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I’m trying to solve the mystery of why all posts are given the same date and time as the last article posted. I’m running Blosxom. If you can provide any help, I’d greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, I’m going to keep tinkering with plug-ins until this fucking thing works the way I want.
Today is May Day, the international holiday of the working class, a celebration of our labor unions and our rich history of struggle. I marched, along with 40,000 comrades, past the United Nations, across 42nd street and back up 6th avenue to Central Park for nuclear abolition and an end to the war in Iraq.
Back home, spinning a Kinks CD, I am inexplicably drawn to an anti-union song, “Get Back In Line.” Ray Davies, the lead singer and chief songwriter of the Kinks, is a curmudgeon. He’s also one of the greatest songwriters of the rock-n-roll era. He infuses his songs with a dry wit and clever character studies, as well as a supernatural sense of melody, that all his songs are likable, even when he’s bashing socialism or criticizing labor unions.
Back in 1964, in the first great wave of the “British Invasion,” the Kinks scored a #1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic with “You Really Got Me,” an infectious rave-up that employs the first integral use of feedback in a rock song. The Kinks were stars, but they were denied the opportunity to tour America while all of their compatriots were making the Ed Sullivan Show their first stop in lucrative and career-enhancing tour of the states. The exact reason for the Kinks Ban is murky. It had something to do with Ray’s tendency to get into fist fights on stage with his brother Dave. Many, Ray Davies chief among them, blame the American Federation of Musicians for banning the Kinks from America.
I find it hard to believe that the union ever had the kind of power to singlehandedly prevent famous rockstars from touring. They certainly don’t have that power now. My friend Elana works for Local 802 AFM now, and she is investigating this mystery.
Whatever kept the Kinks out of the US, it ultimately enhanced their art and helped define their career. While the Beatles and Rolling Stones were getting sick of playing concerts for arenas full of American girls whose screaming drowned out their music (both eventually quit touring for much of the 60’s), the Kinks were embracing their distinct Britishness.
Davies wrote about Carnaby Street fops, English pubs, the Waterloo train station, village greens, holidays in Germany, English music halls – all are rather alien to American teenagers. By 1967’s “Summer of Love,” the Kinks’ new album was extolling the virtues of “little shops, china cups and virginity” (That record, “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society” sounds much more timeless than the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper”).
In 1970, Davies wrote the song “Get Back In Line.” Although the yearning ballad is a poetic imagining of a union hiring hall, the clear subtext is that it’s Davies’ shot at the Musicians union in America.
The lyrics, quoted in whole, are:
Facing the world ain’t easy when there isn’t anything going
Standing at the corner waiting watching time go by
Will I go to work today or shall I bide my time
‘Cos when I see that union man walking down the street
He’s the man who decides if I live or I die, if I starve, or I eat
Then he walks up to me and the sun begins to shine
Then he walks right past and I know that I’ve got to get back in the line
Now I think of what my mamma told me
She always said that it would never ever work out
But all I want to do is make some money
And bring you home some wine
For I don’t ever want you to see me
Standing in that line
‘Cause that union man’s got such a hold over me
He’s the man who decides if I live or I die, if I starve, or I eat
Then he walks up to me and the sun begins to shine
Then he walks right past and I know that I’ve got to get back in the line
It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking song, even if it is an ugly shot at unions. It took me a long time to appreciate this song. In fact, it was only recently, finding myself in a similarly powerless situation as the song’s protagonist, that I recognized the song’s meaning for what it was: championing a little guy’s survival from forces that are frequently beyond his control. It’s a standard theme of Ray Davies’ writing, and it’s not so curmudgeonly now that I think about it.
Florida, America’s Wang, has been the most shameless corner of the vast right-wing conspiracy for years now. A phenomenon recently lampooned by Tom Tomorrow, policy makers in Florida pick the most ridiculous fights to stoke the flames of their supporters’ torch-and-pitchfork ensembles, even if the fights are completely contradictory to their own rhetoric.
Now comes the latest, a judge has ruled that a 13-year-old girl cannot decide for herself to have an abortion. Judge Ronald Alvarez ruled that the girl is too young and immature to make the momentous decision to have an abortion by herself, plus, he claims he is concerned about the potential effect of an abortion on her physical and emotional health. Now, first of all, a full-term pregnancy and labor is a lot riskier for a little girl than a first-trimester abortion, and, secondly, if the girl is too immature to choose an abortion, how in the hell could she be considered mature enough for motherhood? But, most galling is the fact that under the law in Florida, which does not have a “parental consent” requirement for minors seeking abortions, the choice is the girl’s, and hers alone. Judge Alvarez is, in fact, engaging in judicial activism!
What’s really going on here is that Jeb Bush is pandering to the same “culture of life” crowd that made Terri Schiavo’s last days such a media circus. Under his orders, the Department of Children and Families, sought the initial restraining order preventing the girl, a runaway who is under DCF foster care, from getting an abortion. The DCF cites a contradictory law that prohibits the department from consenting to an abortion for a minor in state care (so, kids who live with their families can choose for themselves, but kids under state care need state permission?!). The injunction is temporary, pending psychological exams that the department requested and the judge has granted. The girl, who is 14 weeks pregnant, is in a race against the clock before state law tells her she is too far along to get an abortion. Bush and the DCF intend to run down the clock.
Ironically, as the Terri Schiavo circus was going on, I remarked to some friends that those of us on the civil rights side of the culture war need to be as cut-throat and calculated as the right, and named this very scenario, a young girl being prevented by the state from having an abortion in time, threatening to force her to have a child that she could not possibly care for when she herself is a child, as the kind that we could champion in the same manner as the right exploited Schiavo. Zany Florida just made this scenario real. It’s time for some wacky protester hijinks from our side.
The blue-line proofs of the new issue of “The Torch” came back from the printer today. Perhaps it was the contact high from the weird blue ink they use, but I’m really excited with the way it turned out.
The Torch is the Journal of the Young People’s Socialist League. It’s my first issue as editor in five years. I am a little long in the tooth for any kind of young people’s league, but, after nine years in the organization (including a four-year stint as National Secretary and a three-year stint as Torch editor), I can’t just up and leave. I’ve basically been playing a supportive, back-seat role until I turn 30 and have to be sent to Sanctuary.
That was until a handful of comrades, including Mary Loritz (known to my friends, for a time, as “that girl on the couch”), asked me to get The Torch going again after the last editor gave up. I couldn’t resist a project like that, especially given my current state of redundancy. I’ll likely only publish a handful of issues before handing over the reins to an actual youth.
The new issue features an excellent cover story by Jonathan Mertzig about the “Post-Graduation Blues.” It’s in a similar vein as those Village Voice articles about “Generation Debt,” except Jonathan, being a working class kid who went to a state school, is a lot more sympathetic than some NYU art school graduate on food stamps. My friend Sarah Stefanko wrote about moving to Canada in order to live with her girlfriend. Mary (“of the couch”) wrote a really terrific piece about SEIU’s childcare workers organizing drive, which she worked on as an intern. Sam Morales, my comrade here in the Socialist Party of New York City wrote about the IWW’s effort to organize Starbucks workers. There are a couple more shorter articles and some wonderful illustrations by Aimee Ingles, as well as news, editorials and an advice column from my mysterious roommate, pinkocommiebastard.
I’ll post links to article excerpts as they go online. Eventually, there will be a full PDF of issue #42 posted. First, we’re going to mail the issue to YPSL members and use the issue’s exclusivity to entice new members. I’ll probably be carrying a handful of copies wherever I go, as soon as they come back from the printer (later this week), so ask for one when you see me. Otherwise you can e-mail YPSL for a copy and a membership application.
