This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-And Of The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club" Album Zack James comment; Frankly although I was only a young very young teenager at the time I was not as enamored of this album as my older brothers and sisters were who were knee deep into the drug, sex and counter-cultural revolutions (which drove my conservative parents crazy) which I only knew about in passing. I would hear the music around the house from up in their rooms (when those conservative parenst were not around or on the jukebox at Doc's Drugstore up the Square or at school dances but it never moved me the way say the playing of Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis did at any of those locales and that music was even futher removed from my age cohort. 50 years later after a recent re-listening on YouTube I had the same impression despite my acquired knowledge that this album was the all time album seller and listen to even today-this album like the Stones' effort of the same time period Their Satanic Majesties have not to my ear aged well. (You do not see a single song from that latter album on any recent Stones' concert playlists.) Whereas let's say the almost unique It's A Beautiful Day album or some of the Jefferson Airplane albums like After Bathing At Baxter's seem still pretty fresh and representative of that sweet world Summer of Love, 1967 time before the ebbtide set in and we all were reduced to nostagia buffs.
In Honor Of Martin Luther On The 500th Anniversary Of His Reformation Pleas
By Frank Jackman
It probably seems odd today that I/we who write in this space from a mainly secular if not profane perspective should be honoring a religious figure from some 500 hundred years ago. But some of us take our historical materialism to speak nothing of our humanist values seriously and honor our forebears, at least our forebears in the West on this occasion. What Martin Luther allegedly pinned up to the door of that Wurttemberg archbishop sounds pretty tame today by secular historical standards but in it time was radical if not revolutionary. Bring the high holy universal apostolic Catholic Church down several pegs, down to that original mission that got lost during the 1500 hundred years when it gathered enough strength to dominate Western thought (and choke off at the stake any dissenters) and run wild in its demands from everybody from high lords to ignorant peasants working the lord’s manor to fill it chests, war chests included. So yes despite the hell broth conflict and fights to the death that ensued between Catholic reactionaries and Protestant dissenters here is a tip of the hat to brave Martin Luther back in scary 1517. We would have been marching under the banner of those Protestant hymns that sent their defender soldiers off to battle-and not be ashamed of doing so.
Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Frankie Out In The Adventure Car Hop Night
A YouTube film clip of the Dubs performing the classic Could This Be Magic? to set the mood for this piece.
By Josh Breslin
Frankie Riley, the old corner boy leader of the crowd, our crowd of the class of 1964 guys who made it and graduated, not all did, a couple wound up serving time in various state pens but that is not the story I want to tell today except that those fallen brothers also imbibed Frankie’s wisdom (else why would they listen to him for they were tougher if not smarter than he was) about what was what in rock and roll music in the days when we had our feet firmly planted in front of Tonio’s Pizza Parlor in North Adamsville, had almost a sixth sense about what songs would and would not make it in the early 1960s night. Knew like the late Billy Bradley, my corner boy when my family lived on the other side of town back then, did in the 1950s elementary school night what would stir the girls enough to get them “going.” And if you don’t understand what “going” meant or what “going and rock and roll together in the same sentence meant then perhaps you should move along. Why else would we listen to Frankie, including those penal tough guys, if it wasn’t to get into some girl’s pants. Otherwise guys like Johnny Blade (and you don’t need much imagination to know what kind of guy and what kind of weapon that moniker meant) and Hacksaw Jackson would have cut of his “fucking head’ (their exact expression and that is a direct quote so don’t censor me or give me the “what for”).
But that was then and this is now and old, now old genie Frankie had given up the swami business long ago for the allure of the law profession which he is even now as I write starting to turn over to his younger partners who are begging just like he did in his turn to show their stuff, to herald the new breeze that the austere law offices of one Francis Xavier Riley and Associates desperately needs to keep their clients happy. In that long meantime I have been the man who has kept the flame of the classic days of rock and roll burning. Especially over the past few years when I have through the miracles of the Internet been able between Amazon and YouTube to find a ton of the music, classics and one-shot wonders of our collective youths and comment on it from the distance of fifty or so years.
I have presented some reviews of that material, mostly the commercially compiled stuff that some astute record companies or their successors have put together to feed the nostalgia frenzy of the cash rich (relatively especially if they are not reduced to throwing their money at doctors and medicines which is cutting into a lot of what I am able to do), on the Rock and Roll Will Never Die blog that a guy named Wolfman Joe had put together trying to reassemble the “youth nation” of the 1960s who lived and died for the music that was then a fresh breeze compared to the deathtrap World War II-drenched music our parents were trying to foist on us.
That work, those short sketch commentaries, became the subject for conversation between Frankie and me when he started to let go of the law practice (now he is “of counsel” whatever that means except he get a nice cut of all the action that goes through the office without the frenzied work for the dollars) and we would meet every few weeks over at Jack’s in Cambridge where he now lives since the divorce from his third wife, Minnie. So below are some thoughts from the resurrection, Frankie’s term, for his putting his spin on “what was what” fifty or so years ago when even Johnny Blade and Hacksaw Jackson had sense enough to listen to his words if they wanted to get into some frill’s pants.
“Okay, you know the routine by now, or at least the drift of these classic rock reviews. [This is the sixth in the series that I had originally commented on but which Frankie feels he has to put his imprimatur on just like in the old days- JB] The part that starts out with a “tip of the hat” to the hard fact that each generation, each teenage generation that is makes its own tribal customs, mores and language. Then the part that is befuddled by today’s teenage-hood. And then I go scampering back to my teenage-hood, the teenage coming of age of the generation of ‘68 that came of age in the early 1960s and start on some cultural “nugget” from that seemingly pre-historic period. Well this review is no different, except, today we decipher the drive-in restaurant, although really it is the car hops (waitresses) that drive this one.
See, this series of reviews is driven, almost subconsciously driven, by the Edward Hopper Nighthawk-like illustrations on the The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era CDs of this mammoth set of compilations (fifteen, count them, fifteen like there were fifteen times twenty or so songs on each compilation or over three hundred classic worth listening to today. Hell, even Frankie would balk at that possibility).
