I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
—Voltaire

As the holidays settle in, and digestion gets difficult, Canadians can celebrate what appears to be a bolster to free speech—basically, I think, a legal decision that pulls back on dangerous libel laws that give the mighty way too much protection from criticism. This liberalisation is a great thing.

On the flipside is China. Let us take a moment to hope for the best for this man, a professor, Liu Xiaobo, jailed for “co-authoring a document appealing for greater political liberalisation.”

The petition, which said “we should end the practice of viewing words as crimes”, specifically called for the abolition of subversion in China’s criminal code—the very crime for which Liu was sentenced on Friday.

How flipping awful and ignorant is this, with China becoming the most recent super-power, and closing in on 2010? It makes me feel sick to my stomach, and one can only salute Liu Xiaobo’s courage with the utmost solidarity.

It’s more frightening when one considers how much money America owes China, and that such a vast amount of world manufacturing is done in China, using sweatshop labour etc.

Free Speech is not something handed down from above, it is something that has to be earned from below (although there eventually becomes an arrangement between the two). We must remember that. People under great duress have fought for the right to speak freely, and to freely organize—let alone organize.

Being able to slam each other on comments on some blog may feel like free speech, and it is in a sense, but it actually works to tear us apart in the long run—and does not prepare us for if, or when, conditions get truly difficult. It would be much more intelligent, beautiful, empowering and freeing if I tried to listen more, to understand the other—with discernment—realizing most of the people with whom I have differences are actually in the same sinking boat, under the same duress, buried by the same crap politics, deflated by unbacked currency, dragged down by the same insane national debt and as baffled by climate change politics as I am.

I wrote an essay recently about free speech here, where I think a few important details are (freely) discussed.

Think of Liu Xiaobo, fighting for what should be an inherent right; think of your neighbour, even your enemy, and use free speech to increase solidarity, not noise, confusion and division. With great love and hope on this Christmas Day.

Lots of love,

Pete

A good buddy of mine and I were talking about Big Pharma and social responsibility, having heard that it is actually illegal for companies to do anything socially responsible if that action decreases profits (including on behalf of human rights or anything else). I couldn’t give exact references to my friend, so I took a few minutes to do a little research, and found the following. I thought you might find it interesting (and this is not said in denial of whatever great advancements corporations have furthered).

And of course I am not talking about all corporations (although Joel Bakan below is talking about the legalities of the corporation, by definition). Some corporations are small and run with great intimacy. I am incorporated, with a staff of one (me) and a president of one (me), and I often pay badly, sometimes not at all (myself). I’m referring here primarily to those big C corporations that are massive, most-likely multinational, top-down run, inherently undemocratic and large numbers of the people employed there (and resources) are often simply a replaceable cog (or so they think) at best, and so on.

Also, for the record, given current bureaucracy and lobbyism in the pathologic extreme, I don’t know what the ‘cure’ for what I think could be defined as a fascist or totalitarian instinct: the institutionalization of profit maximization, no matter what the external cost, and who suffers or how – particularly in the developing world, but ultimately everwhere. But the ’state’, I am certain for countless reasons historical and present, can not be the answer. The occasional intelligent regulation or deregulation aside, the state, in my opinion, contributes, helps create, and is deeply tied into, the problem. Just check, for example, President Obama’s massive corporate campaign contributors.

Anyway, from professor of law Joel Bakan (University of British Columbia), in his book, The Corporation (pg 34-38), beginning with Milton Friedman, perhaps the most well-known economist of the second half of the 20th century, and beloved to neo-liberals and others:

There is but one “social responsibility” for corporate executives, [Milton] Friedman believes: they make as much money as possible for their shareholders. This is the moral imperative. Executives who choose social and environmental goals over profits—who try to act morally—are, in fact, immoral.

There is however, one instance when corporate social responsibility can be tolerated, according to Friedman—when it is insincere…But hypocrisy is virtuous when it serves the bottom line.

William Niskanen, a former Ford economist and now chairman of the Cato Institute, said he “would not invest in a firm that pioneered in corporate social responsibility.”

Peter Drucker, the guru of all business gurus, [says]: “If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibilities…fire him fast.”

