December 17—Special
Three-Week Issue
The December 17 issue of What’s Happening will cover three
weeks of events from December 17-January 6.
The Calendar, Music Calendar, and Classifieds deadline for
that issue is Thursday, December 10 at 4 pm. The display
advertising deadline is Monday, December 14 at noon.
The first issue of 1988 will be out on January 7. The Calen
dar, Music Calendar, and Classifieds deadline for that issue is
Thursday, December 31, 4 pm. The display advertising dead
line is Monday, January 4, at noon.
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OPINION
. . .. . ..... .-...kkAset
md
2*ie
Ashes and Diamonds
by Alexander Cockburn
Washington’s Death
On November 21 I sat in an enor
mous restaurant in Chicago called
Sauer’s and along with several hun
dred other people joined in honoring
the 50th anniversary of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade and particularly
Oliver Law. Up on the stage stood
about a dozen Brigade vets, and
widows of vets, looking spry, and the
following proclamation was read out:
“Whereas, this year marks the 50th
anniversary of the entrance of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade as volun
teers in defense of democracy in the
Spanish civil war; and
“Whereas, over 200 Chicagoans
joined this international movement to
stop the spread of fascism; and
“Whereas, Oliver Law, a leader of
movements for relief of the poor and
for political rights for blacks and
working people in Chicago in the ear
ly 1930s, was a commander in the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, thus be
coming the first black American to
lead an integrated military force in the
history of the United States; and
“Whereas, the long-neglected his
torical significance of Oliver Law is
being recognized in a program on No
vember 21, 1987, sponsored by the
Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Bri
gade and the 50th Anniversary Com
mittee, which will honor the continu
ing legacy of international solidarity
represented by Oliver Law and the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade;
“Now, therefore, I, Harold Wash
ington, Mayor of the City of Chicago,
do hereby proclaim November 21,
1987, to be Oliver Law and Abraham
Lincoln Day in Chicago and urge all
citizens to be cognizant of the special
events arranged for this time and the
importance of this history.
“Dated this 18th day of November,
1987. Harold Washington, Mayor.”
I sat there thinking how fine it was
that Chicago had a mayor ready to
honor Law and the Brigade in this
fashion. It must have been almost the
last proclamation Washington signed.
He was dead of a heart attack within
the week, at 65, which is the average
life expectancy rate for black males
in the United States. The expectancy
rate for black males has been falling
' throughout Reagan’s term, though had
the press headline said, “Washington
dies on schedule required by U.S.
capitalism” it would have no doubt
been considered the height of bad
taste.
Series and the Nexus:
The Case of the
“Bush Vet
99
About 60 miles north of Spokane
in eastern Washington is the town of
Colville. The country round about is
rugged, cut through with glacial
valleys sheltering fertile farms. Over
to the east across the mountains is
neo-Nazi terrain, around Metalline
Falls and Coeur d’Alene. The eco
nomy of the region is depressed;
mines closed up, lumber run down.
The Colville region is Vietnam vet
country; rural, remote and, best of
all, cheap.
About four years ago, some Viet
nam vets going to the mental health
center in Colville for individual
counseling organized a rap group,
meeting once a week to have collec
tive sessions in which each could
unburden himself, sharing ex
periences with others well qualified
to understand what was being talked
about. After 18 months they went
public, debuting with a booth at the
Colville County Fair.
This initiative did not pass un
noticed by the local Veterans of
Foreign Wars service office, which
exerted itself to organize a group of
vets less overtly connected with the
politically fraught notion of peace. A
supervisory bureaucrat from Health
and Social Services called Lloyd
Humphreys urged the vets to merge
with the new group for their weekly
sessions and finally a joint gathering
was convened. The rap groups were
not delighted by the consequences.
They had a rule for such meetings: no
weapons, no booze. One of the vets
in the counter group was half stewed
and others carried knives.
The rap group said it would boy
The Colville region is
Vietnam vet country;
rural, remote, and best
of all cheap. About
four years ago some
Vietnam vets...
organized a rap
group....
cott the mental health center and did
so for the following 18 months. The
bureaucracy—feds twined octopus
like with the Washington Department
of Social and Health Services—then
announced that they were withdraw
ing recognition from the rappers as
a group, though each of its members
could return for counseling on an in
dividual basis.
The rap group jacked up its collec
tive social and political presence in
the community, calling itself Vets for
Peace, organizing community vigils,
leafleting lines for Platoon, and so
forth.
Earlier this year Dan Rather came
to Colville. With him he brought CBS
producer Paul Fine and a production
unit and began to make a documen
tary about Colville area vets. It should
be airing round about now. Vets for
Peace made sure the CBS people
knew about its existence and waited
eagerly for the opportunity to try to
counter the mad dog image of a bunch
of Rambo crazies in the hills: the so
called “bust vet,” beloved by jour
nalists chirping about PTSD—post
traumatic stress disorder—and avoid
ing politics in any form.
The chance never came. Rather and
his crew spent their time talking to the
state-sanctioned vet group, and flew
off into the sunrise. Still smarting
from this experience, Vets for Peace
were then approached by the Spokane
Spokesman Review. The reporter talk
ed with them by the hour. The pho
tographer arrived and they stood
proudly under their Vets for Peace
banner as he clicked away. One more
shot, he asked, just them and no ban
What's Happening Office Hours
Monday-Friday 9-4
ner against a mountain backdrop. In
nocently, they complied. In the pub
lished story they got two paragraphs,
buried in blather about the counter
group. And the photograph of men
without a banner, socially atomised
against a bush vet backdrop.
This kind of treatment of Vets for
Peace by CBS and the Spokesman
Review was well summed up by Theo
dor Adorno in Minima Morulia in his
words in “Monad”:
“(The decay of the individual] must
not be deduced individualistically, but
from the social tendency which as
serts itself by means of individuation
and not merely as its enemy. . . .
Reactionary criticism often attains in
sight into the decay of individuality
and the crisis of society, but places the
ontological responsibility of this on
the individual as such, as something
discrete and internal: for this reason
the accusation of shallowness, lack of
faith and substance, is the last word
it has to say. . . . (T)he trend of their
condemnation is rather to sacrifice the
individual himself than to criticize the
social principium individuationis. As
half-truths, their polemics are already
the whole untruth. . . . (T)he setting
free of the individual by the under
mining of the polis did not strengthen
his resistance, but eliminated him and
individuality itself. . . . Freedom
from society robs him of the strength
for freedom.”
Take that, Allan Bloom.
Well Done, Bill!
The thought of CBS brings me to
Bill Moyers, pissed on here once or
twice for disservices to humanity.
Now comes the time to give the man
a clap on the back and words of hearty
congratulations for his Contragate/
Constitution film, aired on November
4. This was a fine 90-minute docu
Continued on page 11
WHAT'S HAPPENING
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