In this case it is the drive-in restaurant of blessed teenage memory. For the younger set, or those oldsters who “forgot” that was a restaurant idea driven by car culture, especially the car culture from the golden era of teenage car-dom, the 1950s. Put together cars, cars all flash-painted and fully-chromed, “boss” cars we called them in my working class neighborhood, young restless males, food, and a little off-hand sex, or rather the promise or mist of a promise of it, and you have the real backdrop to the drive-in restaurant. If you really thought about it why else would somebody, anybody who was assumed to be functioning, sit in their cars eating food, and at best ugly food at that, off a tray while seated in their cherry, “boss" 1959 Chevy.
And beside the food, of course, there was the off-hand girl watching (in the other cars with trays hanging off their doors), and the car hop ogling (and propositioning, if you had the nerve, and if your intelligence was good and there was not some 250 pound fullback back-breaker waiting to take her home after work a few cars over with some snarl on his face and daggers in his heart or maybe that poundage pounding you) there was the steady sound of music, rock music, natch, coming from those boomerang speakers in those, need I say it, “boss” automobiles. And that is where all of this gets mixed in.
Of course, just like another time when I was reviewing one of the CDs in this series, and discussing teenage soda fountain life, the mere mention, no, the mere thought of the term “car hop” makes me think of a Frankie story. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, Frankie from the old hell-fire shipbuilding sunk and gone and it-ain’t-coming-back-again seen better days working class neighborhood where we grew up, or tried to. Frankie who I have already told you I have a thousand stories about, or hope I do. Frankie the most treacherous little bastard that you could ever meet on one day, and the kindest man (better man/child), and not just cheap jack, dime store kindness either, alive the next day. Yeah, that Frankie, my best middle school and high school friend Frankie.
Did I tell you about Joanne, Frankie’s “divine” (his term, without quotation marks) Joanne because she enters, she always in the end enters into these things? Yes, I see that I did back when I was telling you about her little Roy “The Boy” Orbison trick. The one where she kept playing Running Scared endlessly to get Frankie’s dander up. But see while Frankie has really no serious other eyes for the dames except his “divine” Joanne (I insist on putting that divine in quotation marks when telling of Joanne, at least for the first few times I mention her name, even now. Needless to say I questioned, and questioned hard, that designation on more than one occasion to no avail) he is nothing but a high blood-pressured, high-strung shirt-chaser, first class. And the girls liked him, although not for his looks although they were kind of Steve McQueen okay. What they went for him for was his line of patter, first class. Patter, arcane, obscure patter that made me, most of the time, think of fingernails scratching on a blackboard (except when I was hot on his trail trying to imitate him) and his faux “beat” pose (midnight sunglasses, flannel shirt, black chinos, and funky work boots (ditto on the imitation here as well). And not just “beat’ girls liked him, either as you will find out. Certainly Joanne the rose of Tralee was not beat sister (although she was his first wife).
Well, the long and short of it was that Frankie, late 1963 Frankie, and the...(oh, forget it) Joanne had had their 207th (really that number, or close, since 8th grade) break-up and Frankie was a "free” man. To celebrate this freedom Frankie, Frankie, who was almost as poor as I was but who has a father with a car that he was not too cheap or crazy about to not let Frankie use on occasion, had wheels. Okay, Studebaker wheels but wheels anyway. And he was going to treat me to a drive-in meal as we went cruising the night, the Saturday night, the Saturday be-bop night looking for some frails (read: girls, Frankie had about seven thousand names for them)
Tired (or bored) from cruising the Saturday be-bop night away (meaning girl-less) we hit the local drive-in hot spot, Arnie’s Adventure Car Hop for one last, desperate attempt at happiness (yeah, things were put, Frank and me put anyway, just that melodramatically for every little thing). What I didn’t know was that Frankie, king hell skirt-chaser had his off-hand eye on one of the car hops, Sandy, and as it turned out she was one of those girls who was enamored of his patter (or so I heard later). So he pulled into her station and started to chat her up as we ordered the haute cuisine, And here was the funny thing, now that I saw her up close I could see that she was nothing but a fox (read: “hot” girl).
The not so funny thing was that she was so enamored of Frankie’s patter that he was going to take her home after work. No problem you say. No way, big problem. I was to be left there to catch a ride home while they set sail into that good night. Thanks, Frankie.
Well, I was pretty burned up about it for a while but as always with “charma” Frankie we hooked up again a few days later. And here is where I get a little sweet revenge (although don’t tell him that).
Frankie sat me down at the old town pizza parlor [Tonio’s Pizza Parlor of blessed memory-JB] and told me the whole story and even now, as I recount it, I can’t believe it.
Sandy was a fox, no question, but a married fox, a very married fox, who said she when he first met her that she was about twenty-two and had a kid. Her husband was in the service and she was “lonely” and succumbed to Frankie’s charms. Fair enough, it is a lonely world at times. But wait a minute, I bet you thought that Frankie’s getting mixed up with a married honey with a probably killer husband was the big deal. No way, no way at all. You know, or you can figure out, old Frankie spent the night with Sandy. Again, it's a lonely world sometimes.
The real problem, the real Frankie problem, was once they started to compare biographies and who they knew around town, and didn’t know, it turned out that Sandy, old fox, old married fox with brute husband, old Arnie’s car hop Sandy was some kind of cousin to Joanne, second cousin maybe. And she was no cradle-robber twenty-two (as if you could rob the cradle according to Frankie) but nineteen, almost twenty and was just embarrassed about having a baby in high school and having to go to her "aunt's" to have the child. Moreover, somewhere along the line she and cousin Joanne had had a parting of the ways, a nasty parting of the ways. So sweet as a honey bun Arnie's car hop Sandy, sweet teen-age mother Sandy, was looking for a way to take revenge and Frankie, old king of the night Frankie, was the meat. She had him sized up pretty well, as he admitted to me. And he was sweating this one out like crazy, and swearing everyone within a hundred miles to secrecy. So I’m telling you this is strictest confidence even now fifty years later and long after his divorce from her. Just don’t tell Joanne. Ever.
