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 . ,  . - Special Tribute Issue Alexander Cockburn June 6, 1941 – July 21, 2012

Photo by Sonny Anderson for Dobson Images, c. . Featuring Essays by: Je rey St. Clair, Peter Linebaugh, Frank Bardacke, Robert Pollin, JoAnn Wypijewski, Pierre Sprey, Susanna Hecht, Bruce Anderson, Doug Peacock, Debbie Nathan, Mike Whitney, Ben Tripp, Joe Pa and many others...  -, 

“ anks, Buddy.” Village Voice, James Ridgeway, called him Go Ask Alex That was the last time I heard his “the Master.” By Je rey St. Clair voice. Two months later Alex was writing The first time I heard his voice was for me. After his ‚rst column appeared “Feed your head.” in the fall of , after the presidential in Wild Forest Review, Alex rang me up. —Jeerson Airplane elections. I was editing the environ- “Jerey, nice looking issue. But didn’t you y last talk with Alex was like mental magazine Wild Forest Review at forget something?” so many others. It wandered the time. e phone rang. I picked up. “What’s that?” I said, fearing that I’d around from topic to topic in “Jerey, hullo, Jerey, is that you? is is mangled one of his paragraphs. Man easy, freestyle way. His voice was a Alexander Cockburn at e Nation.” “My payment. I’m a professional writ- little weaker than usual, a little scratchy Even though I’d long given up reading er, you know. Just a little something to in the throat. He was in Germany, talk- the tedious, East Coast-biased prose of make me feel I’m not giving it away.” ing on a cell-phone, in a hotel room near e Nation, the name was familiar from We weren’t paying writers then. We the clinic where he was being treated the Village Voice, which I used to read as- could barely pay the rent. I scrambled for for cancer. We talked about how dreary siduously in the €s, and his marvelous a plan. American politics had become, about books Corruptions of Empire and Fate of “Can I send you a bottle of Scotch?” the spinelessness of Obama and his the Forest, with Susanna Hecht, both of “I hate Scotch. Make it Irish whiskey. liberal supporters, the insanity of the which had fractured spines. The voice Jameson’s.” Republican ultras, and the stuness of was sweetly accented, seductive almost. Alex had a reputation as a heavy drink- Mitt Romney. “Is this all there is?” he “That was a helluva piece you wrote er. But that wasn’t my experience with asked. “Politics used to be so much more on Clinton’s environmental record in him. In the last few years, he tended to fun.” Arkansas. You know, we may be the only drink wine more than hard liquor. He Then his voice livened up. He de- two people in the country to the left of ­irted with hard cider and often came scribed an online photo essay on Bridget David Broder who see Bill for the corpo- into possession of exotic distillations of Bardot, then vividly recalled his stroll rate whore that he is.” dubious legality. But he didn’t get rip- through the Pompidou Center in Paris We talked for an hour or so about roaring drunk very often. Instead, he with his daughter Daisy to view the Clinton, Weyerhaeuser, Tyson Chicken revealed a predisposition toward narco- vast Matisse retrospective. “No ques- and the poisoning of the White River. lepsy. He could simply fall asleep, often tion, Matisse was the greatest.” Matisse Turns out, Alex was not “at” e Nation, at surreal times. Once his ex-girlfriend had deposed Samuel Palmer, Edouard geographically anyway. I was surprised Barbara Yaley had gotten us tickets to see Vuillard, Turner, Hokusai, Bruegel the to learn that he lived on the Lost Coast Little Richard perform in San Francisco Elder, Morris Graves and Giorgioni, in in a little hamlet along the Mattole River as a birthday present. Twenty-minutes Alex’s ever-changing retinue of favorite called Petrolia. He’d left Manhattan be- into a raucous performance, Alex’s head painters. hind to the consternation of many of his was nodding on my shoulder, snoring He asked what I’d been listening to. readers, friends and editors. But most of in sync to the beat of “Good Golly Miss I told him Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee them had never seen the Mattole Valley Molly.” Hooker, as usual, reigniting a long- or that wild stretch of California coast A few years earlier we gave a book running debate between us. Alex was that runs from Shelter Cove north to talk at Powell’s in downtown Portland. a Muddy Waters man. I emailed him a Cape Mendocino. As usual, Alex drove his precious white video clip of our mutual hero Ike Turner, A few days later, the fax machine Plymouth Valiant. After the gig we en- playing at some odd venue in Italy, with began to spit out Alex’s column. It was joyed a nice dinner at Jake’s Famous the Ikettes high-stepping it in white pretty much a verbatim transcript of our Crayfish, drained a couple glasses of mini-skirts and go-go boots. We watched talk—though I didn’t make an appear- wine and headed back to Oregon City it together online, laughing at the way the ance. And that was vintage Alex, too. If on Highway . We’d barely reached dancers seemed to mock Turner. “Ike’s there was a deadline, he would run right the swank community of Eastmoreland, headed for trouble,” Alex said. up to it and often past it. This wasn’t near Reed College, when Alex muttered, en Alex asked if the trout were ris- because Alex had writer’s block, it was “Jerey, can you take the wheel? Now….” ing in the Deschutes River in central because he had better things to do, like His chin dropped to his sternum, the Oregon. He said when he got back to feed the horses, teach his cockatiel Percy tiny car veering toward the Willamette. the states we should ring up old Doug to whistle the Internationale, ‚x—or try I leaned over, grabbed the steering wheel Peacock in Montana and spend a couple to ‚x—the septic, prune the apple trees, with one hand, pounded the break with days tossing dry ­ies at the rainbows. I tweezer out a deer tick from Frank the the other. I negotiated the car to the side told him to count on it. cat’s black dreadlocks, distill hard cider, of the highway, heaved Alex into the pas- “Can you bring sausages? I can’t be- check the progress of the pit barbecue, senger seat, then sat befuddled at the lieve I’m in the heart of Germany and negotiate a complex Persian rug deal control panels wondering how to get the can’t even eat sausages.” with Lawrence of La Brea or find his car into gear. It was my ‚rst, though not I told him I’d order some garlic sausag- glasses. Alex could write faster than any- last, encounter with the Valiant’s infa- es from Taylor’s down in Cave Junction, one I’ve ever met and the faster he wrote mous push-button transmission. pack some goat cheese and a dozen bot- the sharper his prose. And Alex wrote en there was the notorious incident tles of Cote du Rhone. very sharp prose. His old partner at the in North Richmond, California. Our

 -,  book Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Gellhorn Prize for war reporting. And Lake District. But those were danger- Press had recently been published, greet- he’s going to accept it!” Who says Alex ous sentiments, even coded in verse, and ed by what was perhaps the most hos- refused to change his mind? Wordsworth was hounded by the secret tile review ever printed by the New York Increasingly, we didn’t talk much police and broke under the pressure. Times Book Review. We were speaking to about the political scene: too dull, too Alex never broke, never retreated, but a big and boisterous crowd in this largely predictable, too dreary. We taunted always moved forward, toward greater black community in the East Bay Area each other on the phone with jokes and liberation, toward justice and some- detailing the CIA’s role in abetting co- pop quizzes: indentify this painting, this times toward vengeance for grievous caine tracking during the Contra wars. singer, this line from Joyce, Wodehouse, wrongs. His favorite line from Lenin was I was about halfway through my talk Ruskin, Edward Gibbon or Henry Miller. “Be as radical as reality.” This became when I was distracted by a delicate purr- We played these games right up to the CounterPunch’s motto. Alex’s politics ing sound to my left. It was Alex, glasses end. On Bastille day, a week before he weren’t static and they weren’t theoreti- perched on his forehead, hypnotized by died, I sent Alex this stanza under the cal. ey were geared toward the circum- the sedative power of my voice into a subject heading: “?” stances of our daily lives. somnatic state. So, In the hundreds yes, even Cockburn of interviews I’ve nods. given since Alex’s Nearly every death, I’ve taken morning for the to calling him “our past  years, the Voltaire.” He shared phone would ring Voltaire’s wide- in our house at € ranging mind, his am. “Jeffrey, this is hatred of oppres- Alex.” As if it could sion, his rapier wit be anyone else. We and astounding talked an hour each productivity. Alex morning. Several wrote with breath- hours a day when taking speed. I we were writing think he wrote as books together. fast as Jean-Paul ose calls oriented Sartre, but without my days. Now there the amphetamines. is a strange lacunae, And the prose as I wait for those emerged, from the early morning calls Underwood and and find only si- later (thank god) his lence. I feel lost without them. Now was it that both found, Mac, with a vicious lucidity. His columns These weren’t business calls. They e meek and lofty did both nd, deepen and expand with re-reading, be- weren’t “about” CounterPunch. They Helpers to their heart’s desire, cause, like Voltaire, they are studded with were notations on our lives. We talked And stu at hand, plastic as they could inside jokes, puns, secret insults and al- about car mechanics and ‚shing; French wish, lusions. It’s one of the reasons his friend cinema and the best way to bake salmon; Both were called upon to exercise their Edward Said called him, “Alexander the the architecture of Barcelona and the skill— Brilliant.” merits of free jazz; surrealist poets and Not in Utopia, subterranean fields, or e last email Alex sent chastised me: the proper way to stack hay; Kimberly some secreted island, “Jerey, why haven’t you posted my diary! and Daisy’s adventures with the, yes, Or heaven knows where! I sent it to you three DAYS ago!” I chuck- Alexander Technique; Roman emper- But in the very world, which is the world led when I read it. He had actually sent ors (we were intent on reclaiming the of all of us— the essay a few hours earlier and I had reputation of Nero) and the harvesting e place where in the end we nd our edited it and put it online only a few min- of mussels; the paintings Tintoretto and happiness— utes later. the dancing of James Brown; the plot of Or not at all. By that point Alex was apparently ex- Tron Legacy (“Jerey, what’s it all about? Five minutes later an email skids into ploring Zeno’s Paradox, he was sur‚ng I’ve got to talk with Olivia later and I my Mac from Germany. “Wordsworth!” other waves of time, subdividing the sec- couldn’t make heads or tails of it, could And so he won again. ose are the onds into in‚nite segments, as if he was you?”); Becky Grant’s dazzling ceramics closing lines of “ e French Revolution hot on the trial of Schroedinger’s Cat and Greg Smith’s latest project at Rancho as it Appeared to Enthusiasts at (the one that might be dead and alive at Cockburn. One morning he called up its Commencement.” The young the same moment), a cat which, when he and said, “Jerey, we have to rethink our Wordsworth was something of an arm- ‚nally catches up with him, will be big opposition to journalism prizes. It seems chair revolutionary, cheering on the and black and ­uy. Alex will call out: my brother Patrick has just won the French radicals from his cottage in the “Frankie!” And he will come…

  -,  Cockburn’s He spoke with his characteristic instance, his “A Short, Meat-Oriented swashbuckling, entertaining, gonzo, in- History of the World” (New Left Review, Promontory formative, vulgar (vulgus, Latin for com- January-February ). He was not awed mon people) combination of ferocity, by scholarship, and consequently did not By Peter Linebaugh wit, naughty innuendo, pure intelligence, ‚nd it necessary to deride it. In this, too, ack in  on a cool autumn day and arresting phrase. He cheered up us he was like Karl Marx. He loved Roman in Toledo, Ohio, Alexander slowly slaves, and horri‚ed the despots leaving history not for its corruptions or volup- drove up Alvin Street in a big red their time-servers sputtering with hostil- tuaries and certainly not for its laws and convertibleB and, since it was mid-after- ity. Even now you can see the obituary stone piles but for its decline and fall, an noon and school was out, scores of kids writers of Established Opinion snigger unfailing fountain of hope for us who, were following on the sidewalks talking as they undertake to slip the worm of di- like William Morris, hate civilization. He and gaping at the white man in the mag- minishment into his con. kept company with the characters of the ni‚cent machine. He slowed further and He was a respecter of work, its craft. French Revolution. His sensibility was the youngsters spilled into the streets or He aligned with the dockers, he was aristocratic and barbaric, perhaps this is walked alongside. e man arrived in solid with the miners, he praised the where the Gael comes in. our slummy neighborhood of rat-infested nurses. He was in the streets. He had All this learning he wore lightly. His basements and Saturday night gun-shots, cartons of his latest book in the trunk mind contained a gallery of characters leading a giggling, happy parade! that we sold in a strip-mall parking lot. from centuries past, philosophes, revo- In minutes he was making Turkish Although he believed we attended the lutionaries, beautiful women, humorists, coee and plugging his fax machine into same north London school sometime bar-­ies, and soixant-huitards whom he some electrical ‚xture in our oven to get in the late „s, I do not think that we brought alive in his writings and who his column in for e Nation. is was were ‘chums’. As a scholar I knew him provided him with sustenance against back in the day before they cut it in half. as a journalist, and he re-paid the com- the whips and scorns of time. He did not A few days later he bid farewell snapping pliment. We were fellow workers in the inhabit the coat-and-tie world or write pictures with his vintage Leica. An eigh- USA. conventionally for the creeps and twerps teenth century European connoisseur at- I compare him to Daniel Defoe, who of licensed opposition. tached to s American consumerist, I for more than a decade in the early eigh- While he had his feet on the ground, thought. Introducing him later in Toledo teenth century when the newspaper busi- the ground itself, whether in Youghal, for the launch of his e Golden Age Is ness began, wrote, edited, and published Manhatten, Key West, or Petrolia Within Us () I totally goofed calling e Review every fortnight, writing more seemed, if not at the edge of the world, him English. “No, no. Irish actually,” he prose in a life-time than anyone else, then at the end of some gigantic land kindly corrected me. Ever forgiving like ‘til Alex came around. Well, William mass – a true promontory - staring into a gentle older brother, and ever since I’ve Cobbett in the early nineteenth cen- space. Now that he has arrived at that thought about it, what is Irish? tury also wrote a huge amount and who bourn whence no traveller returns nor Alex reminds me of also. Defoe could be Leica records, I want, with you (other- bought and sold. Not so with Cobbett wise I’ll stumble), to stop, stand, salute. who besides his books wrote, edited, and And try to get on with it in a world with- published e Political Register for de- out him. EDITORS cades, a root-and-branch radical, quite Peter Linebaugh teaches history at the J S. C opinionated, and always entertaining University of Toledo. He is the author of A C precursor to CounterPunch. In that era Magna Carta Manifesto. J , - J  ,   of the ‚rst enclosures Cobbett wrote for BUSINESS cottagers and was himself a practicing Ridiculing the B G husbandman, like Alex. Celebrated, D W Alex wrote me a tremendous e-mail once on the subject of pomology, and as- Celebrating the DESIGN sumed that I too was familiar, on speak- T W ing terms as it were, with John Evelyn, Ridiculed the great tree man of the seventeenth COUNSELOR By Frank Bardacke B S century. Like Tom Paine, Alex didn’t “ e country was at the time divided into - care for capital punishment, and like E.P. ompson he put great stock in the jury. two unequal parts, or rather zones; in the CounterPunch Alex respected scholars, as he respect- upper, which alone was intended to con- P.O. Box 228 ed miners or dockers. He understood tain the whole of the nation’s political Petrolia, CA 95558 our skills, our vanities, and believed our life, there reigned nothing but languor, 1-800-840-3683 contributions were necessary. He didn’t impotence, stagnation, and boredom; in the lower, on the contrary, political life [email protected] mind our jargon, and would indulge in the fancy word, just to get your attention. was beginning to make itself manifest www.counterpunch.org He respected the monograph. He was a by means of feverish and irregular signs, All rights reserved. ‚ne scholar himself, as evidenced by, for of which the attentive observer was eas-

  -,  ily able to seize the meaning.” -- Alexis store; about bleeding his brakes from the quiet about his ‚nal battle. de Tocqueville on America in , in woman in the apartment downstairs. Six months before he died, unaware Recollections Folks are startled by his attention, feel that he was ‚ghting for his life, I sent him am not sure that our Alex would have loved in his presence, miss him when a note about a close friend of mine who enjoyed the comparison. Tocqueville he is gone. Spread across two pages in had died. He emailed an answer: “ is was a wide-thinker and a far-seer, the Nation, he ­oats like a butter­y and sort of news will get more familiar. I used butI his prose was not deft (at least not in stings like a bee, our left champion, ridi- to be slightly surprised at the seeming English translation) and he could go on culing the celebrated and celebrating the equanimity with which my father took and on. Cockburn was a livelier writer, ridiculed. the news of the passing of old and well- and would have preferred (and perhaps He keeps moving west until he reach- liked friends. Now I understand better.” deserved) a comparison to Twain. es the sea. He buys land. He becomes a No, Alex, we don’t accept your passing Nonetheless. Tocqueville, the French friend and patron of artists, craftsmen, with equanimity. We curse your cancer, aristocrat and bearer of high culture, and gardeners on the wonderfully named bemoan your death. ere is a huge hole certain that his class was doomed, travel- Lost Coast. Together they build his place. where you are supposed to be. ling in the wilds of the New World, was A wondrous country house and garden, Frank Bardacke is the author of astounded and horri‚ed by what it might with dog, cat, bird, and horses, the re- Trampling Out the Vintage. become. He tried mightily, but unsuc- frigerator in the garage, photographs, cessfully, to accept it. Cockburn, from momentos, records, books, paintings all the impoverished Anglo-Irish aristoc- scattered about a long room that ends in Connoisseur of racy, another bearer of high culture, ­ee- a small atrium overlooking the orchard. Trailing Edge ing to the not-so-New World, was just as It is exotic and comfortable, without af- disdainful of all that was ocial, but was fectation. It is here, facing the orchard at Technology delighted by so much of what he found the end of the great room, that he does in the “lower zone.” Re-enacting the es- his work. He still visits New York, but By Pierre Sprey sential westward drift, he ‚nally became infrequently. He stops reading the New first met Alexander at a Buzzards an American. In my favorite photo (it is a York Times. Bay shore weekend in the sum- hard choice) he sardonically holds a little It is the CounterPunch years. Together mer of €. Andrew and Leslie, my red, white, and blue ­ag. with Jeffrey, he enlarges and occupies closeI friends, had rented a sprawling old I read three periods in the proli‚c ca- a small, precious space in U.S. politics, shingle style beachfront cottage and had reer of Alexander Cockburn. He begins outside the Democratic Party but hav- asked me up. The weekend proved to on the East Coast in the €s, disman- ing no truck with conspiracy theorists or be one of those unforgettable Cockburn tling bourgeois pundits with one glorious sectarians. He spends years cheering on family get-togethers; Claud and Patricia insult after another. (“ omas Friedman’s the left, but as the prison gulag grows, were there and so was Daisy, Alexander’s is an industrial, implacable voice, like the imperial wars intensify, and popular -year-old daughter. She and I were the having a generator running under the culture becomes more thoroughly banal, only non-journalists present. e air was next table in a restaurant. e only sen- he looks for other allies. He never deserts thick with book talk, ­ashing wit, irrever- sible thing to do is leave.”) Alex is scorn- the left, but decries its absence. ent tales of encounters with the high and ful, bored, dismissive. He is superior. Like He takes enormous ­ak for some of the mighty. Tocqueville, he sees the bourgeoisie as his opinions. A good neighbor is a sci- Endlessly fascinating to me were capable of nothing great except business, entologist. Alex has some kind words to Claud and Patricia’s reminiscences of its largest aspiration a trivial, shallow say about him and his religion. He jumps Beaverbrook dinners and air raid war- happiness. “One of the great mysteries in on global warming, doubting the com- dening under the Blitz, travels in Africa of your country,” he once told me, “is that puter-generated models, and challenging and horse trading in wartime Ireland, the the rich are so boring. In England, they the standard predictions of imminent struggles of a one-man newsletter scuf- cherish their eccentricities. What’s the global collapse. Perhaps he is not the man ­ing for new stories while goading Her point of having money, if you are going to to adjudicate that issue, but at least for Majesty’s Government. My most vivid live like everyone else?” me, he did expose the historical egoma- memory of the weekend is of Daisy dis- Next, in the †s, he’s on the road, nia of those who once chanted, “revolu- appearing for an hour, then returning to traveling west in his Imperial or his tion in our lifetime,” and now sigh, “after perform for us an amazingly polished Valiant, reporting on the unreported me, the deluge.” quarter hour impersonation of a TV left, discovering a thriving, idiosyncratic He was a great friend. Generous, fun, news anchor, replete with convincingly America of competent car mechanics, cheerful, helpful when times were tough. concocted news. Alexander and the dot- skilled carpenters, knowledgeable ‚sher- He made an adventure of daily life. It was ing grandparents, Claud and Patricia, man, wild theorists, Little Richard, and all an entertainment: cooking a meal; were bursting with pride. a small town editor of genius. He listens working out a watering scheme in the at weekend marked the start of a hard, with a raised eyebrow, amused garden; the inevitable consultation with thirty year friendship with Alexander, eyes, and unbounded aection. He learns the car mechanic. He never played the one in which I happily served as a secret about Michoacan from the man who re- victim; he rarely acted the injured party. source on Pentagon weapons disasters does the upholstery in the Valiant; about In the habit of shielding us from what- and defense waste, open source for EPA’s India from the Sikh who tends the liquor ever pain he might be suering, he kept blunders and sellouts, statistical consul-

