[Good Habit and other readers may remember The Seed and Socialist
Europe. I have a debt to pay, a debt of joy for having focused too
long on weeds instead of flowers. This is yet another contribution
towards my debt. Sidney Clare, being deceased in 1972, retains his
copyrights. Thankfully Red Europe doesn't honour copyrights,
especially ones yet to come into being. Sadly Australia does honour
copyrights and other trappings of bourgeois society. Excerpts are
minimal and used as quotation.]
"I've thrown away my toys"
She machined the sea to either side of her, lathing silver hot swarfs
at her bow which ran down her sides. SS Lollipop was cutting fresh
mettle from the Atlantic. Her crew spake fast Yankee accents, but her
belly held poor Irish who had spat at tarnished Liberty's promise of
eternal servitude. The Lollipop was making way, and within her she
was making new men and new women. They were happy to be returning to
a free Ireland with the promise of Dutch work on German tools with no
English.
"Some day I'm going to fly. … how would you Like to be my crew..."
The purges had gotten worse. They were running from the continual
violence of Pinkertons and Nightriders. They'd seen Irish worksmen
strung up on burning crosses outside the textile plants. The images
slipped from their minds with the water and whiskey. The first
whiskey they'd tasted in years legally. It was a worker's ship, and
they'd not seen a baton or a food line any day at sea. The spew
covering the head was from drink, not from the sea sickness of the
small boats that smugglers had taken them out to sea on to meet the
Lollipop. They'd been smuggled out by the various undergrounds of
steadily self-bettering Eastern Coast seamen. Some of the miners had
been running an entire continent from bloody Seattle, or Butte, or
from the slaughter houses of Chicago. Some had even given up on
Ireland when they boarded a free ship. They felt the need to free
others from their chains.
"On the good ship lollipop. Its a sweet trip to a candy shop"
Europe was Cockagne, they'd all heard it. Nobody was starving in
Europe. Nobody was beaten in Europe. In Europe you got what you
needed. In Europe you said what you'd do, and for who. Because Rosa
Luxembourg can cause she mixes it with love and makes the world taste
good. They had their golden tickets, and the streets were going to be
paved with gold. It was their right for the taking, for they worked
for their living. The doors were open for everyone who could make the
trip. And the ships lay off shore waiting for the workers.[1]
"You'll awake with a tummy ache."
The siren and gun shot across the bow woke every head on the ship. It
shook soul into body with a terrible fear. The pressmen. The Navy
Borders. The Customs Cutter. The illegal impressment. The claim
that the free men of a revolutionary society were still Americans.
The dread. The boarding agents. The neck chains. The worst fear of
the middle passage was becoming a reality: The United States Navy.
The cargo surged the rails, knocking at sailors on their station,
pressing seamen into bulkheads. The eyes strained in the dawn light.
The horizon held a terrible message, not one great ship of war, but
two.
Over charts the vessel's captain poured. He'd been reelected every
voyage, they valued his experience but also his team, his mates who
stared at their calculations and reckoned their fate as invisible
lines chaining a free world. The Americans might be coming, and they
might take as criminals every body aboard. But they would be wrong to
do so, for the lines lied wrongly: the Lollipop was in free waters, as
free as the Dutch master mariners who plotted her course.
And then the fateful tearful cry. The greater ship was George
Loveless. Her flag flew as red as the day of the great British
mutiny. Brine flooded the decks in tear sized drops. That one flag,
that one meaning, human freedom for every European. Oh there were
other flags too, stringing up the poles and flapping their naval
meanings to the mean Navals of the United States, but the meaning for
those poor and downtrodden yearning to be free was clear. They were
free. There would of course be customs and necessary delays, but
nobody would turn over the human cargo to the Trusts. No boss would
suck their sweat in a few short weeks, or make them starve in hope of
that privilege. They had been saved by George Loveless and her big
beautiful guns.
"Its a night trip into bed you hop And dream away"
They were saved. They were going to a world, a new world. They
hungered for their Ireland. The preponderance of force and history
was on their side. Free Yankee sailors on the Lollipop breathed the
relief. Every day of their lives they risked capture. In East Coast
ports they jumped ship with British or Dutch or German or French
passports. They drank and whored with "pay," the currency they forgot
when they berthed in Rotterdam or Marsaille or Kautskygrad. Those
from their number ventured deeper with pockets or lorries, and the
goods unloaded from her belly were pleasing to the women and men of
the United Mine Workers. America was in bloody turmoil at moments,
but the Independent Labour Party and most of the other parties weren't
expecting Big Bill to return over the seas any time soon. But Europe
had an obligation to the backwards world mired in outdated old
traditions of caste and class. An obligation that swelled from the
unwritten constitution held by all European workers, that none was
master of any, and all was master of all.
Who can take tomorrow
Dip it in a dream
Separate the sorrow
And collect up all the cream?
yours,
Sam R.
[1] They lay conspicuously absent offshore non-European areas. Who
cries then for the workers of Shanghai? Who cries out for the workers
of Mukden? Some Measures must be Taken by a young Brecht.