OCTOBER 30—Three days ago, the parliament of Catalonia voted to secede from Spain and establish an independent Catalan republic. Minutes later, the Spanish senate, dominated by the Castilian chauvinists of the right-wing Popular Party (PP) and of the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), voted to dissolve the Catalan parliament and depose the regional government.
Madrid is officially seizing control of Catalonia, including its finances, police force and major TV and radio stations under Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which enables the rulers of the Spanish prison house of oppressed peoples to strip autonomous communities of their powers. It has also ordered new regional elections on December 21. Catalan pro-independence deputies, including President Carles Puigdemont (of the Partit Demòcrata Europeu Català, PDeCAT) and his vice president Oriol Junqueras (of the Esquerra Republicana, ERC) have been threatened with arrest for “rebellion,” for which they could spend as long as 30 years in prison. Two prominent leaders of independentiste groups, Jordi Sànchez of the Catalan National Assembly and Jordi Cuixart of Òmnium Cultural, were imprisoned on October 16 and face trial for sedition.
The Spanish state unleashed a wave of repression in late September in an attempt to suppress the October 1 Catalan independence referendum. Over two million people cast ballots, courageously defying the thousands of vicious Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional sent by Madrid. Ninety percent voted in favor of independence. Since then, Catalonia and its largest city, Barcelona, have been rocked by huge protests demanding an end to the repression and freedom for the imprisoned independence leaders. Several chauvinist protests have also taken place, led by the neo-Francoist PP, the right-wing Ciutadans and the social-democratic Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC), in defense of the unity of monarchical, Castile-ruled capitalist Spain. It is in the interests of the working class throughout Spain and France to defend the oppressed Catalan people, whose nation straddles the Franco-Spanish border. Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil out of Catalonia! Free Cuixart, Sànchez and all pro-independence activists! Down with the monarchy! Defend Catalan independence!
Like Catalonia, the oppressed Basque nation in Euskal Herria (the Basque Country) stretches from Spain into France. For decades, the Basques have suffered deadly repression at the hands of both the Spanish and French governments. As proletarian revolutionary internationalists, we fight for the independence of the Basque Country and Catalonia, North and South—that is, against the capitalist rulers of both France and Spain. We seek to build Leninist-Trotskyist parties that support the just struggles of oppressed nations, which can be a lever to advance the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against the capitalist rulers. Our program is for proletarian revolution, the seizure of power by the working class. For workers republics in Catalonia and the Basque Country as parts of a voluntary Socialist United States of Europe!
For the Catalan workers and poor, the struggle for national liberation is a component part of their struggle against exploitation. The potential power of the working class was demonstrated in a small but important way by the port workers in Barcelona and Tarragona, who refused to service the ships being used to house the Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil at the time of the referendum. But Catalan workers have not been mobilized as an independent force due to their wretched reformist misleaders, who, on the whole, refuse to fight for Catalan independence. For this reason, Catalan workers are dissolved into the mass movement, and pro-independence working-class militants have nowhere to look for their liberation except to the bourgeois nationalists. It is necessary to forge a revolutionary proletarian leadership that champions the struggle for national liberation.
No Illusions in the Catalan Bourgeoisie!
Amid fears that an independent Catalonia would be kicked out of the European Union (EU), a host of Catalan companies, including two large banks, CaixaBank and Banco Sabadell, promptly seized on Madrid’s offerings and opted to register their headquarters outside Catalonia. The Catalan bourgeoisie (represented prominently by the PDeCAT and its predecessors, as well as by the ERC) has sometimes used separatism as a bargaining chip in its dealings with Madrid. But the chauvinist, vindictive humiliations inflicted by the central government, as well as pressure from the Catalan masses, have pushed the political representatives of a section of the Catalan bourgeoisie into open defiance. Puigdemont postponed declaring independence after the October 1 referendum, and even offered to hold early regional elections if PP prime minister Mariano Rajoy would guarantee that Catalonia would retain its autonomous status. But the Castilian-chauvinist Rajoy and his cohorts would have nothing less than total capitulation. Thus, the Catalan government declared independence.
Madrid has made clear that it will go to any lengths to maintain the territorial integrity of Spain, while Catalonia lacks anything resembling a state of its own—centrally, armed forces—that could resist the Spanish state. The Catalan working class, meanwhile, has given no sign of significant independent motion. Under these circumstances, there is no hope of realizing Catalan independence now. Yet Catalonia remains in turmoil. With the immediate prospect of further repression and humiliation at the hands of the Castilian overlords, combined with the impotence of the Catalan bourgeoisie, further struggles are likely to erupt—the Catalan masses are in dire need of allies.
Such allies are to be found primarily in the proletariat of Spain and France. The Spanish and French bourgeoisies are both oppressing the Catalans and Basques and exploiting the working class as a whole. The breakup of the reactionary Spanish state would open the road for workers struggle against the capitalist rulers in Madrid. A relentless struggle must be waged against the chauvinism promoted by social democrats and the labor lieutenants of capital in the trade-union bureaucracies in order to win workers in the region to the fight for self-determination of the oppressed nations.
The struggle of the Catalan people has resonated across the border with Basques and Catalans living in France. Protests in support of Catalan independence have taken place in both the north and south of Euskal Herria. In an act of solidarity by Catalans in France, the ballots for the October 1 referendum were printed in Catalunya Nord and transported across the border.
Despite the Catalan government’s constant appeals, the rulers of the reactionary, imperialist EU have backed Madrid’s repression to the hilt, precisely because they know that a breakup of Spain portends a breakup of the EU. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warned that “we need to avoid splits, because we already have enough splits and fractures,” and that the EU could not be made up of “95 different states.” The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, made it clear on October 22 that “no one is going to recognise Catalonia in Europe as an independent country.” The EU is an instrument for the imperialist powers of Europe, centrally Germany, to ratchet up the exploitation of the working people throughout Europe and to further impoverish weaker countries such as Greece and Portugal.
