Ep 392 My Back Pages: What Is To Be Undone

Episode 392 of RevolutionZ  uncovers and visits a half-century-old file on my computer to address a surprisingly urgent question: are we building new revolutionary ideas, or just renting space in inherited ones. I recently rediscovered the text of my 1974 book What Is To Be Undone? written when the arguments between Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, anarchism, and other currents were not academic history but living fuel for organizing. Reading my own early investigations as the Sixties slipped into the Seventies feels like opening a time capsule and realizing the contents still impact what people believe is possible.

On the same day, a friend pointed me toward Gabriel Rockhill’s Who Paid The Piper Of Western Marxism? and the storms around his claim that contemporary revolutionary theory drifted into a “respectable” left alignment with capitalism and imperialism. I share a long excerpt from Rockhill laying out his case: a purge of dialectical and historical materialism, class analysis pushed aside by culturalism, and a call to rebuild a disciplined, organized left that can actually win. We agree on the need to rejuvenate anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle, but we very seriously diverge on whether the path forward is a return to classical Marxism-Leninism and democratic centralism or a break from their limits. 

From there, I grapple with a personal and political test: was my younger and then on-going self part of the problem Rockhill describes, or was I trying to learn from past failures to strengthen future movements. Along the way I revisit blurbs from Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Herb Gintis, reflect on the dangers of sectarian dismissal, and end with Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages” as a reminder that clarity sometimes comes from letting go of certainty. 

This episode begins another sequence of episodes whose number of entries depends on what seems the case. Me then and now: a deluded, deceived, sell out CIA symp rejector of Marxism Leninism, or me then and now a sincere whipper snapper  trying to overcome past ideological problems on the way to a better society? 

Is our ideological problem anti anti imperialism, as Rockhill asserts, or is it that  in going forward from the Sixties we actually retained too much from dead men's minds? This episode is a scene setting opening shot on the way to aggressively and hopefully definitively determining which way we need to orient our thinking Back to classical Marxism Leninism, or forward to a participatory self managing future.

Transcript

Why An Old Manuscript Matters

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Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our three hundred and ninety second consecutive episode, and it may turn out to be the start of a new subsequence within the overall flow of one after another. What brought this on? I was recently surveying my computer's contents and I came across the text of a book I had written over a half century ago. It was published in nineteen seventy-four by a small progressive publisher named for its founder, Porter Sargent, located in Boston Mass. I turned, I think, twenty five when I was writing it. Its title is What is to be undone? A word swipe at Lenin's What is to be done? On the cover, it had a montage of three heads, Lennon, Marks, and Mao. Back in those days, their viewpoints and practices contended for movement support. Indeed, they, books about them, and organizations touting them were everywhere. Trotsky too. Activists couldn't avoid their impact. Even just on seeing the cover, it was obvious to anyone at the time I was going to address their views. If the cover graphic and the title weren't enough to communicate that intention, there was also a subtitle, a modern revolutionary discussion of classical left ideologies.