Harvard Business School professor Deborah Spar insisted that corporations “are not institutions that are set up to be moral entities…They are institutions which have really only one mission, and that is to increase shareholder value.”

FORD TOUGH

In 1916, Henry Ford learned this legal lesson the hard way…The Dodge brothers took Ford to court. Profits belong to shareholders, they argued, and Ford had no right to give their money away to customers [he had dropped the price of the Model T when he didn’t have to—it was selling anyway], however good his intentions.

Dodge v. Ford still stands for the legal principle that managers and directors have a legal duty to put shareholders’ interests above all others and no legal authority to serve any others—what has come to be known as “the best interests of the corporation” principle. That principle provided a legal fix to a flaw in the corporate form…by compelling corporate decision makers always to act in the best interests of the corporation, and hence its owners. The law forbids any other motivation for their actions, whether to assist workers, improve the environment, or help consumers save money….

Corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley quit his job at international legal powerhouse Skadden, Arps when he realized after twenty-three years in practice, “that the law, in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible.” As he puts it:

“[T]he corporate design contained in hundreds of corporate laws throughout the world is nearly identical…the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders….Corporate law thus casts ethical and social concerns as irrelevant, or as stumbling blocks to the corporation’s fundamental mandate.”

On that note, Merry Christmas! Profit over prophet!

Lots of love,

Pete

“I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody, instead of a bum—which is what I am.”
—Terry Malloy

I posted an old song of mine yesterday—Yeah—and got a couple of sweet comments. My dad’s was hilarious. He listened to the song and wrote this:

Petesy,

Put on ‘Yeah’. Loved it. Woke Daphne: 11.15 pm. Put on the rant [song], the name is out of my old head [Some People] but it, or they, energize me. The Railway club, the Commodore, the NHL almost, but, man, you make great films. When you can find an actor around 40 + like me, make Understanding Ken. Such a beautiful book. See you at Xmas. Love Dad

I laughed so loudly, I wrote back a comment, and then decided to post it as a blog, what the heck. Here it is:

Thanks for the very sweet comments.

And the note from my dad is one of the sweetest of all-time. And god I love him for it, but I must come clean and reveal there is a little bit of historical revisionism in it—about like saying World War II didn’t happen, or the Bail Out was an intentional transfer of wealth from the average citizen to the very rich.

Okay, scratch the second one.

But there definitely was a World War II—I know, because my dad, looking out from his lowly boarding school eleven miles outside of London, saw the city and sky lit up with orange flames in 1940, as the Germans pounded the Christmas cake out of England’s capital. Okay, that could have been Guy Fawkes night, but it went on for weeks.

MUSIC

I did play a lot of music [still do], in a band called Oh Yeah, and there were some wonderfully fun, intense and hyper concerts at said venues with musicians that were great people and better musicians than I. I was always trying to fix something in the band to make it really great, until I finally realized, despite being the main songwriter and lead singer, that the weak link might just be me. Oh, by the way, Dad, that rant song is Some People.

RIDING THE PINE

As for almost NHL? Well, not so much. Like not at all. It’s a bit like this: “You should be on the stage…sweeping it!”

Okay, okay, I was pretty good—but so what?—as a kid playing Bantam and Midget hockey (Bantam and Midget are hockey divisions, 13-14 and 15-16 for those Americans reading, or uninterested-in-hockey Canadians). Scored a goal or two, and played Junior B and A hockey at 15.

But in Junior A, I just never got going. My feminine side couldn’t take it, which is a gentle way of saying I’m physically wimpy, and meant to write. I broke a few bones and started playing guitar—Gordon Lightfoot, still love him—with a broken collarbone, periodic colitis etc. Straight up, I was happy as a gassed-up Zamboni on a dirty rink to quit hockey at 17—and once I quit, the collar-bone had healed and colitis disappeared, for which I am grateful. The yogis say we are not our body, but it sure controls our lives while we wear it like a coat. I played a little more Junior A hockey for a couple of years after that—I was at university, but they called me in to help out for the play-offs. That was bearable, but I never for a milli-moment regretted quitting. It wasn’t my dharma, as they say.