For Proletarian Political Independence!
The Rajoy government’s repression, supported by its lapdogs in the PSOE, has evoked memories of the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco and its savage suppression of Basque, Catalan and Galician national rights. PP spokesman Pablo Casado didn’t hesitate to invoke this bloody history when he warned Puigdemont not to declare independence “because perhaps the person who makes the declaration will end up like the person who made the declaration 83 years ago.” This is a reference to Lluís Companys, the bourgeois-nationalist president of the Catalan Generalitat who was executed by a Francoist firing squad after the defeat of the Spanish Revolution. (See “Trotskyism vs. Popular Frontism in the Spanish Civil War,” Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 61, Spring 2009.)
The reality is that the repression being meted out today is fully in keeping with the legal framework of Spanish bourgeois democracy. The oppression of the Basque, Catalan and Galician nations was enshrined in the 1978 post-Franco constitution, which maintains that Spain cannot be divided. The two historic parties of the Spanish working class, the PSOE and the Communist Party (PCE), supported the formation of a monarchical state based on the denial of the right to self-determination of the oppressed nations of Spain and voted for the 1978 constitution.
The PSOE in government loyally served the king and fomented Castilian chauvinism for decades, notoriously setting up death squads to murder Basque independence fighters in the 1980s. For its own part, the PCE has also maintained its disgusting opposition to independence for the oppressed. The chauvinist misleaders of the CCOO and UGT union federations bear responsibility for the fact that workers in Catalonia and Spain have not come out as an organized force in defense of independence for Catalonia and the Basque Country.
The PSOE’s Catalan counterpart, the PSC, joined with Francoists and fascists in a reactionary demonstration in Barcelona on October 8 and October 29, under slogans such as “Catalonia is Spain.” Emboldened by Rajoy’s offensive, on October 27 fascists attacked the headquarters of Catalunya Ràdio as well as a Catalan cultural center and school in Barcelona. The fascists are a deadly danger to all workers, immigrants and oppressed minorities, and the working class must be mobilized to stop them.
With the PSOE heavily discredited among working people for having mercilessly administered EU-dictated austerity, the bourgeois Podemos party—which issued out of the 2011 petty-bourgeois Indignados movement—has taken up the task of refurbishing Spanish bourgeois democracy. Podemos has mobilized protests in opposition to Rajoy’s repression against Catalonia. But Podemos is firmly opposed to Catalan independence and merely provides brutal Castilian chauvinism with a “human face”: an October 23 letter to its membership decried any declaration of Catalan independence as “illegitimate.” Podemos advises the Spanish bourgeoisie to “ensure that Catalonia remains a part of Spain” with the carrot of greater democracy, rather than the stick of repression. Podemos has moved to strip the leadership of its Catalan organization (Podem) of its authority for not being hard enough against independence.
A more left-appearing Catalan bourgeois-nationalist party is the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP). Although the CUP claims to be socialist, in fact it is a party based on the petty bourgeoisie. It propped up the regional capitalist government for more than a year. The affiliate of the British Socialist Workers Party in Catalonia, En Lluita, liquidated completely into the CUP last year. These opportunists had no trouble simultaneously building the pro-independence CUP in Catalonia, while building the anti-independence Podemos in other parts of Spain, i.e., capitulating to one bourgeois nationalism or another.
No such confusion afflicts the fake-Trotskyist Internationalist Group (IG), which capitulates entirely to Castilian chauvinism. In their article “Defend the Right to Self-Determination and Independence for Catalonia” (September 2017) they do anything but defend Catalan independence. The IG denigrates the Catalan people’s just struggle for national liberation, sneering: “This is a nationalist movement led by the richest bourgeoisie in Spain” and “The impulse for independence comes above all from powerful sectors of the well-to-do Catalan bourgeoisie.” You’d think the IG had taken a page from the Francoist newspaper ABC, which wrote that the “Catalanist revolt against the state is a performance of the rich, by the rich and for the rich” (4 June).
These petty-bourgeois professors in the U.S. urged Catalans to battle their way to the polling stations on October 1—defying police truncheons, rubber bullets and tear gas—to “cast a blank ballot”! Dripping with contempt for the oppressed Catalans, the IG rants: “It’s not like some national liberation movement in a semi-colonial country.” The IG’s counterposition between national liberation struggles in the backward and advanced countries reveals their fundamentally Third World nationalist perspective. Further, the IG argues that Catalonia’s separation from Spain “could seriously undercut the potential for united struggle of the working class throughout the peninsula” (“Mass Resistance to Police Repression in Catalonia,” 4 October).
It is Madrid’s national oppression of Catalans, Basques and Galicians that has undercut the unity of the working classes in the artificial Spanish state. This unity can only be achieved by boldly championing the liberation of the oppressed nations—the opposite of the IG’s left-talking chauvinism, which blames the oppressed Catalans for dividing the working class, rather than the Castilian bourgeoisie and its reformist lackeys.
Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin emphasized that achieving proletarian unity requires breaking the chains binding an oppressed nation to its oppressor. He used as an example Norway, which gained independence from Sweden following a 1905 referendum:
“The close alliance between the Norwegian and Swedish workers, their complete fraternal class solidarity, gained from the Swedish workers’ recognition of the right of the Norwegians to secede. This convinced the Norwegian workers that the Swedish workers were not infected with Swedish nationalism, and that they placed fraternity with the Norwegian proletarians above the privileges of the Swedish bourgeoisie and aristocracy. The dissolution of the ties imposed upon Norway by the monarchs of Europe and the Swedish aristocracy strengthened the ties between the Norwegian and Swedish workers.”
