In un age when Bob Hope does all in his power to further the American imperialist war-elfort in Vietnam, when the All Garnetts and the Charlie Williams of this world propagate open racism with every joke, when a dozen 'camp comedians such as Larry Grayson and Frankie Howard debase and ridicule bomosexuality we need more Lenny Bruces.
We need even one Lenny Bruce. But today it's doubtfui if the ruling-class would lel him live as long as the slender forty years he had reached in 1966, when he was hounded and persecuted into an early grave.
Lenny Bruce was arrested nineteen One rabbi to another: *You know, someone had the chutzpah (nervel to ask me the other day-they said Tell me something. Doctor of Law, is there a God or not?' What cheek to ask this in the temple! We're not here to talk of Godwe're here to sall bonds for lured! Remember that! A pox upon you mist and Mosest!
times mostly on charges of 'obscenity!
whut was the real reason he was barassed and had his performing freedom curtailed by court cases and bad publicity? corruption of the Establishment, Decause he refused to swallow Cold War ideology and increasingly ridiculed it (He defended the Rosenbergs in the face of an hysterical anti-communist frame-up which sent them to the electric-chair.)
He was critical of the repression of children's sexuality, he attacked the hypocrisy of cstablished religion, he violently opposed capital punishment. He even attacked the mawkish impotence of white American liberalism. and its integrationist dream, at a time when even liberalism was thought to be as good (or bad) as being red. DEBUNKING up a whole series of debed to be extremely funny too, That made him doubly dangerotis, so he was driven into semi-silence, drink and #l-health, and finally death, by the persecution of a state which feared him and the effect he might have, particularly on the young It's surely no coincidence that the US build up in Vietnam — an event a milion times more obscene than The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundstion have called on the Home Secretary to TH CASH DE WROTE CENS was jailed in 1972 soon after he had rep eated allegations of British army torture In 1966 Amnesty International published a report alleging the use of torture by the British Army at Ras Morbut. Len nox sent an open letter to the Sunday Times becking up the truth of Amnesty's ailegations. He was arrested by the Spec ial Branch and subjected to 'in depth interrogstion the oppressed, because he attacked the philosophy: If communism cooks for you, solid, man,"
derer of eighteen people and the horrible gambler that you are?
First convict: 1 see. traces of male chauvinism. But if liberating elements in popular cultture, he was surely one of the most Important to have emerged in the twentieth century.
SUBCULTURE a fascinating analysis of the many In Aden and they were published in the entiiied hin He was charged with thai robbery, The identification, plus police In terms of his Jnvasion of dead mon's port Office, instead of probing how an and not in the interests of the workers he is supposed to represent.
Sician.
while he was being physically eclipsed As he put it, demanding consistency Sometimes*. Or as he dared to question the cardinal principle of US imp erialism, with its "Better-dead-than-red"
First convict: I'm a strung-out jun- luence, kie. I started smokig pot, that's the way I started. By the way, cellmate, how did you get to be a murSecond convict: I started gambling with bingo in the Catholic Church.
It's difficult to sum up the phenomenon of Lenny Bruce in a short review. We can't say that he was a Marxit or aconsistent revolutionary. We could be critical of his pacifism and there are some critical, progressive, ure which we must delend and nurIn this short book, Kofsky gives In 1971 during growing controvey over reports of British army torture in Ire sno, ne repeatco has suegations of torture magazine Seven Days, together with an aecount of his own interrogation. He was ar rested on the day of publication and was faced with a number of witnesses to rob previous year. Only one witness, to an at- lawyers. tempted robbery at a Cooks Agency, "id testimony of verbal comments not in his signed statement and denied by him, were sufficient to secure his conviction, despite endent investigstion. bis. Goddamn the popes and all their hypocrisy, Goddamn Israel and its bond drives. What influence did they exert to save the lives of the Rosenbergs-guilty or not? ... The Ten Commandments ments doesn't say. Thou shalt not kill sometimes" * facets of Lenny Bruce's personality and humour. He analyses his roots in the subculture of the outsider the criminal, the downtown Jew the black, In particular he atternpts an interesting comparison of Bruce's creative comic art, constantly in the process of chanpe from perform ance to performance, with the improvisation and timing of the jazz muHe also sketches the beginning; ofan analysis of the many trends In the underground and protest culAnd people talk about treedom. You know, I can go anywhere in Europe tonight, l'd walk in any country, I don't need a visa. But 1 would shit to walk in Mississippi with a sign on my back: "I'm from New York, Ha, Ha, Ha"!
ture of the late "601 and early "70s which Bruce foreshadowed and up on which he acted as a seminal InfIn particular he examines in detall the various radical themes of Bruce's humour, lustrating them with long quotations from Bruce's recorded stage-acts, Unfortunately his humour loses much in priatthe delivery, the inflexion, the uc cent, the timing But equipped with this book, Bruce's autobiography How to Taik Diny and Influence Peopie and one or two of his best LPs, as recommended in Kofsky's excellent discography, we can beg in to rediscover the persecuted brillance of one of the funnjest satirists and social critics we have seen.
*You believe politicians, what they say? It's a device to get elected. If you were to follow Stevenson from New York to Alabama you would shit from the changes. It's like two syndicates, man... But morals don't enter into it."
alibi witnesses. Lennor was sentenced to Following pressure from Members of Parliamant and others, the Home Office set up its own internal enquiry which has recently reported and found no fault with the conduct of this can, But we cannot regard this enquiry as at all satisfactory sine it talled to take evidence from Gec rge Lennox or no defence witnesses and The Foundation have requested the Home Secretary to releese George Lennox on the briginal date that his sentence would normally have terminated, 2 January 1975, pending the result of the indep JANUARY 11 1892: The first English editior. of Engel's classic Condition of the Engiish Working Cia was published. This study of the appalling conditions of Manchester workery and their families during the 1830s and 40c, wes one of the main influences an Engels, in his conversion to revolutionism, it also provides an excellent antidote to those bourgeois theorists who claim that the better and better under capitslism and that the bourgeoisie-of the nineteenth century was a homone, benevolent class, It provided much of the empir ical meterial which complemensed Marx's theoretical studies of political Rosa Luxamburg JANUARY 15 1919: In the aftermath of the unsuccessful Spartacus uprising in Beçlin, which was brutally suppressed by the army, commanded by the Social Democratic ministers, Ebert and Noske, to of the ablest and most popular Communist leaders, Flosa Luxem НИТО ЯПО ЗАГ СЛОСЕЛ INTO SHERN ated. A squad of troops arrested them in their hiding-plase and cook tham to After being beaten, they were taken off to the civil jail. On the way they were oolbioodedly shot in the head and their bodies disposed of. Their murder Bre eventually received sentences of two years and four months respectively. Luxemourg was cae or the uneat pon al aconomist and propagandits the German movement had produced. In killing her and Liebnecht, Social Democracy what bloody lengths it was prepared to fo. when in government, to defeet the revolution and defend capitalist inter self again and again.
----- pull-quotes -----
Enquiry into Lennox frame-up called for