 -,  tant, science critic, and personal technol- I was almost always outclassed. And then His audio interests back then were ogy adviser for things automotive and Alexander would hit the road for an ad- also shaped by the exigencies of the electronic. miring interview with some octogenarian road. He was, of course, deeply inter- In those early years, Alexander would radical union organizer in Woodstock, ested in small portable cassette players, call up every few weeks looking for grist or to Boston for a public debate with a both for recording interviews and for for his Village Voice, e Nation, or Wall law school professor whose conventional playing music—so I spent lots of time Street Journal columns. We’d start out progressivism he despised. advising him on some of the amazingly talking about the Army’s latest disastrous Although our shared admiration for good-sounding players and tape brands test results for the M wunderpanzer or obsolete (or, as I prefer to call them, trail- available back then. He was also deep how many hundreds of drug-running ing edge) technologies was one of the into eight-track cassette machines and Cessnas the Air Force’s vaunted AWACs many bonds between us, we didn’t always collecting eight-track tapes, an interest radar plane had failed to sparked by the eight-tracks detect. From there, the on board a couple of his conversation would turn old Chryslers. We parted to subjects closer to our company there: eight tracks hearts: the superb han- were both maddeningly in- dling of the € Plymouth convenient and bad-sound- with torsion bar front sus- ing. pension, Muddy Waters’ In culinary technology, best piano player, pigsfeet as in audio, Alex honed in in the ‘hood versus cru- on the trailing edge: black beens. iron pans instead of stain- Those calls could less or copper-coated, come from almost any- whisks instead of electric where in America--from beaters, and no blenders South Carolina where bearing push buttons or Alexander had just picked younger than thirty years up another classic clunk- old. Stoves had to be ­ame- er, from a Minneapolis based, preferably fueled anarchists’ convention, or by peat, coal or wood. Of from an LA campus after course, spits, skewers and a speech inciting stu- grills over stone or brick dents to revolt. The †s pits were better yet. In were peripatetic years for pursuit of that conviction, Alexander and it was my Photo by Tao Ruspoli, c.  Alexander supervised con- great good fortune that he struction of a sequence of made Mapleshade, my home cum record- see eye to eye. Alexander had a long- ever-improving—and ever-handsomer— ing studio, one of his regular East Coast standing love aair with his Underwood outdoor pits at Petrolia; they stand to this way stations. His stopovers were always typewriter, whose beauties and virtues day as a testament to his brilliance as a huge fun, almost none of it planned. he would laud for hours to anyone who barbecue oven architect. For anyone who An Alex visit might start with an af- showed the slightest interest. I found that had ever tasted Alex’s cooking, there was ternoon’s repairs on the aging gas guz- monogamous devotion mostly admira- no arguing with his kitchen fatwas; the zler he had just driven in from New ble, though his resulting contempt for my results simply crushed all opposition. Orleans; then a run to D.C.’s nearest Olivetti was rather wounding. Indeed, Once settled at Petrolia, circa , Goodwill to paw through musty boxes of Alexander’s constancy was undeniable; Alexander’s audiophilic ambitions grew LPs looking for an Otis Redding or Dinah long after every other journalist in the in scale, in part fueled by the good sound Washington gem; and then on to one of country had moved on to computers, he he’d heard during his Mapleshade stop- the Rhode Island Avenue clubs, perhaps was still scouring the country for almost overs. My very first visit was largely Moore’s Love and Peace or Mr. Y’s, to impossible to ‚nd Underwood ribbons consumed in audio talk and equipment hear a soulsinger or a soul jazz organ trio. and repairmen. installation—though I did manage to see Back at Mapleshade, the evening would In those peripatetic years, Alexander’s enough to fall in love with Petrolia and to end in the wee hours with a bibulously technical passions were shaped by the get in a couple of memorable horseback intense discussion of the unreliabil- need for mobility. He became one of the rides with Alex in full Western regalia ity of ucydides’ war reporting or the country’s true experts on compact fac- (he was a very recent apostate from his Trotskyite roots of the Appalachian Trail. simile machines— I’d guess the majority lifelong English equestrianism). From the The next morning’s always-too-early of his columns from that decade were start of our collaboration on his sound breakfast might turn into a thinly-veiled written on the road and faxed in to New system, Alexander made his audiophile cutting contest at the stove: say, my her- York or London. Not surprisingly, he priorities clear: playing LP records came ring roe omelet against Alexander’s continued to fax his copy long after ev- ‚rst; the components were to be as retro Pecorino Romano sou‡é, jousts in which eryone else was using the internet. as possible; the system had to sound

  -,  good in the far-from-ideal acoustics of some irresistibly ancient pair of massive main thing I noticed about Alexander, that long, long, magni‚cently all-purpose wooden cabinet speakers, Altec-Lansings however, was not his rock star style but room at Petrolia; it had to survive under or Pioneers or JBLs, that looked like they how touchingly devoted he was to his hard partying; and it had to play loud. might play really loud. parents. He adored Claud and Patricia I was certainly in sympathy with those But in the midst of all this audiophilic and channeled both of them throughout priorities, though we found ourselves improving, changing and retrogress- his professional and personal life. struggling with the long room and the ing, Alexander’s underlying passion for In the „s, after a brilliant, subver- party-in­icted casualties over the ensu- music—as well as his record collection— sive career as a journalist in London, ing years. One of my ‚rst acquisitions was growing steadily. Over the years, we Claud moved to a beautiful village, on a for Alex, replacing an ancient and awful never stopped swapping gems we had wild green coast on the banks of a salmon phonograph of pawn shop provenance, just found. He turned me on to some river in Ireland, where, reinvigorated, he was a marvelous sounding air-bearing of Jimmy Cli’s early bandmates; I sent wrote even more brilliantly for decades. turntable made by my old comrade-in- him Midnite, a stunning St. Croix reggae In the s, after a brilliant, subver- arms from the bloody Pentagon battles band we had just recorded. Fascinated sive career as a journalist in London and over the A-, Col. Bob Dilger. With its with jump blues and the earliest ves- New York, Alexander moved to a beauti- oak frame and cast iron pipe, AK-„€ styl- tiges of rock and roll, he touted me on ful village, on a wild green coast on the ing, it met Alex’s retro requirement in to Wynonie Harris; I led him to Goree banks of a salmon river in California, spades. Unfortunately, the turntable de- Carter and possibly the first distorted where he wrote even more brilliantly for pended intimately on a rather unreliable guitar solo. He turned me onto Clyde decades. air compressor and associated plumbing McPhatter with Billy Ward’s Dominoes; Alexander’s writing continued to re- that consumed lots of phone calls and I brought him two D.C. treasures, e flect Claud’s inspiration, but the life lots of ‚xing over the next  years. In Clovers and Marvin Gaye’s Marquees. he made in Petrolia was pure Patricia. between ‚xes, it was usually supplanted Both of us were endlessly fascinated Patricia bred horses, cultivated new va- by one or another pawn shop stand-in. with music of the civil rights struggle: rieties of roses, revived the Georgian art Acquired at the same time as the turn- he tipped me to Bernice Reagon’s SNCC of shell paintings, cooked brilliantly, and table was a pair of diminutive little black Freedom Singers; I introduced him to managed chaos with ­air and irony. She box speakers up on camera tripods ­ank- John Coltrane’s agonized response to could discourse with contagious enthu- ing a slightly ominous looking, black the Birmingham bombing, “Alabama. ” siasm on everything from language pat- con-like subwoofer on the ­oor. ey In fact, the last music Alexander sent me terns in Africa to the design of ancient sounded very good indeed, even better was Chuck Berry’s hard-hitting move- Irish ‚sh weirs. Brook Lodge was her cre- after Alex and I re-sculpted their front ment song, “ e Promised Land.” ation, and it was a magical place to grow face with blue modeling clay and lami- I loved that piece when he sent it. Now up. nated their sides with lead sheets. ey it’s hard to listen to. at brings me back to salmon rivers. lasted a goodly number of years, though Salmon return to where they were born. Pierre Sprey was a principal member of the looks got mixed reviews and eventu- So did Alexander. In Petrolia he created the aircraft design team that created the ally Alexander retired them because they his own whimsical, artistic version of the F- and A- jet-‚ghter bombers. He didn’t play quite loud enough. world Patricia created in Ireland. He had now runs Mapleshade Records. Alex’s next acquisition, on my advice, his horses and his dogs and his garden, was a legendary small British ampli‚er and devoted as much energy to brewing from the €s that had the shape of a very A Memory of the perfect apple cider as Patricia did to low black tin shack with a ­at corrugat- breeding the perfect green rose. He even ed roof. It looked retro enough and the Alexander mortared dishes from Brook Lodge into sound was certainly mesmerizing. But it the garden wall. ran hot enough to fry eggs and, within a By William Broyles When I was at Newsweek in the early couple of years, there was a rather spec- he world knew Alexander †s I was inspired by Alexander’s revo- tacular meltdown. It was replaced by through his writing, which ­owed lutionary, thrilling media writing in the an early †s stopgap receiver from the out of him, millions of words, Village Voice. I ran mildly critical articles Salvation Army which, in due time, suc- Twith grace, outrage and luminous intel- about two prominent journalists, both of cumbed to Alexander’s discovery of s ligence. But I knew him ‚rst, and most whom were close to the New York Times vacuum tube gear. Vacuum tubes proved closely, as the son of Claud and Patricia. managing editor, Abe Rosenthal. Abe had to be another one of his long-lasting, I lived with them for months at Brook me to lunch at the Times, where he ­ew trailing technology love aairs. Every six Lodge in Ireland when I was a student. I into a rage, spit ­ying everywhere, his months thereafter, I’d get excited phone would never have become a writer with- face about to explode like a Roman can- calls from Alex from some pawn shop in out their support and inspiration. It was dle. When he ‚nally got control of him- Oakland or thrift store in Seattle, “Hey at Brook Lodge, in the s, when I ‚rst self, he screamed at me: Pierre, I’m looking at a Fisher  (or met Alexander. “Who do you think you are? Alexander Heathkit W or Scott „) tube amp. It’s Not too long ago Alexander sent me Cockburn?” a bit rusty but the guy wants only ˆ€ for this note, describing himself back then: e answer is: I wish. I wish I was even it. Should I grab it?” And if the call wasn’t “A.C. Cockburn in ‘? Long velours a tenth the writer Alexander was, had a about tube amps, then it would be about coat, chiffon scarf, Borsalino hat.” The fraction of his wit and intelligence and

  -,  courage, had also a fraction of his love of Smaller than the culture made by human bones. life and his ability to create a world that hands and imagination down the ages, Alex invented a style of press criti- so deeply re­ected who he was. for which he had boundless and particu- cism when few took the ideological shap- It was the best compliment I ever got. lar enthusiasms. Smaller by far than the ing power of the media seriously, and constellation of strangers who became moved on when others got in the game. William Broyles is the founder of Texas friends, friends who became loved ones He loved the density and ­amboyant en- Monthly, the former editor of Newsweek and comrades-in-arms, associates whom ergy of New York, but moved on when and a screenwriter (Apollo , Castaway, he gave a boost into the world of words he felt the quicksand of ’†s vulgarity, Planet of the Apes). and ideas and intellectual curiosity. “Trumpismo”, ­owing close. He traveled Gatherer of Worlds But what he called “the small change stylishly in the stream of elite media, of life” was a thing of constant wonder and then walked away from that stream, By JoAnn Wypijewski to Alex. A perfect blue. An oxidized red pre‚guring by a decade the era of do- on junkyard metal. A lovely turned bowl. it-yourself, independent media by join- called him Alex. “Alexander” seemed The flutter of cheap fabric on a flirty ing ‚rst with Ken Silverstein, his former part of the old world he left in €; girl. A bar of blues or country gospel on intern, and then with Jerey St. Clair in “Alex” was a better ‚t with the world a Southern radio. Banana trees, “vaga- making CounterPunch a name that would of highway maps and car engines, road- I bonds of the plant world”. A bit of gossip become more widely familiar than his side stops and unruly nature, with which on the telephone. Any one of his experi- own. He took such risks, and wore them I most associated him apart from words ments: searching for the best road-tramp so lightly. on a page for the almost thirty years that system of brewing coee and avoiding In personal and political style he was I knew him. Alexander Cockburn died on the hated Styrofoam cup, a goal he ‚nally radically original—part fancy man, part July . To write those words is shatter- achieved with two screw-top Mason jars, anarcho-syndicalist, part nineteenth- ing. A big life, approachable now, for me, a circle of ‚ne-grade mesh cut so as to century naturalist, part materialist. e only in fragments. form a makeshift cone, and precise in- years spent traveling from one sister city, Incredible Journey. Alex spent a good structions on the ratio of coee to boiling one solidarity event, one labor stand, bit of his early days in London movie water to droplet of cold to do the trick. one independent bookstore to the next, houses, and the palimpsest of his mem- He phoned once after a long plane and all the stop-o points and tempo- ory was scored with the lines, images trip, excited from watching the onboard rary roosts along the way, added layers and mood shadings of even the most ob- movie, Homeward Bound without the ir- of color to his outlook and sensitivities. scure ‚lms of the great auteurs. But by ritating human voiceover. Two dogs and While scouting for a permanent home the time I met him, at e Nation maga- a cat are lost and have to ‚nd their way in California, he lived for a year in the zine in New York in †„, that was all home against tremendous odds. They Adobe Motel in Aptos, his neighbors another country. He loved animal mov- get separated; the cat is thought done mainly people who worked in the con- ies. Talismans of childhood, they oered for but is rescued by a kindly woods- struction boom and people who waited respite from the barbarism of the age— man. Revived, she harkens to a familiar for modest welfare disbursements, an Reagan’s America and Central America bark, and there follows one of the great “ordinary” place, where drugs and a low- and Occupied Palestine, “the violence reunion scenes in cinematic history, with boil violence were integral to that ordi- program”, as he called it, which cranked dogs and cat racing from either end of a nariness. along whether or not there was a social wide, sun-cast ‚eld to meet, ecstatically, He had an upstairs corner room with program, and there was less and less of in the middle. Alex said the other grown kitchenette, the sitting area wall covered that as the rich got ‚t and the poor got passengers glared in his direction as he with Ida Applebroog’s disturbingly mag- prison and the cries of the oppressed rose sat dissolved in tears before the little ni‚cent suite of drawings, What did you up, spilled over, year upon ghastly year. screen. It was a happy-ender, the only dream?, the balcony alive with sweet- “Is your hate pure?” he would ask a new type of ‚lm he would watch. peas, hanging baskets and potted herbs. Nation intern, one eyebrow raised, in Sweetpeas. People called Alex elegant, e residents thought he was a little odd, merriment or inquisition the intern was and he was in his way. Charming, and he but their children ran in and out his door, unsure. It was a startling question, but was. Witty, and he was. I always thought and he worried over their bruises as he then this was—still is—a startling time. his special grace was having been born counseled one parent about a bad engine For what the ancients called avarice and into class but not money—his father, noise and another about a bad man. He iniquity Alex’s hate was pure, and across Claud, dodging bill collectors, his moth- embodied a kind of radical democracy, the years no writer had a deadlier sting er, Patricia, shooting pigeons out of the harbored utopian dreams; he was a ro- against the cruelties and dangerous illu- sky so the family could eat. He had the mantic, but as an act of will, despite life’s sions, the corruptions of empire. best education for both reducing a po- messiness. But, oh, how much more he was the litical opponent to shreds and becoming e Golden Age is in us. Alex found sum of all he loved. American during the country’s down- home in Petrolia, in rash country on Animal movies, in the scheme of ward slope from liberatory promise to the Lost Coast, along the the Mattole things, were pretty small change. Smaller collosal wreck, a phrase he used for the River, among pot growers, lamb farm- than animals themselves: his great, lanky title of his last, as yet unpublished book. ers, artists and free-wheeling others: his dog, Jasper; his cockatiel, Percy. Smaller He knew the road better than Kerouac place to re-create the marvelous, to insist than nature, which he embraced not with ever did, and understood survival in his on magical possibility against the certain solemnity but with a free-ranging brio.

