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 Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”(1956)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Sandy Salmon
The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring James Stewart, Doris Day, directed again (first time 1934) by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1956
People, historians, especially counter-historians, often speculate if one little fact was changed then history would have taken a decisive turn the other way. You know stuff like if Hitler had been killed at the beer garden in Munich in 1923 or if Lenin could not have gotten back to Russia in the spring of 1917. That idea runs to the personal side of life as well, sometimes with strange results like being in the wrong place at the wrong time like the protagonists in the late Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s off-beat remake of his 1934 classic The Man Who Knew Too Much. So just like with great historical figures and events we can play the same game here what if Ben, played by Jimmy Stewart, Jo played by Doris Day and their young son had not been heading from Casablanca to Marrakesh on some dusty woe begotten bus and run into a French intelligence agent whose dying words talked of an assassination plot against a big shot foreign dignity in bloody England.
But, of course, they were and the chase was on from there ruining a perfectly respectable little family vacation and putting Ben and Jo on the edge-to speak nothing of their son who will eventually be kidnapped just because Ma and Pa knew too freaking much. Once the conspirators know they know that young son’s life isn’t worth much, maybe. He is kidnapped to insure Ben and Jo’s silence. But they trace the party to London where the action gets hot and heavy and the conspiracy to kill the foreign big wigs in is full gear. Except through keen analysis and some luck Ben and Jo figure out that the plot is going to be hatched, that dignitary is going to be killed while attending a symphony concert at Royal Albert Hall (where else). The long and short of it is that Ben and Jo discover where the kidnappers have taken their son, they struggle to get to him and eventually find out about the Royal Albert caper. They are able to foil the plot by a timely scream from Jo who sights the paid assassin as he attempts his dastardly work. After much ado their son is recovered and they can go on about their average American family life.
But let’s say that big wig was killed maybe there would have been another Sarajevo, 1914. There’s a little history in the conditional for you. See this one it is better that the 1934 version which as Hitchcock himself is quoted as saying was the work of an inspired amateur and the 1956 was done by a master artist, a pro. And that is right.
Click on the headline to link to the International Communist League website.
Markin comment:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
********* Workers Vanguard No. 1005
6 July 2012
On Strike for Over 200 Days
For International Solidarity with Greek Steel Workers!
The following article is reprinted from Workers Hammer No. 219 (Summer 2012).
Workers at the Greek steel plant Elliniki Halyvourgia have been on strike for nearly eight months. Since October last year, they have been fighting against an attack by their employer, Nikos Manesis, who is attempting a drastic cut in wages. He has also fired over 100 workers under new anti-union laws introduced as part of the conditions of the EU/IMF [European Union/International Monetary Fund] loans. The steel workers are part of the small but strategic Greek proletariat. According to Guardian journalist Jon Henley, this steel factory made iron rods and girders that helped build the Athens Metro, the Olympic stadium and the bridge linking the Peloponnese to mainland Greece (guardian.co.uk, 14 June). It is in the vital interests of all workers in Europe to stand in internationalist solidarity with these courageous workers in their class battle. A victory for the steel workers would be a blow to the Greek capitalists and the imperialist EU and IMF.
The strike was declared illegal by the courts on 5 June, but the strikers remain solid. A team of comrades visited the pickets on 9 June. We reprint below an edited version of their report.
* * *
Yesterday afternoon we visited the picket line at the Halyvourgia Steel Factory in Aspropyrgos, a seaside town outside Athens. The strike there has been the subject of a great deal of press coverage and is something of an epicentre for class struggle in Greece and around Europe. Comrades had made an earlier trip to the picket lines and the most recent issue of Le Bolchévik, newspaper of our French section, has a statement of solidarity with the strike. The surrounding town is, in a word, desolate. The small town centre was empty.
