*On May Day-The Anarchist Tradition In The International Working Class Movement-For Sacco and Vanzetti

Repost

Friday, May 01, 2009

*On May Day-The Anarchist Tradition In The International Working Class Movement


Markin comment:

Today, May Day, is officially celebrated extensively throughout the world by the international working class to commemorate labor’s struggles, although ironically (and sadly) not in the United States. One of the purposes for its celebration back in the late 1800’s was to highlight the struggle (the continuing struggle, I might add) for an eight hour work day. This day also commemorates Chicago’s Haymarket Martyrs, working class anarchists who were railroaded by the American justice system for being workers while ‘foreign’ and for being workers while “anarchists”.

Although this writer long ago abandoned his flirtation with the anarchist movement that had held some attraction to him in his youth and has become, as a life-long Marxist, a strong political opponent of that movement today seems an appropriate time to look back at its not altogether shabby history. The book reviewed below, Professor Joll’s “The Anarchists”, was the first book that I read when I was moving away from mainstream liberalism and looking for a revolutionary road to change society. As with all such older works (originally written in 1964) additional research is necessary to bring the story up to date (especially as it ends with the anarchist experience in Spain in the 1930’s). Nevertheless this work still stands as a good primer for the early history of the anarchist movement, its various trends and tendencies, its controversies with other working class movements, especially Marxism, and its shortcomings.

Book Review

The Anarchists, James Joll, Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1964

It is rather ironic to be discussing old time communistic working class political tendencies on a day, May Day, that celebrates the struggles of various leftist, anti- capitalist tendencies, especially Marxism and Anarchism the latter whose history is outlined in the book reviewed here, in the international working class movement. The irony is that, sadly, for all intends and purposes, in the main, the international working class movement has abandoned (at least temporarily) the struggle for socialism of any kind as part of its day to day struggles. Nonetheless, for those who seek to break out of the impasse of international capitalism a fresh look at these tendencies is warranted. I have reviewed various Marxist-oriented movements elsewhere in this space. Today Professor Joll's brief look at the history of the early anarchist movement (up to the Spanish Civil War) is a good primer for getting a handle on that political philosophy.

That there has never been a unitary working class response to capitalism and industrialization is a weakness. That there have been various left-wing tendencies fighting for political leadership of the class is not so. During most of the 20th century the great fights were between the various Marxist-oriented reformist Social Democrats and the ostensibly revolutionary Communists. However the great fights in the late 19th century were between the Marxists and anarchists of various persuasions. Those fights are extensively detailed by Professor Joll here. Given the reemergence over the past decade or various, mainly non-working class-centered, anarchist tendencies, especially of the "propaganda of the deed" variety, it is important for today's labor militants looking for some socialist political direction to learn (or learn more) about.

Professor Joll does some yeoman's work here describing the antecedents of the working class movement, especially the key trends that trace their lineage back to the 18th century French Revolution and the Enlightenment. It is the long term reaction to the failure of that revolution, the weakness of its political organization and its aborted libertarian aims to redress plebeian grievances that provided an opening to anarchist thought. Joll details the various plans, blueprints, panaceas and what not that floated thought the pre-1848 European political milieu (from Godwin to Weitling to the "Communist Manifesto") as the industrial form of organization took hold in Western society. In short, the revolutions of 1848 represented a last gasp outer limit that the bourgeoisie was willing to go to establish its rule in alliance with the working class under the sign of the French Revolution. Marx drew one conclusion from that understanding- the need to create independent working class political organization- the various anarchist trends drew others (independent communes, political withdrawal, permanent insurrection, etc.). This is where the great fight starts.

If mid-19th century Europe was a hot bed for various socialist-oriented theories those theories got hashed out through personalities as much as program. This is the age of Marx, Engels and LaSalle but also of the great anarchist thinkers Proudhon and Bakunin whose names are forever associated with the early anarchist movement, for good or ill. Those thinkers also represented, in embryo, the two great trends within anarchy that fought it out, mainly on European soil, for poltical dominance over most of the next century. If socialism has its reformist and revolutionary wings the same is true of the anarchism movement with its break between what I will call "philosophical anarchists" and "deed anarchists" that reflect the different perspectives of Proudhon and Bakunin. As with the socialist movement there is some overlap but one does not have be all that politically sophisticated to be able to distinguish between where the two lines of thought were heading.

With the defeat of the short-lived and bloodily defeated Paris Commune of 1871, an event that is commemorated with reverence in both communist and anarchist movements, although each drew different conclusions from its demise, European bourgeois society went through a period of relative stabilization with a vast expansion of the industrial enterprise. Needless to say such periods try the souls of revolutionaries, great and small. Part of this frustration worked itself out in the anarchist movement with, on the one hand, a `quietist' turn toward intellectual schemes and literary propaganda work (always appropriate, by the way) by the likes of Kropotkin, and on the other, the emergence of an individualist response by, at times, heroic anarchists committed to "propaganda by the deed".

During this period (about twenty years or so) there were some very spectacular assassinations, and attempted assassinations, of various American and European bourgeois political figures, most famously in America Alexander Berkman's (the fiery anarchist polemicist and orator Emma Goldman's companion of the time) attempt on steel magnate Ford Frick and the successful assassination of President McKinley. Also, needless to say, the wheels of bourgeois society continued working with little interruption. I would point out that the best socialists and communists have always defended such heroic, if misguided, actions by the "anarchists of the deed" while pointing out this truth- It's the system that had to go not individual representatives no matter how fitting for such actions, brothers and sisters.

If , as mentioned above, the great political battles within the international working class in the post-World War I period were between reformist socialists and revolutionary communists before that war the great fight was between various anarchist tendencies in the working class, mainly anarcho-syndicalists, and socialists. That fight reached a fever pitch around the question of defense of the Russian Revolution of 1917. In theory, at least, both anarchism and communism posit the replacement of the role of state as a "cop" with a new role as mere administrator of things (at most). The question is how to get there and how long it will take to place that possibility on the historic agenda. Here the Paris Commune experience is instructive. The anarchists, and here I admit complete solidarity with the Marxist side of the argument, apparently learned nothing from the decentralized confusion created in that revolutionary process, including the fundamental question of defense of the revolution. The Marxists, and in the case of the Russian Revolution its Bolshevik wing, took those lessons to heart and created a political/military party, worked through soviets (workers councils) and defended the revolution with a Red Army, arms in hand.