  -,  knowledge of horror. Many years earlier among which is the notion that grief is his death, admirers said he was fearless; he had spent the summers up the coun- singular and lonesome, but remembrance that was loving but untrue, because to be try in Vermont with Andy Kopkind, his and joy are not.” fearless is to be other than human, and oldest friend in America and a Nation Alex was the great collaborator, a Alex was briskly, maddeningly, awesome- colleague, where they and the people gatherer of worlds, a singular voice that ly human. they loved did something of the same on contained multitudes. I carried a psalm Revolutionary Prosecutor Fouqier- a former commune. When Andy died, in in my pocket to his funeral, Psalm : Tinville, his alter ego in “Tumbril Time”, „, Alex told the audience at his me- “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked CounterPunch’s scourge against the cor- morial service, “Andy’s not dead to me.” in mine integrity…”, which I take as a ruption of common speech, would disap- He said it in an abstracted, achy way un- quest song for graciousness and authen- prove of ‘awesome’ owing to slacker over- characteristic of him. Nine years later tic life, or as Je, who knows these things use, but awe is a sentiment that deserves Edward Said died. en Ben Sonnenberg better, put it, as a song “about the ambi- to be rehabilitated. Alex inspired it, and died. e circle of friends who lit up the tion to speak truthfully and act kindly expressed it, as anyone will recognize sky for me and so many is now complete and resist the temptation to sell out”. Alex who ever breezed through a thrift shop again in death. appreciated the world of belief, the store- with him, or shared a luscious pear, or Alex once wrote that in the Golden house of totems and legends, gods and gazed about Petrolia. Age, “as opposed His own fu- to the succes- neral began and sor ages of silver, ended outside bronze and iron, his house there, a death came as a fairyland of fruit pleasant sleep, trees and gar- followed by easy dens; mud brick release into a walls adorned spirit form which with flecks of continues to in- color here, tiles habit the earth, there, a relief of attending its a nude woman own funeral, dis- over there; a pensing wealth cider house with to its favorites. immense ­agons So death in the of amber liq- Golden Age was uid, cryptically always incorpo- labeled; a fire rated into life as pit ingeniously a sensate plea- designed; a bird sure, followed bath full of dahl- immediately by ias; eccentric Photo by Elizabeth Lennard an improved life, pillars and three the way most folks would like it.” I favor monsters (sometimes one and the same) golden orbs. e craftspeople who had that idea, and, echoing him, I can say, that people have made since human time created this fairyland with Alex also built “Alex is not dead to me”, but the small began to get them through—and also his con. ey used plain and curly red- change of death can never be spent. e over, over the crude and the petty, the wood, and its sides they inlaid with cop- phone doesn’t trill its urgent summons. painful and pretentious, to a place of per plates, one bearing a dog, another e old private language turns to dust as grace. He liked to recall his father saying a hen, the third a typewriter, the last a no one else can speak it. that his own radical beliefs came as much  Chrysler Crown Imperial convert- Remember you are dust. Death haunts from the Magni‚cat as from Marx: “He ible. Into the con’s lid they pressed a e Golden Age Is In Us. It begins with a hath scattered the proud in the imagina- gold leaf tile by the artist Jim Danisch, funeral, and unfurls, in a sequence of en- tion of their hearts;/He hath put down an antique jade cabochon set in silver tries—Alex’s own notations, letters from the mighty from their seat.” by Becky Grant, and a small silver shield friends, letters from enemies, chunks of No one could mistake Alex for “the with the initials AC. ey placed the box columns he wrote across those years, bits humble and the meek”, who are exalted bearing the body on a hay truck banded of other people’s writing—as a medita- in the next line of the great canticle. He with flowers—magenta and bright or- tion on loss and radical hope, with a lot could be cutting in anger, and impatient, ange and vivid pinks and yellows—and of pleasure and fury mixed in. My friend rushing headlong with some plan and this proceeded to the gravesite, blaring Jeff Sharlet says, “There’s a psalm-like only later realizing the cost. He could New Orleans jazz, followed by a parade quality to it, and I like the idea of psalm- be fearful. As he said, writing of Andy of cars. ists, plural, better than lonely David Kopkind, what radical, what feeling per- The weather had been all mist and plucking away at his strings. at seems son sensitive to the exactions of those drear on the way in from the airport that at odds with the lessons of the psalms, proud and mighty, could not be? After day, what Alex’s Irish nanny, Kitty Lee,

  -,  would have called “a grand soft day”, until how capitalism ground down the lives of true now, i.e. that “Unionism is in eclipse the road curved toward the sea, where ordinary people and how some version of in Western countries and under attack suddenly the sky became what some me- socialism could oer something a whole virtually everywhere else. Union strength teorologists call radical clear. at is how lot better. will continue to erode as long as multi- it was in Petrolia that day, radical clear, After †—the fall of the Berlin Wall national ‚rms are increasingly able to pit and every color electric. Boys in suits and and the Soviet Union, etc.—Alex and I workers in one region or country against girls in short dresses and cowboy boots spent a lot of time talking about this huge those in others.” We therefore argued carried the coffin from the hay truck. historical transition. We wrote up our that, “In the contemporary world more And there under cerulean skies, in sight thoughts in a long Nation article in early than ever, Marx’s call for workers of the of an aged eucalyptus and a ‚eld of burnt  called “Capitalism and its Specters: world to unite is no mere slogan; it is a grass rolling out to older mountains, they The World, The Free Market, and the practical necessity.” bore it to the grave. Left.” I hadn’t thought about that article Social Justice and Ecology: Alex was a “On heav’nly ground they stood, and for a long time, but did go back to it after serious environmentalist, as was clear, from the shore/They viewed the vast Alex’s passing. If I myself must say so, I for example, in his excellent book with immeasurable Abyss”, Alex’s daughter, think there is a lot in it that captures well Susanna Hecht, e Fate of the Forest. Daisy, began reading a passage from some of what made Alex “Alex”. ese in- This commitment was also reflected Paradise Lost. Afterward, a friend won- clude the following: toward our article’s conclusion when dered absently, perhaps the bit from the On the Soviet Union: Alex and I recog- we wrote that “A left-labor movement Devil preferring to reign in hell than nized that, under the Soviets, “Central today…can seize the time only if it leads serve in heaven would have been more premises of socialism were, time and the debate on the social and political im- apt? But Alex had strived for something again, debauched.” But we also empha- plications on new and old technologies far removed from reign or servitude. sized that there were substantial success- and how they aect the natural, that is to …and in his hand es that should not be forgotten. Among say, social environment.” Yes, Alex and He took the golden Compasses, prepar’d these successes—especially worth re- I could have been more clear in making In God’s Eternal store, to circumscribe membering as the world today contin- our point here. More importantly, it is a is Universe, and all created things: ues to slog through the wreckage of the true shame that Alex somehow subse- One foot he center’d, and the other turn’d Wall Street crash, Great Recession, and quently became a climate change doubt- Round through the vast profunditie ob- global austerity agenda—was that from er, as many people have noted since his scure, † – €, exactly when the West was death. is does not gainsay the fact that And said, thus farr extend, thus farr thy suering through its worst depression, Alex was a strong advocate of what we bounds, Soviet industrial growth as measured by now call blue/green alliances, as we tried is be thy just Circumference, O World. conservative Western analysts averaged to emphasize in our  article. more than  percent. ey achieved this Alex, like all of us, de‚nitely had his JoAnn Wypijewski writes for the Nation through operating a centrally-planned ­aws and blind spots. Also, the fact that and CounterPunch. economy. We noted that even Fredrich he was such a dazzling writer and per- von Hayek, the renowned right-wing sonality made it possible to overlook just Cockburn on economist and arch-foe of central plan- how ‚rmly he held to his core values of Socialism, Capitalism ning, had to acknowledge, in considering equality, social justice, and ecology, and this Soviet era, “the conspicuous success how hard he worked throughout his life and People’s Lives which the Russians have achieved in cer- in behalf of them. ese core values were tain ‚elds.” what made Alex a lifelong socialist. us, By Robert Pollin On China under Mao: Again, while rec- in the face of the Soviet collapse, we con- lex, of course, was a ridiculously ognizing failures and betrayals, there cluded our  article by writing that good writer. Lots of ingredients were profound successes that Alex and “Socialism puts economic rationality at combined to put his words onto I didn’t want people to forget. is in- the service of individual and social au- Apages in ways that were his alone: his cluded the fact that average life expec- tonomy. It is in pursuit of this autonomy ability to read people and situations; his tancy rose from around „ years when that economic planning and an activist great sense of humor; his contempt for the Communists came to power in „ state should be seen as our indispensable high falutin’ big-shot phonies, especially to € years in ††, a near-doubling of the tools: tools for defending and broaden- liberal ones; his love of, as he would put lifespan of the average Chinese worker or ing democracy, for raising mass living it, le mot juste (“the right word” in high peasant in less than „ years. Nearly all standards rather than acquiescing in the falutin’ French); his deep curiosity— these gains came prior to Mao’s death in imposition of mass austerity, for protect- about buildings, gardens, natural vistas, €. ing ourselves against the brutalities of an cars, antiques, on and on—and his sheer Globalization and the Working Class: In unfettered free market and for recaptur- joy in living. Good upbringing and hard thinking about how to rebuild a strong ing socialism’s great life-arming vision.” work helped a lot. But mixing all of these global left, one of our main points was things together, still, the most important the obvious: there can never be a vibrant Robert Pollin, professor of economics factor was his commitment to social jus- left without a creative, forceful demo- and co-director of the Political Economy tice. is was deep in his bones. Alex was cratic union movement at its heart. But Research Institute (PERI), is the author fundamentally guided by his hatred of we noted then a point that is even more of Back to Full Employment (MIT Press).

  -, 

Satanic Sex Panic published an article in The Village Voice ques- By Debbie Nathan and tioning the particularly Michael Snedecker heinous prosecution of hen Cockburn phoned one of a young woman daycare us in early , sounding ex- worker in New Jersey. asperated, the call was so out So we knew why ofW the blue that neither of us yet knew Cockburn had problems how to pronounce his last name. He said from people he’d never he’d been kicked out of a Reed College have thought would cen- student-organizing conference at which sure him. We explained he’d been scheduled to speak, and his to him that only the column had been dropped from at least barest handful of pro- one alternative newspaper. He was mysti- gressives and feminists ‚ed. Someone told him we could explain. were critical of the panic His sin? He’d written about the (Ellen Willis was one). McMartin Preschool case in Los Angeles, The rest had bought doubting the existence of ritual sex abuse into the craziness and in daycare centers and calling for the ac- were even (like Gloria cusing children to be jailed for perjury. Steinem) actively pro- That call seemed way over the top- moting it, in the name of -certainly we, ourselves, had never protecting women and blamed the children. Still, we knew just children. how it felt to be excoriated, shut out of Ironically given that the media and worse for critiquing the buy-in, male workers in insane wave of satanic child abuse cases early childhood educa- that ­ooded America in the early †s tion were being scared and did not let up for a decade. out of the profession, McMartin and scores of other cases along with gays and les- featured charges against hapless daycare bians. e development Photo by Sylvia Plachy and school workers, including many of public childcare was women. The cases included the most stalling, even being dismantled. Women don’t [the McMartin prosecutors] start fantastical and sordid accusations: four- were being treated as witches. e coun- denouncing the real satanic rites being year-olds attacked on airplanes with try was battling chimeras instead of at- practiced by the butchers of social pro- swords, knives, drugs, and staged sce- tacking the real social problems plaguing grams snugly ensconced in the White narios where infants were boiled and kids. And woe to anyone who criticized. House and on Capitol Hill?” cannibalized (the better to terrorize the Even at Reed or in the alt press. By  he was discussing Janet Reno’s preschooler victims into keeping mum But maybe it’s good Cockburn had role in the panic. She’d noisily prosecuted about the crimes). problems. e experience glued him to two satanic childcare cases in Miami, There was never any evidence ex- the satanic daycare cases. fueling her political career in Florida, cept for the word of the children, inter- “[T]here was a general social awaken- which brought her to the attention of Bill viewed over and over by investigators, ing to the reality and pervasiveness of Clinton, who named her as his Attorney in the most leading and coercive ways. child abuse,” he’d written in the  col- General. Yet, across the country, in case after case, umn that got him in trouble. During that Cockburn began connecting the adults were convicted and slapped with awakening, “some children’s testimony satanic-panic dots to more subtly nox- generations, even centuries, of hard time. was taken too seriously precisely because ious forces. In a column updating one One of us is a journalist, the other in the past it had not been taken serious- of Reno’s cases, he noted her role in an a lawyer. We reported on and liti- ly enough.” But the McCarthyist tone of emerging movement to create a national gated against this panic for years, and the early Reagan years was also to blame, sex offender registry. (That registry is we eventually wrote a book: Satan’s Cockburn theorized, making “society well ensconced by now, and as studies Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of ripe for a new witch hunt, whose energies show, it has ruined countless people’s a Modern American Witch Hunt. Today “displaced themselves onto the cause of lives while protecting virtually no chil- it’s hard to recall how awful it was, early hunting for body snatchers of the nation’s dren.) on, to be leftists and feminists critical of children.” By the beginning of the new cen- child-sex-abuse hysteria. We were told by In a subsequent Nation column, he tury, satanic panic had died down. Still, people who we respected that we were noted that the infant mortality rate Cockburn kept sning out its evolving hurting women, children, our own chil- among blacks and Latinos in Los Angeles iterations of fear, loathing, unreason and dren. One of us had a home visit from the County had spiked € percent and destruction. police, inquiring after the welfare of her dropped among Anglos. “Here is hor- In €, he was stunningly gener- young daughter and baby son, after she rifying child abuse,” he wrote. “Why ous in helping one of us publish a story

  -,  in CounterPunch. It dealt with yet a new Big Al the threshold the Pakistani proprietor panic about exaggerated claims of sexu- had come to heel-clicking attention, al danger to children on the Internet. A By Bruce Anderson snapped o a Raj salute and announced, major promoter of the hype, former New last saw him in person a year ago “ e excellent Mr. Alexander Cockburn, York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, in San Francisco. He looked thin gentleman, scholar, journalist. I am hon- was implicated in highly unethical prac- and drawn but, as always, he was in ored to see you again, my friend.” tices related to researching and writing goodI spirits. I’d been on long hikes with What I most admired about Cockburn the story. He aggressively tried to sup- Cockburn where he walked me into the was his refusal to hedge. He defended press the CounterPunch piece, threat- ground, and he’d looked thin and drawn his opinions to anyone, not letting the ening to sue if it ran. Rather than back then, too. If he was sick with something incorrect slide simply in the interests down, Cockburn and St. Clair gave over I knew he’d beat it, that he’d marshal his of some ­eeting harmony. I challenged ˆ, of CounterPunch’s money for a unique determination, his pure courage him a few times. I told him once I liked media lawyer to vet and “lawsuit-proof” and emerge laughing. Trollope. He looked skeptically at me the article. It came out on schedule. at night in the city, he was driving and asked, “Which Trollope do you like A couple years later, in a CounterPunch one of his beater vehicles we later had best?” He probably had them all com- piece reprising recent busts of people for to jumpstart. Another car he steered mitted to memory, and I was annoyed walking around their homes in the bu, with a pipe wrench. His cars were always that I was getting a pop quiz. But I’d just Cockburn noted that “Sexual repression, dense with the jumble of stu Cockburn binged on Trollope, and I was ready! I through the allegation of ‘deviant’ fantasy seemed to travel with. I always won- said I thought Trollope was funnier than crimes, is often the designated stand-in dered if he ever quite o-loaded. ere’d Dickens without resorting to caricature for violations of the social order harder be a couple of rose bushes, piles of un- the way Dickens did, and that e Way to stand up in court.” And he presciently sheathed audio tapes, books, maybe a car We Live Now is the best deconstruction pointed out—as later elaborated on by part or two. If you didn’t know Cockburn of capitalism in novel form that there scholars such as Roger Lancaster in his you might think he was living in his car. is. “Maybe Balzac is better,” I said, “but I recent book Sex Panic and the Punitive at last time I’d seen him, we’d walked don’t know enough about Balzac to lay a State—that “regulation of sexual behav- down the street to a Burmese restaurant violent opinion on you about it.” ior is the preferred route to wider social where, as the unhearing waiter turned To smoke him out over his reason for control.” Cockburn’s salad over an absurd number quizzing me, I added, “You’re asking be- at last statement is short, neat, and of times, Cockburn asked, “Which one of cause you don’t believe I know anything in the abstract easy to promote. It’s not us is going to have to restrain him?” about Trollope.” He came right back with, so easy to apply concretely, though, even I’ve never known anyone even remote- “I must confess…” I had to laugh. for the savviest of lefties, when the cra- ly like him. Everywhere you went with Even if you were irritated with him, ziness and high moralism of a particu- the guy was an adventure, and wherever he’d disarm you, as he did me on another lar sex panic crashes into our heads and he went he met someone he knew, and if occasion when I told him his lead sen- hearts. But Cockburn truly did “Beat the he didn’t know them he did by the time tence was confusing. “How?” he barked, Devil” on this issue. He kept about him he left, beguiling the stranger with his very unhappy. But he promptly agreed his wits and his passion for the ideal that unique blend of charm and interrogation. and re-wrote it, and this was a guy who freedom and justice should always trump Cockburn was interested in everybody routinely batted out a nearly perfect ‚rst prejudice and coercion—even when the and everything, and he seemed to gulp draft on anything and everything, as I protection of children is purportedly at experience. I remember him insisting saw him do for his Nation column one stake. on a hike in the Boonville hills the same night at Peter Lit’s Caspar Inn before he We would never have said the afternoon I’d picked him up in Santa spoke there. McMartin kids deserved jail, and we sus- Rosa after he’d had oral surgery. He was I first met Cockburn in †. He’d pect Cockburn was just trying to shock still groggy from anesthesia, having been driven to Boonville with Fred Gardner some sense into readers. In the short knocked out for three hours, and still — “My first friend in America,” as run he did not do that very well. But in bleeding from the mouth. “No, no. I’m Cockburn often said — after I’d arranged his long run with satanic ritual abuse and ‚ne,” he insisted, and o we went. with Cockburn to reprint his weekly successor panics that have come down This other encounter a decade ago column, then as now simply the best on the pike, he was heroic and very, very still makes me laugh: Warren Hinckle national and international matters in good. had gotten us some work with the in- the language. Michael Moore had just terim Examiner. It was headquartered been ‚red by Mother Jones, and Moore Debbie Nathan is a journalist, editor over the Warfield Theater on Market called Boonville several times as he and and translator. Her most recent book is Street. “Cockburn’s been a lion for our Cockburn conferred on what Moore Pornography: a Groundwork Guide. side for years,” Hinckle, an old lion him- might do about it. Under Moore, Mother self, had remarked. Amen to that, I Jones had been brie­y interesting, radi- Michael Snedeker is an appellate at- thought. Name the struggle, Cockburn cal even, which is why Moore had been torney. He and Nathan wrote Satan’s was there. He brought the clarity. at sacked. You stray from received opinion Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of day, Cockburn said he wanted to stop at a and you soon see you’re pretty much a Modern American Witch Hunt. camera shop, also on Market not far from out there by yourself. Moore has since the Examiner. e instant he’d crossed strayed back in, as have many others.