Europe. I have a debt to pay, a debt of joy for having focused too
long on weeds instead of flowers. This is yet another contribution
towards my debt. Sidney Clare, being deceased in 1972, retains his
copyrights. Thankfully Red Europe doesn't honour copyrights,
especially ones yet to come into being. Sadly Australia does honour
copyrights and other trappings of bourgeois society. Excerpts are
minimal and used as quotation.]
"I've thrown away my toys"
She machined the sea to either side of her, lathing silver hot swarfs
at her bow which ran down her sides. SS Lollipop was cutting fresh
mettle from the Atlantic. Her crew spake fast Yankee accents, but her
belly held poor Irish who had spat at tarnished Liberty's promise of
eternal servitude. The Lollipop was making way, and within her she
was making new men and new women. They were happy to be returning to
a free Ireland with the promise of Dutch work on German tools with no
English.
"Some day I'm going to fly. … how would you Like to be my crew..."
The purges had gotten worse. They were running from the continual
violence of Pinkertons and Nightriders. They'd seen Irish worksmen
strung up on burning crosses outside the textile plants. The images
slipped from their minds with the water and whiskey. The first
whiskey they'd tasted in years legally. It was a worker's ship, and
they'd not seen a baton or a food line any day at sea. The spew
covering the head was from drink, not from the sea sickness of the
small boats that smugglers had taken them out to sea on to meet the
Lollipop. They'd been smuggled out by the various undergrounds of
steadily self-bettering Eastern Coast seamen. Some of the miners had
been running an entire continent from bloody Seattle, or Butte, or
from the slaughter houses of Chicago. Some had even given up on
Ireland when they boarded a free ship. They felt the need to free
others from their chains.
"On the good ship lollipop. Its a sweet trip to a candy shop"
Europe was Cockagne, they'd all heard it. Nobody was starving in
Europe. Nobody was beaten in Europe. In Europe you got what you
needed. In Europe you said what you'd do, and for who. Because Rosa
Luxembourg can cause she mixes it with love and makes the world taste
good. They had their golden tickets, and the streets were going to be
paved with gold. It was their right for the taking, for they worked
for their living. The doors were open for everyone who could make the
trip. And the ships lay off shore waiting for the workers.[1]
"You'll awake with a tummy ache."
The siren and gun shot across the bow woke every head on the ship. It
shook soul into body with a terrible fear. The pressmen. The Navy
Borders. The Customs Cutter. The illegal impressment. The claim
that the free men of a revolutionary society were still Americans.
The dread. The boarding agents. The neck chains. The worst fear of
the middle passage was becoming a reality: The United States Navy.
The cargo surged the rails, knocking at sailors on their station,
pressing seamen into bulkheads. The eyes strained in the dawn light.
The horizon held a terrible message, not one great ship of war, but
two.
Over charts the vessel's captain poured. He'd been reelected every
voyage, they valued his experience but also his team, his mates who
stared at their calculations and reckoned their fate as invisible
lines chaining a free world. The Americans might be coming, and they
might take as criminals every body aboard. But they would be wrong to
do so, for the lines lied wrongly: the Lollipop was in free waters, as
free as the Dutch master mariners who plotted her course.
And then the fateful tearful cry. The greater ship was George
Loveless. Her flag flew as red as the day of the great British
mutiny. Brine flooded the decks in tear sized drops. That one flag,
that one meaning, human freedom for every European. Oh there were
other flags too, stringing up the poles and flapping their naval
meanings to the mean Navals of the United States, but the meaning for
those poor and downtrodden yearning to be free was clear. They were
free. There would of course be customs and necessary delays, but
nobody would turn over the human cargo to the Trusts. No boss would
suck their sweat in a few short weeks, or make them starve in hope of
that privilege. They had been saved by George Loveless and her big
beautiful guns.
"Its a night trip into bed you hop And dream away"
They were saved. They were going to a world, a new world. They
hungered for their Ireland. The preponderance of force and history
was on their side. Free Yankee sailors on the Lollipop breathed the
relief. Every day of their lives they risked capture. In East Coast
ports they jumped ship with British or Dutch or German or French
passports. They drank and whored with "pay," the currency they forgot
when they berthed in Rotterdam or Marsaille or Kautskygrad. Those
from their number ventured deeper with pockets or lorries, and the
goods unloaded from her belly were pleasing to the women and men of
the United Mine Workers. America was in bloody turmoil at moments,
but the Independent Labour Party and most of the other parties weren't
expecting Big Bill to return over the seas any time soon. But Europe
had an obligation to the backwards world mired in outdated old
traditions of caste and class. An obligation that swelled from the
unwritten constitution held by all European workers, that none was
master of any, and all was master of all.
Who can take tomorrow
Dip it in a dream
Separate the sorrow
And collect up all the cream?
yours,
Sam R.
[1] They lay conspicuously absent offshore non-European areas. Who
cries then for the workers of Shanghai? Who cries out for the workers
of Mukden? Some Measures must be Taken by a young Brecht.