Rockhill’s Claim About Western Marxism

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Literally on the same day that I newly came across what is to be undone, a very close and longtime friend called my attention to a pretty current book for monthly review, and to quite a bit of interest and turmoil around that book. The MR Book by Gabriel Rockhill asserts that contemporary revolutionary theory is highly problematic. Rockhill sees the problem as a deviation from earlier bitter views, which we might broadly call classical Marxism Leninism. Rockhill calls the deviation Western Marxism or anti imperialist Marxism. He believes this deviation jettisoned from earlier ideology what was good and added new features that were bad, and that it did so in accord with systemic US imperial and particularly CIA dictates. In a way then, Rockhill argues that from the sixties on, and indeed even in the sixties, revolutionary thought and action went ideologically downhill. Rockhill's argument seeks to document what he took to be the deviation's nefarious origins. This revealed, he says, the need to rediscover, return to, and reelevate the materialist dialectical approaches of the prior classical ideology. Was Rockill's approach a largely wise conceptual insight, or was it mostly guilt by association? Did Rockhill dissect current concepts and visions accurately to show their intrinsic faults? Or did he claim to find causes of the ideological changes and then assume that given those causes the results were of course inevitably destructive of true revolutionary desires? I don't know. After all, I only heard about the book yesterday. But I admit I have adver the adverse latter expectation. In either case, I was struck by a similarity between my own half century old intent with what is to be undone and Rockhill's current intent with his new book Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? Sitting down to consider and then write, both Rockill and I were distraught about inadequacies of our time's revolutionary ideology and practice. Rockhill sees the inadequacies of his current epoch, our times, in considerable and in even an even preponderant degree as due to many people having earlier deviated from anti-capitalist thought and to what Rockill calls anti anti imperialist thought. He feels the solution to the inadequacies is to reject the culprit that he calls Western Marxism and decisively return to what we might call classical Marxism Leninism. So in his recent work, rather like I wanted to do in my work of fifty five years ago, Rockell wants to discern faults with current ideology and chart a path toward future better ideology. For Rockell, however, the fault to now transcend is the left having deviated from what went long before. The fault is the left having scorned what was valid and worthy classical Marxism and Marxism Leninism. For me, fifty five years ago, which is roughly when Rockell thinks the anti anti imperialist capitalist accommodationist deviation gained momentum, the problem wasn't that deviation per se, but that activists had retained too much of classical Marxism Leninism, not too little. So Rocko wants to go back where I wanted to go forward. For Rocko, I suppose I was guilty, so to speak, of having wanted to get beyond classical Marxism and Marxism Leninism. It's true I did, rather than wanting to return to it, which is Rockwell's desire. I wonder if Rocco would say I and people like me were deviated from truly revolutionary

Backward Or Forward In Left Strategy

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desires and thoughts by systemic pressures, or seeking personal wealth and power or some such thing. Or perhaps he would say it was due to having read One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. Here is an excerpt from Rockill, it's pretty long, that concluded an interview he recently did for his publisher Monthly Review. The interviewer was Michael Yates. Rockhill concluded the interview here we have arrived at the most important question. Theory becomes a real force in the world when it comes to grip the masses. In many ways, my book charts the remaking of the left in the age of U.S. imperial dominion. While the second half of the book focuses on Western Marxism, the work as a whole is concerned with the overall redefinition of the left, to use the CIA's terminology as a quote respectable, meaning quote non communist left that is compatible with the interests of capitalism and even imperialism. The history of how the intelligentsia has been driven in this direction is ultimately important, not simply for its own sake, but because of what it reveals about the broader left. Today, much of the left is thoroughly compatible. He goes on. The real task at hand then is to rejuvenate the actual left, which is anti imperialist and anti capitalist. This is a gargantuan task, particularly given the forces arrayed against us. However, if we fail to do so, human life and many other life forms will be eradicated, either through nuclear apocalypse, intensified social murder, ecological collapse, or other capitalist driven forces. He continues again, in order to rise to the occasion, we need to be able to solve at least three important problems. To begin with, there is the issue of theory, which is the main focus of who paid the piper of Western Marxism. Contemporary theory has generally been purged of any serious engagement with dialectical and historical materialism, and the latter has been widely slandered as passe, dogmatic, reductivist, unsophisticated, totalitarian, and so forth. Even worse, Marxism itself has been hijacked by reactionary forces, working hand in glove with opportunists and transformed into a trendy cultural commodity, Western or cultural Marxism, that is anti communist, capitalist accommodationist, and sometimes openly imperialist and even fascist. Culturalism reigns supreme, while class analysis has been cast by the wayside. This is, moreover, by no means a problem limited to the academy, since the organizing world has been deeply penetrated by these anti-communist ideologies. In this regard, my book seeks to serve as a corrective to such backsliding tendencies, while reconnecting the red thread to the dialectical and historical materialist tradition, developing its methodological contributions, and advancing its analysis of the imperial superstructure in the contemporary world. He goes on. The other two problems are the organizational question and the issue of what Brecht calls the pedagogics of form. In much of the capitalist world, the party form, democratic centralism, and even hierarchical political organizations in general have either been abandoned or sidelined. Yet there is no way for the left to fight and win without disciplined organizations that build collective power. These have to be able to bring people in, educate them, and empower them, to take destiny into their own hands. All of this requires forms of communication, cultural expression, and organizing that really connect with people through their form and motivate them to engage in collective action to change the world. While my book is primarily focused on the theory problem, this is Rockhill still, it does insist on the crucial importance of an organized left politics, while highlighting its important gains in the form of actually existing socialism. It is also my hope that the book provides a compelling narrative and is an enjoyable read that brings people into the collective struggle to build a better world. That's the end of the excerpt from Rockill's book. Now please understand, I took that from the conclusion, and I haven't read the whole book. Again, I just became aware of it yesterday. I suppose you can see, or maybe you can see, the commonalities that we have in terms of the desire to win change, and even some of the some of the standards by which accomplishing that needs to be achieved, but also the large amount that we don't have in common, as evidenced by his attachment to democratic centralism, twentieth century socialism, and so on. Anyway, I go on now. For Rockhill to deviate from classical Marxist Leninist theory, organization, and aims was to backslide. Like me, he wants a framework suited to winning a new world. But to go back is his way forward. For me, fifty five years ago, to go forward, I thought we had to examine the then preponderant revolutionary ideologies which had not given us a worthy, viable new world. To go forward, we had to find any faults that held us back. So was I then, and for that matter am I now, a part of Rockhill's problem? We are both highly critical of ideological failings. For Rockhill, the target is Western Marxism, and also, I think, what we might call French Marxism, and no doubt more as

