Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesdays, 5:00 PM -Update –April 2, 2013

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
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Beginning in September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us there in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!

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Those who have followed the heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning’s case over the past year or so, since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearings began in earnest, know that last November the defendant offered to plead guilty to a few lesser included charges in his indictment, basically taking legal and political responsibility for the leaks to WikiLeaks that had been the subject of some of the government’s allegations against him. Without getting into the arcane legal maneuvering on this issue the idea was to cut across the government’s pretty solid case against him being the leaker of information and to have the now scheduled for June trial be focused on the substantial question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. We noted then that we needed to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crime and misdemeanors and only that. We also noted that he was, and is, frankly, in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever. Especially in light of the following:

After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28, 2013 Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeaksa trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Private Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. A day after Bradley confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June. If convicted on these charges, Bradley Manning faces life in prison.

In lifting a bit of the veil of secrecy and lies with which the capitalist rulers cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.

In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea (written summary available at the Bradley Manning Support Network and an audio transcript as well), Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaks included military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”

The Pentagon and the Obama Administration declared war against WikiLeaks following the release of a video, now entitled Collateral Murder and widely available, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the “bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”

By January 2010, Manning said, he“began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the bourgeois press establishment, in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that “this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”

The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the“terrorist” enemy, whoever that might be.

The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaksmaterial provided by Manning.

Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison.

In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917.

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The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial now scheduled for June 2013. The news on his case over the past several months has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including recent defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now at over 1000 days and will be over well over 1000 days by the time of trial. That dismissal motion has now been ruled on by Military Judge Lind. On February 26, 2013 she denied the defense’s motion for dismissal, the last serious chance for Bradley Manning to go free before the scheduled June trial. She ruled furthermore that the various delays by the government were inherent in the nature of this case and that the military authorities, except in one short instance, had been diligent in their efforts to move the proceedings along. For those of us with military experience this is a classic, if perverse, case of that old army slogan-“Hurry up, and wait.” This is definitely tough news for Private Manning although perhaps a good appeal point in some future civilian court review.

The defense had contended that the charges should be dismissed because the military by its own statutes (to speak nothing of that funny old constitutional right to a speedy trial guarantee that our plebeian forbears fought tooth and nail for against the bloody British and later made damn sure was included in the Amendments when the founding fathers“forgot” to include it in the main document) should have arraigned Private Manning within 120 days after his arrest. They hemmed and hawed for almost 600 days before deciding on the charges and a court martial. Nobody in the convening authority, as required by those same statutes, pushed the prosecution forward in a timely manner. In fact the court-martial convening authority, in the person of one Colonel Coffman, seemed to have seen his role as mere “yes man”to each of the government’s eight requests for delays without explanation (and without informing the defense in order to take their objection). Apparently the Colonel saw his role as a mere clearing agent for whatever excuse the government gave, mainly endless addition time for clearing various classified documents a process that need not have held up the proceedings. The defense made timely objection to each governmental request to no avail.

Testimony from military authorities at pre-trial hearings in November 2012 about the reasons for the lack of action ranged from the lame to the absurd (mainly negative responses to knowledge about why some additional delays were necessary. One “reason” sticks out as a reason for excusable delay -some officer needed to get his son to a swimming meet and was thus “unavailable” for a couple of days. I didn’t make this up. I don’t have that sense of the absurd. Jesus, a man was rotting in Obama’s jails and they let him rot because of some damn swim meet). The prosecution, obviously, argued that the government has moved might and main to move the case along and had merely waited until all leaked materials had been determined before proceeding. The judge saw it the government’s way and ruled according as noted above.

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The defense has also recently pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta, also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.

The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary). Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanges that reflected poorly on that profession. The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered. That motion has also not been fully ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter-motions and has been a cause for further trial delay.

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A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In late November and early December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods

Judge Lind, the military judge who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.

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There has been increased media attention by mainstream outlets around the case (including the previously knowingly oblivious New York Times), as well as an important statement in November 2012 by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails. (Available on the Support Bradley Manning Network website.)