The workers were picketing outside the factory gates. There are PAME slogans, signs, and banners along the highway, on the gates, and across nearby overpasses. PAME is a formation within the trade-union movement that is in political solidarity with the Greek Communist Party, the KKE. A sign in German from the metalworkers union proclaims solidarity with the strike, saying “Your fight is our fight.” Ominously, there is also one instance of fascist Golden Dawn graffiti near the plant. There are security agents patrolling the property. Ten or so workers were stationed inside the main gates, blocking the entrance to the factory. They were reading Rizospastis, the KKE’s daily newspaper. All of the workers were men, and their ages ranged from 30s-60s. We were told that during the week, there are many more workers on the picket line, including women.
We introduced ourselves as Trotskyists from the ICL who were visiting to show our support for the strike. The workers were very friendly. Union officials at the plant allowed us to distribute our article “Banks Starve Greek Working People” [WV No. 1002, 11 May]. We also left copies of our statement calling for critical support to the KKE in the election. We showed them Workers Vanguard (published by the Spartacist League/U.S.) with a recent article on the Hamilton, Ontario, steel lockout (WV No. 976, 18 March). One union official we spoke to is a 30-year veteran of the plant who is responsible for distributing the weekly strike pay. A striker read the title of our article—“Greek Trotskyists Say: Vote KKE! No Vote to Syriza!” (reprinted on page 7)—in a sarcastic tone. Another worker asked us to read the letter in Le Bolchévik. The workers nodded their agreement during the sections on international solidarity, but stopped paying attention once we got to a quote from Trotsky.
Background to the Strike
There are some 380 workers at the steel plant who have been on strike for 224 days as of today. The trade union called the strike and PAME stepped in. The plant is owned by the Greek capitalist Nikos Manesis, who owns a similar plant in Volos. The strike began last autumn after Manesis demanded five-hour workdays and a 40 per cent cut in wages. He claimed that the factory was in financial trouble, and that this would be a stop-gap measure. According to the strikers, the union counter-offered to maintain an eight-hour day and take a temporary 40 per cent pay cut, to be repaid when the plant became profitable again. But Manesis rejected this and announced that he would fire the legal maximum of 5 per cent of the workforce every month if the union didn’t accept. The workers went on strike, and Manesis has fired over 100 workers so far. In mid-January, when the union met with the Greek labour minister, Manesis fired five workers when the meeting was announced, another five when they entered the ministry building, and another five when the meeting was postponed. Another striker told us that one of their main demands is for all the fired workers to be rehired. Meanwhile, workers in the Volos plant were forced to accept the company’s offer, causing tension between the two groups of workers.
We were also told that earlier this year, a number of workers at Aspropyrgos signed a statement, prepared by the company’s lawyers, stating that they wanted to return to work. This was used as the basis for a law suit against the union. However the union was able to convince the majority of the workers to take back their statements. These workers said they didn’t know their statement would be used in court, and signed a counter-statement declaring they supported the strike. The strikers told us they receive weekly financial support from their union, plus food and clothing for their kids from supporters. Six workers don’t take the money because they don’t want to ask, and there are a number of others who have been cut off for refusing to take back their anti-strike statements. A number of workers are chosen each month to monitor the steel furnace to keep it from exploding. These workers are paid, but are not considered scabs by the workers and are supported by the union. PAME and the KKE provide food and other material help to the strikers and their families. Last Christmas, a PAME official delivered one lamb to the family of every striking worker.
The State Is Not Neutral
There have been several attacks on the strike by scabs, but so far the union has repulsed all of them. The union official told us that a number of scabs went to the police chief for protection, but he told them that if he protected them he would also have to protect the striking workers if they asked. Of course, the state is far from neutral in this protracted and popular struggle. The union and three individual workers are facing a law suit, for not carrying out the strike vote in accordance with the law. A few days ago the courts declared the strike illegal and this led to another attack by scabs. For defending their picket line, some workers have been charged with assault and are awaiting trial.
But the strikers remain defiant and the militancy of this strike has really galvanised popular opinion in a time of horrific austerity. The union official told us a number of stories about solidarity, both from within Greece and around the world. He showed us pictures drawn by schoolchildren who supported the strike. A mainstream Italian news network has filmed at the plant and there have been a number of solidarity visits. A wealthy Greek woman has periodically delivered carloads of groceries and donated 600 euro [$746].