MULLET FEVER

But worse, yes, so much worse (it sounds like I’m going to break into ‘I did it my way!’), yes, worse than all of my hockey failures, is the stone cold reality that for years I sported a mullet in complete ignorance. Then again, how else would one ’sport a mullet’ but in complete ignorance? And then, even worse, I wore said mullet at my sister’s wedding, like a pet ferret, which leaves it enshrined forever in countless photographs…and even a few years after that (click and scroll down to have a laugh at my expense—I’d appreciate it).

But back to the big leagues. I did have the chance to play with or against a lot of really solid NHLers: Cliff Ronning, Ray Ferraro, Doug Bodger (I was even captain of that team), Brett Hull, Joe Murphy. But, Dad, brace yourself: I didn’t have it. I just didn’t have it, I tell ya! The confidence went. The creativity on the ice snuck into the rafters, until all I could see was a lifeless game before my eyes—and that is not hockey. Well, it is, but it’s crap hockey.

MOI ET YVAN

Still, as a kid, hockey sure provided some massively big dreams, and a passion for the Montreal Canadiens that, after certain key losses—the Rangers in the 73-74 play-offs!—ended in frightful tears.

Thank god they were a dynasty, or I might have been stunted for life by dehydration.

So many great players—Serge Savard, Larry “Big Bird” Robinson and Guy Lapointe on defense, Guy Lafleur, Jacques Lemaire, Mahovlich (the “Big M” and not-so-little brother Pete), one play-off year with Jean Beliveau (‘70-’71). But my two serious heroes of distinction: Yvan “the Roadrunner” Cournoyer (pronounced Corn-Why-Ay) and the goalie Ken Dryden.

Dryden lost a little lustre after he took a year off mid-career, abandoning the Habs, but the Roadrunner? 5′7″, 165 pounds, thighs like tree trunks, fastest skater in the league and afraid of nothing. Remember that goal against the Russians in ‘72? I was also sure Yvan was easily as philosophically astute as Voltaire. It turns out, not so much. But I rebuke you with his: could Voltaire skate?

SEX AND PHILOSOPHY IN PUBLIC

Strange about athletes not being what you think. I was sure the masterful Bjorn Borg was a genius of ideas, too, undoubtedly deciphering quantum mechanics or the increasing entropy of the universe while swatting his thundering topspin forehand corner to corner. Alas, a connoissieur of comic books—in Swedish no less.

As for the athlete who shall remain nameless, who has had all the problems lately, my insightful beloved mentioned in passing that he should have just come out and made it clear:

To my fans, I need you to know my sexual desires are incompatible with the way you perceive me. I am sorry if that causes you distress.

Okay, the second sentence was mine, but you get the point. Wouldn’t that have been something? Granted, the integrity was nil, but integrity is nil by definition in a pathologically commodified culture—literally, in his case, and by his own doing, every act, every step a transaction of money—all shoved inside the rest of the world which is addicted to degrading pornography and financed with weapons of serious destruction, all considered normal. Nobody gets out alive! As the Indigo Girls once harmonized, “It’s only sex, after all…” Or was that “…only life, after all”?

AT ANY RATE

After I wrote Understanding Ken, I actually met Yvan Cournoyer at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and he told me (with his Québécois accent) he hadn’t read the book, but his wife, who was English-speaking, read the parts about him, to him, in bed. I’m not sure what he meant, if anything, but I felt touched, even honoured. Understanding Ken was on Yvan Cournoyer’s bedside table. Feel free to read that sentence twice. Probably right next to The Hockey News.

I have a photo of me grinning with my arm around Yvan—I’m way taller!—standing beside the Stanley Cup. That’s not the NHL, my friend, but it’s worth something. It’s at least the IHL. I wrote Ken Dryden, too, but never heard back. He must have been running for premiere of Ontario. Maybe he didn’t like the book.

For the record, I plan to do the audio book for Understanding Ken very soon. It’ll be really cool, if I can only speak not too fast—but not too slow either. The kid’s ten, for the love of a small church. Maybe I’ll do it right after Christmas (typical timing). A business man I ain’t. But that’ll change with my New Year’s resolutions, right?