Whatever happened later in the Soviet experience and, as a supporter of the great Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky I find plenty to discuss, the Russian Revolution was the great test of the pre-war competing socialist political philosophies and that event split the anarchist movement, as well. Some like Victor Serge, Alfred Rosmer in Europe, "Big Bill" Haywood and some elements of the American-based Industrial Workers of The World (IWW) went over to the Communist International. Inside Russia, depending on the time, anarchist supported the revolution by going over to the Bolsheviks or, during the civil war formed independent "black flag" armies like those of Mahkno in the Ukraine that were generally pro-Soviet, or in the latter period became military opponents of the Soviet regime, most notably at Kronstadt in 1921. Professor Joll outlines the details here although one really needs to read more on this by one of the leading Russian anarchists of the time, Voline's "History of The Russian Anarchists". A mere paragraph here can only alert serious pro-labor militants to the need to work through the political differences. That the anarchist position came up short in Russia does not negate the need today to deal politically with the fringe reemergence of these tendencies. I would only add here that when the anarchists are reduced to talking about the "virtues" of Mahkno and of the Kronstadt sailors in 1921 there is something of an impediment to any fruitful discussion. But so be it.

Professor Joll's last and most important section, at least for today's militant's trying to sort through the questions of the state and revolutionary theory, is the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. In the heat of revolution and civil war all theories get thoroughly tested and it was here that the anarchist attitude toward the state, any state, floundered. Although I have discussed the key questions of the Spanish Civil War elsewhere in this space those questions have been centered on the disputes among socialists and communists and the crisis of revolutionary leadership provoked by the civil war. Needless to say, in Spain at least, no discussion is complete without discussing the role of the anarchists, the largest tendency with political authority within the working class and among the landless rural laborers.

While a full discussion is beyond the scope of this book, and of this review, to sum up the anarchist experience in a nutshell- while the anarchists tried to ignore the state the state did not ignore them. When the deal went down they supported the state- the bourgeois state at a time, in the summer of 1936, when they and no other political formation could have taken political power. And made it stick. Instead the anarchist and anarchist-influenced organizations like the FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation) and CNT (National Federation of Workers) passed the power back to the bourgeoisie (or their agents) and settled for a few (short-lived) ministerial posts. I hope I have provoked some argument here because now in the early 21st century that question of the state is again placed on the agenda for today's anarchists of the second mobilization. It is a question that will not go away for anarchists, socialists or communists alike. Read Professor Joll's book to get a primer on the historical contours of these disputes.

********

As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement “The Internationale” in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!

The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]

Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.




________________________________________

L'Internationale

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout

C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud

L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits

Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.

Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux

Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.


________________________________________

Die Internationale

Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!

Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht

Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!

In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!

*****Send The Following Message (Or Write Your Own) To The President In Support Of A Pardon For Private Manning

*****Send The Following Message (Or Write Your Own) To The President In Support Of A Pardon For Private Manning

To: President Barack Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge, Colonel Lind, on August 21, 2013 to Private Manning (Chelsea formerly known as Bradley) has outraged many citizens including me. (A decision upheld by the Convening Officer of the First District, General Buchanan in early 2014. The defense team is now preparing a full-blown brief to be presented to Army Court Of Military Appeals when ready.)

Under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States had the authority to grant pardons to those who fall under federal jurisdiction.
Some of the reasons for my request include: 
*that Private Manning  was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, which the UN rapporteur in his findings has called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”

*that the media had been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Private Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.

*that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable and unconstitutional to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.

*that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.

*that Private Manning is a hero who did the right thing when she revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

I urge you to use your authority under the Constitution to right the wrongs done to Private Manning – Enough is enough!

Signature ___________________________________________________________

Print Name __________________________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________________________

City / Town/State/Zip Code_________________________________________

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

 

Updated-September 2015  

A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I was asked by a fellow member of Veterans For Peace at a monthly meeting in Cambridge about the status of the case of Chelsea Manning since he knew that I had been seriously involved with publicizing her case and he had not heard much about the case since she had been convicted in August 2013 (on some twenty counts including several Espionage Act counts, the Act itself, as it relates to Chelsea and its constitutionality will be the basis for one of her issues on appeal) and sentenced by Judge Lind to thirty-five years imprisonment to be served at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. (She had already been held for three years before trial, the subject of another appeals issue and as of May 2015 had served five years altogether thus far and will be formally eligible for parole in the not too distant future although usually the first parole decision is negative).

That had also been the time immediately after the sentencing when Private Manning announced to the world her sexual identity and turned from Bradley to Chelsea. The question of her sexual identity was a situation than some of us already had known about while respecting Private Manning’s, Chelsea’s, and those of her ardent supporters at Courage to Resist and elsewhere the subject of her sexual identity was kept in the background so the reasons she was being tried would not be muddled and for which she was savagely fighting in her defense would not be warped by the mainstream media into some kind of identity politics circus.

I had responded to my fellow member that, as usual in such super-charged cases involving political prisoners, and there is no question that Private Manning is one despite the fact that every United States Attorney-General including the one in charge during her trial claims that there are no such prisoners in American jails only law-breakers, once the media glare of the trial and sentencing is over the case usually falls by the wayside into the media vacuum while the appellate process proceed on over the next several years.

At that point I informed him of the details that I did know. Chelsea immediately after sentencing had been put in the normal isolation before being put in with the general population at Fort Leavenworth. She seemed to be adjusting according to her trial defense lawyer to the pall of prison life as best she could. Later she had gone to a Kansas civil court to have her name changed from Bradley to Chelsea Elizabeth which the judge granted although the Army for a period insisted that mail be sent to her under her former male Bradley name. Her request for hormone therapies to help reflect her sexual identity had either been denied or the process stonewalled despite the Army’s own medical and psychiatric personnel stating in court that she was entitled to such measures.

At the beginning of 2014 the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, General Buchanan, who had the authority to grant clemency on the sentence part of the case, despite the unusual severity of the sentence, had denied Chelsea any relief from the onerous sentence imposed by Judge Lind.