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On February 23, 2013, the 1000th day of Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, an international day of solidarity was observed with over seventy stand-outs and other demonstration held in America and internationally. Bradley Manning and his courageous stand have not been forgotten. Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network for more details about the events of that day. Another international day of solidarity is scheduled for June 1, 2013 at Fort Meade, Maryland and elsewhere just before the scheduled start of his trial on June 3rd. Check the support network for updates on that event as well.

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Plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.

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5 Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning

*Urgent: The government has announced, in the wake of Bradley Manning’s admission of his part in the Wikileaks expose in open court on February 28th, its intention to continue to prosecute him for the major charges of “aiding the enemy” (Espionage Act) and “material aid to terrorism.” Everyone should contact the presiding officer of the court –martial process, General Linnington, at 1-202-685-2807 and tell him to drop those charges. Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full – you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343 – press “5″ to leave a comment.*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message. Do it today.

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma (corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM. For other locations in Greater Boston, nationally, and internationally check the Bradley Manning Support Network -http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and for details of the current status of the case and future event updates as well. Also plan to come to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1^st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3^rd trial. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning- The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”

In federal cases, and military cases are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial- former President Nixon and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for example among others, received such pardons for their heinous crimes- Now that Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to some lesser charges and is subject to further prison time (up to 20 years) this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. Free Bradley Manning! Free the whistleblower!

***Out In The 1970s Film Night- With Robert Mitchum’s The Friends Of Eddie Coyle In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

It was a shame, a crying shame when they knocked off Eddie, Eddie Fingers. Good old Eddie Fingers, Eddie from the old school, the old school of hard knocks, the school of life, life on the mean streets, the mean streets of Boston. Although the guys, the corner boy guys that he grew up with around Millie’s Variety Store over on M Street in Southie, had heard through that seamless grapevine that corner boys and career street lugs have no matter how far removed from the sacred soil, that he had lately placed himself and his family out of the city and into North Adamsville. Away from the corrupting city influences, the n----rs Eddie said, them and every son of a whoremaster who might want at his three lovely virginal and very Irish Catholic daughters being properly novena and rosary bead brought up by his ever-loving wife. So maybe he wasn’t so old school, so committed to the old ways since they all, and their families too, had stayed on the old sod. And maybe those whispered rumors about who Eddie was, or was not, seeing of late, had a little more truth to them that one might have previously dismissed out of hand.

Yah, Eddie, Eddie Fingers had been a stand-up guy no question, a guy who knew the rules, a guy who had your back, a big hefty raw-boned guy who was handy to have around when fists began to fly, a guy nobody figured to wind up like some crushed paper doll in the front seat of some classy late model vehicle with two big slugs running through his brain. And that, the two slugs, and the Eddie didn’t figure to be wearing them, got the guys, some of the guys, some of guys around town, around the old neighborhoods, maybe a little nervous about their own futures, figuring out, trying to figure out as a far as possible, and no more, what transgression did Eddie in, what made him a pin cushion and his children fatherless.

Eddie Fingers was nothing but a soldier, had always been nothing but a soldier despite his handiness in a fight, a guy pretty far down on the totem pole though so it didn’t figure he got hit, hit bad, for trying to get too uppity, trying to move up the food chain, or worse, trying to go independent. He was just a soldier and, frankly, just too old to be acting like some two-bit kid just off the street (and every guy had some funny, now funny, stories about how they were going to be the king hell kings of the Southie, or name your neighborhood, when young before they wised up, or were wised up, that the thing was rigged, fixed, sewed up long before they drew breath and just took their places assigned in the food chain) or just out of reform school to be thinking about making some big splash.