Reading Rockhill’s Stark Warning

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well. And like him, I am also not very enamored of, and often even highly critical of all that. But for me, fifty five years ago, the problem I felt a need to address was Marxism Leninism itself. In the present, Rockell and I agree on the need for change, not only in society, but in how we approach society to change it. So, returning to what is to be undone, when I came across my early text on my computer, I was curious about it. I had probably last set eyes on its words literally fifty years ago. I knew that if I now read its words, it would be like I was reading a new book, or an old book that I was first encountering now. It would not be like I was reading something I wrote. I would not remember having written it. So I wondered, having been written by a participant in the sixties, when it was still boiling in our blood, would this book have current relevance? Would to read this book be kind of like digging into a time capsule? For myself, I also wondered, would this book reveal the origins of my later efforts and views? Or would it reveal early views that I later found wanting and left behind to get where I have now arrived? More, would it reveal that I took a wrong path? As I guess Rocco would probably uh argue. Put rather differently, as I suspect Rockiel might anticipate it, would I discover the origins of a trajectory that led to my being a part of Rocko's problem? That is, would what is to be undone reveal views that led to my becoming a capital accommodationist, an anti anti imperialist, and a deluded misdirector of activism? Or would it reveal the origins of a trajectory that led to my becoming an ever more anti capitalist, anti imperialist, but also anti coordinatorist, anti racist, feminist and author and anti authoritarian revolutionary? Would I discover the origins of my mind becoming diversionary mud? Or would I instead discover the origins of my mind escaping obstacles to advanced legitimate desires? Would what is to be undone's proximity to my time of immersion in what we then saw as an urgently revolutionary epoch make it wise or make it diluted? With the passions of that time still flowing through me, did my eyes see more or less clearly than the same eyes saw in later years? The sixties still matter greatly for many people, myself included. Would whatever lessons I had taken from what I had seen and done in the sixties appear to me now as having been naive, ignorant, and part and parcel of a deviation into accommodation? Or would I discover I left behind some thoughts I should have retained? Coincidentally, today, I received page proofs for a book of mine coming out imminently, an oral history not of a past tumultuous time, but of a future revolution. Its interviewees try to coalescence from their future experiences for us to possibly adapt and use in our coming years. There is a sense, I realized, as I stared at the old and new book, that what is to be undone was me trying to do the same thing about the thoughts, feelings, and choices of what is now called the sixties as viewed from the early seventies. I hadn't looked at what is to be undone before writing The Wind Cries Freedom, but I was too curious to not look at it now. So I found a copy, and on the jacket, beyond the title, its graphic, and its subtitle, I encountered three supportive quotations meant to spur anyone who picked up the book to read on. Noam Chomsky wrote for the cover. Michael Albert's book, What is to be undone, is an impressive achievement. He has thought deeply about the problems of the American left, and his critical view on it is, I think, extremely valuable. He writes from the point of view of a participant as well as an observer and analyst, and from both points of view, he has important things to say. He has managed to interweave his own experience and his wide and thoughtful reading. The result is a book of considerable insight, a serious contribution to the reconstruction of an effective movement of the left in the United States. I have to comment on that because on reading this blurb now, not from remembering it, I am pretty sure Nome read the introduction at chapter one and then wrote the above blurb. This would be a good guess, but it is in fact more than a guess because decades later, having by then been long time close friends, Noam told me he had gone way back and finally read the book, and he thought that the discussions of Marxism, Leninism, etc were far more solid and convincing than he had earlier anticipated they would be, when he at the time only reacted to my discussion of sixties movements. After all, he might reasonably have added, the words were written by a militant whippersnapper, so how wise could they be? Howard Zinn wrote a bit differently for the book's cover. Quote This book does an excellent job of showing the weakness of classical Marxism Leninism, plus the contributions of anarchism and Maoism. It clarifies much about the Russian and Chinese experiences and lays a sound critical foundation for Americans to create their own revolutionary strategies. It is a healthy, positive, and scholarly analysis. I agree with its political thrust. And Herb Gintis, who you may not know of, but who was a brilliant radical economist back then, wrote for the cover. Quote, this work goes a long ways toward critiquing old ideologies and laying the groundwork for creation of a new one. Its discussion of classical Marxism-Leninism is informed, powerful, and intelligently organized around an eye-opening discussion of Bolshevik practice in Russia. The critical discussion of classical Marxism in a praxis context is original and strong. The discussion of anarchism and especially Maoism lead the reader from the initial primarily critical orientation toward a more balanced positive view that posits many useful criteria for creating a new United States revolutionary ideology. The chapter on humanist and new Marxism is a good summary and continues the positive progression toward creating a new ideology. The last summary chapter and

