Saint Vitus' Day - Vidovdan (Julian reckoning)

Saint Vitus was a young Christian martyred in Sicily under Diocletian. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He is asked to intercede for those with epilepsy. He has been popular in central europe and the balkans. The cathedral in Prague is dedicated to him. In art he is sometimes pictured as being boiled in a pot of oil. In regard to the Serbs his day is, especially, poignant.

The Turks, Ottoman, were expanding into Europe, into the Balkans. The Serbs had a small empire and had aspirations. The Serbs had recently twice defeated the Turks. They met each other, again, on June 15, 1389 at Kosovo Polje, the Field of Blackbirds. The Turks had about double the manpower, and both armies were of the tens of thousands strong.

The only turkish sultan, Murad, who would die in battle, died there. In Turkish fashion, when his son, Bajezid, received the news, he had his brother, Jakub summoned. The brother was strangled and the Turks had a new sultan. The Serbian military nobility was cut down, including their tsar Lazar. Proportionately the Serbs lost in the heavy carnage. The Serbs would be hostage to the Turks for centuries.

Rebecca West in the late 1930s went to the Balkans. In 1941 there appeared her book, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through Yugoslavia. It was over a thousand pages, in two volumes; it was a blend of history and travelogue. As T.E. Lawrence championed, and explained, the Arabs in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom, she explains the Jugoslavs. She came to the grey (siva) falcon (soko) from the poem about Lazar, where he and the Serbs receive the Eucharist before the Turks attack:

Poletio soko titsa siva,
Od svetinje, od Jerusalima,
I on nosi titsu lastavitsu ...

The black lamb is an illusion to the sacrificial nature of the Christian. The Serbs (and West) see themselves as the sacrificial protectors of christian civilisation before the onslaught of the moslem Turks.

In the twentieth century June 15 O.S. was 28 June N.S., and the day again, and again was politically significant:

• In 1914, the first world war began in Sarajevo
• In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed to end the war
• In 1921, king Aleksandar introduced the Vidovdan Constitution (Vidovdanski ustav), proclaiming the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Old Jugoslavija)
• In 1989 Milošević went to the site and, thereafter, succeeding disasters visited the nations
  
• In 2001 Milošević was deported to the Hague to be tried for war crimes

The Turks destroyed the mediæval Srbija and Milošević severely blackened their modern identity. Kosovo fell again and again. The historical presence of the Serbs, the Gypsies and Christianity are being obliterated in the province to-day.

Cohoosion

Cohoosion. An unwitting neologism slipped from, the tongue of, a brother at an union meeting. He has been mocked for it, though, he realised at the moment of the awkwardness. But, he was right. The word merged ‘collusion’ and ‘in cahoots’. He was making the accurate charge, that, the union administration and the contractors were in league against the union membership.

A milder term would be ‘accommodation’, a stronger term would be ‘collaborator’ in the quisling fashion. They, often, use the term ‘coöperate’ as would a team. This sounds reasonable to some: the gullible and the comfortable. In their faulty argument, which they aggressively accept for you, as a priori, they posit the unionised sector versus the non. Yet, for some years now, they promote the taking in of scabs as members with accrued benefits. This last bit, I do not have firm details, but it is galling. The main electrical construction workers (wiremen) union is a part of the IBEW, and its leadership (guffaw) wants capita and not conditions.

The point is, that, union officer’s chief duty is to advocate and defend union members. To-day only the police, and the AMA, do this. To act, only, as a labor agency for employers is dereliction and betrayal. We become day laborers, some treated well, others poorly. The union officer’s pay comes out of working assessments and dues of the laboring brothers. The union officer is paid by his brothers, who, he is to serve.

Scab labor, even when unionised, because of its internal acceptance of anti-labor practices and psychology, often continues to act as it did before, but better paid with benefits. It then will, often, do “whatever it takes” to keep a job. By this, I mean, backstabbing, cheating and dilution of working conditions, in order to please his employer. The employer will act in his economic, mercenary interest, and favor him. In construction, the work site location changes, the size and scope of the work changes, and jobs begin and end. The work crew waxes and wanes. Many jobs end with layoffs, and the next job, may be, a short or long, or very, long time coming. The scab wishes to remain employed, and has no interest in the good of the union, or in union brotherhood. The scab is a social darwinist.