Eddie had done alright, alright for a half-bright guy (eighth grade dropout , or put out, in any case nobody at home or school was pulling for him to stick around, especially after he almost killed the headmaster at the Tobin when that man tried to give him the ruler) who got caught up with Big Jim, Big Jim from the old Southie neighborhoods, when he was making his big moves around the city. Eddie’s brother, Boyo, had been tight with Big Jim and hence Eddie got some leavings, some easy work without working, and no heavy lifting either. Toward the end he was just drawing dough for his old reputation as a knee-breaker, and that was enough in Boston anyway to scare guys straight. Until that one night when he screwed up, showed up drunk, maybe had a little reefer thrown in, and some side honey to share it with, to calm the nerves, and worse late, and Big Jim wound up doing a nickel, a hard nickel , at the state pen. And Eddie earned his nickname, earned it the hard way, but also the forever way every time he looked at his hands so it didn’t figure he screwed up again either.

See though crime, money crime, robberies, heists, big dough stuff, transporting stolen goods, and all, that is for young men, young and agile men, and quick-thinkers too. Eddie, well, Eddie had lost a step or two, maybe more, and so he got clipped, clipped bad one night coming down some road from hell loaded with more booze than you could shake a stick at. And see that lost step or two cost him since he had eased up on the coming around those hell road curves and “uncle”was waiting for him. Waiting all decked out in shotguns and semis so Eddie, thinking of that wife and three kids (and maybe that reefer honey too, everybody knew they had been together for years after the wife decided that she wanted to sleep alone) stopped. Stopped and took the fall. And thus was facing something like a nickel or a dime’s worth all cozy and out of the sunlight.

But see too a guy, a guy too old for the runs, if he has done a stretch or two already gets real shy, almost girlishly shy, about going in again, about taking the big step into that small good night. And so old stand-up Eddie, old school Eddie, sensing his time was short, sensing that that old school was out and gone, reconsidered his options. So he thought, night sweats thought, about seeing“uncle” about seeing things uncle’s way and about getting out from under that rock. As so Eddie slipped down the slippery slope. As the corner boys figured away, and figured out what Eddie (or any guy, especially any family man guy) would, or would not, do it came up “snitch.” It had to be that without getting to close on the question. So every corner boy, every lowly soldier from Southie to Charlestown looking to keep his head unfilled with those nasty pieces of metal put two and two together and decided, decided not to take the Eddie way, no way. But a few guys too thought, hey, if a stand-up guy like Eddie could be turned then they had better watch their corner boy friends too.

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Warren Smith’s “Rock And Roll Ruby”

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman


WARREN SMITH ROCK´N´ ROLL RUBY LYRICS

Well I took my Ruby jukin'

On the out-skirts of town

She took her high heels off

And rolled her stockings down

She put a quarter in the jukebox

To get a little beat

Everybody started watchin'

All the rhythm in her feet


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul


Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock

And when she started rockin'

She just couldn't stop

She rocked on the tables

And rolled on the floor

And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!"


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul


It was 'round about four

I thought she would stop

She looked at me and then

She looked at the clock

She said: "Wait a minute Daddy

Now don't get sour

All I want to do

Is rock a little bit more"


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul


One night my Ruby left me all alone

I tried to contact her on the telephone

I finally found her about twelve o'clock

She said: "Leave me alone Daddy

'cause your Ruby wants to rock"


She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul
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Nobody had seen Billie (William James Bradley for those who are sticklers for detail and, by the way, not Billy, not some billy-goat thing like the boys in first grade called him, called him the last time anybody did so and he made Billie stick, and you will call him that too unless you want more, much more, than you can handle from a wiry, deceptively strong guy) for a while, a few months anyway back then, back in the late 1950s. I had drifted away from his circle, his corner boy circle, when my family moved across town to the other side of Adamsville, North Adamsville a couple of years before. And when Billie got into some stuff, some larceny stuff, mainly “clipping” things (you know five-finger discount at jewelry stores and drugstore mainly to get his girls, that’s plural, not a typo, some pretty “gift to show his Billie love), and stealing cars if you must know, and when I decided, decided almost at the last minute, that I wanted no part of that scene that pretty much ended our best friend friendship. I still kept in touch with him for about a year or so after that and then when he got into his new “jag,” robbing stores, gas stations and  the like, through keeping in touch others.