— “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” (1914)
As explained in the current issue of our international theoretical journal, Spartacist (No. 65, Summer 2017), Lenin’s steadfast defense of the right of self-determination and implacable opposition to Great Russian chauvinism were crucial in forging the Bolshevik Party. It was Lenin’s revolutionary internationalist program that allowed the Bolsheviks to lead the working class to power 100 years ago. Today, the ICL upholds Leninism on the national question as part of our struggle for new October Revolutions.
Stop The Endless Wars-Listen To The Gals And Guys Who Have Been There-Veterans For Peace-VFP
By Frank Jackman
Recently I wrote a comment in this space about “street cred,” anti-war street cred in that case placing the anti-war organization Military Families Speak Out directly in the front line of those who have earned that honor, earned it big time as those of us, even many veterans like myself could expect out in those mean sullen anti-war streets. In that comment I had placed Military Families in the same company as those from my generation, my war generation, the Vietnam War, who too “got religion” on the questions of war and peace and who ran into the streets in the late 1960s and early 1970s to put muscle into that understanding. I noted that there was no more stirring sight in those days than to see a bunch of bedraggled, wounded, scarred, ex-warriors march in uniform or part uniform as the spirit moved them, many times in silent or to a one person cadence, in places like Miami and Washington with the crowds on the sidelines dropping their jaws as they passed by. Even the most ardent draft-dodging chicken hawk in those days held his or her thoughts in silence in the face of such a powerful demonstration.
That was then and now is now. Now that spirit of military-borne resistance resides a greying, aging, illness gathering relatively small group of veterans who have formed up under the dove-tailed banner of Veterans for Peace (VFP). While that organization is open to all who adhere to the actively non-violent principles stated below who are veterans and supporters the vast bulk of members are from the Vietnam era still putting up the good fight some forty plus years later. Still out on the streets with their dove-tailed banners flailing away in some off-hand ill-disposed wind stirring those crowds on the sidewalk once again. Still having that very special “street cred” of those who had have to confront the face of war in a very personal way. Listen up.
Ruling-Class Vendetta Against Chelsea Manning Continues
In May, the courageous truth-teller Chelsea Manning was released from prison after being tortured by the Obama regime for seven years for exposing U.S. imperialist war crimes. We have defended Manning since the start of her ordeal and welcomed her release. For Obama, commuting her sentence in the dying days of his presidency was a cheap and cynical move to burnish his “legacy.” Half a year later, the vindictive American ruling class has made clear that it’s not done with her yet.
In September, Harvard University invited Manning to be a visiting fellow at its Kennedy School of Government and then rescinded the invitation the very next day. Manning was disinvited after CIA director Mike Pompeo, calling her an “American traitor,” cancelled an appearance on campus and former deputy CIA director Michael Morrell resigned his own fellowship in protest. Manning responded on Twitter: “This is what a military/police/intel state looks like the @cia determines what is and is not taught at Harvard.”
Indeed, the CIA, NSA, FBI and military are deeply intertwined with Harvard, the most prestigious think tank for U.S. imperialism and training ground for the children and trusted agents of the bourgeoisie. Harvard, like most of the country’s top universities, has a long history of educating, hiring and honoring Washington’s torturers and war criminals. When Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School opened its doors in 1966, its first honorary associate was Robert McNamara, secretary of defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Other Harvard luminaries include Professor Louis Fieser (the inventor of napalm), Henry Kissinger (like McNamara, an architect of mass murder in Vietnam) and Professor Richard Hernnstein (co-author with Charles Murray of the racist tract The Bell Curve). The surprise about Manning’s brief fellowship was not that it was cancelled but that it was offered in the first place! CIA, military off campus!
Manning’s crime in the eyes of the capitalist rulers? In 2010, she leaked files that cast a spotlight on the war crimes of U.S. imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most well known of these is the graphic aerial video, dubbed “Collateral Murder,” that shows a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship massacring at least twelve civilians in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters staffers, while the pilots gloated over the carnage.
Soon after Harvard disinvited Manning, the government of Canada, Washington’s junior imperialist partner to the north, barred her from entering that country, stating, “If committed in Canada, [Manning’s] offence would equate to…Treason.” On October 8, the liberal New Yorker magazine joined the post-prison vendetta against Manning during its annual festival in New York City. Manning’s fight for transgender people’s rights has earned her a huge following. She featured prominently in the festival program and the venue was filled with admirers.
New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar, who conducted an interview with Manning, was tolerant of her as a transgender activist, but sought to reduce her exposures of U.S. imperialist barbarity to a question of “transparency in government.” The gloves really came off when MacFarquhar began channeling the military prosecutors at Manning’s kangaroo court. She badgered Manning with implications that she had supposedly endangered lives by leaking a trove of war logs and diplomatic cables to Julian Assange.
Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is still trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he sought asylum in 2012 after Swedish prosecutors demanded his extradition on bogus accusations of “rape”—in fact allegations of unprotected sex in what were by all accounts consensual relations. Despite the Swedish authorities dropping the case in May, London police have said they will arrest Assange for violating his bail if he leaves the embassy. The risk is high that Britain would extradite him to the U.S.
Liberals like MacFarquhar have long considered Assange dangerous because, unlike “legitimate” bourgeois mouthpieces like the New York Times, he refuses to redact the material WikiLeaks publishes. Democrats have come to despise Assange even more after WikiLeaks released a trove of emails last year—hacked by “the Russians,” so the story goes—from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, which supposedly helped Trump win the presidency.
Manning batted back the verbal barrage from MacFarquhar and gave as good as she got. When the journalist accused the former military intelligence analyst of releasing government files without knowing what was in them, Manning angrily objected: “I did know what was in them. I worked with this information every day.” Her interrogator persisted: “But the 250,000 documents, did you not fear that it might hurt someone?” Manning shot back: “Absolutely not.” Signaling to the audience that MacFarquhar was retailing the government frame-up against her, Manning retorted that the leaked files show “people dying and people getting killed and people suffering, and on a massive, incredible scale.”