Locally on Veterans Day 2013, the first such event after her sentencing we had honored Chelsea at the annual VFP Armistice Day program and in December 2013 held a stand-out celebrating Chelsea’s birthday (as we did in December 2014 and will do again this December of 2015).  Most important of the information I gave my fellow VFPer was that Chelsea’s case going forward to the Army appellate process was being handled by nationally renowned lawyer Nancy Hollander and her associate Vincent Ward. Thus the case was in the long drawn out legal phase that does not generally get much coverage except by those interested in the case like well-known Vietnam era Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, various progressive groups which either nominated or rewarded her with their prizes, and the organization that has steadfastly continued to handle her case’s publicity and raising financial aid for her appeal, Courage to Resist (an organization dedicated to publicizing the cases of other military resisters as well).   

 

At our February 2015 monthly meeting that same VFPer asked me if it was true that as he had heard the Army, or the Department of Defense, had ordered Chelsea’s hormone therapy treatments to begin. I informed him after a long battle, including an ACLU suit ordering such relief, that information was true and she had started her treatments a month previously. I also informed him that the Army had thus far refused her request to have an appropriate length woman’s hair-do. On the legal front the case was still being reviewed for issues to be presented which could overturn the lower court decision in the Army Court Of Criminal Appeals by the lawyers and the actual writing of the appeal was upcoming. A seemingly small but very important victory on that front was that after the seemingly inevitable stonewalling on every issue the Army had agreed to use feminine or neutral pronoun in any documentation concerning Private Manning’s case. The lawyers had in June 2014 also been successful in avoiding the attempt by the Department of Defense to place Chelsea in a civil facility as they tried to foist their “problem” elsewhere.

 

On the political front Chelsea continued to receive awards, and after a fierce battle in 2013 was finally in 2014 made an honorary grand marshal of the very important GLBTQ Pride Parade in San Francisco (and had a contingent supporting her freedom again in the 2015 parade). Recently she has been given status as a contributor to the Guardian newspaper, a newspaper that was central to the fight by fellow whistle-blower Edward Snowden, where her first contribution was a very appropriate piece on what the fate of the notorious CIA torturers should be, having herself faced such torture down in Quantico adding to the poignancy of that suggestion. More recently she has written articles about the dire situation in the Middle East and the American government’s inability to learn any lessons from history and a call on the military to stop the practice of denying transgender people the right to serve. (Not everybody agrees with her positon in the transgender community or the VFP but she is out there in front with it.) 

[Maybe most important of all in this social networking, social media, texting world of the young (mostly) Chelsea has a twitter account- @xychelsea

 

Locally over the past two year we have marched for Chelsea in the Boston Pride Parade, commemorated her fourth year in prison last May [2014] and the fifth this year with a vigil, honored her again on Armistice Day 2014, celebrated her 27^th birthday in December with a rally (and will again this year on her 28^th birthday).

More recently big campaigns by Courage To Resist and the Press Freedom Foundation have almost raised the $200, 000 needed (maybe more by now) to give her legal team adequate resources during her appeals process (first step, after looking over the one hundred plus volumes of her pre-trial and trial hearings, the Army Court Of Criminal Appeal)

Recently although in this case more ominously and more threateningly Chelsea has been charged and convicted of several prison infractions (among them having a copy of the now famous Vanity Fair with Caitlyn, formerly Bruce, Jenner’s photograph on the cover) which could affect her parole status and other considerations going forward.     

We have continued to urge one and all to sign the on-line Amnesty International petition asking President Obama to grant an immediate pardon as well as asking that those with the means sent financial contributions to Courage To Resist to help with her legal expenses.

After I got home that night of the meeting I began thinking that a lot has happened over the past couple of years in the Chelsea Manning case and that I should made what I know more generally available to more than my local VFPers. I do so here, and gladly. Just one more example of our fervent belief that as we have said all along in Veterans for Peace and elsewhere- we will not leave our sister behind… More later.              

Markin comments (Winter 2014):   

There is no question now that Chelsea Manning’s trial, if one can called what took place down in Fort Meade a trial in the summer of 2013 rather than a travesty, a year after her conviction on twenty plus counts and having received an outrageous thirty-five year sentence essentially for telling us the truth about American atrocities and nefarious actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the American government can stick its nose that her case has dropped from view. Although she occasionally gets an Op/Ed opportunity, including in the New York Times, a newspaper which while recoiling at the severity of the sentence in the immediate reaction did not question the justice of the conviction, and has several legal moves going from action to get the necessary hormonal treatments reflecting her real sexual identity (which the Army has stonewalled on and which even the New York Times has called for implementing) to now preparing the first appeal of her conviction to another military tribunal the popular uproar against her imprisonment has become a hush. While the appeals process may produce some results, perhaps a reduction in sentence, the short way home for her is a presidential pardon right now. I urge everybody to Google Amnesty International and sign on to the online petition to put the pressure on President Barack Obama for clemency.                   

I attended some of the sessions of Chelsea Manning’s court-martial in the summer of 2013 and am often asked these days in speaking for her release about what she could expect from the various procedures going forward to try to “spring” her from the clutches of the American government, or as I say whenever I get the chance to “not leave our buddy behind” in the time-honored military parlance. I have usually answered depending on what stage her post-conviction case is in that her sentence was draconian by all standards for someone who did not, although they tried to pin this on her, “aid the enemy.” Certainly Judge Lind though she was being lenient with thirty-five years when the government wanted sixty (and originally much more before some of the counts were consolidated). The next step was to appeal, really now that I think about it, a pro forma appeal to the commanding general of the Washington, D.C. military district where the trial was held. There were plenty of grounds to reduce the sentence but General Buchanan backed up his trial judge in the winter of 2014. Leaving Chelsea supporters right now with only the prospect of a presidential pardon to fight for as the court appeals are put together which will take some time. This is how I put the matter at one meeting:

“No question since her trial, conviction, and draconian sentence of thirty-five years imposed by a vindictive American government heroic Wiki-leaks whistle-blower Chelsea Manning’s has fallen off the radar. The incessant news cycle which has a short life cycle covered her case sporadically, covered the verdict, covered the sentencing and with some snickers cover her announcement directly after the sentencing that she wanted to live as her true self, a woman. (A fact that her supporters were aware of prior to the announcement but agreed that the issue of her sexual identity should not get mixed up with her heroic actions during the pre-trial and trial periods.) Since then despite occasional public rallies and actions her case had tended, as most political prisoner cases do, to get caught up in the appeals process and that keeps it out of the limelight.”            

