Customer Reviews

Murdered by Capitalism: A Memoir of 150 Years of Life and Death on the American Left (Nation Books)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's true this book is funny, but it is also very moving as it traces the more pugnacious side of US Left History. You get a real sense of the actors in this drama, their personalities as well as the effect of those personalities on the unfolding of rival left "organizations." In some ways, this is a real People's History as it contains and dramatizes all the contradictions of the various movements-Stalinist, Maoist, Anarchist, etc. Ross is much more sympathetic to violent resistance than Howard Zinn is, and his running down the forgotten violence by both right and left is meant to remind us that being left can't be being in a vacuum. Pacifism, for example, didn't bring on the 8hr work day. Most importantly, it reveals that the life of a political outsider and activist need not be sheer drudgery. Though it is struggle, Ross expresses a revolutionary joy. A good primer about left history, an excellent memoir of struggle. Ross has a muscular, but finely honed prose style. A joy to read.

The great contribution of this popularly written history of American radicalism is the joyful abandonment John Ross brings to slamming the annoying pacifism and political correctness of today's anemic Left movement. Yes folks, fighting imperialism and blowing it to bits can be fun! It's supposed to be fun. This bold idea is the premise of Murdered by Capitalism. Ross captures the spirit of the working class heroes who slugged it out, toe to toe, with the capitalist villains of American history. (Not the "corporate" villains PLEASE!) In addition to enjoying lives of adventure and freedom, people like Lucy Parsons, Eugene Debs and Big Bill Haywood kicked butt and made breakthroughs that bettered the lives of all working people for decades to come. This is partisan writing. Pacifism and political correctness are middle-class ideologies that have infected the Left. The working class must break out of these limits if it is to ever mount a fight for human liberation, for freedom, and for political power. Ross wants to blow these middle-class prejudices away. And his book succeeds in doing so. The book presents the entire history of the American left since the Eight Hour Day movement of the 1880s. That's a lot of history-and a lot of contending ideologies-to cover well. Ross tries to represent the disputes fairly, and this book can serve as an introduction to the disputations that roil the adherents of anarchism, syndicalism and Leninism down to the present day. But Ross's own untamed anarcho-communist ideology comes through, in all its poetic fury, on every page. This book never descends into mere analysis of the contending trends. Explaining our past mistakes and finding the way forward is, of course, absolutely necessary if we are going to win. But a winning movement needs more than analysis. It needs to unlock all the latent creativity and combativeness of the American working class. John Ross's book is a long needed wake-up call to the Left. It is a life-affirming manifesto for working class rebellion and for revolution. "MBC" is, at the same time, a hilarious indictment of the politically-correct liberalism that is dragging our movement down.

John Ross is a fascinating and funny storyteller. The Publisher's Weekly dweeb who dis-ed this excellent book must have no soul. Ross might be that guy you've seen by the roadside and dismissed as a homeless drunk, however this homeless drunk tells a story everyone should know, and maybe understand. The enemy is revealed, and also the reason it is so hard to defeat.

Feeling pretty goulish himself after 50 years of radical politics and hard drinking, Ross communes with a host of dead leftists in their graves. He records their various testimonies, mixes in his own debauched tale, and strings together a partly fictional parade of All-American revolutionary skeletons. With lapses of self-ridicule, Ross and his dead give free vent to self-righteous defiance against almost every known authority. They veer over the edge of legal speech, paying tribute to the old anarchist dream of a bomb for every president. Ross upholds the American right to bear bombs, but at some point in the 1960s realizes, ``I was 32 and had never thrown a bomb.``

Feeling that bombing is a central aspect of the American psyche, Ross reviles the government`s bombing campaigns, and tries to separate good bombs from bad bombs: ``In America, the bombs come in all flavors -- racist bombs, revolutionary communist bombs, union bombs, Capitalist bombs, criminal bombs, and just plain old grudge bombs.``

I enjoyed the banter of semi-sane idealists over the past 7 or 8 generations. But in terms of the means etc., I had some difficulty separating one bomber from the next.

John Ross likes to visit cemeteries and chat up the bones of fallen working class heroes. Their surreal conversations cover decades of American labor history.

E. B. "Eddie" Schnaubelt was murdered by capitalism in 1913. That's what it says on his grave stone in Trinidad, California. He tells Ross how he came to California from Chicago, on the lam from the police roundup that followed the Haymarket bombing in 1886. He insists that neither he nor his brother Rudolph was the bomb thrower.

When Schnaubelt clams up on him, Ross descends into hell to interview President McKinley, then proceeds to a boneyard outside Chicago to chat up the remains of the Haymarket martyrs. Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Sacco and Vanzetti, William Z. Foster, and others join the conversation, discussing the pros and cons of communism and other isms. It makes for a lively discussion and even stirs the bones of Senator Joe McCarthy, who butts in all the way from Wisconsin!

John Ross is a long-time radical, beat poet, and freelance foreign correspondent. His book is a zany and raucous historical memoir of epic proportions. It often lapses into poetic imagery. It is pugnacious and outrageous at times, and always unequivocally on the side of working people against their capitalist tormenters. But it is not non-violent. There is even a warning on the cover that "This book contains graphic scenes of revolutionary violence." Ross condones that violence--if it comes from the Left. But otherwise, a good read.

Digs into the soul of resistance in a way no cut and paste history of the American Left can. Though excessive at times, the narrative occasionally snaps and crackles like a firestream of defiance, taking one voice then another, but always returning to its source: the echo of struggles past and those to come. Also along the way are the laughs, with adventures-misadventures ranging far and wide, unable to resist any siren call from the Left. Too bad, Ross couldn't raise the shade of Earl Browder to explain the progressive potential of the Party of Roosevelt in an era of Clinton-Kerry. I don't know how many of the vintage facts he has right, but the poetics of affirmation are there in abundance and speak loud and clear to all who will listen. Worth the trip.

Murdered by Capitalism is both fun and instructive. John pulls no punches. Though a life-long advocate of social justice and the oppressed -- firmly on the side of all progressive issues, Ross faults the left for its incessant bickering and splintering. John Ross passed away January 2011. It is a great loss for those who have depended on his incisive reporting to interpret Latin American affairs and the U.S. relationship with Mexico.

The most frustrating charachteristic of this book is its likeability. It reads like tour-guide patter on a comfortable bus trip through the landscape of the American far left over the last century and change. Superficial, but damned entertaining. There's no attempt to explore the distinctions between the violent and non-violent, or to justify in a meaningful way the rejection of the electoral process. It seems to lump non-violent champions of social justice with those who responded to monstrous injustice by resorting to terror tactics and killing. Ultimately, Ross fails to clarify his own sympathy or lack thereof for leftist terrorists. Is he saying that the Haymarket bomber was justified because he was aiming at cops? Does he really bestow victim status on the Weathermen who blew themselves up, on a par with the kids shot at Kent State? Ross seems determined not to judge. His dedication to historical accuracy is also suspect, and he seems to lack resistance to leftist legends and conspiracy theories (McKinley blew up the USS Maine; LBJ killed JFK, etc.). Nevertheless, it reads well, and if you don't crave moral clarity you can give it another star.

An outstandingly outrageous autobiography intertwined with truthfully tragic American history as seen from the left.

I give this book a shining five stars and rate it a recommended read.

KABOOM!

...who had written the brilliant novel *Unintended Consequences*, and whose political morality is diametrically opposed to that of "...the American Left."

Amazon.com had better correct this mistaken impression ASAP.