Anyway, as far as I can remember, my dear friends, those are the facts. The hard-hitting truth. All the news that’s fit to print.

JACK’S TOO OLD

As for finding a 40-plus year old actor to play a fictionalized version of my pops? Impossible! If you knew my dad, you’d know what I mean. He’s 80 and he still works. Okay, maybe someone could do it: Russell Crowe, Clive Owen. Ten years ago Liam Neeson could have played him well. So to get it done, all I need now is a track record, some financing, and a good winter of snow. Oh yeah, and a crew. But if my dad comes onto the set, I can see the whole thing taking on a life of its own. How fast can you say over-budget?

As for my old man mentioning the good films? Hmm. I have no idea. A feature film about a woman with schizophrenia—and the first time I’d ever directed a crew bigger than myself (I had produced a couple of CDs—mine, but that’s not quite the same). A documentary on the children in northern Uganda. A short film on HIV and AIDS in Africa. As the great director Sydney Lumet said, the one thing all great films need is luck. I had some of that when I got to make a documentary film about the inimitable Muhammad Ali.

But as you can see, it’s been a good run with the old man. And I sure love him, garl darn difficult as he is! He’s so crazy, for twenty years he kept embarrassing me in restaurants and barking about how the Big Banks were screwing us and thanks to them, and the Federal Reserve, a massive economic meltdown was coming. Isn’t that the craziest…thing…you’ve ever…

Oh yeah. Hm.

But even Alan Greenspan shrieked to the jury of his very rich peers that he didn’t see it coming, and he’s a full-blown wizard!

Back to Understanding Ken, I wish I could tell you to purchase it somewhere, but I don’t know where you can get it. That was actually a super fun book to write. A fictionalized conglomeration of a childhood that resembled one quite close to my own. It just poured out in six or eight weeks (plus another eighteen months for rewrites). All this after three laborious years on a different book that monkeys truly could have written, stuffed in a room with a couple of typewriters and a bottle of Aqua Velva. The fact is writing is not only fun for me, and hard, and wondrous, and frustrating, it’s an addiction—speaking of which, I saw a compelling talk by the highly instructive Gabor Mate today. Now he’s someone I want to interview for one of my next documentary dreams.

But enough now. I have to work on an outline for the history of labour! Eight hour work day, my eye. Good god. Thanks for listening to silliness. And here’s to dads. And moms. I have a great mom, too. Tough to get a shot here on planet earth without them.

Lots of love to you. Here’s to creativity and joy and community, and may you have a holiday, and may it be beautiful…

Pete xox

I was just at a lovely Christmas gathering with some beautiful old friends, some great singers/songwriters/musicians—much greater than I—Geoffrey Kelly from Spirit of the West, Paul Hyde, way back from the Payola$, so many great songs, and Colin James, who is also an amazing guitar player. Paul and Geoffrey have both helped me on my own stuff.

And then I got home, and had to email a song to a friend (Blue)—it’s actually Paul on background vocals and Geoffrey on the penny whistle flute solo.

So I was listening to some old songs of mine that never got anywhere too far outside of my heart, and heard this song Yeah, that is sort of a big loud “Yes” to the world, no matter what’s going on in the world—and we all know what crazy stuff is going on in the world, let alone inside ourselves.

Anyway, for some reason I wanted to post it. You see, songs are like old friends of whom I’m really fond, and so few know these old friends of mine, so here’s Yeah. Yeah, meet lovely readers. Lovely readers, meet Yeah. This song is probably 15 and change years old, but I mentioned God and Bankers, even back then, and all the same problems of today. But still, I said, Yeah—that was the point of the song. To crawl out of bed and not say no. It’s a bit of a rocker (at least for a folky). I was young and foolish, as opposed to less young and equally foolish.

Yeah.

The whole CD, Breathe, is here. Actually, it’s five less songs than the original, but enough’s enough.

Lots of love to you,

Pete

Zinnophobia: (def) 1. A dislike for Howard Zinn because Zinn writes about average citizens who existed (and exist) outside the standard perception of historically significant—in other words, courageous, not-always-perfect average citizens who fought (and still fight), risking all, against the injustices of state and corporate Power, racism and prejudice.

