*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal- -Andy Durgan-The Spanish Trotskyists and the Foundation of the POUM

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

**********
For those who want to give the POUM a pass for their role in the events of the Spanish revolution here is another view from an American Left History post:

Saturday, February 25, 2006

*The Lessons Of The Spanish Civil War- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky

Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's writings of Leon Trotsky on the Spanish Revolution and the article cited below,"Spain-The Last Warning".

BOOK REVIEW

THE SPANISH REVOLUTION, 1931-39, LEON TROTSKY, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1973

THE CRISIS OF REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP

AS WE APPROACH THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR MILITANTS NEED TO LEARN THE LESSONS FOR THE DEFEAT OF THAT REVOLUTION.

I have been interested, as a pro-Republican partisan, in the Spanish Civil War since I was a teenager. What initially perked my interest, and remains of interest, is the passionate struggle of the Spanish working class to create its own political organization of society, its leadership of the struggle against Spanish fascism and the romance surrounding the entry of the International Brigades, particularly the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th Brigade, into the struggle.

Underlying my interests has always been a nagging question of how that struggle could have been won by the working class. The Spanish proletariat certainly was capable of both heroic action and the ability to create organizations that reflected its own class interests i.e. the worker militias and factory committees. Of all modern working class revolutions after the Russian revolution Spain showed the most promise of success. Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted that the political class consciousness of the Spanish proletariat at that time was higher than that of the Russian proletariat in 1917. Yet it failed in Spain. Trotsky's writings on this period represent a provocative and thoughtful approach to an understanding of the causes of that failure. Moreover, with all proper historical proportions considered, his analysis has continuing value as the international working class struggles against the seemingly one-sided class war being waged by the international bourgeoisie today.

The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 has been the subject of innumerable works from every possible political and military perspective possible. A fair number of such treatises, especially from those responsible for the military and political policies on the Republican side, are merely alibis for the disastrous policies that led to defeat. Trotsky's complication of articles, letters, pamphlets, etc. which make up the volume reviewed here is an exception. Trotsky was actively trying to intervene in the unfolding events in order to present a program of socialist revolution that most of the active forces on the Republican side were fighting, or believed they were fighting for. Thus, Trotsky's analysis brings a breath of fresh air to the historical debate. That in the end Trotsky could not organize the necessary cadres to carry out his program or meaningfully impact the unfolding events in Spain is one of the ultimate tragedies of that revolution. Nevertheless, Trotsky had a damn good idea of what forces were acting as a roadblock to revolution. He also had a strategic conception of the road to victory. And that most definitely was not through the Popular Front.

The central question Trotsky addresses throughout the whole period under review here was the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the proletarian forces. That premise entailed, in short, a view that the objective conditions for the success of a socialist program for society had ripened. Nevertheless, until that time, despite several revolutionary upheavals elsewhere, the international working class had not been successful anywhere except in backward Russia. Trotsky thus argued that it was necessary to focus on the question of forging the missing element of revolutionary leadership that would assure victory or at least put up a fight to the finish.

This underlying premise was the continuation of an analysis that Trotsky developed in earnest in his struggle to fight the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution in the mid-1920's. The need to learn the lessons of the Russian Revolution and to extend that revolution internationally was thus not a merely a theoretical question for Trotsky. Spain, moreover, represented a struggle where the best of the various leftist forces were in confusion about how to move forward. Those forces could have profitably heeded Trotsky's advice. I further note that the question of the crisis of revolutionary leadership still remains to be resolved by the international working class.

Trotsky's polemics in this volume are highlighted by the article ‘The Lessons of Spain-Last Warning’, his definitive assessment of the Spanish situation in the wake of the defeat of the Barcelona uprising in May 1937. Those polemics center on the failure of the Party of Marxist Unification (hereafter, POUM) to provide revolutionary leadership. That party, partially created by cadre formerly associated with Trotsky in the Spanish Left Opposition, failed on virtually every count. Those conscious mistakes included, but were not limited to, the creation of an unprincipled bloc between the former Left Oppositionists and the former Right Oppositionists (Bukharinites) of Maurin to form the POUM in 1935; political support to the Popular Front including entry into the government coalition by its leader; creation of its own small trade union federation instead of entry in the anarchist led-CNT; creation of its own militia units reflecting a hands-off attitude toward political struggle with other parties; and, fatally, an at best equivocal role in the Barcelona uprising of 1937.