Over the past year or so Chelsea Manning has been honored and remembered by the Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade in Boston in such events as the VFP-led Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade, the Memorial Day anti-war observance, the yearly Gay Pride Parade, the Rockport July 4^th parade, the VFP-led Veterans Day Peace Parade, and on December 17^th her birthday. We have marched with a banner calling for her freedom, distribute literature about her case and call on one and all to sign the pardon petitions. The banner has drawn applause and return shouts of “Free Chelsea.” The Smedley Butler Brigade continues to stand behind our sister. We will not leave her behind. We also urge everybody to sign the Amnesty International on-line petition calling on President Obama to use his constitutional authority to pardon Chelsea Manning

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-one-year-after-her-conviction-chelsea-manning-must-be-released-2014-07-30  

Additional Markin comment on his reasons for supporting Chelsea Manning:

I got my start in working with anti-war GIs back in the early 1970s after my own military service was over. After my own service I had felt a compelling need to fight the monster from the outside after basically fruitless and difficult efforts inside once I got “religion” on the war issue first-hand. That work included helping create a couple of GI coffeehouses near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down at Fort Dix in New Jersey in order for GIs to have a “friendly” space in which to think through what they wanted to do in relationship to the military.

Some wanted help to apply for the then tough to get discharge for conscientious objection. Tough because once inside the military, at least this was the way things went then, the military argued against the depth of the applying soldier’s convictions and tended to dismiss such applications out of hand. Only after a few civil court cases opened up the application process later when the courts ruled that the military was acting arbitrarily and capriciously in rejecting such applications out of hand did things open up a little in that channel. Others wanted to know their rights against what they were told by their officers and NCOs. But most, the great majority, many who had already served in hell-hole Vietnam, wanted a place, a non-military place, a non-GI club, where they could get away from the smell, taste, and macho talk of war.

Although there are still a few places where the remnants of coffeehouses exist like the classic Oleo Strut down at Fort Hood in Texas the wars of the past decade or so has produced no great GI resistance like against the Vietnam War when half the Army in America and Vietnam seemed to be in mutiny against their officers, against their ugly tasks of killing every “gook” who crossed their path for no known reason except hubris, and against the stifling of their rights as citizens. At one point no anti-war march was worthy of the name if it did not have a contingent of soldiers in uniform leading the thing. There are many reasons for this difference in attitude, mainly the kind of volunteer the military accepts but probably a greater factor is that back then was the dominance of the citizen-soldier, the draftee, in stirring things up, stirring things up inside as a reflection of what was going on out on the streets and on the campuses. I still firmly believe that in the final analysis you have to get to the “cannon fodder,” the grunts, the private soldier if you want to stop the incessant war machine. Since we are commemorating, if that is the right word the 100^th anniversary of the start of World War I check out what happened, for example, on the Russian front when the desperate soldiers left the trenches during 1917 after they got fed up with the Czar, with the trenches, with the landlords, and the whole senseless mess.

Everyone who has the least bit of sympathy for the anti-war struggles of the past decade should admire what Chelsea Manning has done by her actions releasing that treasure trove of information about American atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere. She has certainly paid the price for her convictions with a draconian sentence. It is hard to judge how history will record any particular heroic action like hers but if the last real case with which her action can be compared with is a guide, Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers, she should find an honored spot. Moreover Chelsea took her actions while in the military which has its own peculiar justice system. Her action, unlike back in Vietnam War times, when the Army was half in mutiny was one of precious few this time out. Now that I think about she does not have to worry about her honored place in history. It is already assured. But just to be on the safe side let’s fight like hell for her freedom. We will not leave our sister Chelsea behind.              

 

As The Anniversary Of The Execution Of Sacco and Vanzetti Approaches (1927)-Sacco's Letter To His Son-The Case That Will Never Die

As The Anniversary Of The Execution Of Sacco and Vanzetti Approaches (1927)-Sacco's Letter To His Son-The Case That Will Never Die

 


SACCO AND VANZETTI- THE CASE THAT WILL NOT DIE NOR SHOULD IT



DVD REVIEW



SACCO AND VANZETTI, PETER MILLER, 2006



I have used some of the points mentioned here in previous reviews of books about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.



Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenbergs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the raw tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the film under review.



Using documentary footage, reenactment and ‘talking head’ commentary by interested historians, including the well-known author of popular America histories Howard Zinn, the director Peter Miller and his associates bring this case alive for a new generation to examine. In the year 2007 one of the important lessons for leftists to be taken from the case is the question of the most effective way to defend such working class cases. I will address that question further below but here I wish to point out that the one major shortcoming of this film is a lack of discussion on that issue. I might add that this is no mere academic issue as the current case of the death-row prisoner, militant journalist Mumia-Abu-Jamal, graphically illustrates. Notwithstanding that objection this documentary is a very satisfactory visual presentation of the case for those not familiar with it.



A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the director’s overall thesis that the two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 were railroaded to know that the case against them 'stunk' to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force the most mildly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on.



Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This film does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless it does not adequately address a question that is implicit in its description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?



The film spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the 'grandees' and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. It does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. It gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles and a friend of Carlos Tresca, a central figure in the defense case) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about its place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. Hopefully it will draw the viewer to read one or more of the many books on the case. Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.

An Atlantic Summer's Day, Circa 1960-For Frank, Class Of 1964-And For Teenage August Doldrums of Any Year

An Atlantic Summer's Day, Circa 1960-For Frank, Class Of 1964-And For Teenage August Doldrums of Any Year

A YouTube film clip of the Capris performing their doo-wop classic, There's A Moon Out Tonight. This is sent out by request to Frankie, from the old neighborhood.