Rumor had it, and it was always rumor with Billie whether he was right in the room or got his fate reported by one of his boys, one of his legend-producing boys which definitely including me at one time (I was the fawning flak par excellence and would have made Tony Curtis’s Sydney Falco in the film Sweet Smell Of Success look like nothing but kid’s stuff with my Billie build-ups), that he was shacked up with some “broad.” I admit I did my fair share to build up the Billie legend but that’s all, he just naturally filled in the empty spaces, empty spaces that he hated, and that characteristic goes a long way in telling why we hadn’t heard from him for a while except through that rumor mill.

The rumor mill also had it, to fill in the particulars, that he had stolen some car, a classic hopped-up 1949 Nash owned by a tough guy, real tough guy, named “Blindside” Buckley (that moniker tells you all you need to know about that august gentleman just keep clear of him, alright. So that’s two hombres to stay clear of in this sketch) or something like that, or maybe it was that he had stolen one car, abandoned it, and had stolen another. Either way sounds about right. Stole the cars and was holed up somewhere with a honey, Lucy (description to follow), that he had met down at the Sea and Surf teen nightclub across from the Paragon Park Amusement Park in Nantasket, a few miles outside of the town limits of Adamsville. Now this honey, this Lucy honey, was a little older than Billie but, and like I say this is rumor, she jumped on him from minute one when he walked in the door, leaving the guy she was with looking kind of stupid. And in the scheme of things he was probably prepared to commit mayhem on Billie (no brother, bad move, bad career, hell, bad life move).

Billie, no question, was a good-looking guy, was a real good dancer and, best of all, he had a great voice, a great rock and roll voice, that fit nicely, very nicely into the music that we were all listening to, listening to like crazy, on our little transistor radios back in the 1950s, mostly late 1950s. So maybe, for all I know, Lucy had heard Billie sing, sing at one of the two billion talents shows that he was always entering in order, as he constantly said, to win his fame and fortune. Like I said he was good, good at covering Top Forty stuff, but just short, just a short, I guess, of making that “projects” jail break-out move that he was always confident would occur once the talent guys heard him, really heard. At some point that dream faded like a lot of projects dreams faded early and hence his alternative career as a stick-up man.

And this honey, this red-headed Lucy, a luscious red-lipped honey was, reportedly, just the exact kind of honey that Billie dreamed of grabbing for his own. Great shape (great shape then meaning all fill-out curves and leggy legs, or something like that), great boffo hair (dark red, an obviously Irish girl), kittenly sexy, and most importantly ready to go all night whether dancing, doing this and that (figure it out, okay ), or helping plan some caper. Just the kind of girl the priests and parents of even the projects neighborhood were always warning us against but which we boys still secretly dreamed of running up against, dreamed of hard. Yah, this Lucy was just Billie’s action, just his catnip. And so when I first heard that rumor, that Billie holed- up and out of sight rumor, I said yah, that seemed about right.

See Billie one night, one twelve- year old summer night, down in back of old Adamsville South Elementary School where we used to hang out because that was the only real hang-out place around, and talk, talk of futures, talk of dreams just like everybody else, every twelve- year old everybody else Billie kind of laid the whole thing out for us. He was going to parlay his singing voice, his rock and roll singing voice, into fame and fortune and when his ship came in he was going to search for his rock and roll soul-mate. He didn’t put it just this way but the idea was to get the hottest, sexiest, dancing-est girl around and sail off into the sunset leaving that dust of the projects behind, way behind.

So it looked like Billie had one part of his dream coming true, although being on the lam, being big time on the lam, from the cops, the owner of that hopped-up classic 1949 Nash, and maybe even that guy Lucy left looking stupid, take your choice, wasn’t part of the description back in those twelve- year old summer nights. But being sixteen, being in some dough, and being with the rock and roll queen of the seaside night still seems like a bargain worth having made with whatever devil Billie needed to consult to pull the caper off. Hell, it makes me think that maybe I made a mistake moving away from Billie’s orbit. But just call that a rumor too in case any cops are around, alright. Anyway, my reaction was now that Billie was holed up, any girls, red-headed or otherwise, who wanted to dance the night away please just call out my name. Hey, I could dream too.