Trotsky had no illusions about the roadblock to revolution of the policies carried out by the old-time Anarchist, Socialist and Communist Parties. Unfortunately the POUM did. Moreover, despite being the most honest revolutionary party in Spain it failed to keep up an intransigent struggle to push the revolution forward. The Trotsky - Andreas Nin (key leader of the POUM and former Left Oppositionist) correspondence in the Appendix makes that problem painfully clear.

The most compelling example of this failure - As a result of the failure of the Communist Party of Germany to oppose the rise of Hitler in 1933 and the subsequent decapitation and the defeat of the Austrian working class in 1934 the European workers, especially the younger workers, of the traditional Socialist Parties started to move left. Trotsky observed this situation and told his supporters to intersect that development by an entry, called the ‘French turn’, into those parties. Nin and the Spanish Left Opposition, and later the POUM failed to do that. As a result the Socialist Party youth were recruited to the Communist Party en masse. This accretion formed the basic for its expansion as a party and the key cadre of its notorious security apparatus that would, after the Barcelona uprising, suppress the more left ward organizations. For more such examples of the results of the crisis of leadership in the Spanish Revolution read this book.

Revised-June 19, 2006

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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

"Most Progressive Dem Platform in History" Disturbingly Hawkish

The Democratic Party platform may indeed be, as some have proclaimed, the “most progressive” in the history of the party—at least on various important domestic issues. But some of its foreign policy planks reflect a disturbingly hawkish worldview consistent with those of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.  Declaring that “we must defeat ISIS, al-Qaeda and their affiliates,” the platform calls for the United States and its allies to “destroy ISIS” strongholds in Iraq and Syria… Most disturbingly, while endorsing the United Nations-backed seven-party nuclear agreement, the platform claims that the party “will not hesitate to take military action if Iran violates the agreement.” Such a unilateral attack would constitute a direct violation of the U.N. Charter…  Clinton and her representatives in the platform committee defeated a measure calling for an end of Israel’s occupation and illegal settlements. Indeed, the platform pegs challenges to the occupation and settlements by the United Nations and others as efforts to “delegitimize Israel.” This is particularly problematic language since, under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department formally listed efforts to “delegitimize” Israel as part of its definition of anti-Semitism.   More

 

Hillary Clinton and Her Hawks

As Hillary Clinton begins her final charge for the White House, her advisers are already recommending air strikes and other new military measures against the Assad regime in Syria… Last month, the think tank run by Michele Flournoy, the former Defense Department official considered to be most likely to be Clinton’s choice to be Secretary of Defense, explicitly called for “limited military strikes” against the Assad regime. And earlier this month Leon Panetta, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director, who has been advising candidate Clinton, declared in an interview that the next president would have to increase the number of Special Forces and carry out air strikes to help “moderate” groups against President Bashal al-Assad… It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for figures known to be close to a presidential candidate to make public recommendations for new and broader war abroad. The fact that such explicit plans for military strikes against the Assad regime were aired so openly soon after Clinton had clinched the Democratic nomination suggests that Clinton had encouraged Flournoy and Panetta to do so.  The rationale for doing so is evidently not to strengthen her public support at home but to shape the policy decisions made by the Obama administration and the coalition of external supporters of the armed opposition to Assad.    More

 

Ex-CIA Chief's Speech Disrupted by Chants of "No More War" at DNC

Former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta's speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Wednesday night was interrupted by chants of "No more war!"  According to news reports, as Panetta dug into Hillary Clinton rival Donald Trump, delegates from Oregon, California, and Washington state broke into cries of "No more war!" and "Lies!"  ABC News reported: "Other groups around the arena began chanting 'Hillary!' More chants of 'Love Not War!' and 'No More Drones!' broke out before being swallowed by 'USA!' from most of the arena."    More  

 

Click on the snapshot at left to watch the video in your browser.