We highlighted the need to oppose nationalism and defend the rights of minorities, including national minorities, in Greece. We inquired about reports that Golden Dawn had visited the pickets and were told that several Golden Dawn supporters showed up anonymously with boxes of food and supplies; one of them took the microphone and quickly announced that Golden Dawn supported the strike. Not surprisingly, some workers were upset by this and complained about it to the union officials.
The workers understand that this strike is very important in Greece and internationally. They recognise that they have become a model for other struggles, and they do not want to cave in, despite the extreme hardship of such a long strike. A worker told us that there is no way he can go back to work without victory, after over 200 days on the picket line. He said, “If I go back to work now, how will I be able to look at my children?” Despite this commitment, conditions are very difficult. Now that the state has declared the strike illegal there will be more pressure and more attacks by scabs and the police. It is vital to approach unions internationally now for letters of solidarity. As we left the plant, I told the union official that the ICL sends its greetings and wishes the workers victory in their struggle. Tears came to his eyes and he embraced me.
Contact Information
• The address for solidarity letters is:
17th Km NEOAK
Elleniki Halyvourgia
Asproprygos 19300, Greece
Fax number: 011-30-210-557-8360
Telephone: 011-30-210-557-0829
• Donations in support of the steel strikers should be sent to:
National Bank of Greece
IBAN: GR 40 0110 2000 0000 2006 2330 152
BIC/Swift Code: ETHNGRAA
Account holder: Dimitris Liakos
In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-*Coming Of Age, Period- '50s Style-An Encore
In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Coming Of Age, Period- '50s Style-An Encore
CD Review
Oldies But Goodies, Volume One, Original Sound Record Co., 1986 I have been doing a series of commentaries elsewhere on another site on my coming of political age in the early 1960s, but here when I am writing about musical influences I am just speaking of my coming of age, period, which was not necessarily the same thing. No question that those of us who came of age in the 1950s are truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents, please.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that your parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb. Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven. So what still sounds good on this CD compilation to a current AARPer and, and perhaps some of his fellows who comprise the demographic that such a 1950s compilation “speak” to. This volume is, more than some of the other volumes in this series (fifteen in all), loaded up with classics. Of course, Earth Angel, the 50s seemed to be a time for “angel’ laments from the classic Teen Angel on, the theme being irrevocable lost and learning about such heartbreak at an early age. Eddie My Love, a tale of longing from the female side that I nevertheless even today still find myself singing in the shower. And, on that same line Confidential the lyrics and theme hit a chord. Naturally, in a period of classic rock numbers, Chuck Berry’s Maybellene (or, virtually any other of about twenty of his songs from that period). But what about the now inevitable end of the night high school dance song (or maybe even middle school) that seems to be included in each CD compilation? The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to , mumbly-voice, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar). Here the classic Paul Anka hit, Put Your Head On My Shoulder fills the bill. Hey, I didn’t even like the song, or the singer, but she said yes and this was what you waited for so don’t be so choosey. And, yes, I know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you? ************* THE FONTANE SISTERS lyrics - Eddie My Love Eddie my love, I love you so-o How I've waited for you you'll never know-o Please Eddie, don't make me wait too long Eddie please write me one li-ine Tell me your love is still only mi-ine Please Eddie, don't make me wait too long You left me last September To return to me before long But all I do is cry myself to sleep Eddie since you've been gone Eddie my love where can you be-ee I pray the angels find you for me-ee Please Eddie, don't make me wait too long Please Eddie, don't make me wait too long
Once Again -Down At Duke’s Place-With Duke Ellington In Mind
From The Pen Of Bart Webber