Finding My Book Like A Time Capsule

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the book as a whole are thus very useful for revolutionary activists wanting to understand old ideali ideologies and to work out their own new perspectives too. You might think that given its topic, title, timeliness, and the effusive jacket comments, what is to be undone would have quickly garnered a lot of attention and moved readers as the comments suggested it would. I admit, the young Mi optimistically anticipated that. But I think instead the book's main effect may have been to cause various Marxists, Leninists, and Maoists to develop a strong allergy or actually more like a lasting hostility to the unknown whippersnapper author, and indeed deterred them from paying any attention at all to anything I might ever have to say from then on, though without ever having addressed what the book itself actually had to say. So I also thought to myself, were they right? Or was their hostile silence sectarian? As to my writing, the truth is I was quite insecure back then, as I am now, but when I recently started looking at the book, I was pleasantly surprised. At least as far as I have gotten so far, it was readable. That was likely due mostly to editing done by my then and ever since then partner, Lydia Sargent. Also, for what it is worth, this book was written partly by hand, but mostly on a s and an IBM selectric typewriter. After the many paper drafts and the endless pencil refining, Lydia and I would go across town to a facility that lent us access to a then new Fangle Tag typesetter. There we prepared camera ready copy for Porter Sergeant Publisher well into the wee hours of each night for weeks. We'd put the finished pages from each session into a refrigerator to preserve them as we slowly got through the whole thing. Its mechanics aside, the finished book had a page offering three quotes just sitting inside the cover. I think such a page, adorned with an author's portrait or thematic artwork, is called a frontispiece. Mind had no image, just the three quotations. As I read those three quotes today, just a few hours ago, I could easily conclude that I was nervous about how readers would react to the book, and that I chose the quotes partly defensively. The first quote is from Karl Marx. It goes The tradition of dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living, and just when they seem to be revolutionizing themselves and things and creating something entirely new, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis, they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, and borrow from the names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time honored disguise and borrowed language. The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future. The second quote is also from Marx. The book was about to criticize classical Marxism, but I had been moved by many of Marx's own words, and I was, I suspect, defensively trying to ward off rejection by people who would dismiss the book for violating any formulations of Marx by suggesting I was instead acting on some advice he rendered. As the second text, he wrote, and I quoted. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against a world whose spiritual aroma is a religion. Religion is the sigh of oppressed creatures, the heart of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The criticism of religion is thus an embryo, a criticism of the veil of tears whose halo is religion. Substitute the word for the word religion ideology, or even the content of dead men's minds, and you'll see the reason for my choice of contents for my frontispiece. I thought I was doing just what Marx urged, not because he urged it, but because it was wise advice. And to be forthright about it, I think I was pretty much the opposite of what I think Rockill is now urging activists to do. At any rate, in case anyone didn't then quite get what why these two Marx quotes adorned the book's frontispiece, I had a third quote as well. It was from the guild socialist GDH Cole, and was short and hard to misinterpret. It went quote Woe betide those who seek to save themselves the pain of mental building by inhabiting dead men's minds. The book that followed the frontispiece tried to avoid having woe betide me. It had an introduction in twelve chapters. How many of those will make sense to populate Revolution Z episodes remains to be seen. I don't know yet. I haven't looked at them again, but I am curious. At any rate, here is the introduction. It is quite short, so after presenting it to fill out the episode, I'll comment a little more about my reaction on reading it fifty five years after I wrote it. So here's the introduction. In this book, we critically discuss classical Marxism, Leninism, anarchism, and Maoism from the perspective of political effectiveness here and now in present United States context, which is to say in the mid nineteen seventies. We demystify, criticize, and uncover the roots of old ideology weaknesses. We seek to learn from old ideology strengths. We try to forge guidelines for eventually creating our own newer and better revolutionary ideology. We work from activist evaluative criteria. We discussed only the core of classical Marxism Leninism as it was really employed by the Bolsheviks and as it's generally employed by Leninists today. Rather than struggling for quote philosophical precision, we strive for practical, relevant to use criticisms and alternative views. After emphasizing criticism in the discussion of classical Marxism-Leninism, rather than repeating that approach with anarchism and Maoism, we turn more toward discovering some positive aspects useful for us in the United States. Chapter one gives a very brief descriptive analysis of late sixties political movements. Its purpose is to give force to the assertion that social change requires political insight. It also provides some present movement needs to help orient our follow-up discussions. Chapter two discusses the general nature of political consciousness in terms of the concepts of theory, strategy, and practice. It lays out an approach for studying political ideas that we then use throughout the rest of the book. Chapter