 

 

The Hawks’ Election Strategy: Pushing a New Cold War

The past few weeks have cemented an extraordinary alliance to defeat Trump that joins two foreign-policy sects that were never entirely distinct: the neoconservatives who commandeered the Bush-Cheney foreign policy of 2001-2006, and liberal interventionists who supported the Iraq war, the Libya war, an expanded program of drone killings, and military intervention in Syria beyond what the Obama administration has allowed. With a spate of recent articles and op-eds, these people are preparing the ground for Hillary Clinton to assert that the Russian government is in league with the Trump campaign, and that Russia has intervened in the election by releasing hacked Democratic National Committee emails to embarrass Clinton…  The truth is that the charge of fascism against Trump was a stopgap measure. Now it has been replaced by a charge that he is soft on the Communist menace, or the next worst thing—which they are betting the American mind will translate into the same thing—he is soft on the Russian menace. Fascism was never a ripe choice of terms. It gets hardly any play and commands little attention in America. For the neoconservatives, Red-baiting is a more familiar tactic and in the absence of a Red, a Russian will do. They have good reason to suppose that Hillary Clinton will take the hint and adopt the convenient amalgam in order to sow confusion. The Russian menace resembles the Communist menace in the same way that the word “Iran” resembles the word “Iraq.”   More

 

DEMOCRATS IN PHILLY: Money corrupts politicians, Unless we’re the ones taking it

In 2012, President Barack Obama banned lobbyists from giving to DNC or paying for convention-related expenses. But this February, the DNC eliminated those rules — opening the floodgates for corporate cash to slosh through Philadelphia… Over three days of speaking with people at the DNC, I heard a lot of talk about how the Democratic leadership truly longs for freedom from their corporate donors and plans to overturn Citizens United at the first opportunity. If that’s true, they sure have a funny way of showing it…  Corporate fingerprints are all over almost every event here, and yet the conventions are also supposed to be periods of peak loyalty — when party members, particularly those who support the presidential nominee, are unwilling to question it.   More

 

Khizr Khan, Father of American Muslim Soldier Killed in Iraq, Shames Donald Trump

Given that Hillary Clinton’s Senate vote, on October 11, 2002, to authorize the invasion of Iraq might have been what cost her the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2008, it was remarkable that the most powerful speech on her behalf on Thursday night in Philadelphia came from the father of an American soldier who was killed in that war. However, the words of Khizr Khan — a Pakistani Muslim immigrant, whose son, Capt. Humayun S.M. Khan, was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for saving the lives of fellow soldiers in Baquba, Iraq in 2004 — were not about the wisdom or morality or politics of the war. They were about how his son’s love of country, and his family’s sacrifice, exposed the anti-Muslim bigotry behind Donald Trump’s plan to bar followers of that faith from becoming Americans.    More

 

FULL VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ery-Zgo5ALs

 

LABOR SUPPORTS #BlacksLivesMatter;

CALL ON POLICE UNIONS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released  the following statement in reaction to the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile:

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the two African-American men who were shot by police within 24 hours of each other.  Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color. This is a labor issue because it is a workplace issue; it is a community issue, and unions are the community. Philando Castile was a union member, and so his family is our family…  Labor cannot and will not sit on the sidelines when it comes to racial justice. It is not enough to simply say, "Black Lives Matter." We must and will continue to fight for reforms in policing and to address issues of racial and economic inequality.   More

 

Freddie Gray death: remaining charges dropped against police officers

Baltimore prosecutors have dropped all remaining charges against police officers in the death of Freddie Gray. The surprise announcement Wednesday comes after four trials that ended with no conviction, and means there will likely be no criminal accountability over Gray’s death. Gray, a 25-year-old African American man, sustained fatal injuries in the back of a police van in April 2015…  After months of failure to secure a conviction, many activists had lost faith in [prosecutor Marilyn Mosby’s] strategy, culminating in Wednesday’s announcement to drop the charges.  But in an emotional press conference Wednesday, Mosby pinned blame for the unsuccessful prosecution on “systemic and inherent problems” with the police investigation.  “We do not believe Freddie Gray killed himself,” she declared.   More

 

White people think racism is getting worse. Against white people.

Our recent research suggests yet another way black and white Americans see race differently: Whites now think bias against white people is more of a problem than bias against black people… When asked about the present-day United States, a striking difference emerged. Our average white respondent believed that at the time of our survey in 2011, anti-white bias was an even bigger problem than anti-black bias. This perception is fascinating, as it stands in stark contrast to data on almost any outcome that has been assessed. From life expectancy to school discipline to mortgage rejection to police use of force, outcomes for white Americans tend to be — in the aggregate — better than outcomes for black Americans, often substantially so… Our findings do not indicate a verifiable surge in anti-whiteness in recent years or identify a new victimization of white Americans. Rather, our research reveals a heightened perception among whites that they are increasingly the primary victims of bias in America — a perception that statistics say is wrong.   More