From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-Literature and Revolution

Trotsky once wrote that of the three great tragedies in life- hunger, sex and death- revolutionary Marxism, which was the driving force behind his life and work, mainly concerned itself with the struggle against hunger. That observation contains an essential truth about the central thrust of the Marxist tradition. However, as Trotsky demonstrates here, Marxist methodology cannot and should not be reduced to an analysis of and prescription for that single struggle. Here Trotsky takes on an aspect of the struggle for mass cultural development.

In a healthy post-capitalist society mass cultural development would be greatly expanded and encouraged. If the task of socialism were merely to vastly expand economic equality, in a sense, it would be a relativity simple task for a healthy socialist society in concert with other like-minded societies to provide general economic equality with a little tweaking after vanquishing the capitalism mode of production. What Marxism aimed for, and Trotsky defends here, is a prospect that with the end of class society and economic and social injustice the capacity of individual human beings to reach new heights of intellectual and creative development would flourish. That is the thought that underpins Trotsky’s work here as he analyzes various trends in Russian literature in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. In short, Marxism is certainly not a method to be followed in order to write great literature but it does allow one to set that literature in its social context and interrelatedness.

You will find no Deconstructionist or other fashionable literary criticism here. Quite the contrary. Here Trotsky uses his finely tuned skill as a Marxist to great effect as he analyzes the various trends of literature as they were affected (or not affected) by the October Revolution and sniffs out what in false in some of the literary trends. Mainly at the time of writing the jury was still out about the prospects of many of these trends. He analyzes many of the trends that became important later in the century in world literature, like futurism and constructivism, and others- some of which have disappeared and some of which still survive.

The most important and lasting polemic which Trotsky raised here, however, was the fight against the proponents of ‘proletarian culture’.The argument put forth by this trend maintained that since the Soviet Union was a workers state those who wrote about working class themes or were workers themselves should in the interest of cultural development be given special status and encouragement (read a monopoly on the literary front). Trotsky makes short shrift of this argument by noting that, in theory at least as its turned out, the proletarian state was only a transitional state and therefore no lasting ‘proletarian culture’ would have time to develop. Although history did not turn out to prove Trotsky correct the polemic is still relevant to any theory of mass cultural development.

One of the results of the publication of this book is that many intellectuals, particularly Western intellectuals, based some of their sympathy for Trotsky the man and fallen hero on his literary analysis and his ability to write. This was particularly true during the 1930’s here in America where those who were anti-Stalinist but were repelled by the vacuity of the Socialist Party were drawn to him. A few, like James T. Farrell (Studs Lonigan trilogy), did this mostly honorably. Most, like Dwight MacDonald and Sidney Hooks, etc. did not and simply used that temporary sympathy as a way station on their way to anti-Communism. Such is the nature of the political struggle.

A note for the politically-inclined who read this book. Trotsky wrote this book in 1923-24 at the time of Lenin’s death and later while the struggle for succession by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev was in full swing. While Trotsky did not recognize it until later (nor did others, for that matter) this period represented the closing of the rising tide of the revolution. Hereafter, the people who ruled the Soviet Union, the purposes for which they ruled and the manner in which they ruled changed dramatically. In short, Thermidor in the classical French revolutionary expression was victorious. Given his political position why the hell was he writing a book on literary trends in post-revolutionary society at that time.

***Out In The 1920s Baseball Night- Ring Lardner’s You Know Me, Al

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Book Review

The Ring Lardner Reader, including You Know Me Al, Ring Lardner

The first paragraph of this review was written for the series of stories in Ring Lardner’s You Know Me, Al that is contained in the present book under review as well. In addition to You Know Me, Al there some other classic baseball stories here, particularly Alibi Ike (about a ball player, of course, who can’t seem to do anything except blush and well alibi when he is not perfect, even when he is not perfect with a little blush romance thrown in which throws the whole team into fits) and My Roomy (naturally about the screwball characters, and they were, if the stories about them are half-true) that can be covered by the comments in the first paragraph. The other, non-baseball, stories in this book are reviewed in the second paragraph.

