Modernity's Discontents: Esmonde Higgins and James Rawling as Labour Intellectuals
In the first half of the twentieth century, two young men from different backgrounds broke with the ruling culture in Australia and became labour intellectuals.2 Why did this happen? Was there some disruptive element in their early engaement with ruling ideas – perhaps in their family life – that made their defection possible? And how did the break occur? Was it due perhaps to a moment of intellectual enlightenment, in which powerful new ideas captured the mind, or did it also involve a coming together of history and biography, a moment of concentrated exposure to modernity’s discontents at the same time as disorienting personal crises? Further, in their commitment to communism, how did they understand their political practice as intellectuals? And how should we understand it? Did it draw on their previous training and experiences? As intellectuals they were ‘modern’ men, but what kind of modernists were they? This journal article is available in Illawarra Unity Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History: http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol11/iss1/2 5 Modernity’s Discontents: Esmonde Higgins and James Rawling as Labour Intellectuals1
Revolution and Personal Crisis: William Z. Foster, Personal Narrative, and the Subjective in the History of American Communism
He is composed, con dent, unemphatic and impenetrably unruf ed. Never for a moment does Foster hasten his tempo ... He seems completely without ego ... He lives completely outside the circle of self, absorbed ceaselessly in the ceaseless stream of detail which confronts him ... Once in a while he gets angry over the stupidity of man; then you see his quiet is the quiet of a high tension machine moving so swiftly it barely hums. He is swallowed up in the strike’s immensity. What happens to Foster does not concern him. I do not believe that he spends  ve minutes in the whole year thinking of Foster or Foster’s affairs.
The Posse Comitatus Act: Liberation from the Lawyers
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." --Posse Comitatus Act (1) Much has been written about the Posse Comitatus Act. As a few others have noted, much of this commentary is "just plain nonsense." (2) The majority opinion, however, including that of the Department of Defense, maintains that this 19th-century law strictly limits almost all DOD participation in any activity related to "law enforcement" or "homeland security." (3) This fundamental mischaracterization, while understandable, is potentially dangerous to national security and has done nothing to protect civil liberties. So how did a racist law from the bitter Reconstruction period morph, in many minds, into shorthand for the respected principle that Americans do not want a military national police force? In a nutshell: deliberate mischaracterization by the original supporters who hid behind patriotic language to strip the freed slaves of their nascent civil and voting rights; excessive focus on the false historical arguments as opposed to the law's actual text and ugly history; and some bad policy that misused a few key court decisions, and part of a statute, in a way that limited DOD efforts in the "war on drugs" at a time when Congress was pushing expanded participation. This article introduces the actual history and meaning of the Posse Comitatus Act, distinguishing clearly between the law and a misleading DOD regulation that requires an army of lawyers to navigate. Despite what you've heard, the Posse Comitatus Act is not a significant impediment to DOD participation in law enforcement or homeland security. The Act's Uninspiring Pedigree General Acceptance of Army Participation in Law Enforcement (1787-1861) While the nation's founders were deeply concerned with the abuses of the British army during the colonial period and military interference in civil affairs, the majority was even more concerned about a weak national government incapable of securing life, liberty, and property. Some vocal patriots sought to avoid a standing army and any federal control over the state militias; however, in the end, theirs was the minority view. The new Constitution did not contain the explicit limits and outright bans desired by some, even though the pro-Constitution Federalists explicitly argued that the standing army could assist in law enforcement efforts. The framers even debated the federal government's power to call out the posse comitatus (literally meaning the power or authority of the county) and did not prohibit this established feature of the common law. Clearly, the Posse Comitatus Act did not originate from the prevailing opinion during the revolutionary period. Legislative and executive actions in the early days of the American republic confirm that the use of federal troops or federalized militia to preserve domestic order, either as part of a posse comitatus or otherwise, was an accepted feature of American life under the new Constitution. In 1794, President Washington led federal troops into western Pennsylvania because unruly farmers refused to pay a whiskey excise tax. President Jefferson issued a broad proclamation that relied upon the Chief Executive's authority to call on the entire populace, military and civilian, to serve as a grand posse comitatus to counter Aaron Burr's planned expedition against Spanish territory. In 1832, President Jackson initially sent military forces toward South Carolina under a Jefferson-like posse comitatus theory to prevent secession. In an 1851 report to the Senate, President Fillmore stated that he had the inherent power to use regular troops to enforce the laws and that all citizens could be called into a posse by the marshal. …