 

US Media Find European Terror Deaths 19 Times More Interesting Than Mideast Terror Deaths

A survey conducted by FAIR of US media coverage of ISIS or ISIS-inspired attacks in Europe and the Middle East reveals a disparity of coverage, showing that European deaths are roughly 1,800 percent more newsworthy than deaths in the Middle East… Building on a survey of media mentions from March (AlterNet, 3/31/16) of mass attacks on civilians that are either connected to or perceived to be connected to ISIS (note: The Nice attack has yet to be confirmed as an ISIS-inspired attack), one finds that a death in Europe, broadly speaking, is seen as 19 times more newsworthy as one in the Middle East. Setting aside Baghdad, which one could categorize as a “war zone” (unlike Turkey or Lebanon), deaths in non-Western attacks are nine times less likely to garner news coverage.  More

 

 

*   *   *   *

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

SYRIA PROPAGANDA WAR: Chapter xxxx

The Syrian government announced yesterday that it would allow civilians and disarmed fighters to escape the fighting and leave the besieged opposition-held part of Aleppo. Mainstream media reports, relying on rebel sources, say that there are 250,000-300,000 civilians in Eastern Aleppo; other credible witnesses have estimated perhaps 30-40,000 civilians, mostly the families of rebel fighters (mainly the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front).  In contrast, 1.5-2 million people live in the government-held part of Aleppo and are subject to random artillery and rocket fire from the rebels.  Without a doubt, in this brutal civil war atrocities have been committed on both sides – though we typically hear only about those committed by the Syrian government.  Now, the offer to allow civilians to escape the fighting is treated like some sinister ruse by US official spokespeople, their MSM stenographers and some “human rights” NGOs.  Instead, they insist that relief supplies should be allowed into the rebel-held parts of the city so they can be available to both civilians and opposition fighters.  When has that ever happened during a war? And in case you wonder why more civilians don’t flee, reports are that they are coerced by rebel fighters and fired upon if the try to leave.  Under other circumstances, the same US establishment figures would be clucking about “human shields”. . .

 

Obama did too much in Syria, not too little

Conventional wisdom holds that if the United States had done more to affect the course of Syria's civil war, the Islamic State terrorist group might never have taken hold, Syrian President Bashar Assad might have been defeated, and the scale of the war might have been far smaller. According to this argument, the terrorist attacks that fill our headlines are the results of failed policy.  But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Providing lethal aid early would have made matters worse, accelerating the war rather than slowing it. What no one wants to see today, because so few saw it at the time, is that there was another policy that could have prevented the chaos now consuming the region… When President Obama called on Assad to step down in August of 2011, he invested the U.S. in the dictator’s defeat without changing policy on the ground to facilitate that outcome. The possibility of Assad winning the war outright was no longer on the table, and U.S. acquiescence to a political solution in which Assad remained became more difficult.   More

 

REBRANDING AL-QAEDA:

The Nusra Front Is Dead and Stronger Than Ever Before

In severing its ties to al Qaeda, the organization is more clearly than ever demonstrating its long-game approach to Syria, in which it seeks to embed within revolutionary dynamics and encourage Islamist unity to outsmart its enemies, both near and far. In this sense, the Nusra Front (and now Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) differ markedly from the Islamic State, which has consistently acted alone and in outright competition with other Islamist armed factions. Instead of unity, the Islamic State explicitly seeks division.  Ultimately, while this may be a change in name and formal affiliation, Jolani’s group will remain largely the same. Therefore, this is by no means a loss to al Qaeda… Simply put, al Qaeda is coordinating its Syrian affiliate’s dissolution of ties to its own core leadership for the sake of preserving the long-term viability of the Nusra Front and its jihadi strategic objectives. The ideological ties between al Qaeda and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham remain strong…  The Nusra Front’s goal is simple: It seeks to build an expanding blanket of legitimacy in Syria, which one day in the future will be of imperative importance in justifying the establishment of an Islamic emirate.     More

 

JUAN COLE: Top Five Ways to tell if a Terrorist is still al-Qaeda despite name Change

 

ISRAEL SUPPORTING  REBEL SAFE ZONE: Opens Border With Syria to “Humanitarian Aid”