One night Sam Eaton was talking on his cellphone to his old friend from high school (Carver High, Class of 1967), Jack Callahan about how his grandson, Brandon, the oldest grandson of his daughter Janice from his first marriage (first of three all ending in divorce but that is merely a figure for the Census Bureau and not germane to what follows so enough) had beguiled him recently with his arcane knowledge of classical jazz (the jazz from the age of King Oliver say until the death of the big bad swings bands which died in the late 1940s for the most part giving way to cool ass be-bop and what followed). Jack braced himself for the deluge, got very quiet and did not say word one, since lately the minute Sam mentioned, maybe even thought about mentioning the slightest thing connected with jazz he knew he was in for it, in for a harangue of unknown duration on the subject. Sam, recently more conscious that Jack, who hated jazz, hated it worse when as a child of rock and roll as Sam was, his father would endlessly play Count this, King that, Duke the other thing and not allow the family record player centered in the family living room to be sullied (his father’s word) by heathen stuff like Roll Over Beethoven or One Night With You, would go silent at the word “jazz” said not to worry he would only say a few words from his conversation with Brandon:
No, Jack, my man, this will not be a screed about how back in the day, back in the 1950s the time of our complete absorption into rock and roll, when be-bop jazz was the cat’s meow, when cool was listening to the Monk trip up a note, consciously trip up a note to see if anybody caught it and then took that note to heaven and back, and worked it out from there or Dizzy burping then hitting the high white note all those guys were struggling against the limits of the instruments to get, high as hell on tea, you know what we called ganja, herb, stuff like that. Frankly I was too young, you too but I knew how you felt since I couldn’t listen to rock in my house either as the 1940s Andrews Sisters/Perry Como/Frank Sinatra/Peggy Lee cabal were front and center in our living room and I was reduced to listening on my transistor radio, way too young to appreciate such work then and I only got the tail end, you know when Hollywood or the popular prints messed the whole be-bop jazz “beat” thing up and we got spoon-fed Maynard G. Krebs faux black and white television beatnik selling hair cream oil or something like that, and ten thousand guys hanging around the Village on Saturday night in full beret and whatever they could put together for a beard from the outreaches of Tenafly, New Jersey (sorry but Fort Lee was out) and another ten thousand gals, all in black from head to toe, maybe black underwear too so something to imagine at least from Norwalk, Connecticut milling around as well. Square, square cubed. No, this will not be some screed going back further in the hard times of the Great Depression and the slogging through World War II when “it did not mean a thing, if you ain’t got that swing” when our parents, the parents of the kids who caught the end of be-bop “swang,” did dips and twirls to counts, dukes, earls, princes, marquises even leading big band splashes to wash that generation clean. Come on now that was our parents and I wasn’t even born so no way I can “screed” about that. And, no, no, big time no, this will not be about some solitary figure in some dank, dusty, smoke-filled café, the booze flowing, the dope in the back alleys inflaming the night while some guy, probably a sexy sax player, blows some eternal high white note out against some bay, maybe Frisco Bay, and I was hooked, hooked for life on the be-bop jazz scene.
No, it never even came close to starting out like that, never even dreamed such scenes. Unlike rock and roll, the classic kind that was produced in our 1950s growing up time and which we have had a life-long devotion to or folk music which I came of age, political and social age to, later in the early 1960s, jazz was a late, a very late acquisition to my understanding of the American songbook. Oh sure I would hear a phrase, a few bing, bang, bong notes blowing out the window, out the door, sitting in some bar over drinks with some hot date, maybe hear it as backdrop in some Harvard Square bookstore when I went looking for books (and, once somebody hipped me to the scene, looking for bright young women who also were in the bookstore looking for books, and bright young men were looking for them but that scene is best left for another time), or at some party when the host tired of playing old-time folk music had decided to kick out the jams and let the jazz boys wreak their havoc. But jazz was, and to a great extent still is, a side bar of my musical tastes.
About a decade ago, a little more, I got seriously into jazz for a while. The reason: the centennial of the birth of Duke Ellington being celebrated when I was listening to some radio show which was commemorating that fact and I heard a few faint bars which required me to both turn up the volume and to listen to the rest of the one hour tribute. The show played a lot of Duke’s stuff from the early 1940s when he had Ben Webster, Harry Carney, and Johnny Hodges on board. The stuff blew me away and as is my wont when I get my enthusiasms up, when something blows me away, I grabbed everything by the Duke and his various groupings and marveled at how very good his work was, how his tonal poems reached deep, deep down and caught something in me that responded in kind. Especially when those sexy saxs, when Johnny or Cootie blew me away if they let it all hang out.
