no places of exile for the mass of the German working class who borne the brunt of Hitler’s vengeance as a result oft this strategy. They took it on the chin and never really recovered from that defeat. So much for ultra-radical sloganeering. Although the effects on the American scene were not as traumatic it was nevertheless a period of isolation and some very serious labor defeats in struggles that they led.

If in my youth I was enamored of the ‘third period’ that was not the case of the next period-the period of the popular front. As a reaction to the sterility and foolishness of the ‘third period’ and the isolation internationally of the Soviet Union in the face of the Hitler menace the class against class approach was abandoned to be replaced by one in which the communists were basically undifferentiated from the mass of bourgeois politics- they were just the ‘guys and gals’ next door. Although this was the period of greatest influence for the American Party in the unions, in the universities, in cultural life and in American politics in general it too proved a house of cards when the Moscow line changed during the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939-41. The authors present a very interesting description of how the party maneuvered through ‘front’ groups during this period to gain apparent influence on the cheap. They list a whole catalogue of organizations that the party controlled, a few that I was not aware of, and what happened went the deal went sour in 1939. In short, a lesson that latter radicals, including today’s radicals, should have permanently etched in their brains when one counts how much influence we really have in such things as the current anti-Iraq war movement.

After the Soviet Union was invaded in 1941 the party’s influence grew but for all the wrong reasons- it was the most patriotic and conservative factor in labor politics all obstensibly in the interest of defending the Soviet Union. In the post-war period, however, the party reaped what it had sown as it faced a steep decline of influence in the labor movement due to its own policies and the ‘red scare’ that developed during the Cold War build up. It is during the discussion of this period that the authors show their greatest degree of contempt for the American party mainly arguing that that party was solely an agent for the Soviet Union and therefore not part of the labor movement. While those of us who are anti-Stalinist can quote chapter and verse the crimes of Stalinism as well as Howe and Coser it is a very grave mistake to have assumed that this was not a current of the international labor movement and therefore did not have to be defended. We have paid a steep price for that social democratic view. It was necessary to defeat Stalinism within the labor movement but not by outsourcing that task to American imperialism.

Beat Poet’s Corner-Allen Ginsberg’s“America”

…he spoke truth, truth all oil-splashed, steel and iron carnage twisted truth, twisted up by cold war red scare, “his mommie was a commie” what will he do, turn her in? or rather read kaddish ashes, and angel forgivenesses, mother angel forgivenesses over her grave, although he could not forgive, then anyway, the red scare cold war night, and railed against moloch, and the sons and daughters of moloch, railed against Time magazine and it pointy-headed point of view , railed against General Motors business suits, railed against the bad karma night, railed against the cube that they, and he knew who the “they” were, trying to ram down his throat, railed against, well, you get the picture, railed against squeezed in humanity, and spoke some funny off-hand truth running underground in some ‘Frisco town garage, some makeshift gallery they called it maybe in jest, filled with speechless bow down poets sipping Tokay or something like that, hipsters in all shades and other nomenclatura of new age desolation angel peaks.

Now famous, or, no, infamous, he could speak, Whitman shoulder speak, Whitman queer shoulder speak, Whitman queer shoulder 20^th century America rusted leaves of grass prophet speak, speak to make every thinking man wish for just that moment, just that fresh warm breeze 1956 moment blowing over artic worlds, that he too could take up his queer (hell, straight , if that was the hand he was dealt) shoulders against monster moloch (spewing oils, and metals, and atoms , and, well, plastic out into the drive-in diner billboard highway night) , against the dread of the negro streets (not Saturday night 125^th street joy, flash suit, flash car, flash spindle dope, flash women , a few white, but Monday morning bus, back of the bus, back of the line negro streets), against the death bombs (mega, kilo what?) against the convenient, very convenient, loony farms (to adjust to Ike’s social reality of course) where they put his, the Whitman prophet’s poor downtrodden queer head.