“Israel finally agreed to allow in three types of aid: medical, educational and food,” said Moti Kahana, a businessman and founder of the NGO Amaliah, who sold his company in 2010 and since then has been using his own money to aid the Syrian rebels… The aid is being transferred into what Kahana calls a “safe zone” adjacent to the border and comprised of the town of Quneitra and its surrounding area… Asked how the aid is going to be transferred into Syria and whether the IDF is going to insure security for the delivery, Kahana responded, “the IDF knows who to trust.”     More

 

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S VIETNAM

The U.S. war in Afghanistan will officially pass the 15-year mark in a few months. But like Vietnam, where the United States began aiding French colonial forces in the late 1940s, Afghanistan has been the target of Washington’s war-making for more than three-and-a-half decades… President Obama explicitly rejected any analogy to Vietnam in a speech nearly seven years ago. But like Vietnam, our ongoing conflict in Afghanistan has become a hopeless quagmire, marked by official lies, atrocities, pervasive corruption and poorly led government forces who survive in the field thanks mainly to U.S. bombing. Like Vietnam, Afghanistan represents a staggering waste of lives (more than 300,000 direct casualties through early 2015) and resources (more than two trillion dollars).  Even more than Vietnam, it is a conflict for which no one in Washington bothers to offer any strategic rationale. The best that President Obama could come up with in his July 6 statement on Afghanistan, was “I strongly believe that it is in our national security interest — especially after all the blood and treasure we’ve invested in Afghanistan over the years — that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed.”   More

 

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE THE ARMS BUSINESS

When American firms dominate a global market worth more than $70 billion a year, you’d expect to hear about it.  Not so with the global arms trade.  It’s good for one or two stories a year in the mainstream media, usually when the annual statistics on the state of the business come out… To be completely accurate, there is one group of people who pay remarkably close attention to these trends -- executives of the defense contractors that are cashing in on this growth market.  With the Pentagon and related agencies taking in “only” about $600 billion a year -- high by historical standards but tens of billions of dollars less than hoped for by the defense industry -- companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have been looking to global markets as their major source of new revenue…  One place where, with a helping hand from the Obama administration and the Pentagon, the arms industry has been doing a lot better of late is the Middle East.    More

 

 

The People’s Resistance to the Venezuelan Food Crisis

The People’s Resistance to the Venezuelan Food Crisis

When: Saturday, July 30, 2016, 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Where: encuentro 5 • 9A Hamilton Place • (near Park Street Red Line T) • Boston

 

Report back from the trenches
At Encuentro 5 – 9A Hamilton Place, Boston, MA (Park Street T station)
Saturday, July 30, 2016 – 4PM – 6PM

Maria Sanchez, report back by a Maine resident who visited Venezuela recently to witness the efforts being made in alternative agriculture. She experienced the “Back to the Conuco” movement, Venezuela’s traditional version of permaculture (ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient) and their seed saver collectives. These farming efforts are organized in cooperatives to process and distribute food equitably.
Maria also witnessed the work of the new Urban Agriculture Ministry created by President Maduro (1/6/16) and led by a young woman urban gardener, Lorena Freitez. They are working on creative ways to empower the people, in particular youth, to do urban gardening. She also met with agricultural professionals from CIARA (“Training and Innovation in Support of the Agro Revolution Foundation”) and saw initiatives of urban gardening in Caracas.

 

Live video conference with a member of the CLAP, Local Committee for Food Distribution and Production. CLAP committees were created to bypass commercial stores that are hoarding food to increase scarcity and topple the government of President Maduro.

Belkis Romero, CLAP of Ecoaldea Lomas del Norte (EcoVillage North Hills), Lara State

Please download and distribute the flyer posted on our website: www.us-venezuelasolidarity.org

Upcoming Events: 

Newsletter: 

UJP Activist

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FromThe Archives Now-Breaking News: 2nd walkout at DNC!

Breaking News: 2nd walkout at DNC!

        


                        


                                    

                                

                                    



   
    
                


Update: Movement4Bernie, Socialist Alternative, Occupy Wall Street activists and Sanders delegates are planning a second walkout. Please donate $25 to help our efforts on the ground in Philly!
 


Friends,


Right now Movement4Bernie, Occupy Wall Street, Bernie or Bust, and Socialist Alternative activists and Sanders delegates are organizing a walkout of delegates during Hillary Clinton’s speech!


We’ve heard news that the DNC has locked down the convention center to try and prevent a walkout.  The (un)Democratic Party establishment is showing its true face.


Movement4Bernie, Occupy Wall Street, and Bernie or Bust activists worked with the delegates who organized the first walkout.


