***From The Brothers Under The Bridge Series- The Road Less Traveled- Johnny Prescott’s Choice- With A Tip Of The Hat To Poet Robert Frost

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:

In the first installment of this series of sketches space provided courtesy of my old 1960s yellow brick road magical mystery tour merry prankster fellow traveler, Peter Paul Markin, I mentioned, in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to download into my iPod, that I had come across a song that stopped me in my tracks, Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (Frisco town, California East Bay, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a Great Depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramp camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles, and created their own “society.”

The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me that long ago assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and another down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me in on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.

After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A while back, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from stories that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round them into shape.

The ground rules of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to hear, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for foul language). I, like with the others in this current series, have reconstructed this story as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said.

Not every guy I interviewed, came across, swapped lies with, or just snatched some midnight phrase out of the air from was from hunger. Most were, yes, in one way or another but some, and the one I am recalling in this sketch from 1979 told to me by my friend Peter Paul Markin about a corner boy from back in his old North Adamsville neighborhood fits this description, had no real desire to advertise their own hunger but just wanted to get something off their chest about some lost buddy, or some event they had witnessed. I have presented enough of these sketches both back in the day and here to not make a generalization about what a guy might be hiding in the deep recesses of his mind.

 

Some wanted to give a blow by blow description of every firefight (and every hut torched) they were involved in, others wanted to blank out ‘Nam completely and talk of before or after times, or talk about the fate of some buddy, some ‘Nam buddy, who maybe made it back the “real world” but got catch up with stuff he couldn’t handle, or got caught up in some stuff himself that he couldn’t handle, couldn’t handle because his whole blessed life pointed the other way. Let Markin tell the tale his way and you will see that it exactly fits the series and the times, the times of the Vietnam two roads. The sign to place this one under, easy; the road not taken.

********

Added Comment:

I am not a big fan of Robert Frost's poetry (although his public readings were very interesting with that old swamp Yankee wisdom voice although don’t borrow anything from him or let him borrow because that is the way of the swamp Yankee) but this one, this one about the two roads (hell, maybe more but two makes the point nicely), one not taken, not taken like some childhood door choice   every once in a while "speaks" to me when there are two (or more) choices to make in life. That choice business certainly applies to the characters below, certainly speaks to their respective predicaments. o

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 20

*********

Sergeant John Prescott, “Johnny P.” to his pals gathered around a small table, drinking sodas (although in their North Adamsville neighborhood in the old days everybody, everybody in New England too, maybe, called it tonic but that term fell out of usage with mass national advertising of soft drinks and so soda) and coffee, in the next room was a quiet, unassuming guy, no great scholar in high school just getting by although mainly getting by because being quiet and unassuming his teachers found no reason not to push him on until graduation. Quiet and unassuming too around with his corner boys, not the leader, a rank and filer really, but always ready to “show the colors” when some other corner boys wanted to take a run for the store front corner of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, his hang-out corner boy place. Quiet and unassuming with the girls too, a little shy really being raised in an all boy family and so not wise to girl ways, silly or profound, never without a date when it counted but also never the subject of “can’t wait to tell you” talk in that manic Monday morning before school girls’ room talkfest where what did or did not get done to whom, and by whom, over the weekend was hashed out. Johnny was “nice” was the best that any girl ever uttered about Johnny later when the dust had settled.    

Yeah, Johnny P., a guy with just that barebones patriotism that animated many working class kids, North Adamsville neighborhood kids no exception, to “do their duty” and join up when America was in danger, no questions asked. Father, an ex-Marine, who had seen all the action a man could want in the Pacific island-hopping war during World War II (somebody once said there were no ex-Marines but we will let that pass since his father, a taciturn man, taken to occasional bouts of heavy silent drinking never talked about those Pacific experiences like many in his generation, except for the life-long after-effect trouble from malaria). Scads of uncles, grand-uncles (one killed in World War I and who had an eternal square up near the high school named after him like too many squares in this wicked old world), older cousins, older neighbors all taking the oath, all going through the male neighborhood rite of passage.

Not quite some gung-ho “my country, right or wrong,” that dividing line came later, but never questioned because nobody would have thought to pose the question then, but pretty close when all was said and done. Yeah, everybody just quietly and assumingly did their duty and quiet unassuming Johnny followed suite. And as the early 1960s, the time of high school fun and frolic and for sturdy football lineman Johnny P, fun and frolic with one fetching Chrissie O’Shea and their quiet romance that was the decidedly not the talk of the Class of 1964 at old North Adamsville High, turned to mid-1960s and clarion calls that the country was in danger in some place called red-infested Vietnam Johnny, and not just Johnny, answered the call. Answered the call like father, uncles and forbears had done for generations before (it would be later that a few, too few, North Adamsville boys would join the draft resistance movement, a few, again, too few, would join the military resistance when the American Army was half in mutiny in the late 1960s). And here, gathered around a small table, in early May 1968 his old corner boys from in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” (the local section of  town was called Norfolk Downs like in bloody England and hence the “up the Downs”) were chatting away like mad.