And that thinking man, if only for a moment, could find some solace, some tea high divine solace in a renegade quasi-Trotskyite girl’s arms , bourgeois to the core, all cashmere sweater and girl next door beautiful, but slumming in the Village, in Soho, in Ann Arbor Quadrangle, in Chi town Chi school Old Town, in Red Fez North Beach jazz night clubs listening for that one high white note drifting toward the bay, walking with her king hell king walking daddy before she goes back to Riverside (read Mill Valley, read Grosse Pointe, read Forest Lawn, read Wellesley) and that handsome johnnie stockbroker after she found out those million, count them, one million Trotskyites turned out to be Irving Howe and the ghost of Max Shachtman and so came up a little short on the prophet number, and a quick call form J. Edgar’s boys clinched it. Jesus.

And that Whitman prophet left just then to shoulder, queer shoulder to high heaven before his om om time, before his robes and incense and sticks and bells and whatever time beloved names, communist, beloved names Trotskyite (even if short 999, 900), beloved names, Sacco and Vanzetti and ban death ban death penalty, beloved names, Abraham Lincoln Brigade and premature anti-fascist Spanish red blood soil fights, beloved names, beleaguered old labor fighter Tom Mooney abandoned, beloved names, on and on hoping, hoping against that red scare cold war night, all dark and foreboding, that he, that thinking man wishing he could have put some bruised shoulder to some wheel too…

…hence Allen Ginsberg

Boston's International Workers Day 2013

BMDC International Workers Day Rally
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at Boston City Hall
Gather at 2PM - Rally at 2:30PM
(Court St. & Cambridge St.)
T stops Government Center (Blue line, Green line)

To download flyer click here. (Please print double-sided)

Other May Day events:

Revere - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pmbegin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Everett - @ City Hall - gather at 3:pm begin marching at 3:30 (to Chelsea)
Chelsea - @ City Hall - rally a 3:pm (wait for above feeder marches to arrive) will begin marching at 4:30 (to East Boston)
East Boston - @ Central Square - (welcome marchers) Rally at 5:pm

BMDC will join the rally in East Boston immediately following Boston City Hall rally

Supporters: ANSWER Coalition, Boston Anti Authoritarian Movement, Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Harvard No-Layoffs Campaign, Industrial Workers of the World, Latinos for Social Change, Mass Global Action, Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party of Boston, Socialist Workers Party, Student Labor Action Movement, USW Local 8751 - Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Worcester Immigrant Coalition, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Democracy Center - Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington United for Justice with Peace, International Socialist Organization, Community Church of Boston

THE HEROIC AGE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY-­ THE IDEOLOGY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR- An Encore Review

BOOK REVIEW

FREE SOIL, FREE LABOR, FREE MEN: THE IDEOLOGY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, ERIC FONER, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK, 1970

In the year 2007 it is quite easy to dismiss the American Republican Party of one George Bush and his cabal out of hand as a gang of yahoos and incompetents. And one, frankly, would be right in those characterizations. But the book under review tells a tale of a different Republican Party, a party forged among other things in the crucible of the battle against slavery in the immediate pre-Civil War period. That party of Lincoln (although he was ultimately merely the most famous of an outstanding group of men who forged that party) was one that modern leftists can proudly claim as our own. Karl Marx was not wrong in his appreciation of Lincolnand of the Republican Party in its struggle against slavery and for the unification of the country. Eric Foner tells the story of how all of the forces finally coalesced in 1956 to create that party and of its success in 1860.

A number of commentators, including this writer, have over the years argued that a political realignment and separation of the various political tendencies in this country is long, too long overdue. What others mean by that realignment I will leave to them. For myself, I make no bones that we need a workers party to directly represent the political interests of the working masses and their allies. On the other side some argue that America has always been, more or less, well served by the two-party system. And that is really my point. In the period from about 1840 to that decisive 1860 election there was the kind of turmoil that created the necessary realignment of that two- party system. The old two- party system just could not hold the forces that were splitting the country. In the end the formerly powerful Whig Party and vital parts of the Northern Democratic Party went down with barely a whimper. The Republican Party gathered together all those forces that were interested in ending slavery and creating a unified, efficient capitalist system. That in the end it all turned to dross in a fairly short time after the Civil War does not take away from the grandeur of the effort and its necessity.