The delegates who are walking out are taking a bold, inspiring stand and saying we reject the Democratic Party establishment's neo-liberal, pro-corporate, pro-war policies.  They are also taking a bold stand for an independent left wing alternative with many expressing support for Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein.


Movement4Bernie and allies have also organized a rally to greet the delegates with Kshama Sawant and Jill Stein.  At the rally the delegates are planning on tearing up their DNC credentials and declaring their break from the Democratic Party.

Stay tuned at Movement4Bernie facebook for updates. Also check in on Occupy Wall Street’s feed possibly for livestreaming!
 
                        



    
            




                                

                                    







                                        
                                        




                                                                        
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Fools Rush In-French Style-Francis Veber’s The Dinner Game

Fools Rush In-French Style-Francis Veber’s The Dinner Game

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Dinner Game, written and directed by Francis Veber, 1998   

 

Yeah, like the old song went “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” but in the comedy of errors under review, Francis Veber’s The Dinner Game in French with English subtitles, one is never quite sure, at least of the characters on the screen, who the fool is and who should have paid attention when those damn angels stayed away. This one is an hour and twenty minutes of guessing just who is the fool and who is being taken in. In places a bit heavy-handed with some too intricate or implausible occurrences but overall worth your time if you have the time to spare.    

Here’s why I, for one, am wondering who the fool was. One Brochant, a prominent bourgeois publisher belongs to an exclusive club of prominent businessmen who, having apparently nothing better to do, have an “idiot’s night” at their weekly soirees. This “idiot” business for the seemingly chic and high-toned members is for each one to bring an “idiot” to the meeting and have the various guests compete, unknown to them, for the champion idiot of the night. Yeah, already I can see you are rooting for the idiots just like I was on this one.

These “idiots,” harmless men like the “star” of  the film, Pignon, an employee of the Finance Ministry, a tax guy okay, who had a maybe outsized  passion for building replicas of famous landmarks-out of match sticks  are the kind of contestants for the meetings. So the question of idiot might be just a bit overplayed by the club members. In any case the fools, the club members that is, have “talent” spotters searching Paris for appropriate candidates. That was how Brochant wound up with Pignon. Old Brochant would come to rue the day that he went up against old Pignon and that is where the comedy of errors come in. Prior to meeting Pignon he had had a back injury that put him out of whack and in the end would depend on our tax guy to get around. Would also come to depend on Pignon trying to find out where his estranged wife was after she could not, rightly, persuade him to give up the juvenile activities around idiot night. One thing Pignon did as the errors escalated was to expose Brochant’s mistress to his wife. Oops! For other such mishaps on the way to resolving the relationship between Brochant and Pignon watch this one.  Yeah, fools rush in.                 

*****I Hear Mother Africa Calling-With Odetta In Mind

*****I Hear Mother Africa Calling-With Odetta In Mind

 

Sam Eaton, nothing but the son of a son of a son of an old swamp Yankee, that’s a Yankee fisherman, a small tradesman, a farm hand and those who had, or their forebears had, come across the ocean not under some city on the hill dream but to escape the poor house, the debtors prison or the hangman and wound up doing some indentured servitude before getting under some high Brahmin's fist who did things like yeoman’s military service under General Washington against the bloody British when the call came for brave men to come and help in freedom’s fight and who later forged his way, family in tow, to struggle with the rough stony New England land which fought him and his every inch of the way almost as hard but for sure longer than those bloody Brits, tumble rock fought him down in Carver in the southeastern corner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where he tried to eke out an existence against the grim fresh breast of earth and marsh as a “bogger,” a man who worked the dreaded cranberry bogs for which that town was once famous, worked in harness raking the damn berries for some benighted Thanksgiving dinner, so yes, a swamp Yankee as against the Beacon Hill Brahmins who reaped the benefits of the bloodstained freedom fight without the risks and settled into a quiet life of coin counting and merchandise buying, had been puzzled at the age of fourteen at a time when he first heard a blues song, Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years on a fugitive radio station down in Carver one night in the late 1950s (a song that later, much later, seemingly a technological millennia later, he would see done by Wolf on YouTube taken from a performance at the Newport Folk Festival in the early 1960s where the Wolf sweat rolling from his ebony cheeks and forehead flowing down his face like some ancient Nile River snaking its way to the sea, deep bass voice beyond deep seeming to get deeper with each drop of water would practically  eat the harmonica he had in the cusp of his hand talking, no preaching to himself, taking himself to task, about some woman, some mean mistreating mama if the truth be known who had him in a sailor’s knot, has him all twisted up, had him so depressed and blue his wanted to go under the grasses but who in the end took the walk of the beaten down, beaten around  and left old Minnie high and dry which Sam had sensed was happening way back when on that fugitive radio.).