The capitalist rabble, and their dupes, bewail unions. They use the worst possible anecdote, often riddled with inaccuracies, and use it axiomatically. Union membership, as a percentage of total workers in the US, is pitifully low. Ronnie Reagan, a former union president, gave unionism its greatest blow since Taft-Hartley Act (1947). The PATCO (air traffic controllers) president, Robert Poli,* was taken into court in chains and shackles. This was on the evening news, and it shriveled the testicles, of the near entirety, of union leadership. This was a black flag in a decade of unrelenting greed. Corporate America had license without restriction. An open attack on labor in the US, while Poland was working on freedom with the formation, of the free labor movement, of (Solidarność) Solidarity.

This gave employers the go ahead in hiring scabs, as permanent replacements, for union labor. The greatest weapon, and freedom of labor, to strike, was crippled. To strike, in the US, was to be arrested or to have quit: while in Poland, strajk, was a path to political freedom, and the end of totalitarianism. Labor without a right to strike, to refuse to labor, is slavery.

Well, to-day, during our lunch half hour, we were presented with pr bs, boilerplate inanities. On our unpaid time, in the presence of management: the contractor, his son, representatives of a large corporate customer, and general contractor, we were told by our elected business manager (son of a former business manager) about “the code of excellence ”. This propaganda, we were not able to freely discuss, on account of the interlopers. And it was to the benefit of the interlopers, and not to us. We were to be docile, and dutiful, and self policing in the interest of the customer. We earn our pay, not directly, from the customer. The customer pays for the job to the contractor, the contractor pays us for our labor. The union is our representation to the employer/contractor, not, the customer. Our proper definition of terms have been replaced by the jiggered, definition of terms of our adversaries. We were sold.
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*August 3, 1981 the union declared a strike.
August 5, 1981 Reagan fired over 11,000 strikers.
US marshals brought in several men in this manner.

La Sainte Jean

Pietro Bernini. St John the Baptist.1612-15. Sant’Andrea della Valle, Rome.

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways: To give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the remission of their sins: — Luke i. 76-77.

Now, John, in its many versions (Ivan, Ian, Jean, Evan, Jan, Janes, Johan, Giovanni, Sean, Juan, Ionnes, Jahja ...), in many languages, is the most popular name in the christian world. So, a distinction to designate amongst different individuals is needed. In the Gospels, we have the beloved apostle and evangelist John, and the baptist or the precursor, whom the eastern church, often, refers as the forerunner. In the west, John the Precursor has two days on the calendar, his birth and his beheading. Usually, the date of death, when he nears the heavenly reward is commemorated. The christian church notes only a few births, Jesus, his mother, Mary, and his second cousin, John the Baptist. The eastern church celebrates four additional days for John the Forerunner. As was estimated, that John was six months older than Jesus, we note the 24th of June as his birth.

In art, he is often depicted. In some icons, John has wings suggesting his celestial nature.. In the west, he often is pointing up, in the direction of heaven suggesting the coming of Our Lord. He is sometimes gaunt, haggard and tanned wearing rough sewn animal skin. He had lived an ascetic existence in the unwelcoming desert. He often has a very slender cross as a staff, sometimes with the a scroll that reads “Ecce Homo” or “Agnus Dei”, which naturally, announces Jesus. He is often with a handsome lamb, again predicting the coming of Christ.

Sometimes he is a child with the Child Jesus and Mary. Often, other non-contemporaneous saints and individuals appear. This sort of painting is a sacra conversazione, which reflects our actual, though sometimes, invisible community and conversation. Remember, we are all in it together.

Saint John is important in the Americas. San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico is named in his honor. He is patron of Canada, especially of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Saint John, New Brunswick. The poem and song, now anthem, Ô Canada, was created for the 1880 La fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

In Québec it is a civil holiday. La fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste, in some quarters, is like Saint Patrick’s amongst the irish in america: an ethnic display of parade and alcohol. Beginning in the late ’60s the day became politicised, in 1969 there was a riot and an icon was destroyed.

In english Canada, the day passes with little, or no, cogniscense. But, Saint Jean was very important to the canadiens of generations past. This year, Québec City is celebrating 400 years with the 49th International Eucharistic Congress, which ran from the 15th to the 22nd of June. Catholicism still breathes on the Plains of Abraham.

