https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGpwgHqlfWo

I’m a big fan of Tom Waits; here he is singing the Australian song, “Waltzing Matilda.”

This song has many uniquely Australian words referred to as Strine. They are explained below.

Jolly – means happy.

Swagman – a hobo, an itinerant worker, who traveled from place to place in search of work. A swagman usually carried all his belongings wrapped up in a blanket called a swag.

Billabong – a waterhole or pond. It is an aboriginal word that originally meant little or no water.

Coolibah Tree – a eucalyptus tree which usually grows near water. The name coolibah is derived from the aboriginal word gulabaa.

Billy – a tin can with a wire handle used to boil water. If the swagman was fortunate he may have boiled some tea in it.

Jumbuck – a sheep. The origin of the word is uncertain. It’s most likely derived from two words jumping buck.

Tucker Bag – a bag for storing food. It was usually an old sugar or flour sack. Tucker is a slang word for food.

Squatter – a wealthy landowner, a rancher.

Thoroughbred – An expensive pedigreed horse. The Mercedes Benz equivalent of its day.

Trooper – a policeman, a mounted militia-man.

Waltzing Matilda Story

The song tells the story of a swagman in outback Queensland, Australia in the mid-1890s.

1st Verse: A swagman is resting under a eucalyptus tree on the banks of a watering-hole. He is singing and passing the time. He has lit a fire and is boiling something in a tin can (most likely tea).

2nd verse: While there, he notices a sheep wandering down to the watering-hole for a drink. The swagman catches the sheep, kills it, probably eats what he can and stows the rest in his backpack. (Swagmen were disadvantaged workers who were so poor they didn’t know where their next meal would come from. So this sheep was an opportunity too good to miss).

3rd Verse: Unfortunately for the swagman, the wealthy landowner comes by the water-hole. He is mounted on his fine, expensive horse and is accompanied by three policemen. They catch the hapless swagman red-handed with the remains of the sheep, telling him that he is under arrest for stealing and killing the sheep.

4th Verse: Absolutely terrified the swagman leaps up and jumps into the watering-hole hoping to escape. Unfortunately, he drowns in the waterhole. Ever since that day his ghost still haunts the waterhole and can be heard singing his song.

From time to time I will post under the title of “Scraps and Leftovers” comments that I made elsewhere on the internet and social media. While they come without the surrounding conversation of other participants in the conversation, I hope they will shed some light on our troubled, but promising times. If I hear otherwise, I will chalk it up as a good try and move on. After all, there are worse things in this world than a small failure that very likely harms not a soul.

*I’m not abandoning Bernie, but I do take issue with sweeping and un-contextualized condemnations of Hillary Clinton. Strikes me that petulance and pique (and perhaps some male supremacy) trump sober politics here. And nothing good will come from that in the event that she is the nominee other than to leave the left at a distance from the main forces of social change this fall and beyond.

*Isn’t the overarching strategic task to defeat the right wing this fall? But some on the left don’t see it that way. They believe that the differences between the two parties, or between Hillary, if she is the nominee, and whoever the Republicans field is of no consequence. To that I can only say that they apparently give little weight to the struggle to preserve and extend democracy and democratic rights (broadly understood). After all, in the event of a Republican victory it is the elimination of these rights that will be at the top of its agenda. This tendency to underestimate the danger of right wing extremism on the part of sections of the left is no longer surprising to me. It seems to be built into their DNA. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of their schemes to raise the struggle to a “higher level.”

*I worry some about a sizable number of Bernie’s supporters boycotting the general election. But I also think that things will look much different in the fall than they do now. And my expectation is that nearly all of us, including Hillary’s and Sanders’ most vocal supporters, will adjust our political calculus accordingly. We would be fools not to. I will vote for Hillary with my hand nowhere near my nose if that is my choice in November. I always thought this was a silly image, devoid of a politics that insists on a concrete analysis of the balance of social and class forces and the strategic/tactical/political approach that follows.

*As for the left, we are in a turbulent period, in which, to paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, much of the old left of the 20th century is dying and a new left of the 21st is yet to be born. Meanwhile, the signs of renewal are evident on all sides – Bernie’s campaign of course, but elsewhere as well, including in the seldom mentioned labor movement. My hope is that the 21st century left, whatever forms it takes, will avoid the narrow sectarian policies and culture that weakened the left in the 20th century (and here I include the Communist Party). So far the jury is out.

*This is a unique moment for sure, and the challenge for Sanders, if he hopes to secure the nomination is to build an election coalition along the lines of President Obama’s in 2008. But he hasn’t done that yet. That can change, although the clock is ticking. But it won’t be on the basis of his socialist pedigree. Other factors, not least of which is a sharper focus on the right wing danger, a more nuanced fluency in the language and substance of racial and gender inequality, and the further elaboration of political solutions that curb as well as eliminate corporate power, will have to figure prominently.

*In an oped column on socialism, John Bellamy Foster, the editor of Monthly Review, mentions the term “two party duopoly.” But the term strikes me as wrongheaded at anything but the most abstract level. At the level of concrete politics where strategy and tactics are elaborated and democratic reforms, including radical ones, are enacted, it conceals much more than it reveals. It’s interesting to note that not a word in the article is spent on Trump and the right wing.