By Josh Breslin 


An Atlantic Summer's Day, Circa 1960-For Frank, Class Of 1964



This is the way Frank told me the story, mainly, so it’s really a Frank story that I want to tell you about but around the edges it could be my story, or your story for that matter:



Frank, long, winter-weight black-panted, long sleeve plaid flannel-shirted, thick-soled work boot-shod, de rigueur pseudo-beatnik posing attire, summer or winter, that he thought made him “cool”, at least for the be-bop, look-at-me-I'm-a-real-gone daddy, bear-baiting of the public (and not just the public) that he relished anguished over the job ahead the details of which will concern us later, not now. Melted by the late August sun like some Woolworth’s grilled cheese sandwich, he stood almost immobile, on the Sagamore Street side, looking toward the early morning vacant Welcome Young Field in front of him, as he slowly and methodically pulled out, for about the eighteenth time, or maybe about the eighteen thousandth, a now sweat-soaked, salt-stained, red railroad man’s handkerchief (also de rigueur) to wipe off the new wave of venial sin-producing (at least), swear-to-the-high-heavens-inducing sweat that had formed on his brow.



Frank had, after leaving his own house, already crossed the long-abandoned, rusty-steeled, wooden-tie worn Old Colony railroad tracks that separated the almost sociologically proverbial well-worn, well-trodden “good” from “bad” side of our town, his the “bad”, and mind too (that track, now used as part of the Red Line subway extension system, still stands guardian to that dividing line). He faced, and he knew he faced, even this early in the morning, another day in hell, Frank-ish hell, or so it seemed to him like that was where the day was heading, no question. Another one of those endless, furnace-blasting, dirt-kicking, hard-breathing, nerve-fraying, gates of hell, “dogs days”, August days. Worst, worst for old weather-beaten, you might as well say world-beaten Frank, a fiendish, fierce, frantic, frenzied 1960 teenage August day.

And, like I said, it was not just the weather either, although that was bad enough for anybody whose body metabolism cried out, and cried out loud and clear, for temperate climates, for low humidities, or just the cool, sweet hum of an ocean breeze now and again. But also, plain truth, it was just being a befuddled, beleaguered, bewildered, benighted, be-jesused kid that gummed up the works as well. Frank had it bad. I want to say, if memory does not fail me, that there aren’t double “dog days” like that now, heat-driven, sweltering, suffocating, got-to-break-out-or-bust teenage days, not August days anyway.



But, no, now that I think about it, that’s just not right, not at least if you believe, and you should, all the information about climate change and the rip-roaring way we, meaning you and me, and Frank too, have torn up old Mother Earth without thinking twice about it. Or even once, if you really look around. And about the 21st century angst-filled Franks that you see on those heat-swept streets now, except now the Franks are buried beneath some techno-gadgetry or other, and are not worrying about being be-bop, or real gone daddies, or being “beat”, or about bear-baiting the public or anything like that. But that’s a screed for another day; at least I want to put it off until then. Even writing about this day, this Frank-ish day, right now makes me reach for my own sweaty, dampish handkerchief. Let’s just call it a hot, dusty, uncomfortable, and dirty day and leave it at that.



What’s not “not right” though is that, Frank, a by now finely-tuned, professional quality sullen and also an award-worthy, very finely-tuned sulky teenage boy, usually, waited this kind of day out, impatiently, in his book-strewn, airless, sunless room, or what passed for his room if you don’t count his shared room brother’s stuff. And, maybe, the way Frank told it to me, he might have been beyond waiting impatiently, for he was ready, more than ready, for school to go back into session if for no other reason than, almost automatically come the “dog days”, to get cooled-out from this blazing, never-ending inferno of a heat wave that never failed to drain him of any human juices, creative or not.



And nothing, nothing, in this good, green world, seemingly, could get this black chino-panted, plaid flannel-shirted, salty sweat-dabbled, humidity-destroyed teenage boy out of his funk. Or it would, and I think you would have to agree, have to be something real good, almost a miracle, to break such a devilishly-imposed spell. In any case, as we catch up to him, he is not in his stuffy old bookcase of a room now but there he is walking, in defiance of all good, cool, common sense, long-panted, long-shirted, and long-faced, as I said was his fashionista statement to this wicked old world in those days, across Welcome Young Field on to Hancock Street. On a mission, no less. That is as good a place, the field that is, as any to start this saga.



Now come late August this quirky, almost primitively home-made-like softball field (with adjoining, little used asphalt tennis courts, little used in those days, anyway) was a ghost town during the day. The city provided and funded kids recreation programs were over, the balls and bats, paddles and playground things are now put away for another season, probably also, like Frank, just waiting for that first ring of the school bell come merciful September. The dust this day is thick and unsettled, forming atomic bomb-like powder puffs in the air at the slightest disturbance, like when an odd kid or two makes a short-cut across the field leaving a trail of such baby atomic bomb blasts behind them.



At this early hour the usually game-time firm white lines of the base paths are now broken, hither and yon, to hell from last night's combat, the battle for bragging rights at the old Red Feather gin mill, or something. They await some precious manicure from the Parks Department employees, if those public servants can fight their own lassitude in this heat. And while they are at it they should put some time, some serious patchwork time, fixing the ever-sagging, splintered, termited, or so it seemed on close inspection, but in any case rotted out wooden bleachers that served to corral a crowd on a hot summer’s night. Good luck, men. And if the work is not done, not to worry, the guys who play their damned, loud-noised, argue, argue loudly, over every play with the ever blind umpire, softball under the artificial night lights, if I know them and I do just like Frank does, know the grooves and ridges of the surfaces of the base paths like the backs of their hands, so don’t fret about them.



This field, this Welcome Young Field, by the way, is not just any field, but a field overflowing, torrentially overflowing, with all kinds of August memories, and June and July memories too. Maybe other months as well but those months come readily to mind, hot, sticky, sultry summer mind. Need I remind anyone, at least any Atlantic denizen of a certain age, of the annual Fourth of July celebrations that took place center stage there as far back as misty memory recalled. The mad, frenetic, survival-of-the-fittest dashes for ice cream, the crushed-up lines (boys and girls, separately ) for tonic (aka soda, with names like Nehi, grape and orange, and Hires Root Beer for good measure, for those too young to remember that New Englandism and those brand names), the foot races won by the swift and sure-footed (Frank said he almost won one once but “ran out of gas” just before the finish), the baby carriage parade, and the tired old, but much anticipated, ride on a real pony, and other foolery and frolic as we paid homage to those who fought, and bled, for the Republic. Maybe, maybe paid homage that is. A lot of that part gets mixed up with the ice cream and tonic. (Remember: that’s soda, you can look it up, but I’m telling you all the truth.).