A month ago, the Bouchard and Taylor commission, as a sop to anti-Catholics, wanted to remove the crucifix above the speaker’s chair in National Assembly. Premier Jean Charest did not accept this, Charest said, “We won’t rewrite history. The church has played a major role in who we are today as a society, the crucifix is more than a religious symbol.”* Charest did remark, that no reminders of Victoria (the english queen) were to be excised, nor other symbols were to fall into the memory hole. L'Assemblée Nationale voted unanimously to bear, and not to bare the cross. The Quebec Act of 1774, to the anger of english colonists, guaranteed the civil and religious rights of the conquered french in north america. To-day Quebec is still more than three quarters french, and french and catholic were a common dual identity, and much of the old immigration was also catholic. The centre holds still. French Canada is Catholic Canada, any revision would be false and an act of arbitrary will force ably imposed.
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*«Il n’est pas question d’écrire l'histoire à l’envers. L'Église a joué un très grand rôle depuis 350 ans, le crucifix est un symbole de cette histoire, ce n’est pas seulement religieux»
noto bene: In the Hitchcock film, I Confess (1953), you can see the legislative assembly chamber, and crucifix in two scenes; in addition, a very large and impressive crucifix is in the courtroom.

Smedley Butler — A Savior of the Republic

Smedley Darlington Butler, *1881,†21 June 1940
Major General - United States Marines
Recipient of 2 Congressional Medals of Honor
Republican candidate for US Senate 1932


Recently, a few marines were honored, by commemorative postage stamps. A truly, fine marine was not in that corps. He was a much, decorated warrior, but, all the fruit salad of medals and badges, did not include a recognition of his greatest service to his and our country. This great hero saved american democracy, not on the battlefield, from Wall Street. He stopped a moneyed, fascist cabal from removing the greatest, and most significant president, of the twentieth century, from office — Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The man so reviled as a “traitor to his class” and whose name was never allowed to be spoken, in the houses of fascists and other rabid Republicans and plutocrats. He was referred, bitterly and angrily, as “that man”.

He had spent a full generation (33 years) as a marine. But, he had insulted Mussolini and a courts-martial was possible, and the Quaker Hoover was not a friend. Butler was well known to military men, and highly respected amongst them. He was given the nicknames, “The Fighting Quaker” and “Old Gimlet Eye”.

After the (first) Hundred Days of Roosevelt’s term, the mighty, moneyed interests were alarmed. Smedley was approached by the representatives of concentrated wealth, the 60 families*, to remove Roosevelt and act as their figurehead. But, Butler was a patriot. He did what they didn’t expect. He told the press through and with Paul Comly French of the Philadelphia Record, the Congress and the american people. Since the owners of the press were, also, of corporate interest, and many political officers were their beneficiaries or employees, much was covered up; but, the story did get out, to a degree. The coup was stopped, even though, the cover up was largely successful, there is still an existing historical record. Members of the Morgan Bank, du Pont, McCormack (Chicago Tribune, International Harvester), Standard Oil, Remington Arms, Goodyear, Mellon … families and businesses, and … one … Prescott Bush. The muscle was to come from the American Legion, which, often acted as strike breaking goons.

In the 1920s government was run by, and for commercial, interests. American business leaders liked the new regimes in Italy† and Germany, and were taking notes. The Republicans won landslide victories in ’20, ’24 and ’28. Harding, Coolidge and Hoover served well their particular constituencies. The discrepancy between the rich and poor was very great. Now, to-day with Reagan, Bush and junior, especially, it has returned near that level. In 1929 Wall Street crashed and drove the country into the Great Depression. And to the moneyed horror, the people voted in a real democrat, Franklin Roosevelt. And ever since, the Republican party has tried to remove every aspect and detail of the New Deal. They want the regime of the 1920s. They have forgotten nothing, and have not changed.

After that event he spoke and wrote repeatedly the same lines, that war is a racket, one version written in 1935 includes:

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

Butler was a very honorable man. He had been a Quaker, a scion of quaker families, though, he was no pacifist. He did see, that, the United States did not limit itself to defensive wars, in fact, he could not find an instance of one in the history of the country. No matter, it would still be quite difficult to name a child, Smedley.
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*Ferdinand Lundberg, America’s 60 Families.
†“Fascism should be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini.
SEE: Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-third Congress, Second Session, at Washington, DC, December 29, 1934. Hearings No. 73-D.C.-6, Part 1.
Last year, a program on The Business Plot was broadcast on BBC radio. The british press is far, more informative on american politics, than the american press!

De Gaulle, the Man of the 18th of June

I write from english speaking America, there is here, ab initio, an enduring, active and stupid anti-gallicanism. In the States, it is primarily, on account of the stubborn, french idée fixe, that the french truly, matter importantly. It is part of the mania that produced, amongst other things, manifest destiny. In Canada, it is a rivalry of the maple leafs and the canadiens.*

In the person, of Charles de Gaulle, there is a person to target these animuses. He loved France, in the deepest and most sentimental manners. He also had an understanding of England and the United States as a single transatlantic anglo-saxon entity, which, he did not love.

Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France.
All my life I have had a certain idea of France. — So begins, Mémoires de guerre

La France ne peut être la France sans la grandeur.
France cannot be France without greatness. — Mémoires de guerre

A la base de notre civilisation, il y a la liberté de chacun dans sa pensée, ses croyances, ses opinions, son travail, ses loisirs.
At the base of our civilisation, there is the liberty of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.— 25 Nov. 1941

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. — 9 May 1969

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde.
Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world. — 23 Nov. 1959

Charles de Gaulle was the man of the eighteenth of June, 1940. The Germans had overrun France, over 100,000 french soldiers were dead†, the long occupation had begun. In the early evening, over BBC radio, the French resistance began. The Général, and the leader of the free french spoke.‡ On the 22nd, a second, wider, broadcast was made.

Quoi qu'il arrive, la flamme de la résistance française ne doit pas s'éteindre et ne s'éteindra pas.
Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. — 18 Jun 1940

Or, beaucoup de Français n'acceptent pas la capitulation ni la servitude, pour des raisons qui s'appellent l'honneur, le bons sens, l'intérêt supérieur de la Patrie.
Now, a great many Frenchmen refuse to accept either capitulation or slavery, for reasons which are called : honour, common sense, and the higher interests of the country. — 22 Jun 1940

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*In 1967, in Montreal, he said, Vive le Québec libre!
†French military dead, world war I : ~ 1,368,000
‡Despite of repeated attempts of, both, the english and the americans of finding a more, accommodating frenchman. This is where the dislike of de Gaulle began. De Gaulle resisted all saxons: german nazis and anglo-saxons.

Massachusetts and the exercise of religion

On the 17th of June 1700, the law of Massachusetts’ was proclaimed to the world, that, the presence of a Catholick priest in Massachusetts merited death by the state. Such was the spirit of love, freedom and godliness in John Winthrop’s city on the hill, the pure protestant Jerusalem. Soon New York had the same statute.

As in mother England, catholicism was a capital offense. The tragically, repetitively, unfortunate Anne (nicknamed Goody, an appellation given to women in Massachusetts then) Glover was hanged on 16 November 1688. In a 1689 book, Memorable Providences, Cotton Mather, who interrogated, tells of her witchcraft. Anne, had survived Cromwell’s massacres, at Drogheda and elsewhere, he chose to dispense with further genocide, only because of the logistics, and deported or sold other irish. She was sent, as a slave, to Barbados, then, as a ‘servant’ to Massachusetts. She was accused by children. By test, though she could recite the Our Father, in latin and gaelic, but not in english, she was a proven witch. During the ‘trial’, Mather referred to the ‘hag’ as “a scandalous old Irishwoman, very poor, a Roman Catholick and obstinate in idolatry”. Our Lady of Victories Eucharistic Shrine, Boston, has a plaque to Ann Glover as the first catholic martyr of Massachusetts. She was the first ‘witch’ hanged in America, and the last woman hanged in Boston.

Sebastian Râle was a Jesuit missionary in the disputed territory of l’Acadie/Massachusetts in, what is now, Maine. There were several attempts on his life. On August 23rd, 1724 the Massachusetts militia caught their prey. His scalp was displayed triumphantly in Boston.

A hundred years ago at the college of the Holy Cross, the new archbishop, soon to be cardinal, William Henry O’Connell spoke at length to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Boston diocese. O’Connell. He was the eleventh child of potato failure parents. He was a vain glorious, powerfully arrogant, prince of the church, who enjoyed splendor and ambition, and overlooked corruption. He was a militantly, triumphal, proponent of the one, true church:

The Puritan has passed. The Catholic remains.The city where a century ago he came unwanted he has made his own .... The child of the immigrant is called in to fill the place which the Puritan has left.

James Michael Curley, was at different times: congressman, governor and mayor. He was a scion of the starving time emigrés too. Many irish at the turn of the twentieth century, had great positions in the church and the state, in the new world. Perhaps, Boston was the easiest example. In 1914 he said:

“The day of the Puritan has passed; the Anglo-Saxon is a joke; a new and better America is here.”

