To Relax Is To Say....

Every month we include wise words from such luminaries as Marx, Engels and Gustav Bang; but this month we are going to give them a rest and cross the pond to the glamour and glitz of Hollywood though we'll be looking at a man not so glitzy, movie director, Robert Aldrich. He came from a wealthy family and was, in fact a cousin of Nelson Rockefeller. 

Aldrich turned his back on the prosperous life his family offered him for which he was ostracized. Starting as a $50 dollar a week clerk at R.K.O. Studio he progressed to directing some socially conscious movies, such as ,''The Dirty Dozen'', ''The Longest Yard'' and Twilight's Last Gleaming''. Though Aldrich was no Marxist, he nevertheless had a detestation of capitalism and believed that struggling against it was important. Perhaps he summed up well why socialists fight on against the odds.

''Well, I don't think you can relax and enjoy it. To relax is to say,'' well I'm dead already''. Why not struggle and maximize the victories. They may not come, probably won't come, but they might come, and when they come your one victory ahead of total defeat''. (R. Aldrich, 1918-1983. Body and Soul, by Tony Williams (2004), Scarecrow Press.)

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet and John