Chomsky Zinn And Gintis On The Cover

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three introduces classical Marxism as a full, consistent theory of social interaction, history, and revolution. It presents classical Marxism in a positive manner, but in accordance with our critical expectations. Chapter four introduces a significant portion of classical Leninism. The effort is to objectively set out something close to what most classical Leninists actually use in their day-to-day efforts. But the discussion is organized and bounded in accordance with our critical desires. Chapter five discussions Bolshevik classical Marxist Leninist practice in young revolutionary Russia. While not explicitly discussing theory and strategy, it evaluates Bolshevik practice so as to lay a groundwork for critiquing the guiding ideology as well. Chapter six evaluates classical Leninism. Chapter seven evaluates classical Marxism, completing the examination from practice to strategy to theory. Chapter eight summarizes the entire analysis. Chapter nine then discusses anarchism looking for new insights rather than deeply analyzing weaknesses. Chapter ten discusses the Chinese experience, again looking more to find new insights than to analyze recurring classical or other weaknesses. Chapter eleven discusses a number of humanist, Marxist, and neo-Marxist thinkers who go beyond classical limitations. And Chapter twelve synthesizes previous results into a number of ideas about how an improved new United States political consciousness might be developed, about what it might look like, and about what it might accomplish. What is to be undone has clearly defined and delimited purposes. If it is read with desires to find new ideas rather than to defend old sectarian ones, its worth will be greatly enhanced. In his philosophic work titled Marx in the mid twentieth century, Gajov Petrovic includes the following interchange under the subtitle Objections and Repluse The strange discussions that have lately become frequent in Yugoslavia are free philosophical discussions about the open question of Marxist philosophy. The remnants of Stalinism in us, stronger in some, weaker in others, oppose free discussions on philosophy. An internal voice in us, or in some of us, is murmuring discontentedly. Don't we behave too freely toward our great teachers? First of all, wrote Angels to Plekhanov, please stop calling me teacher, my name is simply Angles. However, should we not be a little more modest? The truth is as little modest as the light, says Marx, and toward whom should it be? Toward itself, accordingly, toward the untruth. By a free discussion of everything, will we not confuse and disorient the masses? Why should we underestimate the masses? Why could not an undem an undogmatic Marxism be at least as conceivable to them as the dogmatic one? So what are the opponents of Marxism going to say? Will they not feel they have triumphed when they see us write critically of Marx? They may, but let us hope that they will soon no longer be able to say Jesuits have written more studies about Marx and Marxism than Marxists themselves. And what will our Marxist critics, for example, the Chinese say? Probably the same as the Albanian. But will not all these discussions weaken Marxist philosophy and its struggle against non Marxist philosophy? Why should a living Marxism be weaker than a dead one? I hope all this book's readers, and indeed all radicals everywhere, have Petrovitch's kind of immodest and open minded spirit, and I hope my own efforts have been true to it and to scholarly integrity as well. We must learn from quote past teachers to transcend them, not to enshrine, worship, or exploit them. This book reflects parts of the changing consciousness of a large number of activists, and we hope its presentation will help us go forward in creating new ideas, studying them and adapting them to our own real situation. It seems that such a trend would be vastly preferable to an endless repetition of the mistakes of the past. That's it for the introduction. So how do I react what I set out as an important task in nineteen seventy one fifty five years later? Well I must admit to having mixed feelings. It is clear that by classical Marxism Leninism, I at that time meant only the body of ideas that constitutes the core ideology of Bolshevik oriented parties and or sects. I didn't, for example, mean the whole and most enlightened libertarian elements of Marx's own writings, or of his most competent interpreters. Marxism Leninism in action, not in the library, was my target. But also my stance was somewhat defensive, I think, and that persisted in a follow-up book called Unorthodox Marxism somewhat later. I was trying to ward off dismissal that would occur on grounds that to critique Marxism, indeed any words of Marx and Leninism, and indeed any words of Lenin, was for some then and now too outrageous, and could in their eyes only indicate a desire to protect existing capitalist relations against revolutionary onslaught. Sort of like, dare I say, modern day intellects who urge a return to classical ideology even to the point of calling any other inclination anti imperialism. Reading the introduction now says to me the book will offer a flexible, powerful interpretation of the classical views as good or better than any being used by active Leninist parties, and then try to find its flaws to point toward need for new ideology. My feeling at the time was obviously that the most important point was not how Marxist our classical Marxism Leninism was, but how accurate a reproduction of what Marxist Leninists used in their activism it was. Listeners to Revolution Z will be aware of later views