In a novel, in 1956, and a movie, in 1958, The Last Hurrah, Edwin O’Connor writes of a similar character. Spencer Tracy plays Frank Skeffington. That and All the King’s Men are the two american political novels. La Dernière Fanfare is the french, hurrah, has a different caché. I do not have in front of me the script, but if memory serves, and my copy of the book is 457, or so, pages and I can’t find the passage now. But, O’Connell was the eleventh child, James Michael Curley had seven children. And the line, which is in some other movie†, is something like, “We have eight, or ten children, they (the Puritan/Anglo-Saxon/Yankee/Brahmin/Wasp) have small dogs.” That is how democracy, and demographics, can displace bigotry and entrenched, monied interests.

That is how that establishment staggered, of course they still had the money, and they still do. But the despised, wretched, immigrants (this includes canadiens, poles, italians, litvaks, greeks, latinos) had the bodies. This is why the Republican party has always wanted to suppress the vote, and spread fear and hatred of immigrants. But the worst thing of these immigrants was their religion. Attempts to americanise, the newcomers, always was to de-romanise them*. In the case of the irish, this had failed until the last generation, and in Boston, there were self-inflicted wounds. There is still a lingering catholicism in Massachusetts, but it is not triumphant or strong, it is bickering, beleaguered, weak and weary.
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*and now they are attempting to de-democratise the remaining catholics

postscriptum:† On the night of McCain’s acceptance speech, I watched Spencer Tracy; the line wasn’t in the movie, although a similar vein of material was present. I would like to re-encounter that film.

Saint Anthony of Padua and Lisbon

We believe in the communion of saints. We are in it together. Heaven and earth commune. One of our most familiar heavenly friends is Anthony. He was born Fernando *1195, in Lisbon. He became an Augustinian and was then at the old Portuguese capital, Coimbra.

He became aware of the Franciscan martyrs of Morocco, and desired to be one. He changed orders and went to Morocco to evangelise. Later he was shipwrecked at Sicily, and was at first ignored. After awhile the italian franciscans realised his abilities.

He became a professor of theology and then itinerant preacher in France, Spain and Italy. He was well known and crowds seeked him out. He spent his last ten years around Padua, a town where he had great success. He was known as a wonderworker, and as “Hammer of Heretics ”. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1946.

He is a favorite saint. He is claimed by two cities. The italians hold him to be a Padovese, the Portuguese know him to be of Lisboa.

There is the argument he had with Francis of Assisi, concerning, whether the friars should seek academic learning in their religious lives. I can imagine the two in dialogue gesticulating:

“Some of the brothers should go to university.”
“No, a life of poverty and prayer with the people. ”
“They need the learning.”
“Ehhh, ... no. ”
“They should be smart.”
“Stupid.”
“Smart.”
“Stupid.”
“Smart.”
“Ehhh ... ok, then.”

Most churches, that I have been to, have a statue of Anthony. I moved into my house, nine years ago to-day, I felt it appropriate to have a statue of him in front of my house.

He helps us find stuff and get stuff to arrive where it was meant to. We find him helpful in many regards. He has many friends. We have many stories about him. Some of those are illustrated. It is not unusual, for us, to keep pictures of our friends and family. Some pictures remind us of specific events and stories, that, we put into context. There is Tony with a lily, there he has the flame in his hand, there he is with the pious mule, there is Tony distributing bread, there is Tony with the Child Jesus, there is Tony with Frankie ... and there is Tony with the fish at Rimini.

Anthony having become frustrated at the inattentive and obtuse heretics, went upon the strand between stream and sea to speak to the fish, as did previously did Francis spake to the birds. They lifted their piscine heads, and listened, and nodded at the words.

“Listen to the word of God, O ye fishes of the sea and of the river, seeing that the faithless heretics refuse to do so ... My fish brothers, you are bound, as much as is in your power, to return thanks to your Creator, who has given you so noble an element for your dwelling; for you have at your choice both sweet water and salt; you have many places of refuge from the tempest; you have likewise a pure and transparent element for your nourishment. God, your bountiful and kind Creator, when he made you, ordered you to increase and multiply, and gave you his blessing. In the universal deluge, all other creatures perished; you alone did God preserve from all harm. He has given you fins to enable you to go where you will ... Blessed be the Eternal God, for the fishes of the waters give Him more honor than heretical men, and the animals lacking reason listen to His word with greater attention than faithless men!”*


Some of them saw and heard this, and told others. Anthony stayed, awhile in Rimini, and the heretics were reconciled.
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* from translations of chapter 40 of the Fioretti di San Francesco d'Assisi
noto bene: glass is by Margaret Edith Rope and is in storage (?) in Victoria and Albert Museum, London.