  -,  Cockburn, the rock, never trimmed his The Kindness of He simply arrived. When I asked how sails for anyone. he found us, he held up a ­ashlight and Lots of people are better equipped to Strangers said in his pretty accent, “I had a torch.” remember Cockburn in relation to the He brought many bottles of Minervois, American left, but for me, and I daresay By Carolyn Cooke which we drank at dinner, and his own a million or so other people, Cockburn met Alex in , while working for Turkish coee pot, with which he brewed was the left, the one person who con- Bruce Anderson at the Anderson a muddy broth in the morning. He de- sistently, relentlessly inspired the rest Valley Advertiser, the anarcho-syn- scribed improvements to his property in of us; he’s been a steadfast friend to me Idicalist weekly in Boonville better known Petrolia – a tower, frescoes, horses, his and to so many people I often wondered by its friends and enemies as e AVA. stable of vintage cars. He discoursed on how he ‚t us all in. He’ll live on through Alex had recently moved to Petrolia, on the aesthetic crime of heavy beam con- CounterPunch, read daily by several mil- the Lost Coast – though his range, pan- struction (one of his favorite books was lion people, and what an irony it is that therlike, was broader. Edith Wharton’s interior design prim- after years of left ghetto-ization in a few Bruce and Alex were pals and kindred er e Decoration of Houses), the best magazines, fewer radio programs, that he spirits – courtly bon vivants given to hy- preparation for salt cod, Christopher and Jerey St. Clair have created a daily perbole. Alex had famously called the Hitchens, the state of the empire. In the newspaper of the left. AVA “the best newspaper in America.” morning he rushed downstairs with my You can get a very good sense of Another time he called it “the only news- college art history text under his arm and Cockburn from a three-hour interview paper in America.” Grand rhetorical ges- gently critiqued my marginal notes. he did back in € on C-Span’s Book tures best expressed what he called “the Moments before he drove away from TV. (It’s preserved on-line.) e callers- moral truth.” what would be his ‚nal visit he discov- in are the usual parade of cranks and To help boost my modest income ered a leak in the Rambler’s radiator, but demagogues Cockburn’s national ap- as a reporter Bruce “put in a word with the matter didn’t faze him. On the loopy pearances inevitably mobilized because Cockburn” who might, Bruce thought, back roads of Humboldt and Mendocino he was the only major intellectual on our need a hand. In those days Alex didn’t use Counties Alex was occasionally seen side who was always ready and eager to a computer on principle – I never knew standing beside some steaming auto- take on e Beast. On this program, the what principle. Not exactly a Luddite, he mobile with the hood up or the gas tank more shameless defenders of Israel call loved his fax machine to the point where empty, waving down random motorists. in to equate criticism of Israel with anti- he carried it almost everywhere. He in- is manic polemicist who so relished Semitism, another nut calls in to go on sisted I buy the same model from a par- his enemies trusted completely in the about Building €, and on it goes, as serial ticular person at a company in New York; kindness of strangers. outpatients line up for their Cockburn his loyalties were ‚erce. Carolyn Cooke is the author of comeuppance. Cockburn, with some Our typing and faxing began around € Daughters of the Revolution and e heat, refuses to permit the liars and the a.m. or sometimes  p.m. or occasionally Bostons. crazy people to misrepresent his opin- at  a.m. Alex approached deadlines with ions. I remember seeing him on the old cheerful intensity. He typed up a column, Xander at Donahue Show when he mopped up then faxed it over for me to “punch in” on some New York Times opinion hack who my Apple €. His lively scrawl and fresh Aldermaston was defending Clinton’s handling of the revisions kept rolling through – he was a economy. ey’d never admit it, but the tireless and eloquent reviser. By Conn Hallinan David Brooks-Mark Shields Axis were Alex had nothing but contempt for the first encountered Alex Cockburn afraid of the guy, and now that he’s gone faddish laptop, which, in the days before at a London dinner party at the watch them roll out with all the old snide e-mail or Apple Care, served without flat of Konni Zilliacus, a leftwing slanders of Cockburn as some kind of complaint for seven years. e Panasonic LaborI Party Member of Parliament. holdout against reason and the great im- fax, with its unwieldy rolls of thermal It was the winter of  and it had perial consensus. paper, lasted, too. e Panasonic and the been a heady year for the Labor left. At What’s invariably left out of the Apple € are today the only functioning the Labor Party’s  conference in Cockburn discussion is what a good – yet useless - electronics in my arsenal. Scarborough, “Zilly” and his parliamen- writer he was, how witty and elegant His advice to a young writer strongly tary posse—Sydney Silverman, Michael his prose was. Compare any essay on emphasized thrift. “Never, ever show Foot, and Barbara Castle (the Baroness the same subject by Cockburn and, say, your wallet,” he told me once. He advo- of Blackburn, the “Red Queen,” whose George Will, the idiot’s thinking man and cated sleeping in one’s vehicle instead of ­aming locks matched her politics)—had one of the more prominent unindicted squandering money on hotels. out maneuvered and out organized the criminals of mass media, and it will be We used to see him occasionally in Party’s right wing and passed a resolution Cockburn all the way. I’ll always be grate- Point Arena when he’d stop overnight en calling for unilateral nuclear disarma- ful that I knew Alexander Cockburn, and route to Fort Bragg or Boonville. Once ment. prouder yet that we were friends and al- he drove down our mile and a half of un- It was a bombshell, no pun intended. lies all the way. marked dirt road in a  Nash Rambler In the middle of the Cold War, a powerful Bruce Anderson is publisher of the without directions, cell phone or GPS, political party at the center of the U.S.’s Anderson Valley Advertiser. in a torrential rainstorm with lightning. most reliable nuclear ally was bailing. e

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Tories went crazy, Labor’s rightwing—led a demonstration, and the obvious cure his head screwed on right, I hope Alex by the despicable Hugh Gaitskell—went for that was the Aldermaston to London will use that pen to set him straight. crazy, Washington went crazy. Oh, it was march by the Committee for Nuclear We can’t bring him back, but we can just grand fun. Disarmament (CND). Aldermaston was make sure that CounterPunch continues Alex (or “Xander,” as he was then the location of Britain’s major nuclear his work. I am writing out  envelopes called) had come up from Oxford weapons research facilities. this week, and once a month I am send- for the dinner—no one in their right On April  we all—now including my ing in a check, just like paying a bill, only mind passed up a meal cooked by Jan younger brother, Danny—met up in this one actually buys you something Zilliacus—and we spent the evening eat- Aldermaston and joined the four-day, worth having. ing, drinking, and plotting. -mile trek to London. Like all things Slan lan avic, minstrel Alex, this harp Alex was organizing around the nucle- in the English spring, it was wet, but the shall ever praise thee. ar disarmament issue at Keble College, Scarborough resolution had fired the Conn Hallinan blogs at Dispatches Oxford, and was trying to put together masses. Between the march and the rally From the Edge. a debate between Zilliacus and Gaitskell. in Trafalgar Square, more than , Zilly had been barnstorming across the people would participate, one of the larg- country pressing for the Labor Party to est demonstrations in British history and Wooing Cockburn actually implement the Scarborough unarguably the biggest peace rally in the resolution, and Gaitskell was ducking a world to date. By John Straussbaugh one-on-one debate. e plot was that the For all his inexperience with demon- t some point in the early s Oxford event wouldn’t be called a “de- strations, Alex handled the march con- I met Alex for the first time bate,” until “Zilly” showed up, then the siderably better than his American com- and raised the idea of his writ- ‚reworks would ensue. rades. Most Californians do not do well Aing for New York Press. e paper was I quite got Gaitskell’s reluctance to de- with wet. For Alex, raised as he was in just beginning to expand from a small bate Zilliacus. “Zilly” was probably the County Cork—there are few places sog- downtown Manhattan weekly into more smartest person I ever met (and that in- gier than the West of Ireland—it was all of a playa in New York journalism, and cludes some serious heavyweights). e beer and skittles. “This isn’t rain, just as part of that we were wooing idiosyn- man spoke  languages—so perfectly humidity” was one of his more annoying cratic political writers from both the that many native speakers took him for lines. My brothers and I clumped along, right (Taki) and the left. Alex, being Alex, one of their own—and he had a breadth soaked, chilled and glum, while Alex re- teased and played coy and made me woo of knowledge that put the Encyclopedia galed us with stories, bits of poetry and him a long time. I didn’t mind. I had ad- Britannica to shame. Hugh Gaitskell was an occasional song. mired him from afar for decades, and as I no slouch in a debate, but Zilliacus would It was pure Alex. I would never call got to know him some I came to like him have annihilated him. him cheerful—he would have struck me very much. I found him brilliant, witty, I was only † at the time, but I knew if I had—it was just that he didn’t let irascible, vain, complicated, unpredict- something about Alex’s father, Claud. things derail him. Even when he fell sick, able, and never dull. A charming rascal. My parents were active supporters of he soldiered on. I am looking at his last I know some people saw more of his ras- the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and I had column, written quite literally a few days cality than his charm; I’m just reporting already read a good deal on the Spanish before he died. It is spot on: smart, funny, for myself. Civil War, including some of Claud’s writ- and ‚erce. How does one do that? From the instant he started writing for ings that Zilly gave me. Claud Cockburn Someone called him fearless, which is us he was, not surprisingly, one of our was smart, erudite, and quite likely the not accurate. If you don’t have any fear most loved and most hated columnists. best reporter at the front (against rather then it’s easy to put yourself in harm’s Oh the mail we got. We loved mail. We formidable competition). way. Alex wasn’t fearless, he was brave. took hate mail as a sign that at least some “Xander” was much then as he was He came from a brave family. He father one was paying attention. ey paid fe- later: very quick, very funny, with a ‚erce was courageous, and his brothers, Patrick rocious attention to Alex’s column, even streak. In the end, the plot would stum- and Andrew, are the kind of journal- though he sometimes confused them as ble because Zilliacus had other commit- ists who actually practiced Finley Peter he took political incorrectness to dizzy- ments. But Gaitskell did show, and Alex Dunne’s dictum to a‡ict the comfortable ing heights. Was he a hero of the left or and his friends organized a proper greet- and comfort the a‡icted. a traitor, a diehard Stalinist or a libertar- ing: they tossed chairs onto the podium How do you replace Alex? You don’t. ian, anti-fascist or an anti-Semite? e and hooted the Labor Party leader o the Another world and another Universe debate rolled on. I must say that some stage. will pass before we fill that particular of my favorites of the columns he wrote As the dinner wound down my broth- hole in our line (and now that he is gone for us had nothing overtly to do with er Terance (Kayo) and I talked about I can write those words. I would never politics. ere was a beautiful, hilarious the demonstrations we have been at have dared while he was alive. “Cant,” he one about marijuana harvest time in the over the past year, including the huge would have growled). wilds of Humboldt County I especially San Francisco protest that confront- At his funeral the mourners tossed loved. ed the House Un-American Activities earth and ­owers into his grave. I threw After he’d been writing for us a while Committee in the spring of . It in a pen. I am not much for the afterlife, I set out on the fool’s errand of trying to turned out that Alex had never been to but if there is one, and God doesn’t have talk Christopher Hitchens into writing

  -,  for us too. Cockburn and Hitchens duk- stand them. He was a philosopher in a subtler and upbeat. ing it out in our pages. What a coup. I way that academic philosophers should Lately, I’ve been digging through have a fond memory of Hitchens slam- never claim to be, a lover of knowledge. seven years of e-mails to see if I can ming the phone down on me after rail- Not that he was unacquainted with the patch together a picture of the Alexander ing that he would never disgrace himself academic side: he told me how he’d met that I knew, Cockburn the editor. by writing for any yellow gutter rag that my mother long ago at a conference on Unfortunately, it’s hard to create a sense published Alexander Cockburn. at was Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization, of the man by reprinting the short, terse better than hate mail. and how she’d whispered to him: “too lightning rods that used to appear peri- When I went on a book tour in  much civilization, not enough Eros”. So odically in the morning mail. I should Alex graciously arranged a reading with he must have familiarized himself with add, that we never really talked at length him for a bunch of anarchists in Oakland. that sort of material. about the issues themselves, mainly be- The previous night I read in San After column after column of careful cause we seemed to see eye-to-eye on Francisco to a bookstore ‚lled with neo- analytic work, you take a few swings and most points. So communication was hippies, hipsters and wymyn who hadn’t all that people remember are the vivid limited to bulletins that periodically dug my act in the slightest. In Oakland, slaggings. Some of the obituaries are like crowded the subjectline in bold, capital- Alex pretended that I was the headliner that. As if mesmerized by his brilliant ized print: COCKBURN TO WHITNEY and insisted on reading ‚rst. e anar- style, people overlook his very real search or AHOY WHITNEY, which was usu- chists adored him, and the room was still for knowledge - not just the analysis, but ally followed by a gulping sound on my bathed in a warm glow of adulation when also the diligent research. Sure, some- part knowing that I had either goofed I got up to do my thing. ey were much times he loved to know things a little too up on an earlier article or was being more polite to me than the San Francisco much - I wanted to tell him that a layman directed to something that was going crowd had been. He’d planned it that shouldn’t pit meteorologists and physi- on in the news. e contents of the e- way. It was very nice of him. at’s the cists against climatologists on global mail could be equally succinct, like this Alex Cockburn I remember. warming. But Alex never just talked, gem: “MIKE - YOU WRITING ON never just experienced. He was always THE GREAT BETRAYAL? CD USE YR John Strausbaugh is the author of Rock researching, always trying to get at the THUNDERBOLTS ASAP”. Til You Drop, Black Like You and Sissy roots of things, whether it was making at’s vintage Cockburn there, a one- Nation. food or writing a column. ere was a liner with no frills. The man was ob- very serious guy behind the wit. at’s sessed with the news and loved knowing Alex the Philosopher what impressed me so much. what was going on behind the headlines. He was also the sharpest political critic Michael Neumann teaches philosophy By Michael Neumann of our time, which goes without say- at Trent University. He is the author of met Alex and Je face-to-face for the ing. I was always amazed at the breadth e Case Against Israel. first time at New Orleans’ Jazzfest of his knowledge, particularly, on mat- „. We saw Joss Stone, who Thunderbolts and ters related to finance, which weren’t wasI great, but the standout was Alain really his beat. e man had a mind like Toussaint. You could feel the whole Lightning Rods a steel trap; he could recite all kinds of authoritatively cool tradition of New minutia going back to before Lehman Orleans in every bar, every assured vocal. By Mike Whitney Brothers defaulted, illustrating his in- That’s something Alex appreciated in still have a hard time believing that credible grasp of the big picture. On that depth, as he did the R&B in the original Alexander is dead. He was great point, it’s worth noting that Cockburn sense of the label. I still have under ‘cur- inspiration to me and his writ- anticipated the ‚nancial meltdown long rent’ an email from him asking if there is ingI had a profound eect on the way I before the experts. Just take a look at any more from the Question Marks, who look at politics and the world. I always his article “Lame Duck: e Downside from all I could ‚nd out, left one beauti- looked forward to Alex’s Friday install- of Capitalism” and you’ll see that he was ful track, “Another Solider Gone”, in , ment which would appear at the top of onto the whole derivatives-scam long and vanished. CounterPunch’s weekend slate of ar- before the markets crashed. As early as It was the same with the searing issue ticles. You knew that Cockburn would , Cockburn knew that “ e world’s of barbecue. We had Frank and Free never disappoint; that even if you didn’t credit system is a vast recycling bin of Discussions over whether real Q had to agree with what he had to say, you’d still untraceable transactions of wildly in- include the candied meat of Memphis, enjoy the way he said it. You also knew flated value” (and that) “It’s about to or Texas brisket, or whether it really re- that somewhere amid the edgy political blow!” How’s that for prescience? ferred only to the pulled pork out of the analysis, there’d be a zinger or two that But, then again, it just shows Carolinas – then there was the prob- would make you chuckle, even lift your Cockburn’s extraordinary analytical lem of mustard versus pepper-vinegar spirits a bit. That’s because Cockburn abilities as well as his razor-sharp jour- sauce. Much later Alex drove a beautiful was basically a cheerful person who took nalistic instincts. It was as easy for him Imperial out East for an on-the-scene in- a positive view of things. He wasn’t your to make farsighted observations on the vestigation. typical scowling leftist who wasted rail- state of the economy as it was to keelhaul Somehow you got the feeling that Alex ing about the “exploitation of the masses”. a phony congressman on Capital Hill. was always out to know things, to under- at wasn’t his style at all. He was much Nothing seemed to escape his notice, but

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 -,  that made him a bit intimidating at times. titled “Suez , Iran €?” It described AAUG and IAS were non-profit, aca- I remember one time in particular when how Israel, in invading the Sinai pen- demic research institutions, supported I was sure that I’d made a mistake in an insula, provided the excuse for Britain by private, not governmen funds. ey article that would require a retraction, so and France to invade the Suez Canal were a perfectly respectable source of I dashed o an e-mail to Alex explaining Zone. It was intended to draw parallels funds for a book, though the Voice edi- where I’d gone wrong. Just minutes after with Israel’s role in fomenting the cri- tor called them a “special political in- I’d hit the “send” button, I got this back: sis with Iran. Today, alas, only the title terest” in the manner of the ADL’s at- “Yes, comrade Whitney, we were just would need updating, as Alex would have tacks. “Alex’s death brought back many tying the hempen noose and oiling the agreed. ugly memories of Zionist hysteria over hinges on the trap door, and then we had His Pressclips column with James Arab organizations,” said a senior Arab- to issue the reprieve. Good work.” Ridgeway at the Village Voice popular- American scholar with knowledge of the What a guy. He was so generous and ized “media analysis”, especially of the events. supportive, always willing to take his New York Times, and inspired a host of The topic was special, Israel’s con- time to help you out or keep you on- imitators. He would probably have be- duct. Absent that, there would have been track. I can recall just one time when he come editor if he had stayed, but instead no “controversy” at all. e Voice ran a was short with me and that was a mat- he was forced out just as the times de- “Blazing Typewriters” issue of commen- ter where I was clearly in the wrong. Even manded such a pulpit for his talents, tary on the matter (after Mel Brooks’s then, he treated me with respect and dig- when Reaganism was setting the stage for film, “Blazing Saddles”), including a nity. He was a real friend. our present apocalypse. piece from Noam Chomsky. Alex was Following our ‚rst meeting at a book Alex’s departure from the Voice came suspended indefinitely, and eventually launch in Olympia, I sent Alexander an in early †„, after Israel’s † inva- invited back, which he sensibly declined. e-mail: “It was great to ‚nally meet the sion of Lebanon; the massacre in the A writer on the Voice at the time told me man who’s been editing my work all these Palestinian Sabra and Shatila refugee that he was popular there, and his eec- years. I hope we can get together soon camps by Israel’s Phalangist allies, which tive dismissal may have been a coup by over dinner in Seattle or in Snohomish, it facilitated; the seizure of a security the incumbent editor against a threat to whatever works with your schedule. Next strip in south Lebanon, under the control his position. But only in the US would time we’ll have to include the irascible of the turncoat “South Lebanon Army”, Zionism be a factor in oce politics at a Mrs. Whitney, who is looking forward and contingent horrors. Alex’s coverage left publication. to meeting you. anks again for all your was suitably critical, and tempers were The Wall Street Journal, for which help over the years. It is greatly appreci- very high at the Voice because many Alex wrote a monthly column, shrugged ated, Mike.” Later that afternoon, I got Jewish writers simply couldn’t take the it o. e New York Times reported that his response: “Likewise. Great to meet truth. ere had been the usual hyper- the Journal “was considering whether to you - and yes, a quiet meal up in your bolic slander of “anti-Semitism on the continue running the column.” Indeed, climes would be great INCLUDING the left” in Voice columns. stated the Journal, his “editor had just irascible Mrs W - Very best Alex.” This was the backdrop to the con- penned a purple paragraph threatening Of course, by then he knew his time trived controversy over the grant from to ‚ll that space with Letters to the Editor was short and we’d never see each other the Institute for Arab Studies, an ali- unless Mr. Cockburn started to deliver again. He died a few weeks later. Not a ate of the Association of Arab American his copy on deadline.” Upon learning the day goes by that I don’t think of him. University Graduates, to write about the facts, his editor said, “‘Well, among all invasion of Lebanon. e Boston Phoenix the things I can imagine Alex doing, this Mike Whitney is economics correspon- discovered this grant, in a piece which one seems fairly innocuous.’” e Journal dent for CounterPunch. ran on January , †„. The Phoenix stated that “we have no opinion, except No Cockburn, No responded to Alex’s passing by crowing that even Arabs should enjoy freedom of “How the Boston Phoenix got Alexander speech.” (Wall Street Journal, “Alex­ap,” Voice Cockburn ‚red from the Village Voice.” January , †„). is ghoulish display linked to the †„ Voice readers were very support- By Harry Clark piece, “Alexander Cockburn’s ˆ, ive. The best letter, I recall even now, lexander Cockburn was prob- Arab connection: A question of propri- came from a reader in Brooklyn, and ably the most distinguished left ety,” retrieved and rendered for the web said simply: NO BISH, NO REVO, journalist in his adopted land. He on Monday, July , immediately after the NO COCKBURN, NO VOICE Awas forti‚ed by his father Claud’s career weekend announcement of his death by is was at the time of the US invasion in British journalism and the Communist CounterPunch co-editor Jerey St. Clair. of Grenada, an early Reagan exercise of Party, above all in the crucible of the is is purely an Israel lobby hatchet muscle-­exing. e popular revolution- late s, when the British government job, early †s edition. e author in- ary leader, Maurice Bishop, was eulo- abandoned the Spanish Republic to ­ated a controversy, by citing the Anti- gized in Grenada in the ‚rst line. Franco’s Nationalists, and appeased Nazi Defamation League, et alia, as indepen- What Maurice Bishop meant to Germany and Fascist Italy. dent, unbiased sources, repeating their Grenadians, Alex meant to many of us. I knew Alex only as an editor, one with attacks on the AAUG and IAS as sinis- NO COCKBURN, NO VOICE. a light but sure touch. He ran one piece ter propaganda outfits simply because Harry Clark can be reached at his web of mine in the CounterPunch newsletter, they represented an Arab point of view. site, http://questionofpalestine.net.