Funny though I thought at the time that I hadn’t picked up on this sound before, this reaching for the soul, for the essence of the matter, since there are very definitely elements of the blues in Brother Duke’s work. And I have been nothing but a stone blown blues freak since the early 1960s when I first heard Howlin’ Wolf hold forth practically eating that harmonica of his on Little Red Rooster and Smokestack Lightnin’. Moreover I had always been a Billie Holiday fan although I never drew the connection to the jazz in the background since it usually was muted to let her rip with that throaty sultry voice, the voice that chased the blues, my blues, away.
So, yes, count me among the guys who are searching for the guys who are searching for the great big cloud puff high white note, guys who have been searching for a long time as the notes waft out into the deep blue sea night. Check this out. Blowing that high white note out into the surly choppy Japan deep blue seas foaming and slashing out into the bay the one time I was sitting in fog-bound Frisco town, sitting around a North Beach bar, the High Hat maybe, back when Jimmy La Croix ran the place and a guy with a story, or a guy he knew could run a tab, for a while, and then settle up or let the hammer fall and you would wind up cadging swigs from flea-bitten raggedy- assed winos and sterno bums.
On Monday nights, a slow night in every venue you can name except maybe whorehouses and even then the business would fall off only a little since guys had to see their wives or girlfriends or both sometime, Jimmy would hold what is now called an “open mic” but then, I forget, maybe talent search something like that but the same thing. The “Hat” as everybody called it was known far and wide by ex hep-cats, aging beats, and faded flower child ex-hippies who had not yet got back to the “real” world once those trends petered out but were still looking, as I was, looking for something and got a little solace from the bottle and a dark place to nurse the damn thing where you could be social or just hang out was the place around North Beach where young talent took to the boards. Played, played for the “basket” just like the folkies used to do back in the 1960s when that genre had its heyday, and probably get a few dollars from the mostly regular heavy drinker crowd that populate any gin mill on Monday, whether they have seen their loved ones or not. Jimmy would have Max Jenny on drums and Milt Bogan on that big old bass that took up half the stage, if you remember those guys when West Coast jazz was big, to back-up the talent so this was serious stuff, at least Jimmy played it that way.
Most of the stuff early on that night was so-so some riffs stolen from more famous guys like Miles Davis, Dizzie, Coltrane, the cool ass jazz from the fifties that young bud talent imitates starting out, maybe gets stuck on those covers and wind up, addled by some sister habit, down by the trolley trains on Market Street hustling dollars from weary tourists waiting to get up the damn hill. So nothing that would keep a steady drinker, me, from steady drinking in those days when I lifted low-shelf whiskeys with abandon. Maybe half a dozen other guys spread out around bar to prove they were there strictly for the drinking and chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes to fill up Jimmy’s ashtrays and give Red the bartender something to do between pouring shots (otherwise the guys hungry for women company would be bunched near the dance floor but they must have had it bad since Monday night the serious honeys were not at the “Hat” but home getting rested up for the long week ahead of fending guys off).
Then I turned around toward the stage, turned around for no particular reason, certainly not to pay attention to the talent, when this young guy, young black guy, barely out of his teens, maybe sixteen for all I know and snuck out of the house to play, Jimmy wasn’t taking ID cards in those days and if the kid wasn’t drinking then what did it matter, to get play to reach the stars if that is what he wanted, slim a reed, dressed kind of haphazardly with a shiny suit that he probably wore to church with grandmother, string tie, clean shirt, couldn’t see his feet so can’t comment on that, maybe a little from hunger, or had the hunger eating him up. Kind of an unusual sight for ‘90s Frisco outside of the missions. But figure this, figure his eyes, eyes that I know about from my own bouts with sister, with the just forming sad sack yellow eyes of high king hell dope-dom and it all fit.