2. A dislike for Howard Zinn because his book A People’s History of the United States is insufficiently footnoted.

Personally, I applaud and thank Howard big-time for def 1): having informed me of so many incredible yet unknown moments of citizen history—or original angles and perceptions on famous historical moments—and not just being a historian-dupe for the state. As for def 2, I would have preferred better footnotes. That said, anything I search farther, I have easily uncovered.

But this blog, at first inspired by insults I read regarding Howard Zinn, is actually about Freedom of Speech. And so we begin with the perfect person to quote, legendary novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie:

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

Salman Rushdie should know, having lived through a warrant for his death put out by imbecilic, dangerous fanatics who remain far from rare.

SO WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?

Perhaps the greatest, most righteous and remarkable aspect of many of the so-called democracies, of the country of my citizenship, Canada, and also Great Britain,* where I was born, and of course the inimitable United States of America, and elsewhere, is Freedom of Speech (with many important and threatening caveats**).

At times tenuous even here (or even in Copenhagen), yet often stunningly omnipresent, Freedom of Speech has been fought for and realized to astonishing degrees—in relative historical terms—by the relentless courage of tens of thousands of individuals and groups bonded in solidarity, often across incompatible ideologies.

WHEN JW’S COMING KNOCKING, SAY THANKS

From Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions demanding freedom to worship, to not have to pledge allegiance to the state, to the abolitionists of Britain and America, to the Civil Rights marchers to the Free Speech rallies in Canada and the US of early 20th century labour unions, demanding the right to organize, and so many others, Freedom of Speech has become the hallmark, the target, the undeniable pride and alluring promise to so many who cannot speak freely within the borders of their birth nation.

Ultimately called for in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, free speech has not been bestowed upon the masses from above, but rather—as it always will be—fought and died for from below, nearly always by the disenfranchised, the less wealthy, the oppressed. Yet so often more successful when supported by those who already possess said freedom.

TRUTH TO POWER

Freedom of Speech has its strongest, cleanest teeth when backed by justice not always favoured to the wealthy and powerful, by justice not excessively geared against minorities, when checked by true yet presently limited trial-by-jury and the still tenuous ability to justly defend one’s self—one’s rights, one’s voice—against monoliths like, say, Monsanto and McDonald’s, or the state itself, when non-violent protest is demanded instead of burdened by threat of arrest and intimidation, when the exchange of goods are not manipulated by the state or by corporate monopoly, when the difference between a vice and a crime is understood, when government and business are not interchangeable, when church and state are divided.

Okay, maybe I’m confusing a few other noble fights of expression with Freedom of Speech (maybe not), but you get my passion: the accepted and legal right, the freedom, to express one’s self in any manner without causing harm to others (against their desires). This is to be endlessly fought for, and celebrated. And Freedom of Speech must always be pushed for, refined, defended.

And free speech is not simply the right to say what one wants, but the willingness to defend the right of individuals or groups to speak with impunity views you find repugnant. To quote Voltaire:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Or Noam Chomsky:

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

Defending one’s right to free speech is, of course, and essentially, in no way defending their views. Believe it or not, people sometimes connect the two.

ZINNAPHOBIA

I bring up Freedom of Speech because, one, it’s the greatest principle and, two, I just watched a few clips from Howard Zinn’s The People Speak, and felt moved to tears and hope. Historians and laypeople alike have attacked Zinn, and threatened to unsubscribe from the History Channel if the Zinn inspired The People Speak is aired. But how could any American be against the clips being read? Direct excerpts from some of the noblest, bravest speeches, protests and pleas ever spoken on American soil, or anywhere else? God people are brave. That I may even have a smidgeon of such soul and courage!

Even if you have issues with Howard Zinn, the pieces I saw are not his opinion, but the transcribed words of great and courageous women and men whom Howard felt had the right to be represented in the story of America. Amen to that. The choices are obviously leaned towards Howard’s preference—it’s his book—but the reading to the letter of transcribed materials from the past is, by definition, not revisionism.