I would point out to readers that Professor Foner does a very credible job of showing the numerous and sometimes counterposed strategies that the various anti-slavery forces from the Garrisonians to the Free Soil Party supporters put forth. He also pays attention to the various forces, including the little studied Libertyand Free Soil parties, the Barnburner Democrats, Conscience Whigs and others who coalesced in the Republican Party. He also details the strategies of the conservative elements that would latter dominate the post-war Republican party as well as the strain of nativism (exemplified by the explosive, if short-lived, development of the Know-Nothing party) that one can still see in that party today on the immigration question. In all, this is a well-researched and footnoted academic work that can serve a as jumping off point for making our arguments today for that desperately needed realignment of American politics.

***When Did The 1960s End?- Doctor Hunter S. Thompson's Take (Doctor Gonzo)- From "Fear and And Loathing In Las Vegas-" High-Water Mark"

The late Hunter Thompson's take on the headline question:

HIGH-WATER MARK

STRANGE MEMORIES ON this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the tollgate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

The whole concept of decades is wrong. That is why people have trouble with it. A decade is ten years, which some people will tell you is about as long as a dime. The only people who still talk in terms of decades are Australians and possibly some New Zealanders, but the Aussies will tell you that the New Zealanders think more in terms of twenty years, like us. In politics, a "generation" is twenty years: ten is not enough. Time flies when you do most of your real work after midnight—five months can go by and it feels like one sleepless night.

Las Vegas, 1976

*********

...and Markin's

Wednesday, July 04, 2007, American Left History:

*WHEN DID THE 1960'S END?-The Anti-Vietnam War Events Of May Day 1971

Markin comment:

I have recently been reviewing books and documentaries about radical developments in the 1960’s. They included reviews of the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the memoirs of Bill Ayers, a central figure in that movement. Throughout this material one thing that I noticed was that the various interviewees had different takes on when that period ended. Although in the end the periodization of history is a convenient journalistic or academic convention in the case of the 1960’s it may produce a useful political guide line.

It is almost universally the case that there is agreement on when the 1960’s started. That is with the inauguration of Democratic President John F. Kennedy and his call to social activism. While there is no agreement on what that course of action might entail political figures as diverse as liberals Bill Clinton and John Kerry on to radicals like Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers and this writer agree that this event and its immediate aftermath figured in their politicization.

What is not clear is when it ended. For those committed to parliamentary action it seems to have been the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the events around the Democratic Convention in 1968 that led to the election of one Richard Milhous Nixon as President of the United States. For mainstream black activists it seems to have been the assassination of Martin Luther King that same year ending the dream that pacifist resistance could eradicate racial injustice. For mainstream SDSers apparently it was the split up of that student organization in 1969. For the Black Panthers, the deaths of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark proving for all to see who wanted to see that the American government was really out to get militant blacks off the streets. For those who thought that the counterculture might be the revolution the bloody Rolling Stone’s concert at Altamont in California in 1969 seems to have signaled the end. For the Weather Underground the 1970 New York townhouse explosion and death of their comrades was the signpost. Since everyone, everybody who tried to struggle through and make sense of the decade, can play this game here is my take.

I can name the day and event exactly when my 1960’s ended. The day- May Day 1971 in Washington D.C. The event- a massive attempt by thousands, including myself, to shut down the government over the Vietnam War. We proceeded under the slogan- IF THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT SHUT DOWN THE WAR-WE WILL SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. At that time I was a radical but hardly a communist. However, the endless mass marches of the period and small local individual acts of resistance seemed to me to be leading to a dead end. But the war nevertheless continued on its savagely endless way. We needed to up the ante. That day we formed up in collectives with appropriate gear to take over the streets of Washington and try to get to various government buildings. While none of us believed that this would be an easy task we definitely believed that it was doable. Needless to say the Nixon government and its agents were infinitely better prepared and determined to sweep us from the streets-by any means necessary. The long and short of it was that we were swept off the streets in fairly short order, taking many, many arrests. We had taken a terrible physical and psychological beating that day from which the movement never really recovered. To borrow for Hunter Thompson above we had seen the high water mark washed away right before our eyes.