That “fugitive” part just mentioned not being some pirate station off the coast which he had heard that some people who couldn’t get their music on the regular dial were doing somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean (he would find out later that this pirate station was out in the North Sea someplace and was there because of the uproar in England, like in the states over the demon effect rock and roll was having on the Queen’s subjects, her gaggle of children who somehow heard the fresh new breeze from America was heading their way and which he found out more about still later when he saw a film starring the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman about the subject) the result of some mystical still not understood airwave heading out into the atmosphere all the way from Chicago where occasionally around eleven o’clock (ten Chi town time) he would pick up Be-Bop Benny’s Blues Hour over WALM, a station that billed itself as the “Blues is the dues” station.
 

He was not sure but he thought then that Be-Bop Benny was a black guy, a Negro (the “polite” word of common usage then to signify blacks, now far out of style and thus the need to explain to generations born after who accept the racial designation black or Afro-American or some other local derivative), although he heard his father, Prescott, who was the last of a long line of downtrodden independent Eaton boggers who would soon thereafter go belly up and sell out to the mega-growers, call them “n----rs” without a trance of rancor or self-consciousness and put “damn” in front of that term with rancor when he had been drinking rye whiskey and bemoaning his fate and said the “n” word were being treated better than he and his were).

Although Sam had never seen a black man in person then since they did not follow the bogging trade and none lived in town or went through it as far as he knew he thought that if Be-Bop wasn’t then he was at least from the south because his voice sounded strange, had a drawl, had kind of a mumble-rumble quality to it and he was saying all kinds of be-bop, cool daddy, hot mama, from jump street kind of stuff. And for a time, a fair amount of time he did not like to hear that scratchy raspy voice, or that blues is dues stuff either. That was the source of his puzzlement.

See Sam had not really been happy when he heard that station come over the fugitive airwaves on late Sunday nights (although the song was okay, no, more than okay, cool even if he didn’t quite understand why the Wolf was letting some mean mistreating mama get him down, get him so crazy that he wanted to go six feet under which even naïve Sam knew meant old Wolf was losing it but that kind of hard-bitten lyric was not to his taste then since he was just getting that bug, just wanted to hear about roses and playthings, stuff like that, happily ever after stuff). As a dedicated fourteen old white boy from a town with no Negro families, not even people who were connected with those workers in the town like his father and a couple of older adult brothers and uncles who worked the cranberry bogs, he was not interested, or maybe consciously interested is better, the blues.

Sam was totally into rock and roll, totally into listening to WMEX the local radio station out of Boston which was being interfered with by that blues is dues station out of Chi town at eleven o’clock (remember ten Chi town time). Interfered with his listening to Bill Haley blast away on Shake, Rattle and Roll, Elvis doing Tomorrow Night and Good Rockin’ Tonight, Johnny Grey doing a great version of Rocket 88, Sam Jackson doing This Is Rock, Bobby Sams doing One Night Of Sin good rocking stuff that DJ Arnie Ginsberg would play on his At The Hop show where he played songs that had dropped off the charts but were diamonds of rock and roll. So at fourteen he could not figure out, nor could they when he asked his friend Jack Caldwell who knew everything about roll and rock, what the appeal was of that Wolf tune. But that beat, that chord progression, that going down to the messy forlorn earth and then coming back up again would follow him for a long, long time. He never really found an answer, a satisfactory answer until he looked beyond the fugitive sound, looked back to why the blues was even the blues. Looked more to the way it made him feel when times were tough, when he would get into his depressive shell, and a blues is dues song would break the bad ass spell.               

Not until later did Sam figure some stuff out after he had kind of given up on rock and roll for a while, maybe around sixteen, seventeen, when the music seemed, well, square, seemed to be about blond-haired, blue-eyed guys searching for (and getting) blond-haired blue eyed girls with a “boss” car and dough as a lure, maybe a surfer guy cruising the beaches out west, out California way, none of which he and his had much of, the dough and car part, and Carver being kind of landlocked no surfer profile, and so kind of distant from the life of a son of a son of a son of a swamp Yankee.
 