Suddenly, Frank Riley, fabled Frankie, the king of the be-bop Salducci’s night in those fresher days, in Johnny corner boy rank and filer days  yelled to no one in particular but they all knew what he meant, “Remember that night after graduation when Tonio threw us that party at the pizza parlor.” And all the other five gathered at the table became silence with their own memories of that night. See, Tonio was the king hell owner and Zen master pizza maker at Salducci’s who had even those waiting for that never coming local bus in front of the shop looking in amazement through the glass windows at Tonio flipping pizzas.  And a guy for some unknown reason, call it Frankie’s charisma (or blarney which amounted to the same thing in Irishtown) who treated Frankie (and therefore most of Frankie’s friends) like some prodigal son. So Tonio put out a big deal party right on the premises, closed to all but Frankie, his friends and hangers-on (and girls of course, many girls because although Frankie was “hitched” to his sweetheart from junior high, Joanne he had many “girl friends”). Tonio, at least this is what he said at the time, appreciated that Frankie brought so much business his way what with his corner boys, their corner boys, and the, ah, girls that gathered round them and who endlessly fed the juke box that he had to show his appreciation in such a way. And everybody had a great time that night, with the closed-door illegal wine (against a state-mandated twenty-one but hell it was only wine), Tonio-provided wine, flowing like crazy and nobody, no authorities or parents the wiser for it.

Part of that great time, the part the guys around the 1968 table were remembering just then, the part of that great gun-ho 1964 time occurred late that night when, plenty of wine under their belts, Frankie and the corner boys, talked “heroic” talk. Talked about their military service obligations that was coming up right on them after graduation. And this was no abstract talk, not this night, for not only was this a party put on by Tonio to show his gratitude for the business sent his way but a kind of going away party for sturdy football player and increasingly part-time corner boy, Johnny P. (the other part, the more and more part, with one fetching Chrissie O’Shea who many guys coveted but who deferred to the age old tradition of not cutting some fellow corner boy’s time until he was dumped, a tradition unlike some others that was actually honored, had been for a long time ever since a big blow-out back in the early 1950s when some guy tried to cut another guy’s time and wound up face down on North Adamsville Beach ruled a drowning but everybody knew the real score), who signed up right after graduation and was getting ready to leave for “boot camp” at Fort Dix, New Jersey in a few days. So everybody was piling on the bravery talk to Johnny about “killing commies” somewhere, maybe Vietnam, maybe Germany, hell, maybe Russia or China. And Johnny, not any rum-brave kind Johnny, not any blah blah-ing about bravery, football or war, Johnny just kind of sat there and let the noise go by him. His thoughts then were of Chrissie and doing everything he could to get back to her in one piece.

Of course heaping up pile after pile on the bravery formula was one Frankie Riley, ever the politician and well as keenly acknowledged corner boy king, who had so just happened to have landed, through a very curious connection with the Kennedy clan, a coveted slot in a National Guard unit. So, Frankie, ever Frankie, could be formally brave that night in the knowledge that he would be far away from any real fighting. His rejoinder was that his unit “might” be called up. The others kidded him about it, about his “week-end warrior” status, but just a little because after all he would be serving one way or another. Also kind of silent that night was Fritz Taylor just then ready to “do his duty” after having had a heavy-duty fight with his mother about his future, or lack of a future, and her “hadn’t he better go in the service and learn a trade” talk.

Most vociferous that night was Timmy Kiley. Yes, Timmy, the younger brother of the legendary North Adamsville and later State U. football player “Thunder Tommy” Kiley. He was ready to catch every red under every bed and do what, when and where to any he caught. Timmy later joined the Navy to “see the world” and saw much of some dreary scow in some dry-dock down in Charleston, South Carolina. Even Peter Paul Markin, Frankie’s right-hand man, self-described scribe, and publicly kind of the pacifist of the group, who usually got mercilessly “fag”-baited for his pale peace comments was up in arms about the need to keep the “free world” free. But that was just the way he talked, kind of a studied hysterical two-thousand facts diatribe. Markin, student deferred, at that 1968 table had just gotten notice from his friendly neighbors at the North Adamsville Draft Board that upon graduation he was to be drafted. And he was ready, although kicking and screaming about some graduate school project that the world really needed to know about, to go. That was the way it was in the neighborhood. Go or be out. Frank Ricco, the so-called token Eye-talian, of the Irish-laden Salducci’s corner boy night (and a kid that Tonio actually hated, some kind of Mafioso, omerta thing with his father) also displayed super-human brave talk that night but he was credited , not so many months later with not only going in the Marines but of seeing some heavy-duty action in jungle-infested Kontum, and some other exotic and mainly unpronounceable places farther south in the water-logged rice paddles of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.