The kid was ready though to blow a big sexy tenor sax, a sax as big as he was, certainly fatter, blew the hell out of one note after another once he got his bearings, then paused, paused to suck up the universe of the smoke filled air in the place (a whiff of ganja from the back somewhere from some guy Jimmy must have known since usually dope in the place was a no-no), and went over to the river Jordan for a minute, rested, came back with a big blow that would get at least to Hawaii, rested again, maybe just a little uncertain where to go like kids always are, copy some somebody and let it go at that for the Monday crowd or blast away, but even I sensed that he had something going, so blew up a big cloud puff riff alternating with pauses hard to do, went at it again this time to the corner of paradise. Stopped then, I thought he was done, he looked to hell like he was done, done in eyes almost closed, and then onward, a big beautiful dah, dee, dah, dee, dah, dee, blow, a “max daddy” blow then even an old chattering wino in a booth stopped to wonder at, and that big high white note went ripping down Bay Street, I swear I could see it, on into the fog-bound bay and on its way, not stopping until Edo, hell maybe back to Mother Africa where it all started. He had it, that it means only “it” and if he never blew again he had that “it” moment. He left out the back door and I never saw him at the “Hat” again so maybe he was down on Mission or maybe he went somewhere, got some steady work. All I know was that I was there when a guy blew that high white note, yeah, that high white note. So yeah count me too among Duke’s boys, down at Duke’s place where he eternally searched for that elusive high white note.
Psycho Alley-Ida Lupino’s “Roadhouse”( 1948)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Film Critic Sandy Salmon
Roadhouse, starring Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Richard Widmark, 1948
There are a lot of whackos in the world, have been for a long time and are not some modern contrivance. Take the bad guy Jefty in this film under review, Roadhouse, a film released in 1948 long before Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s psycho Norman Bates made half of my growing up generation afraid to take showers without an armed guard in the bathroom. This Jefty, played by Richard Widmark who had recently had an Oscar nomination for his role as the sicko hitman gangster who you also would be in need armed guard, but everywhere, in Kiss Of Death so he was primed for the part, is kindred although no one from my parents’ generation would have needed an armed guard after viewing this production-although wise advise to stay far away from this guy was in order.
Here’s the play as my old friend Sam Lowell from this site now out to pasture as that feisty film critic emeritus would say. Jefty ran an aptly enough named roadhouse out in Podunk inherited from his father so he never had to spent much time working hard labor to get where he was-that fact if one checked with a psychiatrist would yield some interesting results. This roadhouse complete with bar, club, bowling alleys and who knows what else was going on in those little side rooms where lots of deep moans were often heard made Jefty the cat’s meow around town although he was nothing but a wanderlust playboy if left to his own devices. The real work, the heavy lifting, the day to day management of the operations was Pete, played by dashing Cornel Wilde, a 1940s heart throb according to my late mother, at least to her. But Jefty made it clear Pete was nothing but indispensable hired help.
On a trip to the Windy City, to Chi town, Jefty picked up Lily, played by doe-eyed Ida Lupino last seen in this space when Sam Lowell reviewed her as gangster Roy Earle’s doll in High Sierra uttering the word breakout when they finally wasted the guy out in the hills, a third-rate singer, maybe had been a B-girl, done a little off-hand whoring she never let on much except what she wanted anybody to know. That kind of dame. (These post-Code films for a long time left the professional attributes of women with a past rather vague by current standards.) A warbler, and as it turned out one with not much left of a voice but they was she dug down deep into some Johnny Mercer (One More For My Baby) and Cochran-Newman tunes it didn’t really matter whether she could hold the high white note or not. One of the characters in the film, Susie, Pete’s soon to be ex-girlfriend noted maybe enviously that she got a lot of mileage out of that ragtag voice and even Pete who initially was skeptical, saw her as just another one of Jefty’s wayward tramps, saw how she held an audience and brought in dough. A keeper.
But let’s back up to that Susie the soon to be ex-girlfriend statement because that will tell the tale. See Jefty’s idea in bringing Lily back from Chi town was to marry her, marry this dame unlike any other dame he had run around with. Problem, no, two problems. Lily obviously could care less about Jefty except as a high-end meal ticket. What would make that a problem was that Jefty did not like his well-laid plans to be busted up by a simple thing like a dame giving him the dust-off. Next, from the get-go, from about scene number one in the club while Lily was singing and Pete was watching with his tongue hung out you know that they will dance around each other, will be getting under the, unseen, silky sheets before long.