Sam started figuring stuff out too when he got into his folk music thing for a minute, music which mainly made him go up a wall but which he put up with because Sara Leonard, his girlfriend or the girl he wanted to be his girlfriend got all excited about it when she saw Joan Baez in Cambridge at some club (the original Club 47 as it turned out where Joan and lots of other folkies hung out) and insisted that he like the songs or hit the road, you know how that is (this Sara by the way all dark hair and the whitest of white skin got hung up on the iron-your-hair-like Joan Baez craze and he would have to sit in the Leonard parlor cooling his heels while Sara did her ritual). Jesus. Part of that folk thing although he was not sure how and why was about the blues, about down south music from the plantations and sharecropper cabins, and how they made music to keep themselves from going crazy when the hammer came down and they needed some way to express their rage at their plight without getting hung up on a tree somewhere or shot in the back down some dirty road.      

The critics, and don’t ever ask Sam who these guys are since all he cares about is the music, about the blues, who performs it and whether it will take the bite out of his depression or not and not some discursive history stuff although if you talked about the Civil War, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, some guys called the Diggers (not boggers, not as far as he knew), or about the Renaissance he will listen all day, as long as you realize that you will be listening all night, say that the blues, you know, the quintessential black musical contribution to the American songbook along with first cousin jazz that breaks you out of your depression about whatever ails you or the world, was formed down in the Mississippi muds, down in some sweat-drenched bayou, down in some woody hollow all near Mister’s plantation, mill, or store. Well they might be right in a way about how it all started in America as a coded response to Mister’s, Master’s, Captain’s wicked perverse ways back in slavery times, later back in Mister James Crow times (now too but in a different code, but the same old Mister do this and not that, do that but not this just like when old James ran the code).

Sam believed however they were off by several maybe more generations and off by a few thousand miles from its origins in hell-bent Africa, hell-bent when Mister’s forbears took what he thought was the measure of some poor grimy “natives” and shipped them in death slave boats and brought them to the Mississippi muds, bayous and hollows (those who survived the horrendous middle passage without being swallowed up by the unfriendly seas). Took peoples, proud Nubians who had created very sharp and productive civilizations when Mister’s forbears were running around raggedly wondering what the hell a spoon was for when placed in their dirty clenched fingers, wondered still later how the heck to use the damn thing, and why and uprooted them whole.          

Uprooted you hear but somehow that beat, that tah, tat, tah, tah, tat, tah played on some stretched nailed string tightened against some cabin post by young black boys kept Africa home alive. Kept it alive while women, mothers, grandmothers and once in a while despite the hard conditions some great-grandmother who nursed and taught the little ones the old home beat, made them keep the thing alive. Kept alive too Mister’s forced on them religion strange as it was, kept the low branch spirituals that mixed with blues alive in plain wooden churches but kept it alive. So a few generations back black men took all that sweat, anger, angst, humiliation, and among themselves “spoke” home truth low down mean mistreating mama, two-timing man, cut you if you run, weary tune blues on juke joint no electricity Saturday nights out in the back woods accompanied by Willie’s fresh made brew and then sang high white collar penance blues come Sunday morning plain wood church time.

Son House, Charley Patton, Skip James, Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi John Hurt and a lot of guys who went to their graves undiscovered in the salt sweat sultry Delta night carried on, and some sisters too, some younger sisters who heard the beat and heard the high collar Sunday spirituals.

Some sisters like Odetta, big-voiced, big-voiced in a naked world, speaking of freedom trains with her brothers and sisters jam packed on the road, speaking of sweated field hand labor for damn Mister, man, women and child, speaking of that dirty bastard Mister James Crow and his do this and do that and don’t do this and don’t that like his charges were mere children to be ordered about, or hung from stange fruit trees or lying down in some shallow bottomland grave chains tied around the neck, speaking of the haunted northern star which turned Mister’s plantation indoors as it headed north, speaking of finding some cool shaded place where Mister would not disturb, couldn’t disturb and making lots of funny duck, odd-ball,  searching for roots white college students whose campus halls she filled, marvel, mainly marvel, that they had heard some ancient Nubian Queen, some deep-voiced Mother Africa calling them back to the cradle of civilization, calling them back to where all, everything began.  
 

And then Sam knew, or began to know, what that long ago fugitive beat that stayed in his head meant.