Quiet, quieter than Johnny Prescott thinking of Chrissie, or Fritz, sullenly furious at his mother or at his hard-scrabble fate, or both, was Johnny Callahan. Johnny no stranger to corner boy controversy, no stranger to patriotic sentiments, at least publicly to keep in step with his boys, secretly hated war, the idea of this war coming up and was seriously hung up on the Catholic “just war” theory that had been around since at least Saint Augustine, maybe earlier. See Johnny had a grandmother (and also a mother, but less so) who was an ardent Catholic Worker reader and adherent to their social philosophy. You know, Dorothy Day and that crowd of rebel Catholics who wanted to go back to the old, old days, the Roman persecution days, of the social gospel and the like.

And grandmother had the “just war” theory down pat. She was the greatest knitter of socks for “the boys” during World War II that the world may have ever known. But on Vietnam she was strictly “no-go, no-go, no way” and she was drilling that in Johnny’s head every chance she got (which was a lot since Johnny, having, well let’s call it “friction” with his mother sought refuge over at grandma’s). Now grandma was pressing Johnny to apply for conscientious objector status (CO) but Johnny knew that as a Catholic, a lapsing Catholic but still a Catholic, the formal “just war” theory of that church would not qualify him for CO status. He wanted to, expected to, just refuse induction. So that rounded out that party that night. Hell, maybe in retrospect it wasn’t such a great party, although blame the times not Tonio for that.

Just then, as each member at the table, thought his thoughts started by Frankie’s remembrance sipping their sodas and coffee sort of absent-mindedly someone from the other room called out, “pall-bearers, get ready.”

Postscript: Sergeant, E-5, John Phillip Prescott made the national news that 1968 year, that 1968 year of Tet, made the Life magazine photo montage of those killed in service in Vietnam on any given week. Johnny P.’s week was heavy with casualties so there were many photos, many looks of mainly working-class enlisted youth that kind of blurred together despite the efforts to recognize each individually. And, of course, Johnny P.’s name is etched for eternity in black marble down in Washington, D.C. John Patrick Callahan served his two year “tour of duty” as federal prisoner 122204, at the Federal Correctional Institution, Allentown, Pennsylvania. The road less traveled, indeed.

Build The International Working Class Front-

Events and Hours

Center for Marxist Education | 550 Mass Ave, Cambridge

All Events are free and open to the public

Saturday's presentation has been moved to 4pm to accommodate the

Stand With Gaza! Rally and Die-In

1PM - Park Street Station

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The Material Basis for Revolutionary Optimism Today

A presentation and discussion led by Wadi'h Halabi

TIME CHANGE: Saturday, July 19th 4-6pm

What is the material basis for revolutionary optimism today? Indeed, is there such a basis? 

It can be easy to fall into pessimism in this period -- the just cause of socialism has suffered major setbacks with counter-revolutions in the Soviet Union and eleven other states in the 1980s and early 1990s, and we have not experienced any significant victories for workers' power since Indochina in 1975. Problems are widespread with decomposition of the working class in capitalist countries, and recomposition on unfavorable terms. 

False optimism, on the other hand, can lead to errors in action, disappointments and inaction.

The approach of this presentation is to examine the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two major class antagonists, the international working class and the world capitalist class, and their respective organizations. It concludes that there is reason for revolutionary optimism but little room for serious errors, as capitalism in crisis accelerates the destruction of both social and environmental foundations for human existence.

Based on presentations and discussions at the Institute (now Academy) of Marxism in Beijing, the Salt of the Earth Labor College in Tucson, Arizona, and elsewhere.

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Readings for Radicals

Wednesdays, 23rd 7-9pm

A bi-monthly Wednesday night book discussion group, facilitated by Joe Ramsey.  Join us to discuss some of the important written works in the radical left tradition, from marxist classics to more contemporary texts, from political theory, to fiction and poetry.

For July we will continue our focus  on Black Radical Writers: examining the work of James Baldwin and Toni Cade Bambara (while continuing our discussion Richard Wright and the Black Panther Party)

Recommended texts for the month:  James Baldwin's short book "The Fire Next Time" and Toni Cade Bambara's story "The Lesson".