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Tropical Utopias obscure metal worker, Ignacio “Lula” da regional strategies, that valued native as Silva, head of the Workers Party, into well as formal scienti‚c knowledge, and By Susanna Hecht such prominence that he would even- began to explore hybrid approaches to tually become president of Brazil. is economies that would maintain forests, erey St. Clair asked me to write a extraordinary coalition had by †† pro- livelihoods, and the solidarity networks bit about the production of Fate of duced a new constitution that recognized that had developed in the long anti- the Forest: Developers, Destroyers the land, social and economic rights of authoritarian struggles. One of the new and Defenders of the Amazon, a book J traditional peoples. approaches was the extractive reserve, Alexander Cockburn would be amused to While † is most known for the but since that time many other land clas- note stood at number  in rank of rain- collapse of the Soviet Union, the period si‚cations (“sustainable use” areas) have forest books on that “other” Amazon, and from the late †s to mid s was come into play, so much so that today has just gone into its „th edition almost equally the end of the Latin American more than  percent of Amazonia is in a quarter century since it was ‚rst writ- authoritarian period and US regional some form of conservation, and of these ten. When it came out it was reviewed hegemony, and new constitutions that lands more than  percent are in work- everywhere from the New York Times to recognized a much broader array of land ing forested landscapes – and more than Nature, and was widely discussed in pop- and political rights were rati‚ed through- half of the extractive reserves are in areas ular as well as academic circles. None of out Latin America, often taking elements of Quilombos. It’s a remarkable story. Alexander’s other books was reviewed by of the Brazilian document as their tem- And throughout Latin America now, the more than  scienti‚c and mainstream plate. ideas of “socio-environmentalism”: the journals and papers nor clocks in the Just for comparison, imagine in €€, importance of place for life, livelihood thousands of citations. on those hot days in Philadelphia, if the and meaning underpins environmental Fate of the Forest is considered one of Founders had not only been slaveholders politics and policy, taking its inspiration the founding texts of political ecology, like Jeerson, but the slaves themselves, from the most unlikely muses imagin- a term Cockburn and James Ridgeway indentured servants, free people of color, able. actually had introduced earlier. As the the native populations, women and the Alexander went with me to Mexico phrase is used today it is considered one communities of resistance who would and Brazil several times, but he was an of the most vibrant approaches to envi- formulate the ideas and deep institution- essentially urban creature, he lacked ronmental issues because it links history, al structures of a new nation and, well, Latin American languages, and treks political economy and ecological dynam- you have an inkling of how profoundly through Amazon forests to various ics to understand how politics and inter- different, and important the Brazilian settlements, to hang a hammock and ests play out on the ground and in eco- Constitutional Convention was. mosquito net and eat roasted agouti – a systems, and what that means in terms Many would pay the price for this three to five pound rodent – were re- of both. e book is widely used as a text kind of democracy, and one of these ally not to his tastes. His idea of hiking in development studies, tropical ecology, was Chico Mendes, the leader of the down the Lost Coast, to which Joe and Latin American, and environmental his- rubber tappers movement, who in early Karen Pa, and Bruce Anderson can at- tory studies throughout the US. People December †† was greeted with a hail of test, involved wearing sandals and carry- who never in a million years would bullets as he stepped into his backyard. ing two plastic Mexican shopping bags read the Nation or CounterPunch have, It had to do with local politics, of course: ‚lled with cooked tri-tips, a couple bot- through FOF, been exposed to Alexander there had been a stando with a rancher tles of whiskey and a few other this and Cockburn. over Mendes family rubber forests, but that’s (biscuits, steel cut oats, hardbound I had lived in Amazonia for many the repercussions were international. books). Nothing so vulgar as a backpack. years and by the mid †s with Brazil’s e assassins were quite surprised that As a person who had worked most sum- political opening underway, social move- what they had taken to be an obscure mers in grad school doing research in the ments of the most marginalized and in- labor leader in some remote backwater high Sierra, trekked the Andes, and did visible populations imaginable – indig- was somehow galvanizing much more ‚eld work in Amazonia, I felt I did have enous peoples (whose supposed destiny complex international and national so- some helpful hints about how one might was assimilation), rubber tappers (the cio-environmental battles, battles that proceed on expeditions that involved boom that supposedly ended in ), would shake the tail end of the dictator- carrying your own stu. I made gentle Quilombolas (members of former run- ships to their core. And, indeed, what suggestions but these were, predictably, away slave communities), and a raft of the Chico Mendes movement and its al- completely ignored, since some kind of other kinds of forest inhabitants began to lies had managed to do was transform extended picnic was really what he had emerge from woodlands that were rap- the “nature” of environmentalism away in mind. One rather imagined that he idly being destroyed by massive clearing from the ideas of a Muirist set aside, the might clone himself so that part of him for largely unproductive pastures (the US “empty forest” model for spiritual and could be the native bearer, while the rest focus of my PhD) to defend their liveli- scienti‚c contemplation that mimicked of him chatted on, on increasingly blis- hoods, histories and the forest itself. is in its practice the technocratic control, tering feet. Victorian tropical travel was was not the sleek environmentalisms of derogatory view of local people, and ex- really the idea – perhaps like the Harvard international organizations, but a set of clusionary politics of Brazil’s authoritar- naturalist Louis Agassiz and his interest- political movements allied to labor, liber- ians. In its place emerged an idea about ing wife Elizabeth (she would later help ation theology, rural peasant movements conservation in inhabited places as key found Radclie) on Emperor Pedro the that would ultimately help catapult an

  -, 

Second’s yacht. So while some recent might have admired. Every afternoon my pallor in corals and shells are signs of obits had him residing in a cabin in aus- grad students, Priya and Junco, would ocean acid‚cation associated with rising tere rusticity, that was entirely wrong. As ferry up yet more volumes (some whose CO levels – a marker of climate change. sybaritic as possible was ‚ne. page leaves had never been cut) from the My mom would die a few months later, But back to Fate of the Forest: the ‚rst staggeringly excellent Amazon collec- after her red tulips ‚nished blooming. meeting of the Forest People’s Alliance tion of UCLA, and integrate the changes When I got the news that Alexander was described in our book. What was we’d made on the text we’d worked on was dead, I, like probably many others, remarkable was actually Alexander’s in the morning, while we advanced and went into the box of papers and photos wonderful acuity about what was going wrote in the afternoon. We worked in the and reviewed my “Alexander Archive” on, his good humor, and his ability to large upstairs living room, which meant to ‚nd a note from Claude Levi-Strauss, find Irishmen in Amazonia. His inter- that at eye level one was greeted by the whose classic Tristes Tropiques was the view with Father Micheal Feeney, whom July ­owering “Red Gum” Eucalyptus of source for Alexander’s quote about the he ‚rst encountered on the plane to Rio hallucinatory scarlet (these are one of Golden Age: “‘The Golden Age’ which Branco in Acre, was cut down for the the glories of LA) crammed with urgent blinds superstition had placed behind (or book, but the two of them reminisced bees, hummingbirds and irritated squir- ahead of) us, is in us.” Levi-Strauss was about Ireland, about then „ and com- the US (Feeney plaining that he had had spent time in to remember this Colorado) and then stu that he’d writ- Feeney spoke about ten  years ago the work he’d done about the “Golden for decades near Age”. The quote, Tefé far up in the he said, was from western Amazon. He Babouef, a socialist, was with a group of utopianist and fol- river forest dwellers, lower of the positiv- called “Ribeirinhos” ist Auguste Comte, and indigenous not some fiery people who were Jacobin. going to the ‚rst big But the point of meeting of this type, that quote is not people who knew about the past or profoundly how to the future but about navigate tropical riv- the calibre of daily ers, lakes and lands life. It’s useful to but were negotiat- note, because few ing airplanes and Photo by Tao Ruspoli, c.  seem to have done Amazonian global politics for the ‚rst rels, so there was a constant drone and so, that the places Alexander really liked time. How successfully they would do it! chatter, which rather matched those of in the US were places of high eccentric- Many people from remote places all our brains. is was washed through the ity, places that were, in fact, infused with over Amazonia were at this meeting, and sweet medicinal scent of the fuzzy red modern utopianism. Not the least of it was momentous, even if to speak of flowers and criminal sweetness of the these was Petrolia with its assemblage of it in this way is to use a cliché. All were Angel Trumpet datura. e space ‚lled back to the land hippies, pot growers, ar- amazed and amazing. e Forest People’s with books, ‚eld notes, histories, ecologi- tisans, ranchers and rednecks. Alexander Manifesto, which we published in FOF, cal studies, calls into many Amazonistas could, of course, have lived anywhere, but remains to this day, one of the most and Amazonians of many types. ere he chose perhaps the most ardent of back trenchant documents about the ecology was also quite a bit of reading that had to to the land outposts in California. While of justice. ese “invisibles” were taking be done and the usual other stu of life. he might have snarked a bit at various charge of their own history, and, though We’d stop, naturally, for tea: with a crew neighbors, the reality is that he loved the they didn’t know it – in fact no one did – composed of Irish, Indian and Japanese place and chose to leave his bones there. they were about to remake the Amazon thinkers, this was imperative. is proj- Yet old Babouef’s admonitions about map. It was no longer empty space of ect like everything Amazonian, was insis- paradise being neither in the past nor the noble savages or savage brutes, but a tent, but with the rich intellectual chal- future but made and remade in our dai- place where a forest was one big thing, lenge and sensuality of the place. It was lyness was especially true in the end for with plants, animals and people. All of deliriously fun. Alexander: whatever other Paradise he Amazonia’s future politics would have to Alexander’s mother, Patricia, would be had lost, he found another in the Arcadia take this into account. dead in a couple of months – in October. of Petrolia. Fate of the Forest was produced in She, an avid collector of Irish shells, had But beyond his love for Petrolia was about  weeks. It proceeded with a mar- begun to notice that their saturated na- the usefulness of the “internally, eternally tial discipline that the Brazilian dictators creous colors were bleaching out. is mutable” Golden Age. At a time when

  -,  many books portentously asserted the Our little group of fellow travelers told Shankar. e godman, who presides over “End of Utopia” – largely due to the col- Alex after the presser: you just con‚rmed an opulent spiritual empire, had taken lapse of the Soviet Union – his position that the learned Professor is a CIA ‚nk. it on himself to go down to a tsunami- was that it could always be rediscovered “Rubbish,” he snapped. “I said nothing hit region and tend the souls in distress, and reinvented, even if it had failed be- of the sort.” True, we told him, but in both living and dead. In fact, his caval- fore. In fact it had to be. I think part of tomorrow’s paper, you will ‚nd that you cade with dozens of swanky cars left the the reason Alexander was so attracted did. It took a couple of days more, but spot very quickly. In Alex’s words: to the Amazonian movements and why the right-wing newspaper had it up there: “…some subversive wag raised the we wrote so well about them was how Alexander Cockburn con‚rms CIA pres- cry that a second tsunami, even more meaningful he found the emergence ence at University Y and went on to por- immense in destructive potential than of these practical, tropical utopias that tray the place as a hotbed of CIA activ- the ‚rst, was just over the horizon. e were carved from lost histories, forgot- ity and the unfortunate academic as its swami made a quick estimate of his pow- ten people and remote landscapes. ey resident villain. Alex had to repeatedly ers versus those of the cosmic forces and could indeed recast everything: take on clarify what he’d really said. ordered his car to turn round. e road the Generals, the World Bank and pow- Even with that little drama, his India was narrow, and the ensuing jam very erful ranchers and create a New World in (particularly Kerala) trip was an astonish- terrible to behold as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar the Tropics. ese humble former slaves, ing success. He struck an amazing rap- tried to beat a retreat.” Indians, and forest dwellers of all kinds port with his audiences, with those he However, while humor, which made that he met in Amazonia – as unlikely a met, spoke to, interviewed. All the time grim subjects palatable, was such an im- bunch as you can imagine – had done it. surprised by the turnout for his talks. portant part of Alexander Cockburn’s “ is is India, Alex,” one of our group writing, there was much more. There Susanna Hecht is a professor of urban explained to him. “If people like what were the razor sharp insights and analy- planning at UCLA. Her most recent you write, they’ll translate and publish it sis-- and the sheer, astonishing range. book is Scramble for the Amazon. in their language. Informing the author In the few weeks he was in India, Alex about it is a minor and irritating distrac- managed to write on politics, history, An Indian Adventure tion.” And at meeting after meeting peo- globalization’s Indian avatar, our media, ple across Kerala did show up with little cuisine (he managed, I think, to sample By P. Sainath essays or articles of his they had trans- about eight distinct kinds), architectural ooking at the largish room packed lated into Malayalam. He’d been read by styles (including a put down for the Taj with journalists and several televi- far more people in Kerala and India than Mahal and a boost for Fatehpur Sikri), sion cameras, Alex was surprised. he’d ever imagined. culture and anti-displacement struggles. LHe knew he had a following in India, I had been one of those people for Also throwing up little vignettes from the especially in the state of Kerala with its a very long time. I remember bursting street while on travel. I marveled at that strong Left culture. But he did not know out laughing in the Jawaharlal Nehru discipline and energy. it was this big and had not expected such University library – not far from the In Plachimada, Kerala, he met with a turnout for what was simply a press ‘Silence’ sign – reading Alex Cockburn those resisting the Coca Cola plant’s ap- conference. Of the six states Alexander for the first time. That was in New propriation of local water resources. I Cockburn visited in India (a couple Delhi in €†. I was learning -- as I’m was with him through that meeting and of them very brie­y), he loved Kerala. sure countless future journos like my- the way he bonded with people whose Finding it as lively, humorous, eccentric, self did learn -- that you could write on language he did not know was striking. argumentative and Left-wing as himself. extremely serious subjects with fun, wit e protestors spoke with that ease and He even had a sense of the local media’s and humor. A very good lesson to learn sense of security that comes when you taste for fun and mischief. But he was not when progressives and Leftists seemed know that the person you are speaking quite prepared for what was to follow. to believe that the heavier the language, to is not planning to make a fool of you. Is it not a fact, asked one reporter, the more dense the content, the more se- e result: that simple but telling piece that Professor X of University Y in the rious and intellectual a writer you were. ‘Message in a bottle.’ United States is working actively on be- Alex showed us that you could be your- The high-point of his interviews in half of the CIA? at query came from selves, have fun writing, without sacri‚c- his own view, I think was a meeting with a right-winger working for a Hindu- ing an iota of content. at irreverence Dinesan a young farmer whose father fundamentalist owned publication. e towards the very powerful was more than had committed suicide in the agrarian poor Professor thus maligned was actual- just a writing style: it was important for crisis-hit district of Wayanad in Kerala. ly one working closely with the Left in its your own learning as a political person. It (Over a quarter of a million Indian farm- decentralisation programme. Alex sensed helped you and others break out of false ers committed suicide between  and trouble and was cautious. He said that he and exaggerated respect for authority. He ). Dinesan held him spellbound. A had “zero idea” about the speci‚c issue certainly helped that happen for me. young farmer--and part time ‚lm projec- raised by the questioner. en added that In , as Alex learned of the unre- tionist at the local theatre--without any the CIA presence on university campuses ported stu around the tsunami of a few advanced formal education, Dinesan gave had a long and inglorious history and months earlier, he was much taken with Alex a brilliant analysis of the farm crisis, brie­y spoke on the history of that phe- the story of one of the icons of India’s its links with neo-liberal economics and nomenon. spiritual corporate world, Sri Sri Ravi the globalization of that variety. He even

