Nobody Left by Mr. Fish

 This is subtitled on the cover:

“Conversations with famous radicals, progressives, and cultural icons about the end of dissent, revolution, and liberalism in America”

This book was discovered by accident in a local library in a town in Nassau County of Long Island, New York. It was in among the new graphic novels and comics. It’s large format 10” by 7” so supposedly that was why it was shelved where it was. It is also a good place for it. It’s the kind of thing that it would be nice for some suburban kid to accidentally come upon and then discover a new world. Actually the kid would be discovering an old world since Mr. Fish has set about talking to aged people who meant something to him and to the culture of the USA at one time.There are a lot of illustrations, the artwork of Mr. Fish. Some of them are a bit lurid and shocking which could also be a draw to a young person.  

This is a book from a left perspective. Not what the Trumpers and Republican Party call “far left”. That label is only a way to smear Democratic Party centrist liberals with Red Baiting because they might entertain leaving Social Security around for a bit longer, as long as it doesn’t take money away from the military budget.

The “left” referred to in this book is the old “New Left '' of the mid-20th Cemtury. That which reached its peak among post WWII Baby Boomers in the late 1960s. This left is the left that considers Clinton, and Obama, centerest sellouts who did more harm than good. The Democratic presidents who prepared the way for a Trump.

The book becomes a sort of memorial to that type of New Left politics since they have to a substantial degree disappeared from being a significant factor in mainstream politics. It could be argued that they never were much of a factor, but they certainly were more of a presence in the mainstream, even the old Big Three network mainstream of the 1950s and 60s.
High points of the book are interviews with greats Mort Sahl and (the late) Paul Krassner both of whom go back to the 1950s. But there are many others
And Mr Fish does talk about getting to people before they die off and missing that opportunity for some.

For those of us who miss that end of the dialog and adhere to that type of politics this is kind of a sad book. It’s about something that is dying off with a generation or a couple of generations that were a part of it. Mr Fish does not supply a path of hope forward. Most of the conversations are about what happened and why. 

The book was in print before the last great people’s movement appeared with the worldwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations and its movement.
That and the Bernie Sanders for President movements presented the old spirit. It is a spirit of rebellion and righteous anger at inequity that can inspire mass participating in demanding real change.

It is a spirit that has to be revived. There are millions waiting for it after being fooled by centrist Democrats that fail to deliver much other than, inadvertently, power to the rebellious tone of Right Wing populism which we have just seen in the Trump people and the January 6th storming of the Capitol Building. If a left movement does not come in, speak to these people and their needs and build a real socialist democracy, the fascist are going to rule the day and once they rule the day, that day can go on for decades.   
  

Dreamwatcher By Theodore Roszak

This novel is about dreams. The setting is a psychiatric clinic built around a doctor’s research into dream states. He has stumbled upon people who can tap into the dreams of others. He can help guide them into doing this. He can train people with these innate abilities. He can develop them into tools, “instruments”, to explore and indeed, effect, the dreamscapes of others. But early on in his career, some years ago, the potentially good doctor has fallen for the sick bargain of generous funding, a clinic in his name, but the cost is secrecy and control of a government intelligence agency.
The doctor’s instruments, his dreamwatchers are used by the mind control MK-ULTRA wing of intelligence to enter the dreams of people on their hit list and neutralize, discredit them by psychiatric manipulation. 
Roszak humainizes his big story with Deirdre, a dreamwatcher, who we come to know and gain sympathy for. She and the doctor, Devane, are the main players in the story. The doctor is a good guy but is trapped in a devil’s bargain. He wants the world to know and benefit from his work, but it must be kept secret as it has been bought and weaponized by ruthless power. The critical point comes when the doctor is ordered to destroy the serenity, and public stature of a radical Catholic nun from Central America. The CIA just doesn’t want her to get the Nobel Peace Prize.
The character of the nun brings in with her a childhood connection to indiginous  spirituality. She was taken off as a child and initiated by an aunt who was connected to that stream of ancient female shamanic energy, and training; this magic.

The novel tells an exciting suspenseful story around all this.
Is this just a fun fantasy read? Is it just a spy mind control adventure?
Dreams are so important. Are our dreams manipulated by power above us. In the novel to mess with people the dreamwatchers take them to a place of dark emptiness. At this writing Senator Bernie Sanders has just withdrawn from competition for a presidential nomination. In the address that contained his announcement he said something realated to the power of a dream:

"The greatest obstacle to real social change has everything to do with the power of the corporate and political establishment to limit our vision,” he said.

Are we watching over our power to dream? Are we keeping it clear from less than wholesome influence? What dreams, or nightmares, would come from power if it actually could influence our thoughts and mental well being?  Where are the borders between awake and dreaming? Are our stories related to dreams? Do they influence dreams? When we hear a story well told around a campfire, how does part of us enter that story, feel with it? What type of stories attract us? Do the most frightening ones draw us in because we are fragile and must be aware of environmental hazards?  Do we instinctively know we have to look out for danger? Is this being exploited for nothing more than commercial interest? 

This writer is aware of mass media influencing his own dreams. 

This happened just the other night after watching a good movie on a 13” computer screen for picture and stereo headphones for audio. 

The movie was Seberg about actor/activist Jean Seberg. The movie was not so much about her but, not so distant to the theme of Dreamwatcher, about government intelligence operatives messing with her business. They spy on her and ultimately try to destroy her by spreading lies about her. 

It is brought up here, not to review the movie itself but as an example of this powerful medium to enter into dreams. 

That night this viewer had a vivid dream of being with the character of Seberg in the movie in an apartment. This was not his first experience of this sort. In this case the movie was very good and the dream benign. This dream was about fitting into the environment of the lavish new all white NYC tower apartment setting, maybe class anxiety but not with longing, greed, or lust triggered by the movie. 

Yet the movie had the power to enter the dream in this way. An expensive mass media entertainment had the power to do that little trick. It wasn’t the first time and this dreamer is a fully developed elder adult far from the relatively open vessels of children who are increasingly exposed to screen dreams direct from powerful corporations who’s only goal is to manipulate them to increase their profit and power. 

Beyond that militant intelligence is also involved with the CIA using a massive portion of their budget to direct mass media in lines with their interests. 

This is not so from the melodrama of the plot line of Roszak’s very fine and thought provoking novel from the relatively innocent times of the 1980s.