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Sunday Film & Discussion

Hosted by Richard Pendleton

Sunday, July 27th - 6pm

INVESTIGATION INTO THE IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR

Experience the American Journey through our country's visual heritage in this historical recording provided by the National Archives of the United States. It includes testimony from the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan opposition. This historical recording from the National Archives may contain variations in audio and video quality based on the limitations of the original source material. The content summary for this DVD is adapted from an historical description provided by the government agency or donor at the time of production release. 64 minutes. 2007.

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Center for Marxist Education Summer Hours

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Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel

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Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel

CUTTIN THE GRASS” Again in GAZA

 

STAND WITH GAZA RALLY AND DIE-IN

SATURDAY, JULY 19

1pm, Park Street. Station

 

As the U.S.-made bombs fall on Gaza, indiscriminately killing Palestinians, many of them children, the death toll has reached over 265. The UN estimates the casualties to be overwhelmingly civilian, including scores of women and children, as Israel has now launched a ground attack of tanks and troops against the tiny Gaza Strip – to supplement its ongoing slaughter from the air and sea.

 

We heed the Urgent call from Gaza civil society: Act now!

“We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.”

 

Join us as we mourn the hundreds killed and protest the complicity of the U.S. government that spends over three billion of our tax dollars and advanced military weapons annually to Israel to maintain an illegal and immoral system of discrimination and occupation and the calamitous siege of Gaza.

 

We call for:     An End to the Bombings and Killings

                        An End to U.S. aid to Israel

                        Support for the Palestinian call for BDS

 

Horror on Gaza Beach

DEMOCRACY NOW! Had The Best Roundup here

 

Meanwhile, in the US, the Obama administration and the Congress have piled on. . .in support of the slaughter and to back Israel’s aims in the current hostilities.

 

Obama Endorses Israel’s Gaza Assault at White House “Iftar”

At the annual White House Iftar dinner commemorating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, President Barack Obama endorsed Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip and defended government spying on Muslim-Americans. Alongside dozens of Muslim-American community activists and Muslim diplomats, the White House welcomed Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, an outspoken advocate of Israel's settlement enterprise who has claimed Muslim and Arab culture is endemically violent.  More

 

Senate passes resolution in support of Israel

The Senate passed a resolution expressing support for Israel on the same night the country launched a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) authored S.Res. 498, which reaffirms Senate support for Israel, condemns unprovoked rocket fire and calls on Hamas to stop all rocket attacks on Israel. “The United States Senate is in Israel’s camp,” Graham said on the Senate floor Thursday. Passage of the resolution came moments after Israel announced that it launched a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip, following a week of heavy rocket attacks from Hamas forces.  More

 

Senator Elizabeth Warren was anxious to avoid responding to a question about Gaza.

 

The House and Senate resolutions, which were undoubtedly written by AIPAC, make no mention of casualties in Gaza, call the rockets “an unprovoked attack”  and also demand that the Palestinian Authority dissolve its unity agreement with Hamas.

 

Gaza: this shameful injustice will only end if the cost of it rises

For the third time in five years, the world’s fourth largest military power has launched a full-scale armed onslaught on one of its most deprived and overcrowded territories. Since Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip began, just over a week ago, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed. Nearly 80% of the dead are civilians, over 20% of them children. Around 1,400 have been wounded and 1,255 Palestinian homes destroyed. So far, Palestinian fire has killed one Israeli on the other side of the barrier that makes blockaded Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison. But instead of demanding a halt to Israel’s campaign of collective punishment against what is still illegally occupied territory, the western powers have blamed the victims for fighting back. If it weren’t for Hamas’s rockets fired out of Gaza’s giant holding pen, they insist, all of this bloodletting would end.   More

 

We single Israel out because we in the west are shamefully complicit in its crimes

For its many supporters in the west, Israel is being unfairly singled out for criticism… Why pick on plucky Israel? What about the Chinas, Russias, Syrias, Saudi Arabias, Irans, Sudans and Burmas? Where are the protests against Isis, Boko Haram or the Pakistani Taliban? … Israel is “singled out” today, but by its friends and not just by its enemies. It has been singled out for unparalleled support – financial, military, diplomatic – by the western powers. It is indeed, to quote Ben-Ami, a “special case”. Which other country is in receipt of $3bn a year in US aid, despite maintaining a 47-year military occupation in violation of international law? Which other country has been allowed to develop and stockpile nuclear weapons in secret?   More

 

THE CURRENT FIGHTING IN SOME HISTORICAL CONTEXT

 

“CUTTING THE GRASS” is a racist term used by the Israeli security establishment as a way to “manage” Palestinian resistance by periodically launching limited attacks on Gaza to degrade to ability of Hamas and other armed factions to confront the occupation of their land. It is a strategy for limiting, rather than ending the conflict.  Short VIDEO here

 

GAZA is the size of heavily urban Suffolk County – but at 1.8 million inhabitants almost three times as densely populated. With all its borders closed, there is literally nowhere for people to escape or hide from the bombing.