I walked away from that event with my eyes finally opened about what it would take to made fundamental societal changes. On reflection, on that day we were somewhat like those naïve marchers in St. Petersburg, Russia that were bloodily suppressed by the Czarist forces at the start of the revolution there in January 1905. Nevertheless, in my case, from that point on I vowed that a lot more than a few thousand convinced radicals and revolutionaries working in an ad hoc manner were going to have to come together if we were to succeed against a determined and ruthless enemy. Not a pretty thought but hard reality nevertheless. Enough said.

All The Way To Easy Street

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

As he sat alone in his tee-shirt in his crummy one room overlooking the inner airshaft of the run down, seen better days, rooming house complex that he lived in on Beacon Hill in Boston Billy Riley had to laugh. Not the belly laugh that comes from something genuinely funny though. No, his laugh was a hearse horse snicker laugh about the condition that he had just then found himself, found himself in on the way to easy street. Or as he endlessly told whoever would listen found himself in “all the way to easy street.” See Billy was a gambler, well, not really a gambler in the Las Vegas sense (he knew nothing of cards and their attractions to those types and certainly was not some arm-weary slot machine player, oh no) or in the high-roller rack track among the swells sense but still a gambler.

Billy being a democratic sort spent his time in the bleachers among the real touts, the open collar working stiffs, the drifters, grifters and midnight sifters, those smoking endless cigarettes and cigars, swilling their beers on the concrete floor and complaining, endlessly complaining, about the price of that commodity. (And damning the concessionaire for charging so much because it cut into their betting kitties.) Or on sunny days along the rails, mingling with those pale faces almost afraid to face the sun looking to see if some luck would come their way by being closer to the turf, closer to smell and sweat of the horses, closer in order to look into the eyes of those damn jockeys who couldn’t ride if their lives depended on it. Those along the rails were a motley crew but mainly were brethren who had been on cheap street so long a big win would hardly faze them and their line of patter. But Billy considered himself a cut above that milieu, although he was at pains to savor their track talk like some latter day Damon Runyon. Still he considered himself different. See they didn’t, didn’t have like Billy, a system, because Billy was a guy who had a system, a fool-proof system that was going to get him to that El Dorado easy street.

As he sat there he thought any day, day the percentages would turn and he would flee, flee like a bat out of hell, this lousy sagging bed, broken-nob bureau, Salvation Army reject table and wobbly chair room with that window looking across the air shaft to other one room windows filled with guys, mainly guys, as far as he could tell since he had arrived in this exact spot a few weeks back when his luck had turned sour and his system had run into a momentary glitch, who had landed here under their own easy street addictive powers.

See Billy Riley thought because he had grown up rough and tough with as his grandmother would say “not a pot to piss in” down in the Adamsville housing projects filled in its way with the rejects and losers of society that that same society owned him a living, owed him easy street. Sure he had worked, worked hard, worked like a bastard, when he worked, as a house painter until his knees gave out, as a gravestone setter (actually an interesting job, and quiet, very quiet), as dishwasher when things were tough between jobs, stuff like that, edge of society work. But he had dreamed, dream big as a kid that he was going to wipe the dust of all that poverty and toil that his father faced, faced and just took it, and live like a real person, maybe a king even. And at some point he tired of the painter, gravestone setter, dishwasher world, and decided that he needed to make his own breaks a little, use his smarts to get out from under, and if necessary use other people’s smarts or money, or both to do so.

Billy had tried this and that before, had sold some drugs for a while but that was a hassle, the cops were pressing down, and the street stuff was getting dangerous. Moreover gone were the heydays of that late 1960s when everything was kind of loose before the cartels started to tighten their grip on the market and made everybody jump to their tune, or else. That “or else” being found face down in some ditch or floating off some river, also face down un-mourned and unknown like his old companion, Sammy Snyder, who ran afoul of the Mexican cartel. He thereafter had connected with a gang of small time hoods, aging corner boys really, guys still living at home where mother darned their socks and had dinner ready on demand, who were into midnight heists, then fencing the stuff on the cheap. After a while he figured that was dead-end and high risk for a guy who thought society owed him a living. Jail was not what he had in mind on that score. Then one day one of those corner boys asked him if he wanted to go to the racetrack, the one over in Revere, Suffolk Downs. He said sure why not. And from there he was off to the races, figuratively and literally.