Manning’s path to her courageous act of self-sacrifice was a long and winding one. Before joining the Army, Manning explained, she struggled with being transgender and even thought that joining the military might make her “not Trans.” Seeing the violence in Iraq on television, she decided to join up, hoping to “make a difference.” It was wishful thinking, she said, but she was only 18. Manning was trained to do statistical data analysis, but the data became real people when she deployed to Iraq. She graphically described the horror, and the normality, of it all: “It was like drinking from a firehose,” a firehose of “death and destruction and mayhem just every single day.”
Elements of Manning’s personal history parallel those of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who is in exile in Russia. Inspired by Manning, in 2013 Snowden released documents exposing the sweep and scope of the global electronic spying activities of the U.S. and its allies. Both Manning and Snowden started out as my-country-right-or-wrong patriots. Over time, each was compelled by conscience to risk everything by taking a stand to expose crimes routinely committed by the U.S. government. By unmasking the bourgeoisie’s everyday lies, intrigues and wanton slaughter, brave individuals like Manning, Snowden and Assange, while far from being revolutionaries, have done a great service to workers and the oppressed throughout the world. Hands off Assange! Drop all charges against Snowden!
Manning has a keen appreciation of the stark social inequalities in the U.S. As MacFarquhar warmed her up with softballs before pressing her to admit to treason, Manning revealed that she is not enamored of the fact that nowadays there is so much focus on marriage equality. She asked rhetorically: how is marriage equality going to help homeless gay and transgender people? How was it supposed to help Manning herself when she was homeless on the streets of Chicago? A puzzled MacFarquhar asked: “What would have helped you in that situation?” Manning shot back: “Housing!”
Chelsea Manning is a fighter and a hero. Working people and the oppressed internationally are in her debt for revealing details of imperialist machinations. But, despite the revelations by Manning, Assange and Snowden, U.S. imperialism by its nature will continue to commit atrocities on a daily basis. The whole system of capitalist exploitation and war must be swept away through workers socialist revolution.
This entry on behalf of the defense
of Mumia Abu-Jamal was originally written in by me in 2008 in response to the
Appeals Court’s turning down his appeal of his murder conviction, a conviction
filled with all kinds of legal and moral problems from the government’s side. I
have edited the piece slightly here in 2017 but the main political points, unfortunately
retain their validity-Frank Jackman
*********
Frank Jackman comment(2008):
The legendary social commentator and
stand-up comic Lenny Bruce, no stranger to the American ‘justice’ system
himself over a slew of obscenity and drug-related cases, once reportedly said
that in the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. The truth of
that statement came home on Thursday March 27, 2008 as a panel of the federal
Third Circuit Court of Appeals voted two to one to uphold Mumia’s conviction.
The only question left is that of
resentencing- the death penalty or, perhaps worst, life in prison without
parole. I have not yet read the decision but we are now a long way away from
the possibility of a retrial-the narrow legal basis for even appealing in the
legal system in the first place. (Pennsylvania has since stopped demanding the
death penalty and Mumia is now serving a life without parole sentence-2017) Know
this- in the end it will be in the streets and factories through the efforts of
the international labor movement and other progressive forces that Mumia will
be freed. That is the only way, have no illusions otherwise, whatever the next
legal steps might be.
An Open Letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal
Supporters-A Personal Commentary
By Frank Jackman
The Partisan Defense Committee had (in 2008) passed "An Open Letter to All
Supporters of Mumia‘s Freedom" to this writer. Those few who might
not know of the torturous legal battles to free this innocent man can find
further information at the above-mentioned Partisan Defense Committee site
archives. I make my own comments below.
Normally I pass information about the case of political prisoner Mumia
abu-Jamal on without much comment because the case speaks for itself. The case
has been front and center in international labor defense struggles for over two
decades. However, in light of the adverse ruling by a majority of a federal
Third Circuit Court of Appeal panel in March 2008 that affirmed Mumia’s 1982
conviction for first-degree murder of a police officer and left the only issue
for decision that of resentencing to either reinstate his original death
sentence or keep him imprisoned for life without parole I have some things to
say about this fight.
Occasionally, in the heat of political battle some fights ensue around strategy
that after the smoke has cleared, upon reflection, leave one with more sorrow
than anger. Not so today. Today I am mad. Am I mad about the irrational
decision by the majority of the Third Circuit panel in Mumia’s case? Yes, but
when one has seen enough of these cases over a lifetime then one realizes that,
as the late sardonic comic and social commentator Lenny Bruce was fond of
saying, in the Hall of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
What has got me steamed is the obvious bankruptcy of the strategy, if one can
use this term, of centering Mumia’s case on the question of a new trial in
order to get the ‘masses’- meaning basically parliamentary liberal types
interested in supporting the case. This by people who allegedly KNOW better.
The bankruptcy of this strategy, its effects on Mumia’s case and the bewildered
response of those who pedaled it as good coin is detailed in the
above-mentioned Open Letter. Read it.
Today, in reaction to the Third Circuit court’s decision, everyone and their
brother and sister are now calling for Mumia’s freedom. At a point where he is
between a rock and a hard place. However, it did not have to be that way. Mumia
was innocent in 1982 and he did not stop being innocent at any point along this
long road. Freedom for Mumia was (and is) the correct slogan in the case. A
long line of political criminal cases, starting in this country with that of
the Haymarket Martyrs if not before, confirms that simple wisdom. Those who
consciously pedaled this weak ‘new trial’ strategy as a get rich quick scheme
now have seen the chickens come home to roost. And Mumia pays the price.
I would point out two factors that made a ‘retrial’ strategy in the case of an
innocent man particularly Pollyanna-ish for those honest militants who really
believed that Mumia’s case was merely a matter of the American justice system
being abused and therefore some court would rectify this situation if enough
legal resources were in place. First, it is illusory that somehow, as
exemplified in this case, a higher court system would remedy this egregious
wrong. Long ago I remember a lawyer, I believe that it might have been the late
radical lawyer Conrad Lynn no stranger to political defense work, telling a
group of us doing defense work for the Black Panthers that all these judges
belong to the same “union.” They do not upset each other’s work except under
extreme duress.
