Michael Jackson 1958-1984

George Carlin 1937-2008

I was sad to read of George Carlin's death on the New York Times website today.

Maybe I'm just a bit slow about these things but I only really discovered Carlin after I moved to the States. (Then, of course, it was a slap hand on the head moment: 'Hey, that's the old bloke from 'Dogma'.)

As a New York City native, the coverage of Carlin's sudden death has been covered respectfully across the local media, but of course they can't really show any clips of his brilliant stand up on mainstream TV. Shame that, 'cos he was one of most perceptive critics of modern society out there.

Therefore, there's no apologies on my part for posting this clip once again on the blog. One of funniest pieces of political knockabout I ever seen. I love the rhythm of his speech whilst he's doing his riff on the American Dream.

Why use a bludgeon, when you can use a stiletto?

Ron Cook

A couple of weeks back I read, via the Party's email discussion list, the sad news of the death of long time SPGB member, Ron Cook.

I only met Ron three or four times down the years but on those occasions when our paths did cross, he always struck me as a warm and well rounded individual. Very much the antithesis of what the stereotypical socialist is supposed to be like.

Reprinted below is the obituary for Ron that appears in the forthcoming June issue of the Socialist Standard and, for someone like myself, helps fill in the gaps of our knowledge of Ron.

I'd long admired the articles and short stories in Ron's name that appeared in the pages of the Socialist Standard but I didn't realise until now that he sometimes used the pseudonym of 'S. Stafford' when writing for the Party press. I wish I'd known that before now because I always liked the articles penned by 'S. Stafford', and it would have been nice to be able to communicate that sentiment to him.

As the obituary further mentions, about six or seven years ago, Ron published a book entitled 'Yes - Utopia! we have the technology' and it's a measure of the man that even after being an active socialist for over fifty years he was still intent on looking forward politically rather than sitting back and reflecting on the past. I especially liked this passage from the book's introduction that I found on the net:

"This irony runs right through our lives, individually and collectively. We have produced all the ingredients for providing a comfortable, fulfilling life for every man, woman and child on earth. Instead, one half of the world starves while the other half stockpiles or destroys food or takes more and more land out of food production.

"One section of the world's population works so hard that their lives are shortened and made wretched by long hours of drudgery, stress and insecurity while the rest live in varying degrees of poverty and destitution because they are unable to find paid work or get money in any other way. If this is "the real world", as our streetwise friends tell us, then something must be seriously wrong with the engine management system because it is not providing what we need and want."

I know. It's been said or written a million times before, but it still needs to said, written or cut and pasted again and again. I nearly wrote 'especially in these current times' but such a sentiment was equally applicable two years ago when most of us thought we'd beat the system with the fistful of credit cards and the new 'fuck off' plasma screen staring back at us in the living room. Nothing like a gold chain to keep you chained to class society.

I hope he doesn't mind but I'd like to finish the post with a link to a post that Birmingham Branch member, Andy Davies, wrote about Ron. He knew Ron better than most of us, and Andy's thoughts are a nice complement to the obituary published in the Standard.

As an addition, the photo below is from an SPGB Annual Conference and dates from the late 1940s. I scanned it from the June 2004 Centenary issue of the Socialist Standard especially for the post, as it includes a very young Ron in attendance. He's the young bloke in the back row (near the centre but just to the right) wearing the light jacket, dark shirt and the white tie. From where I'm sitting, what with his light coloured hair and that hairstyle, he looks like Conan O'Brien, but maybe I've been living in the States for too long.

Whatever the case, this socialist wants to say a belated thanks to Ron for the part he played in both keeping the real idea of socialism alive, but also insisting in rooting our politics in the future rather than the past.

Ron Cook 1927-2008

Members were saddened to hear of the death of Ron Cook, of Birmingham branch, at the beginning of May. He was born in 1927 and joined the Party in 1948 while he was a student at Ruskin College from where he won entry to Cambridge University. At the end of the war he had been a teenage sailor on the battleship HMS Illustrious. He worked as a teacher and later as a tutor for the Open University.

He was an active member both at local and national level, a regular delegate to Conference until recent years. He had his own viewpoint on a number of issues. A keen student of Marxian economics - and the writings of Paul Mattick in particular -, he argued that crises under capitalism tended to get worse and worse. He was also impressed by Herbert Marcuse’s 1955 work Eros and Civilization and was inclined to be take on board more of Freud’s theories than most members. In 2001 he published a book Yes Utopia! We have the Technology in which he presented the case against capitalism and for the sort of society he would like to see established (including his own personal preferences, such as that people in socialism would live in something akin to hotels).

Besides being a speaker and debater for the Party, he wrote for the Socialist Standard (sometimes under the pseudonym of S. Stafford) and drafted pamphlets including the latest edition of Socialist Principles Explained. In 1994 he represented the Party in the elections to the European Parliament, standing in the Birmingham East constituency. Until last year he organised the annual Party summer school at Fircroft College in Birmingham. Members were expecting to meet him there this year but his friendly and encouraging presence is going to be missed from now on. A party representative spoke at his non-religious, humanist funeral where John Lennon’s song Imagine was played.

Our condolences go to his wife and family.