Jefty will definitely not like that scenario. And has the evil genius and half-crazed social pathology to screw things up. Simple, our boy Jefty framed Pete for grand larceny, for grabbing the daily take rather than putting it in the night deposit box. Yeah, get rid of Pete for say two to ten in the state pen and he was home free with the now free Lily. As an old corner used to say-nice moves. But remember this Jefty was a long gone daddy, had the weirdest psycho chuckle seen on screen until that time. He was going to bait the bait but good. He got Pete paroled to him, an outstanding citizen in many small town eyes so he could taunt Pete enough to maybe attempt to murder him and face the big step-off. Well you know as well as I do that if you play with fire like our man Jefty you are going to be burned and one of the characters in the end does kill the bastard. See the film to see which one. But also see it to see Ida Lupino hold your attention with her sad weary eyes and croaky voice despite yourself when she is at the cigarette scarred, hers, piano. Just like she did to me. Enough said.
For The Frontline Defenders Of The Working Class!-Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up!”-Build The Resistance-A Program
By the American Left History blog staff
[Sometimes and the period we are in of late, over the last several years, a period of cold civil war in the United States, is one of those times, we have to come up with some programmatic statements in order to help the process of clarification about the immediate and future tasks of the Left. To what the later Peter Paul Markin, forever known as the Scribe, called in his old hard-core working class growing up neighborhood days “seeking the newer world” which he unfortunately by his untimely early death was not able to help create although for a while he tried, tried like hell to do in his best days and which a number of us, his old comrades both from corner boy days and later have been trying to continue. The following is a draft, and only a draft, of what we collectively have come up with to help orient the newfound and promising Resistance that has sprung up in the era of one Donald J. Trump, his henchmen and his hangers-on to reverse the one-sided class war we have been on the brunt side of and of the cultural wars we have been fighting rear-guard action against for about the last forty years. Josh Breslin for the American Left History blog staff. ]
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The International Working Class Everywhere! ******** Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule! ******** A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was as high in the American labor force as it is just tentatively recovering from of late, although it is admittedly down from the Great Recession 2008 highs. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. Socially productive work not make-shift stuff although we would support an vast expansion of public works to fix the broken down infrastructure in need of serious and immediate repair. his is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work.
The basic scheme, as was the case with the early days of the longshoremen’s and maritime unions’ plans as a result of battles like the General Strike in San Francisco in the 1934, is that the work would be divided up through local representative workers’ councils that would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work.
Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as to implement “30 for 40” –with the no reduction in pay proviso, although many low –end employers are even now under the “cover” of the flawed Obamacare reducing hours WITH loss of pay-so that to establish this work system as a norm it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.
Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy. Support the recent militant efforts, including the old tactic of civil disobedience, by service unions and groups of fast-food workers to increase the minimum socially acceptable wage in their Fight For 15.
Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Hey, nobody said it was going to be easy.
Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of company-owned trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. The key here is to organize the truckers and distribution workers the place where the whole thing comes together. We have seen mostly unsuccessful organizing of individual retail stores. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.
Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize.
Simple-No more defeats like in Wisconsin in 2011, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, courts or bourgeois recall elections like the unsuccessful one against Governor Scoot Walker in Wisconsin in the aftermath of the huge defeat of public workers in Wisconsin funds and talents which could have been used to reorganize the public workers for union struggles ahead. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.
* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008, 2012, and 2016 labor, organized labor, spent over well over 700 million dollars respectively trying to elect Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats (mainly). The “no show, no go” results speak for themselves as the gap between the rich and poor has risen even more in this period. For those bogus efforts rather than the serious labor organizing among low wage workers, the unorganized, the South and Wal-Mart the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea in those elections was that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the-back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement since they have been very generous with own paychecks. The old norm in need of revival is that the bureaucrats at all levels should receive no more than the pay of the average skilled worker they represent.
The hard reality today is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. One of most egregious recent examples that we can recall- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks in the summer of 2011 when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor when the deal went down from Bush to Obama to Trump on down.