Second, and this is where the ‘wisdom’ of the reformists about reaching the
‘masses’ by a stage-ist theory of defense work (fight for retrial first, then
freedom) turns in on them. As witness the list of names of those who have
signed the Partisan Defense Committee’s call for Mumia’s freedom, excepting
professional liberals and their hangers –on, those interested in Mumia’s case
(or any leftwing political defense case) will sign on just as easily for freedom
as retrial. Thus, opportunism does not pay, even in the short haul. That said, Free
Mumia- say it loud, say it proud.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bo Diddley performing his rock classic Bo Diddley.
In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll? DVD Review
Rock ‘n’ Rock All-Star Jam: Bo Diddley, Bob Diddley, Ron Woods, and other artists,1985
Well, there is no need to pussy foot around on this one. The question before the house is who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And here in this one hour all-star concert documentary, complete with background backstage footage, Bo Diddley unabashedly stakes his claim that was featured in a song by the same name, except, except it starts out with the answer. Yes, Bo Diddley put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And off his performance here as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the tidal wave of rock that swept through the post World War II teenage population in 1955 he has some “street cred” for that proposition.
Certainly there is no question that black music, in the early 1950s at least, previously confined to mainly black audiences down on the southern farms and small segregated towns and in the northern urban ghettos along with a ragtag coterie of “hip” whites is central to the mix that became classic 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. That is not to deny the other important thread commonly called rockabilly (although if you had scratched a rockabilly artist and asked him or her for a list of influences black gospel and rhythm and blues would be right at the top of their list, including Elvis’). But here let’s just go with the black influences. No question Ike Turner’s Rocket 88, Joe Turner’s Shake , Rattle and Roll and, I would add, Elmore James’ Look Yonder Wall are nothing but examples of R&B starting to break to a faster, more nuanced rock beat.
Enter one Bo Diddley. No only does he have the old country blues songbook down, and the post- World War II urbanization and electrification of those blues down, but he reaches back to the oldest traditions of black music, back before the American slavery plantations days, back to the Carib influences and even further back to earth mother African shores. In short, that “jungle music”, that “devil’s music” that every white mother and father (and not a few black ones as well), north and south was worried, no, frantically worried would carry away their kids. Well, it did and we are none the worst for it.
Here is a little story from back in the 1950s days though that places old Bo’s claim in perspective and addresses the impact (and parental horror) that Bo and rock had on teenage (and late pre-teenage) kids, even all white “projects” kids like me and my boys. In years like 1955, ’56, ’57 every self-respecting teenage boy (or almost teenage boy), under the influence of television, tried, one way or another, to imitate Elvis. From dress, to sideburns, to swiveling hips, to sneer. Hell, I even bought a doo-wop comb to wear my hair like his. I should qualify that statement a little and say every self-respecting boy who was aware of girls. And, additionally, aware that if you wanted to get any place with them, any place at all, you had better be something like the second coming of Elvis.
Enter now, one eleven year old William James Bradley, “Billie”, my bosom buddy in old elementary school days. Billie was wild for girls way before I acknowledged their existence, or at least their charms. Billie decided, and rightly so I think, to try a different tack. Instead of forming the end of the line in the Elvis imitation department he decided to imitate Bo Diddley. At this time we are playing the song Bo Diddley and, I think, Who Do You Love? like crazy. Elvis bopped, no question. But Bo’s beat spoke to something more primordial, something connected, unconsciously to our way back ancestry. Even an old clumsy white boy like me could sway to the beat.
Of course that last sentence is nothing but a now time explanation for what drove us to the music. Then we didn’t know the roots of rock, or probably care, except our parents didn’t like it, and were sometimes willing to put the stop to our listening. Praise be for transistor radios (younger readers look that up on Wikipedia) to get around their madness.
But see, Billie also, at that time, did not know what Bo looked like. Nor did I. So his idea of imitating Bo was to set himself up as a sort of Buddy Holly look alike, complete with glasses and that single curled hair strand.
Billie, naturally, like I say, was nothing but a top dog dancer, and wired into girl-dom like crazy. And they were starting to like him too. One night he showed up at a local church catholic, chaste, virginal priest-chaperoned dance with this faux Buddy Holly look. Some older guy meaning maybe sixteen or seventeen, wise to the rock scene well beyond our experiences, asked Billy what he was trying to do. Billie said, innocently, that he was something like the seventh son of the seventh son of Bo Diddley. This older guy laughed, laughed a big laugh and drew everyone’s attention to himself and Billie. Then he yelled out, yelled out for all the girls to hear “Billie boy here wants to be Bo Diddley, he wants to be nothing but a jungle bunny music N----r boy”. All goes quiet. Billie runs out, and I run after, out the back door. I couldn’t find him that night.
See, Billie and I were clueless about Bo’s race. We just thought it was all rock (read: white music) then and didn’t know much about the black part of it, or the south part, or the segregated part either. We did know though what the n----r part meant in our all white housing project and here was the kicker. Next day Billie strutted into school looking like the seventh son of the seventh son of Elvis. But as he got to the end of the line I could see, and can see very clearly even now, that the steam has gone out of him. So when somebody asks you who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll know that old Bo’s claim was right on track, and he had to clear some very high racial and social hurdles to make that claim. Just ask Billie.