Hell, even that little-used, like I said before little-used in those days, usually glass-strewn but now Parks Department cleaned up asphalt-floored tennis court got a workout as a dance/talent show venue, jerrybuilt stage platform and all. Every 1960 local American Idol wanna-be, misty Rosemary Clooney/McGuire Sisters-like 1940s Come On To My House, Paper Dolls torch singer jumped, literally, on stage to grab the mike and "fifteen minutes (or less)of fame." Needless to say every smoky-voiced male crooner who could make that jump got up there as well, fighting, fighting like a demon for that five dollar first prize, or whatever the payoff was. Later as it got dark, tunes, misty tunes of course, some of them already heard from those "rising stars" like some ill-fated encore, wafted in the night time air from some local band when the Fourth of July turned to adult desires come sundown after we kids had gorged, completely gorged, and feverishly exhausted, ourselves. That story, the dark night, stars are out, moony-faced, he looking for she, she looking for he, and the rest of it, (I don’t have to draw you a diagram, do I?), awaits its own chronicler. I’m just here to tell Frank’s story and that ain’t part of it.



This next thing is part of the story, though. In this field, this bedlam field, as Frank just reminded me, later, after Fourth Of July celebrations became just kids stuff for us, and kind of lame kids stuff at that, we had our first, not so serious, crushes on those glamorous-seeming, fresh-faced, shapely-figured, sweetly-smiling and icily-remote college girls, or at least older girls, who were employed by the Parks Department to teach us kids crafts and stuff in those summer programs that I mentioned before. Or had our first serious crushes on the so serious, so very serious, girls, our school classmates no less, determined to show Frank, Frank of all people, up in the craft-creating (spiffy gimp wrist band-making, pot-holder-for-Ma-making, copper-etching, etc.) department when everyone knew, or should have known, Frank was just letting them win for his own “evil” designs. (And maybe me, maybe I let them "win" too, although I will plead amnesia on this one.) Now that I think of it I might have tried that ruse on the girls myself, there was nothing to it then.



But enough of old, old time flights of fancies. I have to get moving, and moving a little more quickly, if I am ever going to accomplish “my mission”, or ever get Frank out of that blessed, memory-blessed, sanctified, dusty old ball field, sweaty flaming red railroad man’s handkerchief and all. I‘ll let you know about the mission, Frank's mission that is, as I go along like I told you I would before but it means, in the first place, that Frank has to go on this “dog day” August day to Norfolk Downs, or the “Downs” as I heard someone call it once and I didn’t know what they were talking about. We always called it just plain, ordinary, vanilla-tinged, one-horse Norfolk Downs. And Frank had to walk. He, hot as he was and as hot as it was, was certainly not going to wait for an eternity, or more, for that never-coming Eastern Mass. bus from Fields Corner to meander up Hancock Street. Not that Frank was any stranger to that mode of transportation, to that walking. Frank, as I know for certain and have no need to plead amnesia on, had worn down many a pair of heel-broken, sole-thinned shoes (and maybe sneakers too)on the pavements and pathways of this old planet walking out of some forlorn place (or, for that matter, walking into such places). Just take my word for that, okay.



You can take my word for this too. Frank is now officially (my officially) out of the softball field and walking, walking slowly as befits the day, past the now also long gone little bus shelter hut as you get up onto Hancock Street. You know that old grey, shingled, always needed painting, smelly from some old wino's bottle or something, beat-up, beat-down thing that was suppose to protect you against the weathers while you waited for that never-coming Eastern Mass. bus. He, Frank that is, insists that his observation of that hut be put in here despite the fact that he had no intention of taking the bus as I already told you. He is not even going to step into its shade for a minute to cool off. But get this. We have to go through this hut business because, if you can believe this, that lean-to has "symbolic" meaning. Apparently every time this know-it-all pseudo-“beatnik”, long pants, heavy shirt and all, had a beef with his mother (and, you know, let’s not kid each other, when the deal went down, the beef was ALWAYS with Ma in those pre-“parenting-sharing” days) he sought shelter against life’s storms there, before caving into whatever non-negotiable demands Ma insisted on. Sound familiar? But enough, already.



Well, if you get, or rather, if back then if you got on to Hancock Street, (and you actually made it past that historic Eastern Mass. hut, oops, "symbolic" hut) down at the far end of the Welcome Young Field and were heading for Norfolk Downs you have to pass the old high school just a few blocks up on your journey. Just past the old Merit gas station, remember. That gas station (now Hess at that location) had been the scene of memories, Frank memories and mine too. But those are later gas-fumed, oil-drenched, tire-changed, under-the hood-fixated, car-crazy dreams; looking out at the (hopefully) starless be-bop ocean night; looking out for the highway of no return to the same old, same old mean streets of beat town; looking for some "high white note" heart of Saturday night or, better, the dreams accumulated from such a night; and, looking, and looking hard, desperately hard for the cloudless, sun-dried, sun-moaning under the weight of the day, low-slung blue pink Western-driven be-bop, bop-bop, sun-devouring sky and need not detain us here.




Don’t be scared by the thought of approaching the old school though, we all did it and most of us survived, I guess. Frank included. What makes this particular journey on this particular day past the old beige-bricked building “special” is that Frank (and I) had, just a couple of months before, graduated from Atlantic Junior High School (now Atlantic Middle School, as everyone who wants to show how smart and up-to-date they are keeps telling me) and so along with the sweat on his brow from the heat a little bit of anxiety is starting to form in Frank’s head about being a “little fish in a big pond” freshman come September as he passed by. Especially, a pseudo-beatnik “little fish”. See, he had cultivated a certain, well, let’s call it "style" over there at Atlantic. That “style” involved a total disdain for everything, everything except trying to impress girls with his long-panted, flannel-shirted, work boot-shod, thick book-carrying knowledge of every arcane fact known to humankind. Like that really is the way to impress teenage girls, then or now. In any case he was worried, worried sick at times, that in such a big school his “style” needed upgrading. Let’s not even get into that story now, or maybe, ever. Like I said we survived.