I can think of dozens of great reasons to unsubscribe from cable or throw out one’s television altogether. This program certainly isn’t one of them. On the contrary. These events and speeches elevated ‘America’ in the areas to which it has touched greatness.

Now once we get that great, honest, expansive speech out of the financial sector, the military industrial complex, a great climate scientist, the Drug Czar or even the next outed adulterer (in a world where pornography, by all accounts, runs rampant), things will really be looking up.

Check out the clips for yourself, I think six clips are here. Be proud. Find your voice. Grow solidarity. Fight for justice. Listen more. Love more.

Pete

PS: For the record, two of the worst offenders of censorship remain China—or to quote Dambisa Moyo: “I love the Chinese!”—and Cuba. Cuba’s health care system notwithstanding—and what they do with very little money is quite remarkable (not to mention survival despite decades of an economically crippling embargo by the US and many US assassination attempts), Cuba, to me, remains glorified by glib fools either ridiculously hypnotized by Che Guevera’s stencilled face on T-shirts or duped under the same spell that made a not insignificant number of western Communists shamefully, depressingly, stick by the USSR and its inconceivable depravities for decades longer than make any sense given the accounts—whom many surely read—of, for example, anarchist Grigori Maximov or the inimitable Emma Goldman and others as early as the 1920s.

*Seymour Hersh (and as evidenced in the documentary McLibel) has called Britain’s libel laws “chilling.”

**What is also true with Freedom of Speech in Canada, America, Great Britain etc., is that one can surely write and speak very freely—writing being a somewhat indirect (yet often vital) form of activism or protest. There are exceptions to this freedom, I am sure, in terms of harassment etc., and maybe more censoring.

But to push against the corporate/state agenda by gathering non-violently in protest by marching or barricading or by sit-ins etc—against, say, homelessness, or for the environment, or against the bail out, the Olympics, the war(s) etc—seems to sharply increase the likelihood of harassment, arrest (consider the numbers at Copenhagen) or incarceration—or in some way being surveilled (COINTELPRO in the United States being the obvious example of government surveillance getting out of control).

A study of the following would be instructive—maybe there has been a study—but in considering the limits of Freedom of Speech, would anybody say this is incorrect?: the police will almost always defend the average citizen against the house burglar or street mugger, but will in turn almost always defend the State and the Corporation against the average citizen (I can’t think of a single exception).

Hopefully, the justice system serves to balance this distinction to degrees, but money talks (and money pays the legal bills, and corporations have a lot of money)—and human nature is a limitation when one considers, say, class, racism and self-interest. And Lord knows corporate whistle-blowers are not exalted as they should be—even the term is almost pejorative, which speaks volumes.

The police and military, I think it’s fair to say, take their orders from the state/corporate sector, not from the citizenry outside that sector—in problems between these two groups—regardless of the morality involved (and regardless of the fact the tax-payer funds the state, but in degrees). It is hard to say if there is a limit on this truism—in other words, under what conditions this would not be true.

Although Venezuela is perhaps outside of this conversation, I think the failed coup d’etat attempt in Venezuela in 2002 may be a sort of interesting example of dissent within the military—though its complexities and details elude me.

Wow. I have to say, writing this, it’s seriously difficult to sum up—or even really know—the limitations on and possibilities of Freedom of Speech in what we generally label a free country.

I invite any comments about free speech, what hinders it, helps it, how reliable or expansive is it etc? Though if I don’t like what you’ve written, I’ll definitely delete it.

That last line was a joke, of course.

Petex

A few fights after stunning the world by defeating George Foreman in Zaire, Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier for the third and final time. The fight was epic—ranked as one of the great heavyweight fights of all-time. Recently I was asked my thoughts on the fight. Here is the question and my answer, just one more schmuck throwing his two bits into the ring.

QUESTION: Earlier this year I watched a biography on Joe Frazier, and after the 14th round of ‘The Thrilla in Manila’ Frazier had a swollen shut right eye, and was partially blind in his left eye from an accident in ’65 yet wanted to go back in the ring for the 15th round but his manager and the ref refused. However, Ali had actually told his manager to “cut the gloves off” because he didn’t have any more energy to fight the 15th round, yet the judges scored the fight in Ali’s favour. Were you able to access this footage, and would you have included it in the film? Also, in your opinion, who do you think really should have won?

