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In June former Peace News contributor and political activist Marty Jezer died at the age of 64 at his home in the US, after a long fight against testicular cancer. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Jezer was a regular contributor to PN, writing funny and reflective comment pieces. In memoriam we reprint a Jezer classic from June 1970.

The Marxist-Lennonists

Martin Jeezer

In the old Resistance office in Washington DC, there used to be a sign on the door describing the politics found within. The Resistance is an organisation of young men who have returned their draft cards to the federal government and thus "non-cooperate" with the draft. Their self-described politics, at least in Washington, was Marxist-Lennonist. Marxist for the Brothers Marx. Lennonist for the Beatle John.
What do the Marx Brothers have to do with politics, radical or otherwise? It is really newsworthy that Groucho has come out against the war? Not quite. The value of the Marx Brothers (aside from their having made the funniest movies ever) is that they address themselves to one of the goals of a revolutionary movement: desanctification of authority. Stripping legitimacy off illegitimate government. Forcing the authorities to show themselves as the petty, bum bling, selfish, boorish boobs that they so often are. "Even the President of the United States must have to stand naked," sings Bob Dylan.

Theatre of the absurd

The Marx Brothers medium is theatre. Madcap, zany, anarchical, provo theatre of the absurd. And they succeed because their theatre is always qualitatively better than the theatre of their opposition. When they go after high opera, as they do in Night At the Opera, they go about it with such finality that the opera becomes secondary to their own mayhem.
Their protest, as such, transcends the object of their protest. The anti-authoritarian message takes precedence over the pomp and majesty of opera. Who can sit through Night At the Opera and then take opera as seriously as opera takes itself? Who, after watching the Marx Brothers go at it, can sit through opera without wishing Harpo to appear on stage and disrupt the proceedings?
In Duck Soup, on overtly pacifist picture, they go after nationalism and militarism with the same gusto, and reduce both to the next level of the absurd. Yes, Richard Nixon and Harold Wilson, with their armies, air force and atomic weapons, are dangerous men. But they -- and the assumptions by which they profess to lead -- are also on the order of the ridiculous. The question for us is whether we take them with the seriousness they expect to be treated or whether we treat them as the absurdities that they are, and thus begins the process of stripping them bare, desanctifying their authority.

Neither funny nor militant

Demonstrations are primarily theatre, though political groups have traditionally treated them ideologically, concerned more with the "correct" message than whether the slogans or chants have any effect on the conscious ness of either the demonstratorsor the disinterested public.
    At times, the movement has tried to use demonstrations as theatre. We've thrown money away at the stock exchange, planted flowers in the gun barrels of troops guarding the Pentagon, thrown a pie or two at "important" military figures, and nominated a pig for President. But we've never been quite pure enough in these tactics to be completely effective. Our comedy -- like all comedy -- comes from the anguish of our souls.
    The Marx Brothers subjugate their hatred of authority and are thus better able to use humour to desanctify it. We, on the other hand, allow our anger to get the best of us, equating anger with militancy. We mix our tactics, and end up neither funny enough nor militant enough to make an impression. We'll use humour as long as we can get away with it, but at the first heavy response from authorities we drop our flowers and start waving our fists.
    In effect, we drop our script and become bit-players in their act. They assume the direction and the result is always predictable. Their violence and our counter-violence. A ritual in which no one really wins and bores most people. The government's basis for legitimacy lies only in the amount of coercive force they can muster over our heads. Force is their theatre. And as soon as they have us in their script it's their game. What we've got to do in demonstrations is keep control of the theatre. Hit them where they are weak and bumbling. Mock their symbols, satirise their pretension. Cast them in the roles for which they are unprepared.

Gonna carry that load

The Marx Brothers show us how to attack authority. But protestor resistance isn't ever enough. That's where John Lennon comes in -- as do the Beatles because they are, after all, inseparable.
John -- like the other Beatles -- sings out of his own experience. They do not put us on and so we believe them. And consistently they have articulated and anticipated our needs, our dreams, and our visions. John Lennon's politics may benot be 100% correct, but he is addressing himself to something more basic than ideology -- our attitudes and values.
Fighting in any street is not the same as a revolution. And revolutions are not made instantly. The past is a heavy burden on our shoulders. But, as John says, we are gonna carry that load.

A detailed obituary for Marty Jezer can be found in the Brattleboro Reformer. See http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2918395,00.html

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