 

Compared to the intermittent firing of small-caliber mortars and mostly home-made rockets from Gaza, since 2006 there have been almost continuous Israeli attacks and assassinations against political and civilian leaders in Gaza.  There have been thousands killed in Gaza and tens of thousands wounded or displaced from their homes.  During the same period, the best estimate is that 27 Israelis have died since 2004 in rocket attacks launched from Gaza. (In 2012 alone, 263 Israelis died in traffic accidents).

 

Gaza continues to be legally occupied territory:

While Israel has argued that it ceased occupying Gaza in 2005 when it unilaterally redeployed its troops outside of Gaza and withdrew its settlers from Gaza, Gaza continues to be occupied in accordance with international law and in the views of the international community, including the U.S.[i], the EU, and the U.N.[ii]. Israel’s continued responsibility as the occupying power in Gaza results from several factors.  First, Israel continues to exert effective control over Gaza including control of the borders, airspace, waterways, population registry, currency, the movement of people, trade, electrical supply, water supply, and more. Second, Israel maintains and exerts a right to conduct regular military operations in Gaza, giving it effective military control over the territory. Under international law[iii], effective control is the key measures of occupation.  More

 

Since 2005, when Israel decided to remove its settlers and troops from inside Gaza, in order to maintain its siege from outside and strengthen its colonization of the West Bank, there have been almost continuous restrictions on the entry of food and other humanitarian necessities.  Israeli politicians joked, in the infamous words of Dov Weissglass, chief aide to former Israeli President Ariel Sharon: “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger… It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die…"

 

Israel’s Incremental Genocide in the Gaza Ghetto 

The present genocidal wave has, like all the previous ones, also a more immediate background. It has been born out of an attempt to foil the Palestinian decision to form a unity government [4] that even the United States could not object to… Ever since June 1967, Israel searched for a way to keep the territories it occupied that year without incorporating their indigenous Palestinian population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All the while it participated in a “peace process” charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral colonization policies on the ground.  With the decades, Israel differentiated between areas it wished to control directly and those it would manage indirectly, with the aim in the long run of downsizing the Palestinian population to a minimum with, among other means, ethnic cleansing and economic and geographic strangulation.  More

 

Israel controls two out of three sides of Gaza on the land and its naval patrols maintain a sea blockade; Israel’s (and US) ally Egypt keeps the third land side mostly closed and in any case honors the agreement with Israel to limit Rafah access to foot traffic alone.  So all goods coming in and out of Gaza are controlled by Israel.

 

Compared to the intermittent firing of small-caliber mortars and mostly home-made rockets from Gaza, since 2006, there have been almost continuous Israeli attacks and assassinations against political and civilian leaders in Gaza, with concomitant “collateral damage” killing hundreds of others.  Periodically, Israel launched heavier attacks resulting in even higher casualties, the majority civilian in all cases.  Notice the consistent and obscene Israeli terminology in naming its attacks:

 

June 2014 – Protective Edge: 265 killed and counting

November 2012 – Pillar of Defense: killing 168 Palestinians and destroying hundreds of homes

December 2008 – Cast Lead: More than 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed and over 16,000 Gazans were permanently displaced from their homes which were destroyed during the attack. 

February 2008 – Warm Winter: killed 120 (34 children) and injured 269 (at least 63 children)

June 2006 – Summer Rains/Autumn Clouds: at least 351 Palestinians dead and 848 injured

February 2006 – Lightning Strike

September 2005 – First Rain

October 2004 – Days of Penitence: 130 killed, hundreds wounded

May, 2004 -- Operation Rainbow: at least 43 killed, hundreds wounded.

 

Whenever a temporary truce was negotiated (and scrupulously maintained by Hamas), the pattern has been for Israel to renege on the terms and break the ceasefire with fresh attacks when it deemed them useful.  And contrary to the Israeli claims that this was “to protect its citizens,” the pattern reveals that the most dangerous time for Israeli civilians is when Israel is launching an attack on Gaza.

 

Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End?