See that first day, that first spring day, he had scored big, had been hot all day and wound up several hundred dollars ahead. Nice, he thought, nice and easy, and with no hassles, no income tax to pay either if you knew how to hide the dough. And that day, or really that night, he started plotting his future his race track tout future. What drove him, what he noticed, was that he had won when he played the number one horse in the race. So he devised a system. He would play off and on the number one horse in every race. Otherwise he would sit the race out. The next day he “played” his system. Although he didn’t win as much he still came out a couple of hundred dollars ahead, and had guys buying him a couple of beers when he spotted them a winner just for kicks. Just a bad day he thought, and a lot of the number one horses were dogs anyway. He had his system though and the key was to stick with it. The reason people couldn’t beat the horses he thought was they didn’t have a system, maybe just played a horse because it looked nice coming out of the paddock, or maybe had nice colors, or liked the jockey, or the name of the horse, anything, anyway. No wonder the suckers lost.

For a while his system worked pretty well, maybe for about a week, ten days, he was ahead a few thousand dollars. And didn’t have to work at all, just enjoy the sun, the crowds, and the sport of kings. Yes, just sit in the sun, sit on the bleachers, maybe go out on the rail and mingle, and figure his figures. Nice stuff. He even bought his girlfriend, Joyce, a nice ring worth a few hundred bucks and she responded with some very nice under the sheets stuff, some stuff she hadn’t done for him before even when he asked. That fact drove him even harder in his figures once he knew what was what with her. Then the other shoe fell, fell a little, then fell a lot as his system started to unravel and he started losing money, first the track’s then his.

What happened was that he started pressing a little too much on that number one horse, placing bets on some dogs figuring that the one was due. He spent many nights, many Joyce-less endlessly refining the system, seeing where he could make a big score, make a big score all the way to easy street. Nothing worked. He had gone dry, gone dry and pressed his luck too hard. The details of what brought him to that crummy room need not detain us long, actually on second thought let’s run through a couple of points. Naturally he started making bigger bets, figuring that a big bet win would get him well, would put him back on pace. Number Ones seemed to be in the doldrums at least when he placed a bet though. He quickly ran through his“winnings,” then started to dig into his own savings, blew those to kingdom come in a few weeks and then started begging, borrowing and stealing (literally in all three cases). First from Joyce (although he never, never asked her to hock that nice ring) until she finally gave him the air, the big brush-off and went looking for some other fool who was looking for easy street, or had already found it. Then borrowed from every friend whom he had ever lent a quarter giving a truly worthy hard-luck story that would bring tears to anyone’s eyes. Then he borrowed, soberly borrowed, from the hard boys, the high interest boys (whom he was trying to avoid in his lonely crummy room). Nothing.

Hell he even joined the stoopers and benders at the track trying to get well. You don’t know the stoopers? You know the guys, maybe women too, but mostly guys, every broker at every track in the world who lived not to place a bet, for they have long ago run out of money for more than some show bet on the favorite, but who scavenged for dropped tickets after each race hoping, hoping against hope, that someone had for about one of seven million reasons thought they had lost and just threw the damn tickets on the ground or in a trash barrel. Enough “scores”have been made this way that a human horde has learned to live for just that day. Yes, times were tough, desperately tough. No more romance of the turf with the weird assortment of losers, has-beens, never-wases, that he previously chatted with. He wore sunglasses to avoid some of those guys with their foolish ideas.

Billy though could not give up that dream that easy street dream. He knew that if he just stayed at it long enough the percentages would come back to him. And maybe Joyce would too, and he would buy her diamonds with his winnings, just for laughs, and not hearse horse snicker laughs either. So as he began to dress himself, put on his slightly frayed shirt, his threadbare pants and his round heel shoes for the day he thought this might be the day the day his luck changed, the day he went all the way to easy street. With that thought in mind like a lemming to the sea he went to Snookie’s newsstand over on Tremont Street to get a copy of the Daily Racing Form.