ANSWER: Ali, of course, did win because Joe didn’t come out for the last round, which I think was a humane move by his trainer, Eddie Futch. Of course, Frazier wouldn’t quit under any circumstances short of death. But he literally couldn’t see, which is a disadvantage when people are trying to knock your head off. The eye injury goes back even farther than ‘65. Joe kept it a secret, but was supposedly legally blind in the left eye when he won the Gold medal in ‘64 in Tokyo (not to mention a broken thumb in the final fight).

In 1975, I think Ali as a fighter had more left in him than Frazier, but, in my opinion, Frazier trained much harder for the fight. Ali had a new girlfriend with him (and a wife at home) and was hanging at the palace in Manila and working with and then struggling with the press (about his extramarital affair). That’s not the ideal way to prepare for a fight with a man who wants to kill you. Frazier, meanwhile, was outside of Manila, locked away, minding his business, training his ass off.

As for the fight itself, it was brutal, a war. But Ali was safely ahead on all three scorecards*, and really hammering Joe in the 13th and 14th rounds. So even if Ali did say “take the gloves off” at the end of the 14th, I don’t think he ever would have quit, and the record shows his trainer Angelo Dundee would never have let him quit, anyway. I also have it from inside sources close to Ali that Ali has said that he never said that, or at least that he wouldn’t have quit. I believe that. He’d never quit in his life. He still flies throughout the world for 200 days a year.

For the record, Ali (when he was still Cassius Clay) evidently said the exact same thing—”cut the gloves off”—before the fifth round of the Liston fight in ‘64, when he couldn’t see at all because, rumour has it, Liston had put some sort of burning agent on his gloves which had got in Ali’s eyes. Dundee just ignored him, pushed him out of the chair and said, “Dance!”, and he did. A few minutes later he was heavyweight champion of the world. And very shortly after that he was Muhammad Ali.

Dundee had great faith in Ali. I mean he let the Holmes fight go ten rounds, unfortunately, and it was over before it started—Ali was slurring before the fight. He shouldn’t have been fighting. That was 1980.

With the Thrilla in Manila in ‘75, rumours aside, Ali was way ahead on points, Dundee was in his corner, Frazier was blind, and Ali had never quit. That about says it all. It was a war of attrition.

George Chuvalo’s words sum up the fight:

“Neither fighter was the same after that fight—markedly so.”

*The scoring at the end of the 14th round was: referee: Carlos Padilla 66-60, judge: Larry Nadayag 66-62, judge: Alfredo Quiazon 67-62.

TOO LONG

Many people think Ali should have retired after the legendary Foreman fight in Zaire (1974). Many more really think he should have retired after Frazier in Manila (1975), where he fought inside for so many rounds, and took literally hundreds of powerful punches.

But Ali fought until December, 1981, ten more fights and some 120 rounds, his defense and speed deeply sub-par. Other than the ridiculously over-matched Jean-Pierre Coopman and Richard Dunn fights, and the punishing 10 round TKO loss to Holmes, all of these fights went the distance: Norton (15), Shavers (15). And, although rarely mentioned, rewatching the first Leon Spinks fight (1978), Spinks really hit Ali with a non-stop barrage of leather for 15 rounds—some 400+ punches.

Ali’s fight doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, pleaded with Ali (and his entourage) to stop fighting after Shavers (1977). Glory—and money—aside, there’s got to be an easier way to make a living!

Petex

“…the word anarchy freaks people. Yet anarchy—rule by no one—has always struck me as the same as democracy carried to its logical and reasonable conclusions. Of course those who rule—bosses and politicians, capital and the state—cannot imagine that people could rule themselves, for to admit that people can live without authority and rulers pulls out the whole underpinnings of their ideology. Once you admit that people can—and do, today, in many spheres of their lives—run things easier, better and more fairly than the corporation and the government can, there’s no justification for the boss and the premier.
—Mark Leier

In my research lately, of trying to understand the nature, instincts, courage, dangers, needs, paradoxes, mistakes, aspirations and dilemmas of labour movements at the turn of the century, I’ve really enjoyed reading Mark Leier—whom I’ve quoted before—professor of history and the Director of Labour Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (actually, Burnaby). In this case, I don’t think ‘Director’ means ‘vanguard.’ A little Marxist joke—you’ll laugh later. By the way, I am talking about Groucho Marx here, not the 1980s singer Richard Marx.