Frank nevertheless pulled himself together enough to push on until he came to the old medieval-inspired Sacred Heart Catholic Church further up Hancock Street, the church he went to, his church (and mine) in sunnier times. Frank need have no fear this day as he passed the church quickly, looking furtively to the other side of the street. Whatever demons were to be pushed away that day, or in his life, were looking the other way as well. The boy is on a mission after all, a trusted mission from his grandmother. Fearing some god, fearing some forgotten confession non-confessed venial sin like disobeying your parents, was child’s play compared to facing Gramma’s wrath when things weren’t done, and done right, on the very infrequent special occasions in his clan’s existence. I knew Frank's grandmother and I knew, and everyone else did too, that she was a “saint” but on these matters even god obeyed, or else.


This special occasion, by the way, the reason Frank felt compelled to tell me this story, and to have me write it, or else, was the family Labor Day picnic to take place down at Treasure Island. (That’s what we called it in those days; today it is named after a fallen Marine, Cady Park, or something like that.) This occasion required a food order; make that a special food order, from Kennedy’s Deli.

And there it is as Frank makes the turn from Hancock Street to Billings Road. You knew Kennedy’s, right? The one right next to the big A&P grocery store back in those days. As Frank turned on Billings, went down a couple of storefronts and entered that store he had to, literally, walk in through the piled sawdust and occasional peanut shell husks on the gnarled hardwood floor. At once his senses were attacked by the smells of freshly ground coffee, a faint whiff of peanut butter being ground up, and of strong cheeses aging. He noticed a couple of other customers ahead of him and that he will have to wait, impatiently.



He also noticed that the single employee, a friendly clerk, was weighing a tub of butter for a matronly housewife, while a young mother, a couple of kids in tow, was trying, desperately, to keep them away from the cracker barrel or the massive dill pickle jar. The butter weighed and packaged the matronly women spoke out the rest of her order; half pound of cheese, thinly sliced, a pound of bologna, not too thin; a third of a pound of precious ham, very thinly sliced; and, the thing that made our boy pay attention, a pound of the famous house homemade potato salad, Kennedy's potato salad.



Frank winced, hoping that there will be enough of that manna left so that he could fill his order. That, above all else, is why he is a man on a mission on this day. Something about the almost paper thin-sliced, crunchy potatoes, the added vinegar or whatever elixir was put in the mix that made any picnic for him, whatever other treats might surface. Hey, I was crazy over it too. Who do you think got Frank "hip" to it, anyway? Not to worry though, there was plenty left and our boy carried his bundled order triumphantly out of the door, noticing the bigger crowds going in and out of the A&P with their plastic sheathed, pre-packaged deli meats, their tinny-tasting canned goods, their sullen potato salad, probably yesterday’s, and their expressionless fast exit faces. Obviously they had not been on any mission, not any special mission anyway, just another shopping trip. No, thank you, not today to all of that. Today Frank’s got real stuff.



“Wait a minute,” I can hear patient readers, impatiently moaning. This madman of a Frank story-teller has taken us, hither and yon, on some seemingly cryptic mission on behalf of an old friend, under threat or otherwise, through the sweat-drenched heat of summer, through the really best forgotten miseries of teenage-hood, and through the timeless dust and grime of vacant ball fields. He has regaled us with talk of ancient misty Fourth of July celebrations, the sexual longings of male teenagers, the anxieties of fitting in at a new school, and some off-hand remarks about religion. And for what, just to give us some twisted Proustian culinary odyssey about getting a pound of potato salad, famous or not, for grandmother. Well, yes. But hear me out. You don’t know the end. I swear Frank said this to me, shaking off the heat of the day on which he told me the story with a clean white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his light-weight suit jacket. After the purposeful journey the heat of that day didn’t seem so bad after all. That, my friends, made it all worth the telling, right?

*************

Theres A Moon Out Tonight -The Capris Lyrics



There's a (moon out tonight) whoa-oh-oh ooh
Let's go strollin'
There's a (girl in my heart) whoa-oh-oh ooh
Whose heart I've stolen
There's a moon out tonight (whoa-oh-oh ooh)
Let's go strollin' through the park (ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)

There's a (glow in my heart) whoa-oh-oh ooh
I never felt before
There's a (girl at my side) whoa-oh-oh ooh
That I adore
There's a glow in my heart I never felt before (ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)

Oh darlin'
Where have you been?
I've been longin' for you all my life

Whoa-uh-oh baby I never felt this way before
I guess it's because there's a moon out tonight

There's a (glow in my heart) whoa-oh-oh ooh
I never felt before
There's a (girl at my side) whoa-oh-oh ooh
That I adore
There's glow in my heart
I guess it's because

There's a moon out tonight
Moon out tonight
Moon out tonight
Moon out tonight
There's a moon out tonight

Be-Bopping With The Boys-With Little Milton And Guitar Slim In Mind

Be-Bopping With The Boys-With Little Milton And Guitar Slim In Mind

CD Review

By Zack James

Little Milton And Guitar Slim Pickin’ Up, Little Milton, Guitar Slim, Fidelity Records, 1989

“Hey, baby boy do you have a hit, can you get me well,” hoarsely whispered because she could raise her voice no higher Lena with no last name because, well, because in her world last names didn’t matter, were a drag, might have to be changed quickly take your pick, that last one as good as any other. Naturally if Lena was talking baby boy talk she was sitting in the High Hat Club on Massachusetts Avenue in the Roxbury section of Boston. And if Lena of the no last name was sitting in the High Hat then she was talking to nobody else but Bobby Lee no last name for the same reasons that Lena had no last name except that changing names was more problematic since Bobby Lee was very likely in need of frequent name changes in his racket. See his was the local pusher man-anything from mary jane to horse and back although mostly mary jane ever since he got out of Charles Street the last time. Lena thus knew who she was talking to when she plaintively asked Bobby Lee, baby boy, for a little something for the head, something to get her through the night, something that would give her “kicks,” although she might rue the day she learned to lean on that expression for a crutch. Something to get her jumped up at while watching the act that was performing at the High Hat that night. None other than Little Milton himself straight from New York. There was a rumor, just a rumor that his sidekick Guitar Slim was around somewhere and might show up and blow the place away with some slick riffs bingo bango-ing off Little Milton.