  -,  the subject in both Counterpunch and forewarned of a crisis within the United talk organized Professor Raka Ray and the Nation. A piece on his in the latter States. Early in the discussion, I could others. Since we would have no time in drew howls of anguish from true believ- tell Alex was wondering if the translator Berkeley before the talk, I oered to help ers. Subsequent developments have fully was not putting his own spin on it. As Alex by jotting down the points he want- vindicated Alex’s criticisms of what was he spent more time in Kerala, he learned ed to make, and did so. Only, in the chaos - and is - going on. that there were thousands of Dinesans on arrival, I left the paper in my room. The next year, as I came to the US, amongst the rural peasantry, who could e paper I did hand him at the talk was Alex, Jerey St. Clair and I did a talk at speak similarly. some old laundry list of things to do. A Olympia - after which Alex drove me all Alex’s own talks went off very well. furious Alex had to think on his feet. He the way, always along the coast, to his He was particularly pleased with one in made one of the most brilliant powerful place in Petrolia. He and I were to do a Kozhikode, organized by the Bank em- speeches on ‘neo-liberal destructions’ couple of more double-bill talks, one of ployees’ unions. A large hall filled up completely extempore. As the villain who them at UC Berkeley. It was typical of with people of every religious and politi- had robbed him of his speech, if only Alex that he wanted to do the six-hour cal denomination. As he captured it: brie­y, I was relieved. drive in an ancient open-back van. His “My big evening in Calicut, sponsored From year  when I ‚rst met him, by the extremely militant Bank Clerks’ to just weeks before he died, I was regu- Union. ere’s a full house, I’m glad to larly in touch with Alexander Cockburn. say, with Muslim clerics front row right, And, of course, always ‚nding my piec- Hindu fundamentalists, secularist left- es in CounterPunch - for me the best ists, Christians of various stripes. Kerala English-language political newsletter is a third Muslim, a third Hindu and anywhere in the world. a third Christian the latter faith being I spoke to him quite a few times this brought to the Malabar coast in  AD year, too. As others writing on him have by Thomas the Doubting Apostle, no also said: he never once mentioned his doubt plaguing the navigator with anx- illness, never once let me know he was ious questions.” dying. It was typical of him, and it was ere was another lesson for me and his right to go the way he wished. I only my friends. Barely an hour after landing, wish I’d been able to tell him, just once, Alex was looking for stories, and enjoying how much he meant to me, as journal- himself while doing so. We had put him ist, author, friend, inspiration and human up at the very-British-era Yacht Club, being. thinking this would appeal to his sense P. Sainath writes for e Hindu. He is of fun. It did. He had hardly checked in the author of Everyone Loves a Good when he was already browsing through Drought. the memoirs of assorted Colonel Blimps bragging about their valor and success Cockburn for the in hunting. His favourite was e Indian Field Shikar Book edited by W.S. Burke. Defense Burke, amongst other things, urged read- ers to treat leopards as vermin to be ruth- By George Szamuely lessly eliminated along with other “game got to know Alex in October  in destroyers.” You can imagine the fun Alex very unusual circumstances. I had had writing on that. of course read and admired him for As he got deeper into issues Indian, yearsI but I had never met or spoken to his pieces served as a powerful antidote him. At the time we were both writing to the corporate codswallop of Tom weekly columns for New York Press, an Friedman and assorted other neo-liberal Photo by Elizabeth Lennard alternative newspaper that, brie­y, be- globalizers. Alex was able to grasp some came one of the liveliest and most-talked of the fundamentals of Indian elections excuse was that he needed to pick up his about papers in the city. One ‚ne day, I and political trends in a very brief space season’s consignment of apples for cider. became the subject of a minor media of time - partly because he was always at My own belief is that he wanted to make feeding frenzy. I was arrested, placed in it, reading, interviewing, discussing and an entrance into the UC Berkeley campus handcus, made to do the perp walk and yes, arguing all the time. He was pos- in that dilapidated machine that seemed hauled o to face an ill-humored judge sibly the earliest well-known western to me at least, to be falling apart. I was all at Manhattan Criminal Court. I was in- journalist to rip apart the fraudulent and for it, anyway, but it didn’t work out on formed that I was facing two grand lar- exploitative industry that the increas- the day as the wreck coughed pathetically ceny charges, each of which carried a ingly corporatized micro-‚nance sector but would not run. prison term of up to seven years. My had become. This was at a time when So we took one of his other - old - cars crime consisted of borrowing a substan- micro-‚nance was still a sacred mantra and made the ride, getting badly stuck in tial number of books—€, to be exact— in the West. He had scathing columns on trac and in danger of being late for the from the New York University library and

  -,  failing to return them. sympathy, prison time struck me as a lit- the New York County District Attorney’s It all started when I undertook an tle excessive in a case involving overdue Oce had brought against me. He dis- overambitious writing project, for library books. I had not sold any of the missed the ˆ, ‚ne as “nonsense.” which I needed to peruse a great num- books and had not the slightest intention e sum was “merely what the library ber of books. I hit upon the idea of sign- of selling any of the books. All I wanted reckons to be the cost of replacement of ing up for courses at NYU’s School for was restoration of my former status of all the books.” However, it was “irrelevant Continuing Education—aordable even student at the School of Continuing to this case, since all the books are pres- for someone as impecunious as I was— Education and member of the library in ent and accounted for.” As for the claim and thereby gaining library-borrowing good standing. that I had committed grand larceny, Alex privileges. Every day, I would wander Suddenly Alex stepped into the fray. wrote, “Stealing books is not a crime un- over to the Bobst Library on Washington In a withering column in New York Press, less the books are sold. ere’s no evi- Square Park, leaf through various tomes, he ridiculed New York’s prosecutors dence Szamuely was popping along to borrow some, return or renew oth- and media. But he reserved most of his the Strand to ­og o editions of Hobbes.” ers, never ceasing to marvel at how few scorn for NYU. I wasn’t expecting any- Alex had understood what the case was competitors I had for so many outstand- one to defend me, least of all someone really about without speaking to me or ing books. I duly plunged into my read- I didn’t even know. Alex had neither in- hearing anyone speak on my behalf. ( e ing, checking out Hegel’s Phenomenolgy, terviewed me nor called me to ‚nd out latter would certainly have been hard to Leo Strauss’s oughts on Machiavelli, what all the fuss was about. For him, the do since no one was doing so.) It was a Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche and case was nonsense from start to ‚nish. case of overdue library books. Not ad- lighter fare such as the complete wartime NYU was no victim, but a powerful in- mirable, certainly, but not grand larceny correspondence between Churchill and stitution picking on an easy target. ere either. Roosevelt. was nothing unusual, he wrote, about Alex’s defense of me was extraordi- All good things come to an end. I was people taking out hundreds of books at a nary. He wasn’t rallying round a friend so caught up in my reading that I became time from university libraries and hold- who had got himself into trouble. He careless and, one semester, neglected to ing on to them for years. Professors do it didn’t say that I was basically a decent sign up for a course, but went on using all the time, but no one goes after them. sort who had made a mistake. For him the library. NYU found out, immediately “If every member of tenured faculty in this was a matter of principle. Powerful canceled my library membership and universities across the country were ar- institutions were ganging up on a little demanded the return of all books I had rested for holding upwards of „ library guy and behaving disproportionately checked out. I rushed over to the regis- books for periods in excess of three years, and hypocritically. He took up the cause tration center to find a course I could they’d have to double the rate of prison of someone who was unlikely to garner join. Unfortunately, it was summer and construction, or hold the profs on barges much public sympathy. Everybody who the school wasn’t running any classes oshore. But of course, these profs aren’t has ever had to pay a library ‚ne must until the fall. I was stuck. Returning the liable to arrest.” have felt a twinge of Schadenfreude on books would have meant giving up on Hilariously, he asserted that library hearing that someone had been really re- months of work. I pleaded with NYU to users like me could be trusted to take miss about returning books, so much so be allowed to hold on to the books until better care of books than university li- that he might end up doing time. the start of the fall semester when I could braries, “which often sell o all the inter- In the end, I heeded the advice of at- register for another course. Nothing esting rarities on the grounds that there’s torneys rather than that of Alex: I plead- doing: e books had to be returned at been no demand for them and the shelf ed guilty to a petit larceny misdemeanor, once. And I would have to pay a ‚ne on space would be better taken up with ex- paid a ‚ne of ˆ„ and performed com- all late books. e ‚nes had begun to ac- pensive computer equipment.” Besides, munity service. e one good thing that crue from the day NYU canceled my li- Alex went on, NYU should be thank- came out of this sorry episode was that brary membership. At  cents per book ing me “for freeing up its shelf space.” I got to know and became friends with per day, the ‚ne was quickly adding up to If I hadn’t borrowed the books, no one Alex. We met up occasionally when he a staggering sum. would have. e books would have sat visited New York and we corresponded News of my arrest was greeted on the shelves “ignored, awaiting the mo- intermittently. e other day, I re-read with predictable glee by the media. ment NYU decided to sell them o to the library-books article--the ‚rst time “NYU Library Scofflaw Taken out of a book broker.” In any case, NYU “was in  years—and I found it not only hi- Circulation” screamed the headline probably phasing out its printed books in larious but surprisingly moving. Toward above the story in the New York Times. favor of electronic storage” the end of his column, Alex speculated “Book rown at Library Sco‡aw” ran Warming to his theme, Alex called on as to why I had held on to the books. My the headline in the New York Daily News. me to resist all entreaties to take a plea reasons, he claimed, were “admirable,” With lip-smacking relish, the media re- deal. I should go to trial and ask my at- and ones that a jury would understand. ported that I was facing not only prison torney to “make a pile of the books in the He needed them for the same reasons time but a ‚ne of ˆ,. No one both- courtroom, and then, let the jurors note my shelves groan with volumes…I may ered to explain how this sum was arrived how many times these books had been never get to, may never re-read. To sur- at. NYU had got all of its books back, and checked out before” I got my hands on render them is to confess that, yes, I may they were in ‚ne condition. And while them. die before I get around to reading Hegel I certainly didn’t think that I deserved en Alex addressed the legal case that properly, or all the dialogues of Plato, or

  -,  all Balzac’s novels, or all the volumes of ed the imagination into sun-dappled his- ian comrades to Alex. My last contact Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic; I may toric greenhouses. e column was a log with him was to ask that he blurb a book die before I write the column or the essay from the nearby woods, but had as much to which I contributed, Markets Not or the book that requires absolutely that meaning as the carefully-chosen tree col- Capitalism, edited by Gary Chartier and these books be instantly to hand. umn in a traditional Japanese house. Charles W. Johnson. He delivered the Buying, borrowing and, above all, e house would later acquire many blurb: “We on the left need a good shake holding on to books that in all likelihood layers of additions: a courtyard, a barn, to get us thinking, and these arguments one will never get around to reading or an outdoor oven, a study (the old ga- for market anarchism do the job in lively re-reading is a way of denying one’s mor- rage), a stoa doubling as an arbor, and, and thoughtful fashion.” tality. It is of course illusory. It is in one’s of course, a tower. e tower was a ref- Unfortunately, I only met Alex once, output and in the recollections of one’s erence to a strong, simple stone tower in in †. We both spoke at an extraordi- friends and family that one gains a few Alex’s hometown in Ireland. His feel for nary conference put on by the Future of shards of immortality. Alex has certainly materials was evident throughout the Freedom Foundation in Reston, Virginia left more than his fair share of those. house. He reused old ” x ” redwood titled “Restoring the Republic: Foreign boards, and had a bathroom ­oor made Policy and Civil Liberties.” What was ex- George Szamuely was born in Hungary. of sawdust composite – an idea bor- traordinary was that this well-attended He was editor at the Times Literary rowed from a Frank Lloyd Wright house. anti-empire, pro-Bill of Rights gathering Supplement and at e National Law I hadn’t seen the house for many featured the most prominent conserva- Journal. years when I arrived at Alex’s memorial tives, progressives, leftists, and liber- last month. I walked the rooms and the tarians who were alarmed about impe- Alex’s Architecture gardens, picturing the boyish delight he rial war and domestic tyranny. They must have taken in each new layer of this included: Glenn Greenwald, Bruce Fein, By Sigrid Miller Pollin panoply of art and architecture, a collage Stephen Kinzer, Robert Higgs, Justin of memorable artifacts, spaces, and ma- Raimondo, and Ron Paul. n  Alex asked me to design a terials. He made the place magical. I knew of Alex’s work long before that, house for him. It made sense; he had and followed his writings in e Village fallen in love with California. We Sigrid Miller Pollin is an architect Voice, e Nation, even e War Street began looking at a spectacular site in Big and professor of architecture at the I Journal. Now, ‚nally, I would have my Sur, overlooking the Paci‚c, and design- University of Massachusetts Amherst. chance to talk to him. (He had already ing a house in the shape of a half-boat published me at CounterPunch.) He did hull. On the site plan it looked as if this not disappoint; he was funny and charm- boat fragment had run aground paral- The Anti-Statist ing, and interested in what subversion I lel to the hillside slope. The entry (at was up to. I’d like to think we hit it o. the stern) led through a tower across By Sheldon Richman In his wonderfully wide-ranging talk, a small bridge into the main space. e libertarian—a radical, decen- he discussed the prospect of an alliance triangular bathroom (at the bow) had tralist, pro-market, but anti- between the libertarians and his kind of a flap wall that hinged open for a sea capitalist left-libertarian, at any left. “ ere has to be more utopianism, view from the loo. rate—could tell that Alex Cockburn was A and there has to be more straightforward For Alex design and construction exceptional when even his eulogy for a spirit of mutiny, which I think you lib- ideas held the same kind of secret excite- departed Marxist compelled interest. ertarians are good at oering. If the left ment you feel as a kid, trying to build After the Marxist economist Paul would oer a little bit of utopia—some a tree house or a fort. His ideas were Sweezy died, Alex wrote that Sweezy of the utopia may dier—then I think we both idiosyncratic and full of identifi- “trenchantly detected and explained: the can continue to have an enjoyable and able architectural elements: sleeping reasons for the New Deal’s failure, until hopefully a creative association.”When alcoves, shaded verandas, an intimate World War II bailed out the system; mili- I asked him to elaborate in the Q&A, bathing courtyard, a gate made of welded tary Keynesianism and the Korean war as he referred to an earlier attempted alli- Ford model–T fenders. the factors in US recovery after that war; ance, namely, the old Inquiry magazine e Big Sur house didn’t pan out, so we underdevelopment in the ird World, (which I helped edit, †-†„), which looked to Petrolia. is site opened onto consequence of dependency that was assembled the best anti-statists no mat- the Mattole River, but had a cramped, created by imperialism . . . ; the increas- ter where they placed themselves on the musty ranch house located on it. Alex ing role of ‚nance in the operations of political spectrum. Acknowledging that saw the potential for transformation, and capitalism. . . .” there are “some big issues [between liber- I had a blast helping to make the trans- e implied debunking of the standard tarians and him] that . . . have to be sort- formation real, using models and draw- left-right fairy tale that constitutes most ed through,” he continued, “I think a bat- ings. Again, a set of clear architectural people’s notion of American history, tle of the ideas, maybe one a year, would typologies emerged, through phone calls is—or should be—of great interest to lib- be a lot of fun. We should talk about it. I and rapidly scrawled notes: a conser- ertarians, who ought to understand that hope we do.” Alas, we never got to do it. vatory, a linear veranda, an important capitalism equals, not radically decen- column. The conservatory was sim- tralized freed markets, but exploitative Sheldon Richman keeps the blog Free ply a glassy corner of the main living corporatism.That insight and attitude Association. space, but calling it a conservatory invit- are what drew me and my left-libertar-

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Cockburn Clips EL: And was he? is – Coburn...’ He had an earlier name, AC: ere were many candidates for this Pitcairn. He did a lot of work under the By Elizabeth Lennard list, but he was very eective in what he name Pitcairn. Because of the Cold War ome people grow up with religion; did. He was also very famous for The he had lots of pseudonyms. Our dining I was brought up in the cult of Beat Week, which was his own sort of newslet- room table, if it had been ‚lled with all the Devil. My father, a Viennese so- ter. e Communist party never liked it the pseudonyms he had-- it would have Sciologist – and ‚lm bu – must have seen very much because it wasn’t under their been a very substantial dinner party. the movie more than ‚fty times, long be- control and it was very in­uential in the We had Patrick Cork who was a bouncy fore the advent of video-on-demand. A s. (It was a very big deal. It was read little fellow, who wrote sort of feature ar- line of dialogue from the Huston movie by Roosevelt. It was read by all sorts of ticles about Ireland. en we had James would be his response to almost any situ- people. So he had been blacklisted, and Helvick, writing these novels and having ation. He would speak Beat the Devilese when it came to publishing the novel, a little measure of success. And we had with my Viennese psychoanalyst aunt, long before Huston entered the picture, a rather worthy one who wrote essays another a‚cionado. We even showed ex- it was thought that to have Beat the about history called Kenneth Drew. cerpts of Beat the Devil at my father’s fu- Devil by Claud Cockburn would com- EL: Did you ever use a pseudonym? neral! It was our bible. AC: No, almost never. I When I first read Beat think my very first piece the Devil, the novel, I was for Punch when I was , amazed to discover that I wrote under the name James Helvick was the pseud- Alexander Blake, because onym for blacklisted journal- my father was writing for ist Claud Cockburn, father of Punch and we didn’t want my good friend Alexander. I to make it seem like nepo- was even more surprised to tism. discover how closely the John September ††: Alex Huston movie adheres to Cockburn convinces Shelley the Helvick/Cockburn book. Wanger, editor of Andy Wikipedia says the film was Warhol’s Interview, to let “loosely based” on the novel him do a story on the bi- and the script was written centennial of the French “day-to-day”. A few years ago, Revolution. He asks me to when Alexander Cockburn Photo by Elizabeth Lennard think of some friends to “in- asked me to compare novel terview”– in France, where and ‚lm, I was able to prove that almost promise the book’s possibility of success, I live - and I land the job of doing the every line, including the wittiest, as well a bit like Children’s Fairy Stories by Karl photos. I am slightly dubious. Who was as all the character descriptions and al- Marx. Or Lenin’s How to Put on a Really I to photograph? How was the -year- most all scene descriptions, were in fact Good Dinner Party. My father was under old French Revolution going to make contained in the book, while very little continuous surveillance by the British news in New York? seems to be based on the Truman Capote Secret Service from „ to „. I can February †: the story of our travels script. Here are excerpts from a ‚lmed build up my parents early relationships to photograph statues of Robespierre, interview I did with Alexander on that just by looking at the records. I can fol- St. Just and Marie Antoinette and Alex’s subject. low episodes in my childhood, like when conversations with my friends appears, July : I first told him to come and read me transformed splendidly into a piece en- AC: My ‚rst column for e Nation mag- Christopher Robin, because it’s all there titled tête a tête. azine, started in about †„, was called in the British MI transcripts, which are : Alexander instigates the “tum- Beat the Devil and I told the story about available for inspection at the British brils” in CounterPunch, for words to Beat the Devil, the movie and I said, that, Museum. be sent to the guillotine. My heart is in a way, helped pay for my education. He wrote this novel actually in a warmed that he has remained faithful to And of course I liked the idea of Beat the house they later moved into in Ardmore, our French Revolution. Devil, what is Beat the Devil? e phrase County Waterford, Ireland. My mother Elizabeth Lennard is a Paris based, in England, “beat the devil at his own grew up in Ireland. And so we had this American interdisciplinary artist/pho- game” which I guess is the meaning of cottage and then you looked out the win- tographer & ‚lmmaker/director. Her the line. Or ‘that beats the devil’ meaning dow across Ardmore Bay and there was work is often associated with writers, that’s really far out. a long ‚nger of land reaching out and it notably Gertrude Stein, who inspired EL: Why Helvick? was called at the end of it: Helvick Head-- the video-opera Accents in Alsace and AC: is was the height of the cold war and I remember saying to my father, ‘now the documentary ‚lm e Stein Family, , ,  and my father had been well daddy, why are you called Helvick?’ the Making of Modern Art. Her most re- listed by a Senate committee as one of He said ‘it’s a good name because it’s cent video on Battle Scenes of Napoleon’s the two hundred and sixty most danger- easy to pronounce, Helvick. It’s not like wars was commissioned by, and shown ous Communists in the entire world. Cockburn, which is Cock burn which at the Palace of Versailles in .