Leier has written about the famed and controversial anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (Bakunin: The Creative Passion), the I.W.W., unions and bureaucracy et cetera.

Leier writes and gives interviews with great spirit, insight, humility and humour. My kind of anarchist! Anyway, here are a few paragraphs from an interview he did relating Union movements and anarchism—and in particular the enigmatic IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, the Wobblies)—which he wrote about extensively in his book Where The Fraser River Flows (the IWW in British Columbia).

For the record, as to where the Fraser River flows, it flows about a ten minute drive from my house.

For those who find this labour movement/what-is-freedom? stuff interesting—I know there are at least two or three of you out there—here are a few answers from Mark in an interview he did for Black Flag (I think this is from a blog about said interview):

Q. You have also written extensively on the IWW. Do you think revolutionary unionism can grow in influence again?

If we change the question a little, to ask, will revolutionary workers’ movements grow in influence again, I think the answer is, if they do not, we are in grave danger. I doubt they will take the very same form they did in the past, but workers’ movements have always risen, declined, and risen again in new forms to meet new conditions. Clearly the world can not continue as it has; the old choice, socialism or barbarism, still faces us. Here I am using socialism in the old sense, not as state socialism, Bolshevism, and the like. And no group can build socialism—anarchism—other than the working class. Whether it will or not is the question.

Q. Many anarchists at the time pointed to the obvious links between revolutionary unionism with Bakunin’s anarchism, would you agree? Has Bakunin anything to give for today’s union activists?

Yes, Bakunin, or the ideas that he represented, were hugely influential in building revolutionary unionism. In some ways, the IWW (the Industrial Workers of the World) represented that synthesis between Bakunin and Marx we talked about earlier. As for today’s union activists, that radical vision and tradition can be hugely inspiring; the attempt to grapple with big ideas is essential; the insistence on organizing from the periphery to the centre, not from the centre out, is fundamental [May those working in Aid also hear that—one needs to listen to what people on the ground, be it in Africa, Afghanistan or some labour movement, really want, and need].

Q. Your second book, “Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy”, deals with the institutionalization of a non-revolutionary labour movement. Do you think that this would affect even a revolutionary union? Can it be avoided? If so, how?

I suspect any group of two or more people starts running into problems of power and authority and decision-making! But you’re right, the question is the institutionalization of power. One of the things I argue in Red Flags and Red Tape is that people with some power—and the power of these early labour bureaucrats was limited—often make the wrong decision for the right reasons. That is, they were trying to build working class militancy, trying to move workers to resistance, trying to create a labor newspaper, trying to form new organizations—all worthy aims. But precisely because they were not immediately accountable, they made their decisions in a vacuum, without input and consensus from union members. That separated them from the members and created a bureaucracy: rule by office holders. The other thing I argue is that a union can be militant and revolutionary without being democratic; alternatively, though rare, a union could be conservative and democratic. So the dangers of bureaucracy are always there. The way to avoid them is to ensure that institutions that let officials make important decisions by themselves are not created in the first place.

Man, that would eliminate the jobs of a lot of people who really annoy a lot of us—and cost us a lot of money. But then who would tuck me in?
I’m not sure what that last line means, but it has something to do with our dependence on the state.

The conversation between big changes and practicality is endlessly interesting—and the inherent dangers in them, and non-change, are fascinating. And the conversation between Anarchy and practicality (in the so-called real world—see Quantum Physics) even jolted the unjoltable Emma Goldman.

A final few questions: So who’s running your show? Who made your pants? Who grew your food? Who picked your job? Your diet? Your thoughts? Your motivations? An easy one: Who picked your name (there was a reason Muhammad Ali changed his name)? Who fills your mind? Your heart? Your soul? Do we have a soul? Does your shoe have a sole? Am I being a heel? and so on…

Lots of love to you,

Pete