Gladys Marie Catt and Jean Higdon

When I was posting details of this month's Socialist Standard on the blog a couple of days back, I realised that I'd neglected to include a link to a couple of obituaries from last month's Standard on the page.

I'm neither ghoulish nor wishing to reinforce the stereotype of the SPGB and its companion parties as aging organisations, but that part of me that is susceptible to 'sentimental socialism' thinks that comrades' passing should be marked . . . even if it is only in the pages of the Standard and on my daft blog.

From the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Gladys Marie Catt 1918-2008

Marie joined the SPGB in the spring of 1941. The outbreak of war had profoundly disturbed her, along with her family and friends. Her two brothers and her future husband had become conscientious objectors and she became engaged in their struggles to win conscientious objector status. Marie was persuaded about the necessity of socialism partly by the Party's stand against working-class participation in the war, but also by the forcefulness and clarity of the Party's speakers at the outdoor meetings held at Lincoln's Inn Fields and she joined the Palmers Green Branch where she met Sid Catt, her future husband.

In 1957, she, Sid and daughter Jean emigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto. After settling in, they became a contact and propaganda centre for the Socialist Party of Canada. They set about recruiting members, holding discussion forums in their home and speaking at Allen Gardens. By 1964 they had organized the first Party Local east of Winnipeg.

Marie continued her activities for many years. She always spoke forthrightly and passionately in favour of socialism in whatever circumstances she found herself. Her grasp of the meaning of the Object and Declaration of Principles was thorough. She once wrote of the significance of these Principles to members of the Party:

"These have remained the sheet anchor for their understanding, proved the strength of their case and their integrity, making it impossible to confuse them with any reformist organization This Object and Declaration of Principles are as valid today as they were at the time of the inception in 1904 of this unique political party."

B.S. (Canada)

Jean Higdon 1934-2007

Jean’s secular send-off was attended by fifty of her family, friends and party members.

Of those who were invited to speak on Jean’s life were her son, Jon, who spoke of Jean’s dedication as a mother; Mike Lee, Chairman of the Auckland Regional Local Bodies’ Council, who briefly outlined Jean’s socialist thinking (production of use, not for sale); and Jean’s neighbour whose fractious child was always comforted by Jean’s pleasant manner, and a party member whose galloping rhetoric brought smiles to what might have been a sombre occasion. Said he, “None of those parasitic bastards in Buckingham Palace, the White House or the Kremlin would be tall enough to polish the shoes of Jean Higdon!”

Jean was for many years secretary of the Auckland Branch of the WSPNZ, taking lengthy notes of the discussions we had, and typed out the minutes almost verbatim.

Jean was responsible for the layout of the party journal, The Socialist Review, from 1971 till 1982 when it folded because we couldn’t find any writers. Jean was also a sometime parliamentary candidate for Auckland Central on the socialist ticket, and with her late husband made a vital contribution to spreading the socialist case in New Zealand.

They are both remembered for their humanity and generosity of spirit.

Our condolences go to Jean’s family.

Executive Committee, WSPNZ, 8 February 2008

They Blogged About Andrew Glyn, So I Don't Have To Pretend To

Old Etonian Oxbridge academic was apparently a member of the Militant Tendency in the 70s and the 80s? How did that square with their much celebrated workerism during that period? Mmm, where's that quote again from the 'Communist Manifesto'? There it is:

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole."

That's the one. I bet he had it typed up in bold, laminated and carried it dangling from his neck at Millies get togethers. It would have helped avoid misunderstandings.

As a pre-eminent economist in his day, I wonder if he reined in Ted Grant's 24/7 millenarianism during that time, or did hee supply the number-crunching to back it up?

OK, enough waffle from me. A few links about the recent passing of Andrew Glyn are in order:

From Stumbling and Mumbling Blog: Andrew Glyn

From 1/888 Branch News blog: Andrew Glyn - Marxist economist and socialist fighter

Andy gets in on the plaudits: Socialist Unity Blog

Labour and Capital get in on the blourning: Andrew Glyn

Nice comments accompanying the piece: Andrew Glyn is Dead

SPGB gets snotty (again): Andrew Glyn

The British Security Services allegedly tapped his phone in the eighties. A Foreign & Commonwealth Office blogger eulogises him in the naughties: Andrew Glyn

Finally, I did like this comment attributed to Glyn by one of the commentators over at Crooked Timber:

"Towards the end of the term in which I was taught by him, the film ‘Rosa’, about the life of Rosa Luxemburg, came out. After remarking on how the film made no mention of Luxemburg’s criticisms of Lenin, Andrew’s next comment was something like: ‘Her life shows that it is actually possible to be both a serious revolutionary socialist and a human being."

Sounded like he was a decent bloke.

Slow Burning Fuse? Slow Writing History.

I wonder whatever happened to John Quail's proposed history of Solidarity? Quail's obviously still there or there abouts.

Hat tip to ex-Solidarity member, Paul Anderson.

Norman Mailer 1923-2007

And so it goes . . Wait up, that was the other bloke.

Never read Mailer to the best of my knowledge, so I'm heading over to the New York Times and the Guardian to tell me why he was important and why I should read his stuff.