At one time early in the first part of the 20^th century there was no question that baseball was the American pastime. Now eclipsed by, ah, texting or some such thing, okay, maybe football. That was a time when the name Ring Lardner was well known in sports writing and literary circles. The sports writing part was easy because that was his beat. The literary part is much harder to recognize but clearly the character of Jack Keefe in You Know Me, Al has become an American classic. Does one need to be a baseball fan to appreciate this work? Hell, no. We all know, in sports or otherwise, this Keefe guy, right?

You know the guy with some talent who has no problem, no problem at all, blaming the other guy, or happenstance, for mistakes while he (or she) is pure as the driven snow. That is the concept that drives these stories told in the form of letters to Al, his buddy back home. Back home in the heartland, the place of certain quintessential American values honored, perhaps, more in the breech than the observance. The language, the malapropisms and the schemes all evoke an earlier more innocent time in sport and society. I do not believe that you could create such a character based on today’s sport’s ethic. The athletes would have a spokesperson ‘spinning’ their take on the matters of the day for their respective clients. The only one that might come close is Nuke LaRouche in the movie Bull Durhambut as that movie progressed Nuke was getting ‘wise’. Read these stories, read them more than once on those hot stove winter nights between seasons.

There is no question that aside from a deft ear as a sportswriter that Ring Lardner also had an ear for the foibles and frustrations of the newly rising middle class of the post- World War I Midwestern heartland. This is not the land of Fitzgerald’s or Hemingway’s “Lost Generation” scripted in such works as The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and The Damned, and The Sun Also Rises but of those left behind trying to scratch out an existence anyway they could in the first edition of go-go consumer America. However, rather than beat up on the ‘yokels’ straight up Lardner pokes and prods at their pretensions in a fairly harmless way, at least on the surface, but on re-reading these stories recently I found myself saying ‘ouch’ to the literary stabs in the backs that he thrust at his victims in stories like Gullible’s Travels (a title which aptly sums up my comment) and The Big Town where the small city ethos is smothered by the big one . Read on.

Out In The Be-Bop Night- With Nelson Algren’s Walk On The Wild Side In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Hoke Stover (Hoke his real first name, his Christian name if he was a Christian, and if a Christian he had been baptized, a cause of some dispute since no church records showed such an event, in fact no civil records showed he had been born in the county that he had grown in all his youth pestered life) had no kin to speak of so leaving home, leaving Ardmore out in the Appalachia hill country, the hills and hollows of mountain legend, would no cause for tears or frets. Hoke had no kin so it was told, or rather, better, he had some very attenuated kinship relationships. His mother, well his mother as far as he knew, was a whore, who let any man at her whether he had the price or not, she was so addled- brained she let them have at her on credit and forget who owed her what come settling time, usually Friday, mine pay day, or if she “took at shine to a man,” she might give just as freely and so a whore, a whore in deep fundamentalist Protestant mountain talk, although she was long gone to Philadelphia and some two bit whorehouse, or something like that.

His father, Zeke, was unclear, or better uncaring about her fate, and therefore didn’t want to talk about it or bother about it at all when Hoke was young and full of such mother questions (although Zeke had been one of her “take a shining too” free loves, that part was known far and wide when mountain shaming time came). Zeke had in any case taken up with another woman (it was not clear as well whether Zeke had married his mother or they had just cohabitated for a time not a fine distinction in hill and hollow country where some such relationships might come under some kinship legal ban), Ella, who had a brood of her own, and in his turn Zeke had taken off with yet another woman leaving Hoke behind at her house to fend for himself. So, yes, Hoke had no kin to speak of as he set off one day to seek his fame and fortune in the world. All he knew for certain, all his father knew for certain when he passed on the information, was that the Stover clan had originally come to these American shores around 1800 after being kicked out of England for pig-stealing or some such stealing and had been just one step ahead of the law in any case so being kicked out would have occurred sooner or later. His mother’s people, some off-center Irish mix, maybe Anglo-Irish Catholic had been forced out of Ireland starving or close to it during the Great Famine of the 1840s and once off the famine ships in New York had drifted west with the land hungry and wound up in Appalachia, Not having the sense or wherewithal to move further west when the land turned sour they had settled in the human sink until his mother’s whorish generation. And she headed east.