Quotes Against Living In Dead Minds

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I have persistently advocated in episodes and in my writing, among them that over elevation of economics to the detriment of attending comparably to race, gender, and power is harmful. That inattention to answering the question what do you want is harmful. That denying the existence of a class between labor and capital that can become society's ruling class and that is based upon the distribution of empowering and unempowering or disempowering tasks at work is harmful. That various Marxist methodological choices masquerading as science, meaning calling themselves science, are harmful, and that favored Leninist organizational practices are harmful. Rockill seems to think these types of criticism arise from accommodation to systematic pressures that range from CIA financing to cultural submersion to trying to get ahead. Is he right? Or did these type criticisms arise instead from looking at past accomplishments and failings to try to enlarge the former and jettison the latter? If I present more from what is to be undone, you will be able to decide for yourself. More important, you may decide the criticisms are valid or not, I guess we will see. But before the old ideologies next time, and I think perhaps next two times, will be a discussion of various sixties movements and activism as seen back then, including some current interjections. And even before that, how about one song? Really just one. But fair warning, it may take some examination to find the fit between this piece of writing and this episode. It is not entirely straightforward. The song is titled My Back Pages. It was written by Dillon in nineteen sixty four, much closer to the start of the New Left than to its aftermath. Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin' high and mighty traps, pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps. We'll meet on edges soon, said I, proud neath heated brow. Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. Half racked prejudice leaped forth, ripped down all hate I screamed, lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull. I dreamed romantic facts of musketeers, foundation deep somehow, ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. Girls' faces formed the forward path from phony jealousy to memorizing politics of ancient history. Flung down by coerpse evangelists, unthought of, though somehow, ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. A self ordained professor's tongue, too serious to fool, spouted out that liberty is just equality in school. Equality, I spoke the word as if a wedding vow, ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. In a soldier's stance I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach, fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach. My pathway led my confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow, ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. Yes, my guards stood hard, when abstract threats too noble to neglect, deceived me into thinking I had something to protect. Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow, ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. And all that said, this is Michael Albert, signing off until next time for Revolution Z.