*To cite Hillary’s connections to Wall Street or her past positions on issues of war and peace is a necessary part of arriving at a considered attitude toward her candidacy. But too many on the left make that part of her resume the beginning and end of their analysis. Other considerations, such as the larger political environment, the alignment of political forces, and the dangers confronting the country and humanity, never enter the picture. Such a methodology is of limited value and can leave its proponents, notwithstanding how righteous they feel about their position, flatfooted and on the margins of political life. Worse still, it could endanger the outcome of the elections.

*The decisive defeat of the right depends heavily on an election sweep that that gives democratic, liberal, progressive and left representatives and movements the upper hand in Washington. But it also turns on the weakening of the right in state government and the realm of ideas, the breaking up the right wing coalition at the grassroots and leadership level, the strengthening of the ideological, political, and organizational capacity of the people’s movement, and more. It is on this wider ground that the right’s power and influence will be qualitatively diminished and the conditions realized for a people’s election victory at the national level to be consolidated and deepened.

*Left governance we are learning isn’t for amateurs. It takes a compelling – morally grounded – vision,  enormous strategic and tactical skill, a nose for the mood of millions, and, not least, high ethical standards and practices.

*It is interesting that Marx spoke of a community OF freely associated individuals and a society OF associated producers. Notice he doesn’t use the word “FOR.” What I take from this is Marx’s insistence (actually a core idea) that the working class is the architect of the new society as well as grave digger of the old. But that happens only to the degree that power is devolved and every sphere of society is democratized. How else can working class ownership and agency take material form? How else can working class consciousness and capacity grow and deepen? How else can socialism’s formal and rhetorical claims become actual realities? But I don’t think this side of Marx’s (and Lenin’s for that matter) thinking was substantively metabolized by the communist movement.

*I really doubt your reading of young people. I know plenty of them who support Bernie, but in the event Hillary wins the nomination, my guess is that they will vote for her in the general election. Of course, some won’t, but that is to be expected. A larger problem in this regard will be with sections of the radical left – young and old, which is still a small sliver of Bernie’s support and a much smaller slice of the electorate. That includes more than a few sixties radicals, who never fully extricated themselves from the sectarian practices, doctrinaire thinking, and marginalizing culture of those times. The Communist Manifesto’s challenge to build movements of the “majority in the interests of the immense majority” never framed their thinking and practice, then or now. Difference, rupture, left demands and forms, resistance to cooptation, and energetic minorities became the exclusive stars to steer their politics by.

*Some on the left are prone to making sweeping, one sided statements that preclude nuance, complexity, contradictory tendencies, many sidedness, etc. In this world, everything is one thing or the other, everybody and everything fits into a self-enclosed category. There is no elasticity. Stasis and rigidity, not movement, not process, not contradiction reign supreme here.

*If Trump and Cruz are beatable – and I think they are – why not beat them badly? Why not turn the election into a rout? Why not beat the hell out of them? Isn’t that the only language that they understand and the only path to end Republican obstruction and misrule? What would better position the larger movement and the left in the election’s aftermath? That said, polling that has both Hillary and Bernie winning by a large margin over Trump strikes me as problematic. It rests, I assume, on a stable and unchanging political environment here and around the world – not a good assumption. The takeaway: assume nothing and stay engaged and united.

* Never in our country’s history has a woman run – let alone been elected – president. And yet that dimension of Hillary’s candidacy is virtually ignored by many progressive and left people. Something’s wrong here.

Wow! Just watched what might have been the best NCAA basketball championship game ever. Nova won, but no reason for Carolina players not to hold their heads high. The intensity, skill, performance under pressure, shots at the end, and much more defined this game and made it a game for the ages. I just love this tournament.

Dan O’Shaughnessy, Boston Globe sports columnist, caused a stir across the sports world, when he tweeted two days ago, “UConn Women beat Miss St. 98-38 in NCAA tourney. Hate to punish them for being great, but they are killing women’s game. Watch? No thanks.”

The reaction was immediate and mainly very negative. Leading the pack was, not surprisingly, Connecticut basketball coach Geno Auriemma.

“Nobody’s putting a gun to your head to watch,” he said. “So don’t watch. And don’t write about it. Spend your time on things that you think are important.”

And others joined the chorus of criticism against O’Shaughnessy. And they all have a point, in fact, many points. The greatest dynasty in college basketball was John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins. His teams won ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including a record seven in a row.

But no one took them to task for their dominance. Both Wooden and his players were rightly celebrated. It was a great run.

Similarly, Connecticut women basketball players owe no one any apologies for their dominance. They earned it the hard way – constant repetition, unselfishness, teamwork, skill development, and superb coaching. And they should be celebrated every bit as much as Wooden’s UCLA teams were in their time. What these young women and their coaches have accomplished will likely not happen again for a long time.

That said, O’Shaughnessy has a point. When you are beating teams by as much as 30 and 40 points in game after game and season after season, something is out of whack. Something has to be done – not to cut Connecticut women down to size – but to raise the competitive level of the rest of the teams.

Otherwise interest in a sport that is already struggling for an audience, will wane. And that would be a shame. For women’s basketball has turned into a wonderful game to watch. There is no lack of excitement or skill or artistry. If you doubt me, tune into next weekend’s final four games. See for yourself. You won’t be disappointed – especially by the Connecticut women.

In their own way, their play is like listening to a great symphonic orchestra performing a great classical piece. Different and seemingly dissonant parts blend into a beautiful composition on the court. How they play is as much art form as sport. I won’t miss their bravura performance and I hope you don’t either.