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Most recently, Myra, Come Home CounterPunch cov- ered the longshore By Ben Tripp battle in Longview, ne evening many years ago – Washington at a I’ve got no idea when, but it new EGT grain was during my ‚rst marriage, so terminal. Men Obetween the years  and  – I was and women long- trying to come up with a synonym for the shore workers had word ‘antonym’ when the phone rang. It been blocking grain was Cockburn. He was in Hollywood. He trains and briefly wanted to know if I was busy. occupying the scab Well, you can imagine my excitement. grain terminal, de- ese calls always led to adventure. Also, fying both a fed- he looked damn good in organza, even eral judge and AFL- then before his third set of teeth, so I ‚g- CIO head Richard ured we’d be meeting up at the IHOP on Trumpka who’d dis- Sunset Boulevard to throw French fries ingenuously called at tourists for drag night. However, Alex it a “jursidiction- surprised me: he was at the residence al” fight between of an elderly writer improbably named unions. Gore Vidal, and he thought I might like The Obama ad- to come along to observe the festivities. ministration had In hindsight I’m pretty sure he want- ordered an armed ed me there as a witness – he was con- Coast Guard cut- ducting an interview and it had already ter to escort a fallen to bits by the time I arrived, with scab ship up the little chance of being reproduced in ink. Columbia River Someone ought to see what was happen- Partisan of the to the EGT termi- ing. I had no diculty ‚nding the place nal. A bloody clash of longshore work- because my burro knew the neighbor- Working Class ers and their mobilized supporters in hood. e Vidal residence, for those of the Occupy movement against govern- you who haven’t been there, was a s By Jack Heyman ment strikebreaking forces was averted Mediterranean-style villa in the Hills set lexander Cockburn was a strong when Washington’s Democrat Governor in half an acre of verdant grounds, an en- supporter of ILWU rank and Gregoire, eyeing the upcoming presiden- tertainer’s delight with terrazzo ­oors, file longshoremen. In his and tial elections, prevailed upon top union abundant light, hand-wrought ironwork, AJerey’s online zine, CounterPunch, he ocials and EGT to “settle”. A conces- and a manservant named Kato. not only covered the Liverpool dockers’ sionary contract was quickly reached, Alex and Gore were at the dining room dispute in England but participated in which the heads of both sides heralded as table, drinking. ere were some jour- support rallies on the West Coast, aid- a “victory” without even the rank and ‚le nalistic props – a tape recorder and a ing in the struggle to revive international having the right to vote. notebook, primarily, and maybe a copy of workers’ solidarity. Alex was not one of Cockburn was an unabashed partisan Molodaya Gvardiya – on the table. But those “left” journalists who wrote easy of the working class, unafraid to joust this wasn’t an interview, it was a match platitudes praising the labor movement. with the capitalist powers that be, bank- of wits. He wasn’t afraid to criticize the trade ers and politicians alike. Cockburn’s fa- For hours I observed the fray. Mr. union bureaucracy when it held back ther, Claud, had been a writer, a member Vidal had recently lost Howard Austen, class struggle. of the British Communist Party and a his companion of several decades, and CounterPunch also ran extensive cov- fan of Harry Bridges, a leader of the „ seemed sunken and frail, not the Disco- erage on the  Charleston longshore Maritime Strike. Alexander Cockburn era metrosexual of the Caligula DVD struggle, the  PMA (maritime em- lived in a small town, Petrolia, in the special features with whom I was famil- ployers) lockout of West Coast longshore redwood country of northern California. iar. His wit had not suered. Every other workers and the Bush administrations in- Besides having an acerbic wit, he had a statement he made was a worthy epi- voking of Taft-Hartley, the vicious  fondness for classic American cars. His gram, and he showed ba‡ing ingenuity police attack on anti-war protesters and intelligence, fearlessness and humor will in the variety of ways in which he failed longshoremen in the port of Oakland at be missed on the waterfront around the to answer any of Alex’s questions. the start of the Iraq War and the † world. en again, Alexander son of Claud, May Day strike by ILWU longshore was not to be outdone, and most of his workers against the imperialist wars in Jack Heyman is a former longshoreman questions were actually digs at Mr. Vidal’s Afghanistan and Iraq which shut down and labor organizer who worked on the many auto-contradictions and vainglori- all West Coast ports. Oakland docks. ous postures over the years. I’d seen Alex

  -,  at this before: he didn’t ask questions, Making the Gods Alexander would regularly call me he interrogated, and woe to the subject when he needed some information from whose evasions could be joined together Jealous the ancient classics. He respected the in- to form a lie. But Mr. Vidal didn’t lie, he sights of the ancients and realized, like spun legends, setting the pencil of mem- By Marianne McDonald George Santayana, if one didn’t remem- ory into the ink of history. hat amazes me about ber the past, one would be condemned to ey were two titanic intellects ‚ght- Alexander Cockburn is not repeat it. ing like schoolgirls over which one re- that he died so young, but Alexander asked about Sophocles’ ally deserved the Pulitzer. You know, thatW he lived so long. I always thought he Ajax, a play that gave some more in- as schoolgirls will. Both of them were would be assassinated. No one could get sights into what Americans face day intense, charming, and cruel,with a away with speaking the truth as he did. after day. e result was “ e Madness contrasting layer of mutual admiration With brilliance and humor, he gave us of Ajax” (CounterPunch, January, ). worked in there like the ash in a Morbier courage to be the people we wished we Ajax said, “A brave man must either live cheese. My role in the proceedings was were. with honor, or die with it.” It sounds like very like that of Bilbo Baggins on the Alexander and I were friends for years. Cockburn himself. He lived and died eve of his great adventure: while heroic I would visit him in his home in Ireland, with honor. deeds and cruel treacheries were argued fortified by a nearby wishing well. He Perhaps the gods were jealous, over by the mighty in the room, I sort of would visit me here in Rancho Santa Fe. Cockburn died young, and Athena drove crouched down at the end of the table We shared many of the same friends, Ajax mad. / drove America mad. and ate crackers. whom we both missed when they died, America thought itself immune from Topics I recall included the role of the for instance, Edward Said, and Bernard what the rest of the world had experi- Church in modernity and Mr. Vidal’s re- Knox (who fought with Alexander’s fa- enced, the madness of terrorism. Many cent return to Christ; what a bunch of ther Claud in Spain against Franco). I’ll political leaders of our day sanction bastards Italian real estate agents were; miss our shared memories. madness, and so a country is invaded be- the Village Voice, Christopher Hitchens No abuse of civil liberties was too cause of non-existent weapons of mass (who had the poor taste to be alive at that trivial. He published an article (May, destruction. ere’s a line in Ajax: “It’s a time; he has since recanted); and fags. , CounterPunch) about my humili- bad citizen who does not obey those in It was Mr. Vidal who favored the latter ating strip search in a Chicago Airport authority: laws never function well in a term, no doubt seeking an easy objection. when I went to my son’s graduation, city without fear.” e Patriot Act ensures We were made of sterner stu. e sub- calling it “How Dangerous are Professor that patriots also live in fear. Sophocles ject of wine came up repeatedly, but only McDonald’s Hips? Paranoia At Airport urged some compromise between au- in the form of a demand. Security.” (I have two replaced hips and thority and civil liberties. The Greeks, Eventually we ended up on the back set o every alarm; I gather the authori- who invented the world’s ‚rst democra- patio with the great and inebriate author ties feared I, a grandmother, would whip cy (­awed though it was) seemed to ask whizzing into the potted palms and Alex them out and take over the cockpit.) He more of their citizens than we do today mocking the tennis court on the property quoted me, “When are Americans going in America: they asked them to have a for being both bourgeois and disused, to wake up to what is happening? We conscience and be accountable for their and as the hour was late, we were soon were once proud of our Democracy.” He actions. permitted by our host to fuck o out of cited a passage from my translation of Cockburn respected the past and it, which we did. Euripides’s Children of Heracles, written learned from it. He was a Socrates who As a parting shot, Alex managed to around „ BC in response to the mur- posed embarrassing questions to those in ram one of the gateposts of the Vidal der by Euripides’ own Athenians of two power. ey taught people to think and residence with his car, which was a speci- envoys from Sparta during the early days question for themselves. is also seems men of Oldsmobile’s mid-’s attempt to of the Peloponnesian War between two to me the mission of CounterPunch. ‚ll the void left behind when Germany Greek superpowers. e play applies now Cockburn published a long article stopped producing the Panzer VIII. And to the question of killing a POW in the on “Staging Anti-Colonial Protests” so he drove off into the night on the name of national security, and national (CounterPunch, March, €). Greek wrong side of the road, perhaps in hom- revenge. Alcmena, Heracles’s mother, tragedy was alive and well in occupied age to his Irish heritage, and I walked sees Eurystheus, who condemned her Ireland, whereas the occupying British the ‚fteen blocks back to where I’d left son to so many labors, now a prisoner. preferred the brutal Romans (See Brian my burro, only to discover it had been She claims he shouldn’t live for all the Friel’s Translations). There were four slaughtered and made into Guisado de crimes he caused. But a servant tells her Irish versions of Sophocles Antigone in chambarete by some local ejecutivos de she has no right to kill him, and forbids †„. Antigone represents the unwritten la televisión. It was a memorable evening her because the city wants him. She an- laws of the gods (conscience), vs. the civil with memorable men. In my role as ref- swers, both the city and she will get what authority in Creon that goes too far. eree I withheld judgment at the time as they want: she will kill him, and then give She was the ‚rst civil disobedient, and to who won the contest of wits; now the the city his body. e servant reluctantly thus appealed to Cockburn. Antigone truth can be told. agrees. It is obvious this dialogue won’t would die defending her honor and de- As always, the victor was wine. be revealed for reasons of national secu- fying unjust authority. ere were cul- Ben Tripp is a screenwriter and novelist. rity. turally specific reactions to my trans-

 -,  lation (Nick Hern Books) in Ireland, A Great American improbable. Austria, Greece. In America, Creon Alex, despite my popularity on makes a victory announcement to the By Paul Craig Roberts CounterPunch, would not post my col- audience before a sign that said, “Mission umns that reported experts’ questions n order to stay in touch with his ad- Accomplished,” written in pseudo-Greek about /. If you think about it, it seems opted country, Alex would periodi- letters that were legible to the audi- odd that one of the last few legitimate cally travel from his home in north- ence. To the Greeks and many moderns, leftists ended up on the side of the gov- ern California to the East Coast where Antigone represents de‚ance when god- I ernment’s account of the event. Many, he would purchase a clunker and drive given rights were threatened. e Greeks who don’t know Alex, have accused him it back across the country to California, believed their citizens were entitled to of helping to cover up a false ­ag event. stopping along the way to converse with justice and equal rights, in ways that were People who say this do not know the Americans about the events that were af- well de‚ned by Plato and Aristotle, such man. fecting and shaping their lives. It was on that Albert N. Whitehead said that all It was very important to Alex’s opti- one such journey that Alex stopped o at later European philosophy consisted of mism about our future as a free, just soci- my home for a few days. footnotes to Plato. ety, respectful of other ways and cultures, What a delight he was! Civilized and Alexander called me this spring and that Washington’s imperialistic oppres- feisty. Conversation with Alex convinced asked me about the Caesars and Roman sion of Muslim countries produced blow- me that intelligent and involved beings history. He said he was writing about back and /. were still extant in America. American imperialism. I cited Suetonius Alex derided David Ray Griffin and I had given up on academicians, poli- and Tacitus, and told him that many the / Truth Movement, because he ticians, corporate boards, think tanks, made the mistake of condemning all the interpreted their questioning of / as and media pundits years previously and Caesars as corrupt orgying imperialists. I a statement that oppressed peoples were had taken up residence in a relatively low told him even Nero wasn’t all bad just be- impotent to repay the US for its crimes density area in the Florida panhandle. cause he lined the way to his party with against them. Alex enjoyed the area, and we had a the burning bodies of those who irritated Alex objected to the implication that great time. He also enjoyed my cats, and him. Besides an excessive commitment to the US government is so competent that, it is his photo of me with the cats in my brutal theatre, he also made the decision by following the rules on the books, the arms that graces my web site. not to waste whole boars, since guests government could have easily prevented What I admire most about Alex is that never ‚nished them, and in the future the attack. For Alex, the implication of he held everyone accountable, not only decreed only half boars at parties (would the totally successful attack was that the his opponents and enemies but also his that was always true). US government is incompetent, a pleas- friends and supporters. Alex was a real But the empire overextended itself, ing thought to a person concerned about person, one in a million or a billion. He and eventually imploded. In his talk on the US government’s underhanded ways. held his old country accountable and his April €th, Cockburn once again told the For Alex, the idea that Big Brother had new one, and every other one. truth about our excesses, which was control over us all and that Big Brother’s Despite Alex’s acute awareness of the published in CounterPunch in May as victims had no means of replying to descent of the western world into greed “Where we’re at in : Nero’s Half Washington’s oppression was simply un- and mendacity that would make Karl Boar and Other Disclosures.” Cockburn acceptable. Marx blush over his mild portrait of capi- showed how over recent years the haves Alex’s belief that the oppressed are talism and democracy, Alex remained have dramatically more and the have nots capable now and then of throwing off optimistic. He believed that truth, jus- even less. He said it was a no brainer to their chains and striking back at injus- tice, and people infused with these values vote democratically; still showed no party tice and oppression was important to would ultimately prevail, no matter how was exempt from criticism. He showed his optimism. He would have found con- many dungeons, tortures, and depriva- that our constitutional rights have been ‚rmation of his belief in the one million tions they suffered in the meantime. I eroded, how torture is accepted, drone people who went into the streets in cities told Alex that he shared optimism in ­ights sanctioned, murder condoned, our all over Spain on July  to protest being common with Ronald Reagan. every step is monitored, and it is legal to looted in behalf of bankers’ pro‚ts. Alex believed in the good things, not make any citizen disappear for  years I agree with Alex that there are oc- in the bad things. is made him almost without representation. So, if you fear a casions when optimism can be more unique as a writer and observer. I dis- police state resulting from the next elec- encouraging than facts and when hope covered in our conversations that he was tion, don’t. You’re living in it now. ank might be more important than truth. As far more optimistic than I. For example, the gods for CounterPunch that contin- Alex was above all, despite his ‚re and many have wondered and speculated ues to deliver the truth, no matter how fury, a gentleman, our difference over over the disagreement Alex and I had dangerous it is. / did not aect our relationship. Alex over /. Being pragmatic, having been Alexander died as he lived, a super and Jerey put together a collection of a graduate student of one of the best th nova, a man who fearlessly stood up for my CounterPunch columns and pub- century physical scientists, and trained what he believed. lished their selections as a CounterPunch to respect evidence, I reported the ‚nd- Marianne McDonald, Professor of book, How e Economy Was Lost, which ings of the experts who concluded that Classics and eatre, UCSD, playwright, sold out. the US government’s account of / was Member Royal Irish Academy. I will miss Alex as I watch intelligence

  -,  and humanity drain from our society. me in honoring Alexander Cockburn, the nearest human, although, of course, this I am certain that Jerey St. Clair will talented journalist and audacious man was Border Country and you never know succeed in keeping CounterPunch in the who has left a lasting legacy on the world who’s sneaking up from Mexico or where forefront of intelligent information where of literature and the world at large. Homeland Security is prowling. I oered Alex and Jerey placed it. I will always Alex Abbey’s .€ Magnum for the night, (Appearing in the Congressional Record support CounterPunch for its forthright- sort of frontier manners for the occasion. during August, ) ness and courage. Jeffrey St. Clair later remarked: “You don’t know how lucky you are he (Alex) Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant refused. He’d have likely blown out the Secretary of the Treasury and author of Alex Goes Camping tires of your truck or shot himself in the How the Economy Was Lost. By Doug Peacock f o o t .” With camp chairs surrounding a roar- n March „, †, I had the ing mesquite ‚re, I popped a good cab- An Audacious Man privilege of introducing Alex ernet and poured us both a tin-cup-full. Cockburn, a man I had admired e garlic and Italian sausage sizzled in by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich and appreciated for decades, to my close O a frying pan o to the side of the blaze in r. Speaker, I rise today in honor friend Edward Abbey who was, like Alex, anticipation of puttanesca sauce. of Alexander Cockburn, the a ‚ghter and anarchist. Of course I was a A waning gibbous moon rose over bold Irish-American journalist bit late; Ed had died on us  years ago to the darkening desert hills. We dragged who passed away after a courageous, pri- the day. And Abbey’s burial site: It wasn’t M our sleeping bags down the wash at the vate battle with cancer. He left this world quite a cemetery setting. In fact, three last call of curved billed thrasher. In our on Saturday, July ,  at the youthful friends and I had dumped Ed’s body into sleep, great horned owls hooted down age of €. an illegal grave as far-flung, wild and from the saguaros. Alexander Cockburn was born in rugged as we could dig before the cops On the morning of March „th, we Scotland on June , „ and spent most caught up with us. set o walking along a line of basaltic of his childhood living in Ireland. He at- My social inelegance is a piece of the boulders decorated with ancient petro- tended the University of Oxford and larger diagnosis that gave me a ‰ glyphs. We entered a tiny arroyo, out of earned a degree in English literature combat disability and I often substitute the gusty wind blowing in from Mexico. and language in . Alexander be- trips for words to the people I love to came a permanent resident of the United show them how important they are to States in €, where he wrote for several me. I take friends out to see a bear, canoe Subscription Information noteworthy publications. He spent his a river or visit a sacred, wild place like a ‚rst ten years in the US writing for e rock art panel or a grave. Published 22 times per year. Village Voice, an alternative weekly mag- Naturally, I wanted to thank Alex for azine based in New York City. He then his moxie in the good ‚ght. at spring, 1 - year hardcopy edition $55 became a writer for e Nation until the Andrea and I invited Alex to join us on 1 - year email edition $35 time of his death, in addition to a variety a camping trip out to Ed’s grave. We met of publications including e Wall Street up near Tucson. Alex knew I was writing 1 - year email & hardcopy edition $65 Journal and New York Press. Alexander a book about global warming and asked 1 - year institutions/supporters $100 was also the co-editor of CounterPunch, the who-done-it climate change question, 1 - year hardcopy edition a newsletter in which he frequently ex- which, I replied would be answered by pressed his controversial, unfiltered the last Inuit sitting on the last iceberg. student/low income $45 opinions for which he became renowned at was it for business. We checked our and deeply respected. collective camping gear for our three-day 1 - year email edition Friends and co-workers remember trip into the uninhabited western desert student/low income $30 Alexander for his remarkable talents. of Arizona. ough camping and sleep- He could quickly write dazzling columns ing in desert washes, we were not ex- Renew by telephone, mail, or on our that were full of passion and conviction. actly roughing it; we packed camp chairs, website. For mailed orders please He was unafraid to speak his mind, often an ice chest full of beer for us and soft writing in opposition to his colleagues at drinks for Andrea. include name, address and email the same publications. His bold style set Our route aimed west across the address with payment, or call 1-800- him apart as a truly remarkable journal- Reservation to the end of the road at 840-3683 or 1-707-629 3683. Add ist. Why, then southwest on sandy two- Alexander died on July , two years tracks in which we managed to get our $17.50 per year for subscriptions mailed after he was diagnosed with cancer. He inadequate pickup stuck a number of outside the U.S.A. kept his illness a secret and continued to times. Alex, cool and calm, helped me write until the day of his death, refusing jack the sucker up and pack brush under Make checks or money orders payable to: to let cancer get in the way of his passion. the wheels. CounterPunch PO Box 228, Petrolia, He will be missed by his family, friends, We made camp somewhere northwest and many readers. of Organ Pipe National Monunment, far CA 95558 Mr. Speaker and colleagues, please join up a desert wash, many miles from the