This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio (also think, think hard, about having to go that far back to get a positive example). That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go. And not on recall elections against individual reactionaries, like the Scoot-Walker recall effort in Wisconsin, as substitutes for class struggle (and which was overwhelmingly unsuccessful to boot-while the number of unionized public workers has dwindled to a precious few).
*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reached its final stages back in 2011, the draw- down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we argued that we must recognize that we anti-warriors had failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006).As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in previously in Libya and now in Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Chad and other proxy wars) continue now with a new stage against ISIS (Islamic State) in Iraq and other Middle East states we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the U.S. troop escalation we know is coming before that fight is over. No War With North Korea, Iran! Out of Syria! Stop The Arms Shipments To The Middle East! Stop The Bombing Campaigns! Defend The Palestinian People! And as always after 16 long years, since 2001 for the forgetful Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan!
U.S. Hands Off Iran! Hands Off North Korea!- American (and world) imperialists have periodically ratcheted up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of North Korea and Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partners on this issue, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea) in North Korea or Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of North Korea and Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and the Kim regime in North Korea in our own way in our own time.
U.S. Hands Off The World! And Keep Them Off!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.
Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that in 1915 in the heat of war and paid the price unlike other party leaders who were pledged to stop the war budgets and reneged on that promise by going to prison. The jailhouse the only play for an honest representative of the working class under those conditions. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now no new funding in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea preparations, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get our drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.
*Fight for a social agenda for working people! Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs. Be clear Obamacare is not our program and has been shown to be totally inadequate and wasteful however we will defend that program against those like Trump and the majority of his Republican ilk r his who wish to dismantle it and leave millions once again uninsured and denied basic health benefits.
Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle-class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students from broken homes and minority homes in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget if you want to find the money quickly to do the job right), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.
Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion plus dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while low-cost aid has not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!
Stop housing foreclosures and aid underwater mortgages now! Although the worst of the 2008 crunch has abated there are still plenty of problems and so this demand is still timely if not desperately timely like in the recent past. Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble had also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to beat down, beat down hard in all kinds of ways the mass of society for the benefit of the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.
Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda.
Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.
Build a workers’ party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to socialism, to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.
As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):
“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.”
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up Lyrics
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Preacher man, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Most people think, Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light, You stand up for your rights. jah!
Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Don't give up the fight! (life is your right! )
Get up, stand up! (so we can't give up the fight! )
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )
Don't give up the fight! (yeah! )
We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )
So you better: Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (don't give it up, don't give it up! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Don't give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )
*************
A special word about Bob Marley whose song above inspired us to update and present out programmatic ideas:
We Don’t Want Your Ism-Skism Thing- Dreadlocks Delight- “One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley And The Wailers”- A CD Review
One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley And The Wailers, Bob Marley And The Wailers, UTV Records, 2001
Admit it, back in the late seventies and early eighties we all had our reggae minutes, at least a minute anyway. And the center of that minute, almost of necessity, had to be a run-in with the world of Bob Marley and the Wailers, probably I Shot The Sheriff. Some of us stuck with that music and moved on to its step-child be-bop, hip-hop when that moved on the scene. Others like me just took it as a world music cultural moment and put the records (you know records, those black vinyl things, right?) away after a while. And that was that.
Well not quite. A few year back, back in 2011 the Occupy movement, the people risen, had done a very funny musical thing, at least funny to my ears when I heard it. They, along with the old labor song, Solidarity Forever, and, of course Brother Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land , had resurrected Bob Marley’s up-from-under fight song, Get Up, Stand Up to fortify the sisters and brothers against the American imperial monster beating down on all of us and most directly under the police baton and tear gas canister. And that seems, somehow, eminently right in the monster age of one Donald J. Trump, his henchman, and his hangers-on. More germane here it has gotten me to dust off those old records and give Brother Marley another hear. And you should too if you have been remiss of late with such great songs as (aside from those mentioned already) No Woman, No Cry, Jamming, One Love/People Get Ready (ya, the old Chambers Brother tune), and Buffalo Soldier. And stand up and fight too.