So one bright sunny morning Hoke headed to center of Ardmore, hopped on the local ramshackle bus that would take him to Louisville and then from there take a big old Greyhound bus to Memphis, the Memphis of his dream fame and fortune. His father having been there once when on leave during the war (World War II for anybody who was asking) and had never gotten over it and passed on that dream scene to his son .Of course Zeke had been there merely on a three day pass and so had no thought of trying to make his fame or fortune there (or anywhere else as it turned out since he was nothing but a rolling stone) and so left no wisdom to his son about how to go about such a task. In fact Hoke was singularly ill-prepared for almost any dream search since no one had bothered to tell to go to school and learn something, learn a trade or craft and so all he knew was how to scavenge, scavenge for soda bottles, cooper bits, silver this and that, lost pennies and moving odd lots of moonshine when he was old enough (fourteen) to handle a car on those back roads. Nevertheless unread and unlearned he was off to the bright lights of the city and he, like all youth, at least all youth that had been subject to some dream quest, figured he would be able to wing it. He would have to.

Hoke did have one thing going for him, going strong if things got tough. He was good-looking, girl swooning good-looking, country girls anyway, and while he might not be smart or learned he never lacked for female company when he wanted it (or better when he had money since country girls were not difference from their city brethren when it came to their wanting habits). He figured if he was the son of a whore (he knew from Zeke whores were bad but in his moral universe only bad because they had left guys like Zeke and Hoke to fend for themselves when the next best thing came along) then the worst thing that could happen was that he would work, ah, servicing woman ( be a gigolo but he did not know the word, where would a simple country boy come across such an word, or the concept, all he knew was that he could make money at it or be put up by some woman if things got tough).

Things did get tough since nobody was hiring illiterates, white illiterates anyway, in the dead air 1960s night and so he found himself sliding down to Memphis’ skid row as his money ran out, his prospects went dead and even his one feeble attempt to scavenge went awry when he found out you had to be “connected” to run even such a nondescript operation as that in the big city, hell, even soda bottles. And so as night follows day he wound up on Beale Street, first trying to pimp himself off to the passing clientele, to the ladies, but since he did not have the “front,” he was all soiled jeans and sweaty stained shirt, maybe hadn’t showered in a while and needed a shave, they passed him by. Although the queer boys, the homos, the sissy boys, seemingly every one, every “different” boy from good homes or bad, in the South who could make it to Memphis (from Tupelo, Selma, Greenwood, Clarksville and points south, took a run at him), No sale, no dice, he was not that way. No sale for a while.

But one night, one desperate night, only change in his pocket, Christ,dimes, room rent due in a day or too he was almost ready to face that indignation, to let a sissy boy have at him, when he met Mister Jonathan Tucker, Mister Jonathan Tucker, a sissy boy scion of the famous Memphis Tucker family who after trying to proposition him without success (although that was a close thing) took him under his wing. And that wing included an undisclosed Tucker family interest in, among other things, Fanny Mae’s high-end whorehouse over on Beale and Main. Hoke, suitably dressed and given a little polish by Mister Jonathan Tucker was to be a “protector” for the girls who worked there. And Hoke took to the job like a magnet although he felt since he was a protector he shouldn’t have had to pay for an evening with one of the girls when he got frisky. Still after hanging around the ladies, a couple who had taken to him as an older brother, in that establishment for a while he found he had a little more respect for his mother, thought a little less unkindly when the word whore was spouted forth by some walking daddy with big eyes, greenbacks and quirky habits. Maybe he would start a stable of his own, a couple anyway, maybe Mister Jonathan Tucker would stake him to some flash dough. Yes, he, Hoke Stover, was on his way to fame and fortune, no question…

May Day rally info (Original Message)

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