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ible handwriting of his, as if he’d learned Mendocino Coast. I had squirreled away e March breeze rattled in the brittle- his penmanship from the Founding enough money to live on, apart from the bush. An immense silence encased the Fathers. He could crank out clean drafts expenses and meals I received as pay staggered breaths of wind. Alex, poorly with apparent ease; the guy was a genius from the AVA. Local friends warned me armed against the spiny desert in his hip- after all, and us dull-normals in Boonville early on that I should never loan money hop Puma shoes, kept stepping on cholla looked on in slack-jawed awe as he to lefties; they’re usually broke or total cactus. Repeatedly. At ‚rst, I used the pli- ers on my Portland tool; later I just pulled them out with my teeth. Finally, we climbed out of the gully onto a small flat. A big boulder sits among ironwood trees. On its brown pa- tina is etched: Edward Paul Abbey, €-† NO COMMENT Doug Peacock is the author of Grizzly Years and Walking It O. His next book, Dangerous Travel in a Melting World, will be published next spring by CounterPunch / AK Press. I Was Cockburn’s Banker by Mark Scaramella lexander Cockburn began writ- ing for the Anderson Valley Advertiser in †. His column wasA called “Ashes and Diamonds.” Given the times, it was mostly ashes but he did ashes as brilliantly as the diamonds. Mendocino County is teeming with global aairs experts, nearly as many of them as poets and artists. We thought by luring Cockburn onto our pages we could say to the locals, “We’ve got the best guy there is in all the English language on ev- erything that happens outside Boonville. Thanks anyway.” Cockburn liked our paper, frequently plugged it, and when he’d relocated to nearby Petrolia, he often contributed stories on local and regional matters, toning up our provincial paper no end. Over time, he became a personal friend and I became his banker of ‚rst and last resort. In those early years we got Cockburn’s copy via fax, often unnervingly close to our deadline. But Cockburn, a true news- Photo by Tao Ruspoli, c.  paperman trained in the tough old school pounded out a nearly ­awless ‚rst draft. deadbeats. The editor was constantly of traditional, pre-gizmo journalism, We used to keep copies of his more artful plotting ways to pry even the smallest was always on time every Monday night. edit-faxes on our wall they were so good, amounts of cash out of the paper’s trea- Around the oce, out of his presence we but fax paper quickly fades and that tech- surer, his wife Ling. called him “Big Al,” never daring to risk nology was soon extinct. I developed a strategy I called the “in- the Cockburn ‚sheye in person. I had pre-retired to Boonville to escape oculatory loan.” Loan a small amount if it Sometimes on Tuesday there would the corporate world of GizmoLandia seemed like a true emergency, and only if be an edit or an update. Cockburn’s edits when I came to work at the AVA. My the leftie supplicant had come up with a were minor works of art done with a ‚ne parents had retired and lived a ridge away plausible story why he or she needed it. tipped pen and that swooping, barely leg- near where my father was born on the If the inoculatory loan wasn’t paid back,

  -,  I wasn’t out much. But when they asked “He didn’t care that it was raining, or A Measure of Sanity in for the next loan, I could simply say, that he was talking to a ragtag bunch of “Sure, as soon as you pay o the last one.” nobodies about as far removed from the Solitary It wasn’t long after my arrival in rest of the world as you can get, or that Boonville that Cockburn called to ask only two dozen people came to hear him By Richard Ostrander me for an emergency loan of a few thou- when he might have attracted several reetings from the Texas gulag! sand dollars. It had something to do with hundred at least in the Bay Area. And I I first heard about the pass- back taxes he owed, and an IRS guy out bet that he didn’t care that someone like ing of Alexander Cockburn on of Eureka, with whom Cockburn enjoyed Sebourn [a Humboldt County radio talk DemocracyG Now and I was stunned al- a jolly ‚rst name relationship that ended show jock] would label him on the post- most to tears. abruptly when the subject became the ing only as ‘local resident’.” I wrote Mr. Cockburn several years money Cockburn owed our arbitrary Where his old nemesis Hitchens made ago explaining that I was confined in government. But this time the wolf was at millions adjusting his views to imperial- Super Seg, completely indigent, and re- the door. I said I could go maybe ˆ,. ism, Cockburn made peanuts or nothing questing a subscription to CounterPunch He accepted, of course. And about a year actually trying to do something about it. to help ward o insanity from sensory later he paid me back out of a speaker’s We once suggested to him that he debate deprivation. Every year he would renew honorarium. Hitchens. “You’re the only guy who can my subscription for another year, and I’d This qualified him for another loan, handle Hitchens’ rhetorical flummery, occasionally write to him letters about which arrived by a less personal fax. and you could demand half the gate. the bad old days of the €s when we had Subsequent requests came by email. e You’d pack them in and de­ate that guy inmate guards and we’d be beaten sense- ancient axiom never to lend money to a at the same time.” less and tossed into solitary for failing friend was waived in this case. We’d ne- I don’t think Cockburn even gave it to pick our weight or quota in cotton, gotiate an amount, usually less than what a thought, and I doubt Hitchens would or about some book or article I’d read. I Cockburn wanted because he always have gone for it. On one loan, during the came to consider him a friend. wanted it in a hurry and I’d agree. en, negotiations of the amount, Cockburn I promised I’d give him a thank-you more often than not, he’d put me through got the impression that I was worried call in December „, when I complete a contorted rush process of sending this about being paid back, so he sent me a my quarter-century sentence. I’ll not be check here, that check there, the checks thick envelope full of several dozen per- able to make that call now, and it sad- keeping his mini-labyrinthe of transac- sonal checks, each with the total amount dens me greatly. It seems to me he was a tions straight in that unfailing memory divided by the number of months of the persnickety ol’ curmudgeon with a keen of his. loan, calculated to the penny, each dated sense of justice and a heart of gold. I al- One of the hurry-up loans had some- with the ‚rst of the month that it was ready miss his presence in the world. thing to do with his horse(s) which, to supposed to be deposited, plus a final Richard Ostrander is an inmate me, seemed about as crucial as money check for the remainder amount. I guess in Estelle High Security Prison in for a parakeet tuxedo. I was supposed to feel better about the Huntsville, Texas. All the loans were eventually paid o. repayment. at’s why I kept doing it, that and the e checks were so hastily written in The Keeper of Cats mesmerizing charm that guy could turn that Thomas Jefferson scrawl that one on. He was hard to turn down. of them was rejected at the local bank By Alex Cockburn I know Cockburn occasionally got as illegible. Cockburn promptly sent a was  when I ­ew out from England nice payments for his mainstream writ- batch of replacements. e last two loans to visit my uncle Alexander in ing (LA Times, Architectural Digest, etc.) were made against his Anderson Valley Petrolia. My strongest memories and he raked in some nice fees for college Advertiser contributor’s fee, which was, areI of his four cats. He had a cat called speaking engagements. But it seemed of course, a pittance. After the second Euclid, who at some point had gone to me that whatever he got for those ef- of those two loans was paid o last year, missing, so Alexander had replaced him forts was never enough, and of all the big I expected that another loan request with a similar-looking cat, which he also gun lefties who make thousands wow- would be coming right up, as usual. called Euclid. However, the ‚rst Euclid ing the sophomores, Cockburn spent But no request. Hmmm, that’s odd. eventually returned, so the cats were re- much of his time on unpaid grassroot ef- Had Cockburn’s ‚nances suddenly im- named Euclid I and Euclid II. ere was forts like Redwood Summer here on the proved? Not likely. Little did I know that, also a tortoiseshell called Madame Curie, NorthCoast in the s. honest to the end in even the smallest and a black cat called Frankie, who had He would appear anywhere he was matters, he didn’t want to take out a loan long hair and was more aectionate but asked because he really was as radical as he couldn’t repay. I like to think that in a less elegant than the others, which might reality. small way I helped keep Cockburn inde- have explained his less highbrow name. I In a lesser known tribute to Cockburn pendent. remember Alexander’s interest in cook- in the Arcata-based Northcoast Journal, ing; he used to bake his own bread in Humboldt County journalism instruc- Mark Scaramella is the Managing an oven in the garden, and he taught me tor Marcy Burstiner made an astute ob- Editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser how to poach a perfect egg. servation about one of the many times based in Boonville, Mendocino County, Alexander also took me hiking. We Cockburn appeared in the Eureka area: California. drove to a forest the night before, and

  -,  slept outside under the stars, the silence footnotes, but it doesn’t bring it to life.” Petrolia accidentally. Alex came  years broken only by Alexander’s snoring. (And didn’t Alex “bring it to life?”) We sat ago to cover “Redwood Summer” – the We rose at dawn and made our way up in the “Absolute Silence!” salt room on years long battle to defend the last old a mountain. I found it hard going, and lounge chairs – translucent glowing walls growth redwoods from logging – an ac- Alexander was sympathetic but prodded and craftsman-style roof. We nibbled tion combining tree sits, blockades, legal me forward. I remember a view from the food together – A.C. with no appetite challenges, arrests, and demonstrations mountain of mist below me with the sun and me, Karen, and Daisy with our stom- in many venues. Like most of us living still low enough to illuminate it. achs in knots. We planned his return to here, he wandered in and never left. He The last conversation I had with Petrolia and tried to help A.C. gain the sank deep roots; became a U.S. citizen Alexander was in his hospital in strength to do it. here; his last art project was to have Greg Germany. He was groggy but still funny When he weakened suddenly, his Smith make a copy of the large baptismal and charming. He said that with my family gathered at his side (A.C.: “ e font in Ardmore near his Irish home. recently-grown beard I looked like a Cockburns are coming!”). With Daisy by We all know each other here. ‘Russian revolutionary’ and was curious his bed, he peacefully stopped breathing Everyone has  percent name recogni- about my research (I’m a physics gradu- and died. tion. Fame or prestige from outside our ate student). Here in Petrolia his friends gathered valley matters very little. Each is judged and all knew just what he wanted done. by acts, words, generosity, humor, kind- Alex Cockburn, son of Patrick and True friend and CounterPunch busi- ness, skills. Alex was living in the Golden Jan, is a PhD candidate at Durham ness manager Becky flew to Germany. Age and we were all in it with him. Our University. Alex’s house in Petrolia – described in postmaster Jackie was always for Alex Alexander’s Treasure East Coast media as a “cabin” – is actu- the “Goddess”. e women in the (only) ally a great work of art, featuring rammed local store were Laughing Angels. e Box earth walls and a rood screen adorned grumbling, growling Ed at the dump was with art – tiles, sculptures, reliefs. e in- Cerberus; and he was replaced by Gary By Joe Pa terior walls covered ­oor to ceiling with who Alex called courtly and sweetly gra- t the funeral my wife Karen art and photographs; a cider house with cious. Don’t we all long for that table asked our three grandchildren: gold leaf dome; fabulous large ceramic where all are welcome, where a place is “Do you remember Alexander?” sculptures by Jim Danisch climb a steep set for everyone? AFive-year-old Lincoln said “Yes, he used (steep!) hill to a guest house, all fabu- Alex will long be remembered here to come visit us in his big red pop-up car” lously gardened. Alexander so animated for his parties, where hundreds were (a bright red ‘ Imperial convertible). this house by his personality, by his vital- welcome; where the music was loud and Three-year-old Austin said, “They put ity, by his unrivaled hospitality, that it vi- came from vinyl; where the food was Alexander in the treasure box. We’ll have brates with him gone, just as it did with fabulous – the gumbos, the jambalaya, to make another Alexander.” Lincoln’s him present. Builder/artists Greg Smith the pit barbecues of pig; the spits turn- twin brother Spencer: “No, Austin. ey and Dave Grant began crafting his cof- ing whole lambs over the coals; the home can’t make another Alexander. We’ll ‚n – what my grandchildren called the made cider like French champagne. It have to ‚nd new friends and call them “treasure box.” was as close as humans get to the “Big Alexander.” e memorial service. I stood anes- Rock Candy Mountain.” We drove the treasure box to the cem- thetized and spoke incoherently of the en the wonderful dinner parties – etery on a ­at bed with Jazz music play- way Alexander made every day an as- where visitors from “outside” met his ing, the parade led by our ‚re truck went tounding celebration and a great adven- local intimate friends and we ate home- past the ‚re station where the ­ag was ture. Every day was Bloomsday. Every made lox, sausage, sour kraut, poached at half sta. All the friends followed in car trip was an Odyssey. Every person pheasants (bought from „H kids) – and a long car procession up the hill to the he met received his full attention and talked til the next day. As Wodehouse cemetery. When we arrived four-year engagement. Many people never in their said about Blandings Castle, if you drag old-Arlo said, “ ey’re going to put him lives had been so engaged – people with friends and relatives to an isolated place in the hole; it’s under the green carpet”.  Facebook “friends” who’d never been you have to provide sparky locals to en- Karen and I had flown to Germany listened to; people whom no one thought tertain them. And always the music – on the „th of July. Alexander’s daughter mattered were important to Alex. mostly American blues, R&B, rock, or Daisy had been constantly by his side At the burial Daisy sang and Jenny jazz. And always loud and always an through many weeks of treatments in Scheinman (born in Petrolia) played vio- authoritative background for every song Bad Salzhausen. What a daughter! We lin. Violet-green swallows circled above– and performer, if asked. took some small walks; talked through and as he was lowered, a young red-tail Alex was a man who celebrated every the medium of Wodehouse. (Alex: hawk soared over with a triumphant s-c- day and every thing. We ate haggis on “People talk about Jeeves but Bertie is r-e-e-e-e. Robert Burns Day; we went to the apple the hero.”) We watched Alex energize Petrolia is a tiny, remote, isolated vil- trees to Wassail and toast the next years himself to write another piece and then lage six hours north of San Francisco. crop and beat pans to drive o bad spirits fall back on his pillow; on his desk was a Narrow, fragile, twisting barely paved from the trees; we celebrated Bloomsday; history of the Hundred Years War and I roads climb over several steep moun- we celebrated ­at tires when we traveled; asked, “Good?” A.C. said “OK, scholarly, tain ridges to get here. No one comes to and, of course, Easter, Christmas, New

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Years, and all close friends’ birthdays. intensity of their grieving. It was deeply it goes on your chin and burns it, and you One day with Alex was like ‚ve days bonding for them and necessary, because look silly too. Chop your onions into bits with anyone else. With that : ratio, Alex now they will have to lean on each other rather than circles’. was  years old. Like an Old Testament for inspiration. Broccoli:- ‘Don’t despise the stalks’. prophet, he died FULL of LIFE. Jim Groeling and Greg Smith contrib-  Records- ‘Most records of this sort last uted old growth redwood salvaged from two and a half minutes, so you can boil Joe Pa is president of the board of antique wine tanks – the inside of the your egg pretty accurately’. the Institute for the Advancement of con emits a rich scent from decades And Fried Eggs- ‘Should look like a sun Journalistic Clarity. He and his wife of aging wine. The handles, fabricated that’s just left the morning mist, the Karen own Gold Rush Coee. by Bill Bush were similar in aesthetic to white tender and ‚rmly clouded and the many other pieces he has constructed for yellow – (this being from a happy chicken Hecho en Mattole Alex. Raised copper panels, featuring a pecking away at grass not labeled organic initials AC, his loyal dog Jasper, his  because it has only one foot nailed to the By Becky Grant Imperial and the mighty Underwood bottom of the cage) – the yellow a ‚rm etrolia knows Alex the horseman, typewriter were handsomely embossed strong yellow almost with a bit of orange lover of animals, host of epic bac- by Greg. On the lid of curly redwood in it, not the pissy yellow beloved of com- chanalia, ‚ne chef and a patron of Greg inlaid a silver and gold Celtic spoon mercial paint manufacturers, except for theP arts. Alex cultivated remarkable rela- by Barbara Bush, gilded tiles by Jim the French who tend to get yellow right. tionships with many craftsman and art- Danisch and a tiny antique jadeite cabo- Now you’ve got your egg, the vast matter ists he commissioned. chon I set in silver with daisies represent- of the toast accompaniment is a separate e CounterPunch oce sits on our ing his daughter Daisy and a shamrock subject so encyclopedic that we will re- land in Petrolia, only a couple of miles for Ireland. Dave hand-planed the ‚ne strain comment at this time. And there from Alex’s house. Almost daily, he wood and assembled it with mortise and will be a longer statement of my views on would race over to grab a check or sign a tenon joinery and polished the surface breakfast too, coming up’. document and when he wasn’t in a hurry, to a rich, silky ‚nish. e ‚nal piece of Joy. he would look in on my husband Dave, in furniture was almost too gorgeous to put his woodshop to see what he had going, in the ground. Still, one my favorite mo- borrow a tool, or drop o a project and ments from the funeral was at the burial they would chat about woodworking when men, who all loved Alex deeply, Guillotined and architecture. Alex, in his extraordi- worked together to gently set him down. Being a Summary Broadside nary way, would share bits of history of eir low banter – while coaxing such architecture and ancient building prac- an unwieldy load – was so brotherly and Against the Corruption tices, and he and Dave would carry on gentle. I’ll never forget it. of the English Language and soon a project would be born: Dave’s skills and Alex’s inspiration melding into Joy in the Morning another collaboration. is became an by integral part of Dave’s craftsman educa- By Daisy Cockburn tion and over the years they grew close, Whoop-i oh yeh yeh Alexander sharing stories and projects. Walking back to happi-ness Alex had this same sort of friendship Whoop-i oh yeh yeh Cockburn with Greg Smith, a master of many me- o sang my father several months diums. Bill and Barbara Bush made ev- ago as he pottered around the and the Readers of erything from jewelry to the anti-aviary house, and I ran to my notebook. CounterPunch over the currant patch in his garden. SIt was wondrous, this fragment of happy Jim Danisch is the ceramicist behind lyric – another joyous moment in the Available Now Alex’s large-scale porcelain sculptures. morning. Who wrote that? I urgently en- www.counterpunch.org Also in his collection are several of my quired. ‘Sung by Helen Schapiro in about pieces, from prints to ‚gurative sculp- €. Who wrote that masterpiece I can by phone: tures and mosaic installations. Deva not remember.’ () - Wheeler, a ‚ne seamstress and also part Oh, What to do without my fa- of CounterPunch business operations, ther’s voice? A few transcriptions I ‚nd by mail: stitched up many of Alex’s clothes and scrawled in my book help counter the CounterPunch Books manicured his garden for many years. It absence. was appropriate that these were the col- Gardening- ‘ e application of water is P.O. Box  laboraters for the casket, which is now frequently bene‚cial to plants’. Petrolia, CA  Alex’s resting place. Footwear- ‘I’ve never had a successful re- Dave and Greg worked long hours lationship with slippers, ever’. . plus s & h from the moment they learned of Alex’s Gratitude Cafe- ‘ at’s a live sandwich – (US Priority . death, until the morning of the burial. no you can’t possibly go to this place’. is was an intense time mirroring the Onion Soup- ‘If it’s hot, long and stringy Overseas .)

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CounterPunch presents West Coast Memorial Celebrating the Life and Work of Our Friend Alexander COCKBURN Saturday October ,  :-:pm Citizen’s Space   nd Street San Francisco, California