In Honor Of The 500th Anniversary Of Martin Luther's Reformation Pleas-*When The Capitalist World Was Young- William Manchester's View
BOOK REVIEW
A World That Was Lit Only By Fire, William Manchester, Little, Brown and Co., Boston 1994 The last time that the name of the late well-known journalist and history writer William Manchester was mentioned in this space was in a review of his biography of the self-promoting American Caesar, World War II and Korean War General Douglas MacArthur. Previously Manchester had also done an analysis of the John F. Kennedy assassination so that he is well versed in the meaning of history and the importance of particular historical facts-as opposed to the self-serving and fraudulent press releases. The central story of Manchester’s effort here, that takes up about one third of the book, also concerns one of those larger than life historical figures from an earlier period in Western history, the career of the Portuguese explorer extraordinaire Ferdinand Magellan. However, if this was solely Manchester’s purpose that might be worthily satisfied by an extended monogram. He has here provided as well, despite his penchant for great heroic figures, a very readable look at the dawn of capitalism as it merged out of the mire of what used to be known in historical studies as the “Dark Ages”. In the process of that exposition Manchester has done an interesting job of detailing much of the history of those dark ages- a period of history that today’s readers may not be familiar with but which was an important precursor to the development of European capitalism and to the history of the international labor movement that Karl Marx wrote about in the 19th century. Manchester runs quickly through the decline of the Roman Empire, the rise and stabilization of the Christian church in the wake of that decline and its role as the international (at least for Europe) arbiter of the political, economic and social world of the times. With the proviso that Manchester’s effort here is of a piece with his general theory about the role of heroes in history those of us more familiar with the period can begin to understand something of the nature of the changes that were occurring at the time that his protagonist Magellan was accomplishing his feat in the early 16th century (circumnavigating the earth and therefore empirically proving that the earth was a sphere). The heart of the book for us, however, is the detailed description that Manchester provides for the bulk of the 16th century an extraordinary period that saw the breakthrough of international trade westward as well as eastward, the rise of nation-states as segments of society gain literacy and begin to express themselves in their home languages, the development of cities as centers of commerce creating the conditions for a division of labor that would later form the basis for industrial capitalism, the struggle between the secular and the sacred in determining the course of social life including some very saucy stories about Popes, princes and their ladies(the Borgias in particular), the feuding between various religious factions most notably between the Roman Church and Martin Luther of Germany and Henry VIII of England and the flowering of artistic culture and learning that we can observe remnants of today in any major art museum. As historical materialists we look at the history of any period to determine its main thrust. Manchester has done a more than adequate job of detailing those events and movements that caused the decline of Europe for approximately one thousand years from the demise of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance and then the upward curve mentioned above. The most important aspect of this book and the one that makes me want to recommend it to today’s readers is its study of the late 15th and early 16th century- a time when dramatic changes were occurring that would begin the long process of accumulating the expertise to create the progressive capitalist system. Without the changes in the manner of religious thinking, ways of producing goods and notions of culture it is possible that Europe, and through it the world might be very different- and not for the better. As long as we don’t forget in that content the down side of this spurt in human culture- the rise of colonialism that accompanied international exploration, the religious wars that torn apart families and nations and the rise of a middle class cultural ethos that has placed more than its fair share on individual self-fulfillment at the expense of the social and gone some distance to slow the struggle for socialism down. If you need a quick look at the broad picture of what happened to make Europe a central cog in world history from the 15th century on read this little work to whet your appetite. Then go out and get some more specialized books to appease it.
Facing 80 Years for Protesting Trump’s Inauguration
In Donald Trump’s America, the penalty for leftist protest could well be life behind bars. Thousands hit the streets of Washington, D.C., on January 20 to protest Trump’s inauguration. Amid an orgy of police violence, more than 200 were arrested and slammed with felony riot charges carrying jail sentences of up to ten years and $25,000 fines. But these frame-up charges were not enough for the vindictive ruling class. On April 27, prosecutors piled on eight new felony charges—including urging to riot, conspiracy to riot and destruction of property—while also charging three additional protesters. Filed at the behest of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., the fiefdom of notorious racist and defender of the Confederacy, Jeff Sessions, these charges carry jail terms of up to 80 years. It is in the vital interest of the labor movement and all opponents of state repression to protest this legal witchhunt and demand: Drop all the charges!
Now, Sessions’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to learn the identities of everyone who visited disruptj20.org. Claiming this website was used to organize “a violent riot,” the DOJ is demanding that the web hosting service DreamHost turn over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses, in addition to contact information, photos and email content of thousands of people. This fishing expedition would expose untold numbers to the prying eyes of government prosecutors, setting them up for legal victimization.
On June 21, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of those charged. The suit detailed how detainees were held for hours without food or water or access to toilets. Two of the plaintiffs, Shay Horse and Milo Gonzalez, described the cops yanking their testicles and sticking fingers into their rectums while laughing. “I felt like they were using molestation and rape as punishment,” Horse said later. “It felt like they were trying to break me and the others.” In addition to the threat posed by state prosecution, many of the defendants have been “doxxed” by fascists—their names and addresses have been plastered all over the web. Meanwhile, those charged are facing mounting travel and legal expenses and, in some cases, job losses.
Facing massive prison terms, several of the defendants have been pushed into pleading guilty to lesser charges. At the same time, more than 130 defendants assisted by anarchist support groups like Dead City Legal Posse have, in a show of solidarity, pledged to reject any potential plea deals and to refuse to rat out any of their codefendants.
It is clear that the Trump administration is trying to muzzle dissent—to intimidate and silence black people, minorities, leftists and workers seeking to protest or in any way challenge this deeply racist, exploitative capitalist order. But the “fight the right” anti-Trump forces, in both their “peaceful, legal” and anarchist garb, at bottom aim to bolster the fortunes of the Democratic Party as some kind of “lesser evil.” The Democrats represent the same repressive capitalist system—witness Bill Clinton’s mass incarceration of young black men and Barack Obama’s mass deportation of immigrants.
We seek to mobilize the working class at the head of all the oppressed, independent of all capitalist parties and in opposition to the capitalists and their state. In “Defend Arrested Anti-Trump Protesters!” (WV No. 1104, 27 January), we underlined: “As the Trump presidency unfolds in all its viciousness, protests against it will continue, as will state violence and repression. Anger against poverty and racial and sexual oppression must be given an organized political expression aimed at breaking the hold of the Democratic Party over workers, women and minorities. We fight to build a revolutionary workers party that can lead the struggle to get rid of the entire capitalist system.”
* * *
(reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1116, 25 August 2017)
Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.