It hadn’t always been that way with Bobby Lee, having to sweet talk low voice ask him for a little something to take the edge off, to get her mellow when Little Milton started be-bopping. Those first few times she had come into the High Hat she had been happy if a guy bought her a few scotches, throw a little water on the side, and she might, or might not, go someplace with him and take him around the world, or whatever he wanted- if she was feeling that way. Then one night Bobby Lee caught her eye, or maybe she caught Bobby Lee’s eye who knew at this point. Bobby Lee was all smoothness and light, then. Bobby though was not a guy who bought a girl, any girl, scotches with water on the side. Bobby Lee, sweet man Bobby Lee, was a guy who was connected, was the guy who if you needed something for the head would take you around a very different world than Lena’s simple sexual plaything adventure. Bobby Lee let’s face it was the pusher man, was the guy you went to around the High Hat if you needed to smooth out. Of course Lena, nothing but a whiskey head, and not much either didn’t know that when Bobby Lee came a-courting, came up and undressed her with his eyes, and she expected him to buy her a few drinks and then they would be off since she had already figured out how she would spent the rest of the evening after Sleepy Jones played his last set.

Bobby Lee threw her off though, didn’t offer to buy her a drink but instead gave her a line of sweet Bobby Lee pitter-patter and then told her he had something for her head, something that would cool out her head. Naturally she was hesitant but as she would find out later she couldn’t deny Bobby Lee whatever she had to give him and so she followed him out the door, followed him to the No Tell Motel and there he sprang some tea on her. Good stuff too not the cut to hell stuff that was running on the streets. And they grooved that night, grooved as the tea hit her with a bang, make her think not just sexy thoughts but about being cool, about getting kicks. All the while Bobby had them listening on the radio, WCAS for the record, the local R&B station, to sweet be-bop rhythm and blues stuff, explaining this and that riff that this cat Little Milton was putting down, got better when some of the cuts had this guy Guitar Slim playing a be-bop guitar that she had never heard before. She was not sure whether she had ever heard a guitar played in anger like that before. Had been out of touch with whatever was happening in the music world at that moment.    

Lena had been brought up pretty strictly in a very religious household, a Catholic household of the worse sort, that saw anything more radical than Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra was the devil’s music and even some of Sinatra’s stuff was suspect. She had grown up in Gloversville during the war, during World War II while her father was away overseas, listening along with her distraught mother, to those guys and to stuff, patriotic stuff when you think about it, stuff by somebody like Vera Lynn and her We’ll Meet Again which only made her mother bluer although she said later, after the war and after her father had come home in one piece that those songs got her through the war. So Lena had not been exposed to too much music, jump music anyway  and had due to that same parent, same mother directive not gotten hip to the whole jitterbug explosion. Had not been able to even go to a dance with her boyfriend, short term boyfriend for the very reason that she could not jitterbug and he was the Gloversville High School champion. It was no wonder that “she didn’t know from nothin’” as Bobby Lee put it about the be-bop stuff coming out of the radio that first line bedsheets night with him.                     

Just after the war, a couple of years after, once her father had “adjusted” to home life again (although that adjustment business was a matter of degree and causation since he became a heavy drinker and would be one for as long as Lena could remember later), after she finished her time at Gloversville High she made a big decision, a big decision directly related to her finding herself in bed listening to the radio with Bobby Lee, a big decision which she was not sure where it would lead, not expecting it to be about getting high from tea as often as she could and about digging guys playing hellish music like Little Milton. She decided she wanted some “kicks” out of life, didn’t, heaven forbid, want to wind up like a prune like her parents and decided to take a secretarial job with John Hancock, the big insurance company in Boston. Answered an ad for a roommate in the South End near work and left her girlhood household for good. No looking back, although her parents fought her tooth and nail before they accepted the inevitable.

That roommate, Sasha, again no last name, had been the one who had suggested one Friday night that they go to the Starlight Ballroom on Boylston Street and “get picked up,” as she put it. Benny Goodman was playing there and while Lena had heard the name she was not sure what kind of music he played. Lena was all apprehension at first but she had decided she was looking for “kicks” and so they went. And were “picked up.” Although that night nothing happened, the guy wanted to try something but Lena had begged off and so nothing happened. Before long though two things did happen once she started to like being picked up after not having had a great deal of experience or success in high school with boys as she exploded out of her shell when guys paid attention to her.

The first thing was the time a couple of months later was that she lost her virginity, lost it to a college guy from Boston College. She had no regrets although she hoped it would not get around work that she was interested in sex because there were guys, married guys mostly, who would swoop down on her in a minute. The second was that she tended to be gayer, tended to loosen up a bit when she had a few drinks, a few scotches, in her. She had been worried she might turn into a drunk although she did not slow down her drinking until knighted Bobby Lee turned her on to weed.   

After a while the Starlight and later Hoppy’s, the big swing bar in town seemed too tame and so she and Sasha started hitting the bars toward Dudley Square and that is when they found the High Hat with its mellow cool be-bop jazz that she frankly dug, and frankly put herself out there with for guys who also dug cool breeze jazz. She had had a succession of guys, nobody special, nobody bad either but she probably was ready when Bobby Lee took notice of her (or her of him they always had funny arguments in their good days about who was first). And so after that first night Bobby Lee became her man although she was unaware of his “business” as a distributor of drugs to the clientele of various nightclubs and bars.

Then the other shoe dropped. Bobby found somebody else, some blonde who had a better figure than hers (although if she had asked around the various gin mills she/they frequented she could have found out that Bobby Lee had a long trail of ex-lovers but she probably would not have listened anyway). They left it off on good enough terms and he would still supply her with her tea which she had come to use more often the bluer she got, bluer over Bobby Lee, her baby boy. Then Bobby got caught, got caught enough to face a one to three at Charles Street. He took one as it turned out as a first time offender but that left her flat for a while until she made another connection.        

Bobby got out after that year and a few weeks later she ran into him and asked that question, the question of questions, in that hoarse voice of hers. Bobby Lee said follow him to a No Tell Motel and they grooved the night away. About half way through their love-making Little Milton came on and blew the airwaves clean. She laughed to herself, not a funny laugh but not sardonic either that what goes around comes around. 

If you want to find out what Lena meant by that last statement those many, many years ago when Little Milton be-bopped and Guitar Slim went to the stars check out this CD.