…we found that this pattern -- in which Israel is more likely than Palestine to kill first after a conflict pause -- becomes more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. Indeed, of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days… Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.   More

 

A Tale of Two Ceasefires

Egypt, acting as the United States normally does, worked out the details of its ceasefire idea primarily with Israel. The deal reflects the Israeli and Egyptian agenda: it mostly follows the formula of “quiet for quiet,” essentially bringing back the status quo ante of early June. It offers Hamas a vague promise of future negotiations to address the siege of the Gaza Strip. But this is hardly something Hamas will put stock in. The 2012 ceasefire agreement, which was negotiated by then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a man much friendlier to Hamas than the current Egyptian leadership, also made such a promise and it never came to anything. Finally, Egypt says it is willing to open the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt more widely but only if Hamas allows Palestinian Authority security to police it instead of their own people.  It’s not hard to see why Hamas viewed that offer, and its exclusion from the talks, more like a call to surrender than a ceasefire…  Hamas recently confirmed its terms for a ceasefire: Israel should lift the siege it has imposed on the strip for the last seven years, and release all the prisoners it arrested last month during its sweep of the West Bank while the Netanyahu government was keeping the Israeli public and the world from immediately finding out that the three youths who were ostensibly being searching for were already dead. In exchange, Hamas would agree to a ceasefire.   More

 

* 

Dear All, (Because this went out late Thursday afternoon, just as we learned Israel had begun a ground invasion of Gaza, many of you may have called but were unable to get through. Please call the White House today, between 9am and 5pm eastern time, at the number provided in this message.) Peace Action has long worked for peace, disarmament and addressing the root causes of war and violence. As we know from experience, far too often U.S. military aid and weapons transfers to undemocratic and human rights abusing governments, or to one or more sides engaged in violent conflict, fuels that very conflict, rather than providing defense, security or stability. U.S. taxpayers fund over $3 billion in military aid to Israel annually, enabling continuation of the illegal occupation of Palestine and armed conflict with the Palestinians, as we see now, once again, in the awful violence in Gaza. Peace Action advocates nonviolent solutions to conflict, and as such calls for a ceasefire by Israel and Hamas to end the current conflict. Additionally, the U.S should suspend transfers of weapons, crowd control devices, and military training to Israel in response to Israel's human rights abuses of Palestinians in order to help end what The Washington Post called a “deeply asymmetrical conflict.” We also agree with Amnesty International’s call for “…the UN to immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and Palestinian armed groups with the aim of preventing further serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights by the parties to the conflict. Pending such an embargo, all states must immediately suspend all transfers of military equipment, assistance and munitions to the parties, which have failed to properly investigate violations committed in previous conflicts or bring those responsible to justice.” Please take action for peace in Palestine and Israel. Call the White House comment line at 202.456.1111 and demand a ceasefire and suspension of U.S. weapons and military aid to Israel. Peace, Salaam, Shalom, Kevin Martin Executive Director Peace Action Take Action: Call the White House comment line at 202.456.1111 and demand a ceasefire and suspension of U.S. weapons and military aid to Israel. CONNECT TO US:  Find us on Facebook  Follow us on Twitter  Read our blog  Contact us You are subscribed to Peace Action's Action Alert Network. You can unsubscribe here.

Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel 

 

 

 

STAND WITH GAZA

RALLY AND DIE-IN

 

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1:00 PM

PARK ST. STATION

 

As the U.S.-made bombs fall on Gaza, indiscriminately killing Palestinians, many of them children, we heed the

Urgent call from Gaza civil society: Act now!

We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.

Join us as we mourn the hundreds killed and protest the complicity of the U.S. government that spends over three billion of our tax dollars and advanced military weapons annually to Israel to maintain an illegal and immoral system of discrimination and occupation and the calamitous siege of Gaza.

 

We call for:

 

                        An End to the Bombings and Killings

                        An End to U.S. aid to Israel

                        Support for the Palestinian call for BDS

 

 

***The Real Scoop Behind “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

“Hey, brother, can you spare a dime?,” (or sister now something unheard of back in the day, back in the early 1960s, when some cop might pinch you at her request for disturbing the fair sex  for  being unseemly in public asking a proper lady for anything. Now here in the go-go 70s any human form is qualified for the hustle where every low-rent guy takes a shot figuring maybe to get something so the other party, particularly women, can get you out of their faces and move on) followed by “Got an extra cigarette, pal (or gal, ditto the sister thing except unlike back in the day, pal or gal, in the new age, as likely as not, probably has no butts, has no “cigs,” doesn’t touch the stuff ever since the Surgeon-General’s report put the fear of God in lots of people)?”

Yah, Billy Bailey, William James Bailey, used-to-be brash corner boy, a contender for the title of king hell king of the corner boy night around Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, “up the downs” back in North Adamsville in the old days, the old days these days being the early 1960s before smart and brash corner boy Frankie Riley put an end to that dream by trumping all upstarts since  he was “in” with the shop owner,certainly had the panhandler lingo down, down pat, after only a few days on the bum. Funny during these few days on the bum this time he would almost blush when he thought back to the days when he used to laugh in the faces of swollen-faced raggedy-assed guys trying to pan-handle him for dough, trying to bum a smoke, and here he was with the brethren. Hustling maybe a little cleaner in attire that the brethren since he had not gotten down to second-hand Sally goods yet although a few more weeks with constant use of the few clothes that he did have might have him howling. Hustling too with cleaner breathe since he did not drink (that jones long over and done with substituted by several subsequent joneses including his current burden. He still felt that contempt for the buggers since he “knew” that a few days of this street work and he would be off the skids, on his feet again and then able to go back to laughing at the brethren, a good laugh too, while they pipe-dreamed their lives away.

Yeah, this was strictly temporary because his ship would come in before he wound up on cheap street like the boyos hanging around the Common swilling rotgut wine (or maybe low-rent whiskey if the day’s take was good) smoking tobacco “roaches,” butt end really off the ground and pissing all over themselves. However every once in a while he would get a funny feeling, kind of turn up his collar a little more, push his baseball cap lower on his head, put on sunglasses ( a real no-no in the pan-handler racket since you want the “marks” to see your desperate eyes, your pleading desperate eyes, to close the deal. Besides sunglasses might make them feel you just blew in from the coast.) when he realized that he was on the bum in his own home town, his ever-loving’ roots, Boston. (His hometown of North Adamsville close enough so that he did not have to tell people who asked the name of the town and could get by with Boston unlike if he was from Lowell or Lawrence or places like that. Sure he had been on the bum a few times, nothing big, once on the Mission in Frisco (where in the same day he walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and that night slept, slept newspaper for a pillow sleep, under that edifice), a couple of times on Larimer Street in Denver before they gentrified the damn place and along the arroyos down in Los Angeles with a bunch of Vietnam veterans like himself who unlike him couldn’t adjust to the “real” world. 

Yeah, those were a few days bums, maybe a week, couple of weeks, no more than a month and then back to the world. Short falls, maybe drunk too much and jobless, later maybe too much gambling on run-out horses and dogs (and no money coming in to feed the habits once he got behind), maybe some twist threw him over for a steady guy after he wore out his welcome (and her pocketbook). On the bum this time, this time though a real fall, in hock and up to his ass in debt, mostly big score no-go dope on credit deal debts,  when he had tired of drunk risks, gambling risks, frail risks,  guys looking for him, not Boston guys thankfully, well, looking for him to pay up. During the long days of pan-handling this time though he would think back to the old days, the days before the “falls” when hustling dough was just for some short money, pick up some spare change, to wander into free campsite, Volkswagen bus pick-up sharing stews, brews and dope hitchhike roads looking for the great blue-pink American West night with some honey, some Angelica honey, bum like a few years back. Angelica, the proto-type of his sexual desire in those days, all Midwest blonde, slender, frisky, proud and sensible, traipsing after him across half the continent before going home to Indiana and then later joining him in southern California before she decided on white picket fences and kids. Sweet kiss, baby, you were probably right when that last night you said your gallant knight was made of sawdust. Yeah, that was a while back, late 1960s back when even he sensed the world might be turned upside down. Hoped maybe he and his would get a fair shake in the world even though more pressing personal issues drove his days and nights.  

Those days, those days after the hellish army routine, the “Nam bummer, the Nam bummer before he hightailed it with the arroyos brothers who couldn’t face the “real” world down in L.A. he practically made a religion, yah a religion out of living “free,” living out of the knapsack(oddly an old World War II surplus job found at Snyder’s Army and Navy which he father had told him he carried all thorough Europe when it was to kick ass with the Nazi), living under bridge (not arroyos brother bridges but nice, meaning girl company nice, sleeping bag also Army surplus and light campfires and fine stews), no sweat, if need be. But those “golden days” dried up a few years back and now here in 1976 he was facing a real skid row choice. How it happened he will get to along the way but first let’s set the parameters of what 1976 panhandling, to put an eloquent name on it for “bumming”, shiftless bumming , looked like and how to survive in the new age of everybody me-ing themselves, even with people who were not on the bum. Christ, lord the times were hard, hard times in old Babylon, no question.

See, a guy, a guy who called himself “Shorty” McGee for obviously physical reasons but who knows what his real name was, maybe he didn’t remember either after all the rum-dum sterno heat years and the endless backsides of skid row haunts, that he had hitched up with for a minute, an overnight minute at the Salvation Army Harbor Lights Center over in the South End kind of hipped him to the obvious tricks of the new down-at the-heels road. Like putting the two requests, change and “cigs,” together when you were panhandling. See, Shorty said it was all a matter of psychology, of working the crowd, the downtown crowd, the bustling workaday Park Street Station crowd hurrying to and fro looking for quick lunches, maybe a minute shopping spree in Jordan Marsh’s or Filene’s, and the Copley Square sunning themselves crowd on the benches across from the library maybe reading a book or feeding the pigeons, right to get you out of their sights and back to whatever sweet thing they were doing. So you endlessly put the two requests together, time after time after time, and always. And what happened was that when they turned you down for the dough ( as happened a lot), or maybe took you literally and pieced you off with just a dime, Christ a dime that wouldn’t even buy a cup of joe, could feel good about themselves, if they smoked, smoked cigarettes anyway, by passing you a butt. Billy thought, nice, this Shorty really does have it worked out just about right. Of course dimes and drags were not going to get him out from under, not this time.

Well, rather than leaving the reader out in the dark, Billy Bailey this fair 1976 spring was not just on the bum, but on the lam as well, keeping his head very far down just in case there were some guys who were looking for him, or worst, the cops, in case some irate victim of one of his scams took a notion to “fry his ass.” Of course he was counting on them, those victims, being mainly friends and acquaintances, of not putting “the heat” on him since he had already promised through the grapevine that he would make restitution. But we are getting a little ahead of the story, let’s step back.

The early 1970s were not kind to “free spirits” the previous name for what on this day were “free-loaders” and Billy, well, got behind in his expenses, and his bills, his ever expanding bills. But see the transition from free “s” to free “l” caught him off-guard, moreover he was just then in the throes of a fit of “the world owes me a living,” a serious fit. Why? Well see, he as a pauper son of the desperate working poor, “felt” that since he missed out on the golden age benefits of his youth that he was to make up the difference by putting the “touch” on the richer friends that he had acquired through his doing this and that, mainly high-end drug connections (not really rich but richer since the really rich were hunkered down behind about fifteen layers of fortresses, physical and legal, and as some writer who knew what he was talking about really were different that you and me, no question).

The long and short it was that he work the deal this way, this way once he got his hard wanting habits on first he would “borrow” money off Friend A under some scam pretext of putting it to good use, usually using some exotic drug story as the front (yes, his good use, including several long airplane fight trips to California and other points west-no more hitchhike roads for this moving up the food chain lad) and then borrow dough off Friend B to cover some of his debt to Friend A. Something like an unconscious classic Ponzi scheme, as it turned out. And then when he got to Friend X or somewhere around there things got way too complicated and he started “kiting” checks, and on and on as far deep into his white- collar crime mind as he could think. That could only go on a for a short while and he calculated that "short while" almost to the day when he would have to go “underground” and that day had sprung up a couple of weeks before.

So it took no accountant or smart-ass attorney to know that dimes and drags were not going to get him back on his feet. Nor were many of the schemes that Shorty had outlined over at Harbor Lights as ways to grab quick cash. (Hitting the poor boy charity circuit, good mainly one time, grabbing stuff on credit using somebody’s credit card gained through guys who sold fake credit cards and then selling the stuff quick and deeply discounted. Some check finagling. All things that really took sunnier times to work and squeak maximum benefit from. These were chicken feed for his needs, even his immediate needs, although some of the scams would fill the bill for a rum-dum or life-long skid row bum. But here is the secret, the deep secret that Billy Bailey held in his heart, after a few nights on bus station benches, cold spring night park benches, a night bout under the Andersen Bridge over by old haunt Harvard Square (girl-less and with no cozy sleeping and stew campfires), and a few nights that he would rather not discuss just in case, he finally figured out, figured out kicking and screaming, that the world did not owe him a living and that if he wanted to survive past thirty he had better get the stardust and grit out of his eyes. But just this minute, just this undercover spring 1976 minute, he needed to work the Commons. “Hey, brother, hey sister, can you spare a dime?” “Pal, have you got an extra cigarette?”

Postscript: Not all wisdom ends happily, and not all good intentions grow to fruition. Yes, Billy paid off his debts to his friends, mostly. However, Billy Bailey was killed while “muling” in a drug war shoot-out in Juarez, Mexico in late 1979 trying to do an independent score when the bad boy Mexican and South American cartels were bundling things up. Found face down with two in the back of the head. Yeah, Billy Bailey had moved down the chain a lot since the days when he was a contender for the king hell king of the corner boy night.

Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel 

Outrage Against Israeli Massacre in Gaza: Boston Stands with Palestine Tuesday, July 22 5:30pm Copley Sq, Boston Details at Facebook Stand up and be counted Ireland: