Just Before The Sea-Change- On The 50th Anniversary Of The Voting Rights Act- All Honor To Those Who Took To The Buses "Heading South"

 

 

The Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights workers who valiantly tried, by example, to integrate interstate transportation in the South. We are not so far removed from those events even today, North or South.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

I was in high school at the time of the freedom rides and was part of a support group sponsored by the Americans For Democratic Action (ADA), then an anti-Soviet Cold War left-liberal organization but very pro-civil rights (in the South) that was raising money in order to send more civil rights workers "heading South." Heading toward the danger not away from it. Honor those black liberation fighters, black and white.

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The following comment, although we are labelling it anonymous to honor the writer's personal preference (he is no longer political, is an opponent of almost everything “communistic” about this blog and blog entry, and has a job now that places him on the other side of the barricades, is that enough?), is from a person known to me, and in the old days quite well-known as a fellow North Adamsville corner boy. I am posting it for the sole purpose of showing that even those, some of them anyway, on the other side of the class line at one time showed "the better angels of their natures."

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Anonymous comment:

It’s funny how things work out. I was recently thinking about the old time “freedom riders” who, black and white, from the South and North, tried to integrate the local and interstate buses in 1961 down in the Deep South. And some not so deep parts like North Carolina where Markin wound up, I think, some fifty years ago now, stuff that should have never been segregated in the first place. Then, shortly thereafter I was “surfing” the Internet for material on the subject to check my own remembrances and way down in the “match” list for what I Googled was a blog entry, get this, entitled Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1964-Just Before The Sea Change - With The Rolling Stone’s In Mind.

Now hold on before you start sending for the padded wagon for me. Yes, the blog entry was a review of an “oldies but goodies” CD about some of the popular non-Beatles, non-Rolling Stones songs that got us through that tough senior year in high school. But it also contained a story about the trials and tribulations of some kids in my old home town, North Adamsville, a strictly white working-class suburb just outside of Boston, trying to get swept up in one of the great social movements of their generation, and mine. That, of course, in those pre-Vietnam War escalation times was the black freedom struggle down South in this country. See, I knew those kids, Edward Rowley, Judy Jackson, and Peter Paul Markin featured in the review. Christ, for a while in senior year I hung out with Edward and Peter Paul (“The Scribe,” to one and all in those days, christened so by head honcho Frankie Riley, a mad man if I ever saw one) in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” for a while so I know the stuff (the guff really) that those guys were going through in trying to be “different.” I also know that Frankie, and most of the school (North Adamsville High School, if I forgot to mention it before) didn’t like what they were doing one bit. And Edward and Judy were getting serious grief at home about it as well.

As for Edward's grief, I was at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor sitting right alongside Peter Paul when Edward came rushing in all fluttered, all red-faced too, and related the story of what had just happened at his house that Peter already told you about in that CD review I mentioned Googling a minute ago. Peter and I decided that we would just repeat that story here to get you caught up in case you didn’t get a chance to read it. If it sounds all too familiar under any circumstances from back then, or now for that matter (except now it is us giving the guff, right?), then that is just about right:

“Isn’t that hair of yours a little long Mr. Edward Rowley, Junior,” clucked Mrs. Edward Rowley, Senior, “You had better get it cut before your father gets back from his conference trip, if you know what is good for you.” That mothers’-song was being endlessly repeated in North Adamsville households (and not just North Adamsville household either) ever since the British invasion brought longer hair (and a little less so, beards) into style. Of course when one thinks of the British invasion in the year 1964 one is not thinking about the American Revolution or the War of 1812 but the Beatles. And while their music has taken 1964 teen world by a storm, a welcome storm after the long mainly musical counter-revolution since Elvis, Bo, Jerry Lee and Chuck ruled the rock night, the 1964 parent world was getting up in arms.

And not just about hair styles either. But about trips to Harvard Square coffeehouses to hear, to hear if you can believe this, folk music, mountain music, harp music or whatever performed by long-haired (male or female), long-bearded (male), blue jean–wearing (both), sandal-wearing (both), well, for lack of a better name “beatniks” (parents, as usual, being well behind the curve on teen cultural movements). “Why can’t Eddie (he hated that name by the way, preferred Edward) be like he was when he listened to Bobby Vinton and his Mr. Lonely or that lovely-voiced Roy Orbison and his It’s Over and other nice songs on the local teen radio station, WMEX,” mused Mrs. Rowley to herself. “Now it’s the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a cranky-voiced guy named Bob Dylan that has his attention. And that damn Judy Jackson with her short skirts and her, well her… "

Since Mrs. Rowley, Alice to the neighbors, was getting worked up it anyway we might as well continue with her tirade, “What about all the talk about doing right by the down-trodden Negros down in Alabama and Mississippi. And Eddie and that damn Peter Paul Markin, who used to be so nice when they all hung around together at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor and you at least knew they were no causing trouble, talking about organizing a book drive to get books for the little Negro children down there. If Eddie’s father ever heard that there would be hell to pay, hell to pay and, maybe, a strap coming out of the closet big as Eddie is. Worst though, worst that worrying about Negros down South is that treasonous talk about leaving this country, leaving North Adamsville, defenseless against the Communists with his talk of nuclear disarmament. Why couldn’t he have just left well enough alone and stuck with his idea of forming a band that would play nice songs that make kids feel good like Gale Garnet’s We’ll Sing In The Sunshine or that pretty Negro girl Dionne Warwick and Her Walk On By instead of getting everybody upset.”

That mother-madness, however, as we shall see didn’t stop Edward Rowley, Junior once he got his Irish up but that was what he was up against on a daily, maybe on some days, an hourly basis. Judy’s story was more of the same-old, same-old but again we decided to let it rest as is like with Edward’s story. Her story I got second-hand anyway one night when Edward and I were sitting down at the seawall in front of old Adamsville Beach trying to figure things out, not big things, just things. Here's what happened:

“Young lady, that dress is too short for you to wear in public, take it off, burn it for all I care, and put on another one or you are not going out of this house,” barked Mrs. James Jackson, echoing a sentiment that many worried North Adamsville mothers were feeling (and not just North Adamsville mothers either) about their daughters dressing too provocatively and practically telling the boys, well practically telling them you know what as she suppressed the “s” word that was forming in her head. And that Eddie (“Edward, Ma,” Judy keep repeating every time Mrs. Jackson, Dorothy to the neighbors, said Eddie), and his new found friends like Peter Paul Markin taking her to those strange coffeehouses instead of the high school dances on Saturday night. And endless talk about the n-----s down South and other trash talk. Commie trash about peace and getting rid of our nuclear weapons. They should draft the whole bunch of them and put them over in front of that Berlin Wall. Then they wouldn’t be so negative about America.”

So you see how hard Judy Jackson’s break-out was when all was said and done.

As for the Scribe, Peter Paul Markin, his people were torn a different way. They, on his mother’s side, were Catholic Worker movement people so they knew the political score. But they also knew Peter Paul could be god-awful righteous when he got his dander up. Who knows what he would say down there, or where he might wind up for saying it to the wrong person, meaning just about anybody not black. Yeah, I guess if I was his parents I would have been worried too.

This is how it figured though for me if you really want to know.

Old time North Adamsville was strictly for white working- class people, and a few middle class types, period. No blacks, no browns, no yellows, no red, no nothing color except white, period. So nobody could figure why three pretty smart kids, with plenty going for them, would risk their necks “heading” South for some, well, let me put it the way it was really said on the streets, some “n-----s.” Now you get it. But see here is what you didn’t know, what Edward, Judy and Peter didn’t know either. I wanted to go with them. I never said much about it, one way or the other, but every day on the television I saw what they, the cops and white vigilantes were doing to kids, black kids, yeah, but still just kids who were trying to change a world that they had not made, but sure in hell, unlike most of their parents, were not going to put up with the old way. The “we did it this way for generations so we will continue to do it for generations” routine. That is a big reason that I was rooting for them (like I was at some football game that I was addicted to in those days, cheering on the under-dog who eventually was ground under by the over-dog).

Still I never went, and you know why. Sure my mother threatened to throw me out of the house if I dared to cross the Mason-Dixon Line. After all my father was a proud, if beaten, son of the South who, no matter how humbled and humiliated he was by the Yankee ethos that condemned him, always thought of himself as a good-ole Southern boy. And a man who we (my brothers and sisters) could, in later years, never get to say anything better that “nigra” when talking about black people. So there was that. And then there was my ambivalence about whether a boy, me, who had never been south of New York City, and that just barely, and whether I could navigate the “different ways” down South, especially in regard to the idea that white people actually liked/tolerated or were deep friends with black people and wanted to do something about their condition.

Those are, maybe, good and just reasons to take a dive but here is the real reason. I just did not want to get my young butt “fried-Southern-style” by those nasty bastards down in places like Philadelphia, Mississippi (although Philadelphia, Pa, was a tough spot as well, as it turned out). We had all heard about the three civil rights workers who were slain by persons unknown (officially) in the sweat-drenched Southern summer night. We had heard further of beatings, jailings and other forms of harassment. Yes, I was scared and I let my scared-ness get the better of me, period. That’s why I say hats off to the “freedom riders” in that 1961 hard night. Hats off, indeed.

Hands Off The Ferguson, Missouri Protesters-Stop The Police Killings Of Black Youth-Free All Protesters Now!  

 http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/ferguson-moral-monday-protesters-unfurl-banner-rams-game-n225166

Frank Jackman comment: 

It has always been easy for the American imperialist capitalist government and their police to treat black youth, especially black males and increasing Latinos like they have treated the peoples of Southeast Asia in the past, and in Iraq and Afghanistan more recently as so much collateral damage when they pulled the hammer down. Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and a myriad of others shot down over the years by the police and/or vigilantes cry out for justice in Ferguson, Missouri this day and will not accept another whitewash. 

On The 13^th Anniversary Of The Afghan War-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops!-A Cautionary Tale- Private First Class Jack Dawson’s War

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman                                                                       

 

John Dawson who had been in my class in North Adamsville High School when we graduated back in 1964 is the source for this sketch. John, a Vietnam veteran who saw military service early in that war around the hellhole of Da Nang when the blossom was still on the American adventure there, was proud of his service and also knew that I had done my military service grudgingly a little later period of that war and had been involved after that service with the Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) and later worked with a group called Veterans for Peace (VFP). So we, when we met around town on the few occasions I passed through the old hometown or at a reunion, would argue about those Vietnam times and about then current American military policy. When 9/11 in 2001 happened and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan and then later with the second Iraq war, the ‘shock and awe’ war, both of which I opposed we had plenty of disagreements.

 

But John also knew that I had done a lot of work with returning veterans, had written several series under the title Brothers Under The Bridge publicizing the plight of those from the Vietnam War who could not adjust to the “real world” and had formed an alternative “community” in the style of the old hobo jungles out in the arroyos, river banks and bridges of Southern California. Knew also that whatever opposition I had to American governmental war policy that my brother-soldiers were not the target of that ire. He had urged his son, called Jack from childhood, to join up after 9/11 when Jack was gung-ho to go get the bastards who did that criminal deed in New York and elsewhere. After Jack finished up his tours of duty in early 2005 and returned state-side for discharge something snapped in him and his world turned upside down.  Jack fell through the cracks and after John had not heard from his son for a couple of years he contacted me through a mutual friend that I was still in contact with to see if I could through my extensive veterans’ contacts find out where he was, whether he was alright, and whether he wanted to come home. I found out what happened to Jack and the end of this sketch will detail what I found out. As with my old series about the Vietnam veterans from my time where I liked to put a piece under a particular sign I will put this one under- Private Jack Dawson’s Private War: 

 

Jack Dawson was angry, angry as hell if he was asked, and he was asked on more than one occasion that, those dirty Arabs, those cutthroat barbarians, those damn sand n----rs, those slimy rug merchants and anything that he could think to call them deserved to be taught a lesson, an American lesson(strangely until the news media started touting the names Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and mujahedeen around he did not think to call them those names although all three were by then reasonably well-known names for those extremist Islamists who were going to make life tough for the new American century). Hell, they had blown up the World Trade Center buildings without blinking an eyelash, were ready to do the same to the White House and probably thinking that the Pentagon would be a sweet ass legitimate target of war and the nerve center for the American war machine had hit that building across the Potomac as well.

Not only was one Jack Dawson angry (everybody called him Jack to distinguish between him and his father John) but he was made of the stuff that required him to personally do something about this latest menace to the peace of the world (like his father had that stuff and who had been an early soldier in Vietnam, not quite at the advisor stage but well before the huge troop build-ups in the mid to late 1960s, who had enlisted when Lyndon Baines Johnson called for troops in order hold back the “red menace,” our generation’s bugaboo). So in the fall of 2001 Jack Dawson dropped out of Northeastern University in Boston where he had been a Co-op student and enlisted in the United States Army.  (That Co-op is a five year work-study program very popular in my day with those working-class kids from places like North Adamsville who could not have swung the tuition without some real work to make ends meet. Jack was a prime example of that for this generation.) Before that decisive event he had tried to rally his friends and relatives, the young ones anyway, to follow his lead and join up as well as millions had done when those “Nips” (his term) blew away Pearl Harbor back in 1941 like his grandfather had told him about when he was just a kid.

 

Strangely although he harangued the hell out of them, made a nuisance at the Quad just off Huntington Avenue where he would use his bullhorn purchased for the occasion to gather in fellow recruits to the great mission of saving Western Civilization from the heathens, again he was almost totally unsuccessful in his ambitions. ( The Quad a place where students went to eat or chill out and at this campus unlike say Boston University in the old days not a place to be harassed by political salesmen of any kind or a place where anti-war activity fared any better especially in the heated atmosphere after 9/11.)  He did find a guy, a young guy from Wakefield who was thinking of dropping out of the Co-op program, out of school anyway, to join up with the Massachusetts National Guard where he served out his time guarding the Armory in Wakefield every weekend and did monthly duties monitoring traffic patterns in Boston in case emergency evacuations were necessary.

 

Amid the usual tears that generations of American families have gotten used to when the war drums start beating Jack Dawson left for basic training down at Fort Dix in New Jersey (the same post that his father trained at in the Vietnam times and I did as well) expecting to put fire into whatever recruits he found there to go destroy those who would destroy the innocent of his country, and just the plain innocent at the World Trade buildings. When the now freshly shave-headed Private Jack Dawson wrote his first letter home he made his father laugh a knowing laugh. The guys in his unit were mainly from the ghettos and barrios (he noted in his letter that he would have to avoid the word “n----r” and “spic” that he liberally used at home (learned from father John), the white hillbilly boys from the hills of Kentucky and farm boys from Ohio. The knowing laugh from father John was that those were the same comrades who populated his unit back in the day. What John knew from somewhat bitter experience in Vietnam with many of those same comrades when the hard fighting began was that the guys who wrote and talked about beating the war drums were not the guys who did the fighting. Private Jack was learning that lesson early on as John pointed on in a return letter. Still father John was proud that Jack would be the fourth generation of Dawsons who served their country when called to arms.

Private Jack went through basic like every other gung-ho physically fit recruit (he of wiry frame, six two, and one hundred and seventy five pounds, and good looking- that last a comment by his father). He learned to fire weapons, take drill, and walk nice long twenty mile walks. But here is where Jack learned the hard realities of war policy when the drums are beating and men are desperately needed to fill the units. Private Jack had missed the initial fighting in Afghanistan since the thing had been a “walkover” against the Taliban who evaporated under the hail of American aerial bombings and firepower on the ground. But the first units were scheduled to rotate out after a year once the occupation forces began the task of training the Afghans to fight for themselves. Jack had signed up with the expectation that he would go to computer school after basic.

Naturally once you decide to sign on the dotted line with “Uncle” you absolutely need to read the fine print since everything (backed up by plenty of court decisions supporting the government when cases have been brought on breach of contract grounds) is conditional. Conditional on the needs of the Army at any given moment. And at that moment the “grunt-hungry” army was in need of boots on the ground and so Private Jack was assigned to Fort Bragg for Advanced Infantry Training (AIT), the “paradise” of grunt-dom. Unhappy with this result since he expected to learn enough computer skills to get a good job after the service instead of wasting a few more years in a Co-op program to do the same thing and have overhanging debt for a long time Jack nevertheless dug in and became one of the best soldiers in his unit.

Of course in the world of the “new world order” in the fall of the year 2002 the only place where a grunt’s skills were needed by the American military was humping through the killing fields (some say the poppy killing fields) of a place like Helmut province in Afghanistan  and thus was Jack so ordered. Although he had some trepidations about going into a combat zone half way across the world with guys he trusted but hardly knew  he only needed to look at a photograph of the smoking ashes at Ground Zero to get his blood rising. And so in that fall of 2002 he left America (for the first time although the family had taken short trips to Canada) on the troop transports that were bringing his unit and his brigade to Kabul and then Helmut province. Jack left the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the virtues that had been produced in country and by his family intact.

 

There is no need to go into all the gory details of war, of the ways of the Afghan war, of the kicking all of the doors in of some isolated village looking for terrorists who allegedly supported the Taliban on the information of paid informants (who half the time were paying off old time personal grudges on some poor guy whose only crime was not to be smart enough to get to the American paymasters first), of the calling in of American airpower to incinerate some off-hand village where a sniper’s fire might be pinning a platoon down (and on more than one occasion bringing the fire on themselves when some GI misread the coordinates or those friendly Afghan trainees panicked), of blowing of the head of some kid who had at the wrong moment popped his head up from the rocks (later when the field was cleared and the gruesome body discovered that child of about ten was listed as a “terrorist” KIA, in shades of Vietnam time). Nor of the fire fights in the night with real Taliban forces who killed the guy next to you, wounded the guy of the other side, maybe nicked you up too (Private Jack would receive two Purple Hearts from Afghan duty), of coming under attack by raw Afghan recruits who panicked when an ambush went awry, and of actually taking out a few bad guys (who in at least one case were working both sides, the Taliban who protected his poppy fields in exchange for tribute and the Americans for arms). Yeah all the confusions of war, all the modern confusions of wars with unsure aims and unlikely allies. Yeah, too the little acts of kindness when the unit brought in much needed water or other desperately needed materials and in return teaching American GIs how to ride a donkey, and how to celebrate various unknown holidays with feasting and dancing.

Yes, Private First Class Jack saw all that, saw the myriad faces of war in that tour of duty, in that year of living dangerously. Jack came back to the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the civic virtues that had been produced in this country and by his family intact. Came back for some rest and recreation in the bosom of his family proud to have served and proud that his town recognized his efforts with “Welcome Home, Jack” signs all over the place. Then the other shoe of world politics, of international war strategy moved Afghanistan to the back-burner, made the place an afterthought, moved men and materials out for the new danger, and placed hard-boiled Iraq on the front-burner. And in the year 2004 if you were a grunt in the American Army then if you were not gainfully employed in those Afghan poppy fields then your “young ass” was stepping off the tarmac in the outskirts of Baghdad, I-raq.  And so once again Jack left the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the civil virtues that had been produced in by country and by his family intact.

 

And yet again there is no to go into all the gory details of war, of the Iraq. Of playing some James Jones from Here To Eternity  World War II civic pride and good old boys story. The wars come and go but the motifs stay. Once again Sergeant Jack had his fill of kicking all of the doors in of some isolated village looking for terrorists who allegedly supported the insurgents on the information of paid informants (they really should form an international union to peddle their wares to the gullible American paymasters who took too much stuff on good faith going back to Vietnam days as well), of yet again calling in American airpower to incinerate some off-hand village where a sniper’s fire might be pinning a platoon down, of yet again blowing some kid’s head off who had at the wrong moment popped his head up from the rocks (and don’t forget the yet again after the field was cleared and the gruesome body was discovered that child of about ten was listed as an “insurgent” KIA, in yet again shades of Vietnam time). Nor of the fire fights in the night with real insurgent forces who killed the guy next to you, wounded the guy of the other side, maybe nicked you up too (Sergeant Jack would receive a Bronze Star in Iraq), of coming under attack by raw Iraq recruits who panicked when an ambush went awry, and of actually taking out a few bad guys, guys who were selling arms to the insurgents provided by the American arms caches ripe for the taking guarded by raw Iraqi recruits. Yeah all the confusions of war, all the modern confusions of wars with unsure aims and unlikely allies. Yeah too, the little acts of kindness when the unit brought in much needed water or other desperately needed materials and in return teaching American GIs how to ride a camel, and how to celebrate various unknown holidays with feasting and dancing. And at the end of his tour Sergeant Jack yet  again came back to the States with his belief in his mission, in his country’s mission to stamp out the virus of Islamic craziness (his term), in the virtues that had been produced in by country and by his family intact. Came back with his mission accomplished and his sense of duty filled and so left the Army when his time was up despite many entreaties for him to stay in.

 

Then all hell broke loose. Some of details were sketchy as John Dawson related the details to me since he had not been in touch with his son for a couple of years at that point. The long and short of matter was that Jack Dawson suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) from his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Part of the problem had to do with the two close deployments which when Jack told the in-take worker at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford he dismissed out of hand. Told Jack that many guys had done multiple tours, no sweat, so suck it up and get back into the real world. Those comments had Jack flying out the door never to return.

 

Of course like a lot of military- related issues that I have seen over years (including my own war horrors drowned in cocaine and whatever else I could get my hands on at one point) the first signs of problems came when Jack started to drink heavily, drank heavily into dawn, drank during the day causing him to lose a job or two when his absenteeism became a problem for his team manager at the computer firm that had taken him on as a veteran as a favor to his father. Then came the drugs, at first a little marijuana to calm the nerves, then some cocaine and then the “graduate program” once heroin became the flavor of the month drug of choice and relatively inexpensive (strangely although Jack had like lots of working-class kids, and not just them, experimented with liquor in high school he had not smoked dope, even a puff, until after the Army although in any given barrack or tent you could find about twelve varieties for your smoking pleasure).  Then came the loss of menial jobs, the breaking up with his fiancé, Tracey, a young woman whom he had met at Northeastern and who had waited for him despite several other tempting offers while he was overseas-no Dear John letters from her, who could not endure the slide downhill, bailed out, and subsequently married one of those tempting offers, and the first flirting with drug dealing to pay for the habit and keep body and soul together. That is when John Dawson started to lose contact with Jack as he travelled around the country, did “mule” work to feed his habit.

 

Then something happened, I was not able to get all the details when I checked with my sources but some drug deal went south and Jack disappeared from view. Apparently Jack and another guy he met in Los Angeles, a guy named Markin, on his way downward had the bright idea that they would go out on their own, would stop “muling” and become entrepreneurs on their own. Probably be-bop drug-crazed (I knew that part too well) they decided to start business with a shipment that were muling down in Sonora. Nobody told them that that was not a wise move and Markin who actually had the stuff in a suitcase was found in a dusty back street face down with two slugs in his heart. Jack, as far as anybody knew though, got away with his life. That is the point that John lost all contact with Jack.

 

As I pointed out earlier I had contacts with various veterans organizations (not the VFW or American Legion stuff but veterans self-help or political groups) and so John asked me to find Jack if I could.

Well eventually I did in an arroyo encampment down in Los Angeles which was essentially like the old hobo jungles that I frequented back in the 1970s when guys who couldn’t adjust after Vietnam set up an alternative life under the bridges, “brothers under the bridges” to steal a title from one of Bruce Springsteen’s songs (and which I used for several series I did on the “lost” brothers). He was in pretty tough circumstances and refused my help, said his help was a needle and a spoon and to be around guys who had been there, seen what he had seen. I could not tell John Dawson that about his son and so for a long time I did not tell him about his son’s fate out west. Said I was still looking and hoping (which in a funny way I was but I knew from my 1970s experiences that the odds were not with me.)

 

Although I was in contact with John periodically there was nothing further to report. Then back in 2011 when I was up in Maine for some conference I got a call from John on my cellphone. They had found Jack Dawson’s bruised and battered body along the railroad tracks near Westminster, California. Cause of death a heart attack or an overdose, take your pick. I told John it was probably a heart attack without the rider of the overdose. So yes while we are today commemorating the 13th long bloody year of the failed American expedition in Afghanistan (and apparently getting restarted in Iraq at some level if not yet “boots on the ground”) let’s remember Private Jack Dawson’s private war.          

Four Ways To Support Freedom For Chelsea Manning- President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

 

 

 

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

The Struggle Continues …

Four  Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Chelsea  Manning

*Sign the public petition to President Obama – Sign online http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/chelseamanning  “President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning,” and make copies to share with friends and family!

You  can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) to demand that President Obama use his constitutional power under Article II, Section II to pardon Private Manning now.

*Start a stand -out, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, in your town square to publicize the pardon and clemency campaigns.  Contact the Private Manning SupportNetwork for help with materials and organizing tips http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Contribute to the Private  Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has finished funds are urgently needed for pardon campaign and for future military and civilian court appeals. The hard fact of the American legal system, military of civilian, is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Private Manning’s. The government had unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Private Manning at trial. And used them as it will on any future legal proceedings. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Write letters of solidarity to Private Manning while she is serving her sentence. She wishes to be addressed as Chelsea and have feminine pronouns used when referring to her. Private Manning’s mailing address: Chelsea E. Manning, 89289, 1300 N. Warehouse Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304.

Private Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum.

*Call: (913) 758-3600-Write to:Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander U.S. Detention Barracks 1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027-Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).” (for more details-http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html#!/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html
******

Markin comment   

There is no question that now that her trial, if one can called what took place down in Fort Meade a trial in the summer of 2013 rather than a travesty, that a year after her conviction on twenty plus counts and having received an outrageous thirty-five year sentence essentially for telling us the truth about American atrocities and  nefarious actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the American government can stick its nose that Chelsea Manning's case has dropped from view. Although she occasionally gets an Op/Ed opportunity and has several legal moves going from action to get the  necessary hormonal treatments reflecting her real sexual identity to now preparing the first appeal of her conviction to another military tribunal the popular uproar against her imprisonment has become a hush. While the appeals process may produce some results, perhaps a reduction in sentence, the short way home for her is a presidential pardon right now. I urge everybody to sign on to the Amnesty International petition above to put the pressure on President Barack Obama for clemency.          

I attended some of the sessions of Chelsea Manning’s court-martial in the summer of 2013 and am often asked about what she could expect from the various procedures going forward to try to “spring” her from the clutches of the American government, or as I say whenever I get the chance to not leave “our buddy behind” in the time-honored military parlance. I have usually answered depending on what stage her post-conviction case is in that her sentence was draconian by all standards for someone who did not, although they tried to pin this on her, “aid the enemy.” Certainly Judge Lind though she was being lenient with thirty-five years when the government wanted sixty (and originally more before some of the counts were consolidated). The next step was to appeal, really now that I think about it, a pro forma appeal to the commanding general of the Washington, D.C. military district where the trial was held. There were plenty of grounds to reduce the sentence but General Buchanan backed up his trial judge in the winter of 2014. Leaving Chelsea supporters right now with only the prospect of a presidential pardon to fight for as the court appeals are put together which will take some time.

No question since her trial, conviction, and draconian sentence of thirty-five years imposed by a vindictive American government heroic Wiki-leaks whistle-blower Chelsea Manning’s has fallen off the radar. The incessant news cycle which has a short life cycle covered her case sporadically, covered the verdict, covered the sentencing and with some snickers cover her announcement directly after the sentencing that she wanted to live as her true self, a woman. (A fact that her supporters were aware of prior to the announcement but agreed that the issue of her sexual identity should not get mixed up with her heroic actions.) Since then despite occasional public rallies and actions her case had tended, as most political prisoner cases do, to get caught up in the appeals process and that keeps it out of the limelight.             

On Sunday October 12^th Chelsea Manning was honored and remembered by the Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade with a banner calling for her freedom as they marched in the annual Honk parade which goes through Somerville, Ma into Harvard Square for the Octoberfest. The banner drew applause and return shouts of “Free Chelsea.” The Smedley Butler Brigade continues to stand behind our sister. We will not leave her behind. We also urge everybody to sign the Amnesty International on-line petition calling on President Obama to use his constitutional authority to pardon Chelsea Manning

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-one-year-after-her-conviction-chelsea-manning-must-be-released-2014-07-30   

 

Free Chelsea Manning - President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

Amnesty renews call on US govt to free Manning

Join us in urging President Obama to Pardon Chelsea Manning!

July 30, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

One year after Chelsea Manning’s conviction, Amnesty International is still calling on the US government to grant her clemency.  Amnesty demands that Chelsea be freed immediately, and for the US government to, “implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.”  Read the full statement from Amnesty International below or click here to view it on amnesty.org:

Exactly one year after Chelsea Manning was convicted of leaking classified government material, Amnesty International is renewing its call on the US authorities to grant her clemency, release her immediately, and to urgently investigate the potential human rights violations exposed by the leaks.

Chelsea Manning has spent the last year as a convicted criminal after exposing information which included evidence of potential human rights violations and breaches of international law. By disseminating classified information via Wikileaks she revealed to the world abuses perpetrated by the US army, military contractors and Iraqi and Afghan troops operating alongside US forces.

“It is an absolute outrage that Chelsea Manning is currently languishing behind bars whilst those she helped to expose, who are potentially guilty of human rights violations, enjoy impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director Amnesty International.

“The US government must grant Chelsea Manning clemency, order her immediate release, and implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.”

After being convicted of 20 separate charges Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, much longer than other members of the military convicted of charges such as murder, rape and war crimes.

Before her conviction, Chelsea Manning had already been held for three years in pre-trial detention, including 11 months in conditions which the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as cruel and inhumane.

Chelsea Manning has always maintained that her motivation for releasing the documents to Wikileaks was out of concern for the public and to foster a meaningful debate on the costs of war and the conduct of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Notable amongst the information revealed by Private Manning was previously unseen footage of journalists and other civilians being killed in US helicopter attacks.

Chelsea Manning is now actively engaged with her lawyers in fighting her conviction.

“The US government appears to have its priorities warped. It is sending a worrying message through its harsh punishment of Chelsea Manning that whistleblowers will not be tolerated. On the other hand, its failure to investigate allegations that arose from Chelsea Manning’s disclosures means that those potentially responsible for crimes under international law, including torture and enforced disappearances, may get away scot-free,” said Erika Guevara.

“One year after the conviction of Chelsea Manning we are still calling on the US government to grant her clemency in recognition of her motives for acting as she did, and the time she has already served in prison.” 

Amnesty International has previously expressed concern that a sentence of 35 years in jail was excessive and should have been commuted to time served. The organization believes that Chelsea Manning was overcharged using antiquated legislation aimed at dealing with treason, and denied the opportunity to use a public interest defence at her trial.

In addition, there is little protection in US law for genuine whistleblowers, and this case underlines the need for the US to strengthen protections for those who reveal information that the public has the right to know.

It is crucial that the US government stops using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning.

Join us in urging President Obama to Pardon Chelsea Manning!

Markin comment   
There is no question that now that her trial, if one can called what took place down in Fort Meade a trial in the summer of 2013 rather than a travesty, that a year after her conviction on twenty plus counts and having received an outrageous thirty-five year sentence essentially for telling us the truth about American atrocities and  nefarious actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the American government can stick its nose that Chelsea Manning's case has dropped from view. Although she occasionally gets an Op/Ed opportunity and has several legal moves going from action to get the  necessary hormonal treatments reflecting her real sexual identity to now preparing the first appeal of her conviction to another military tribunal the popular uproar against her imprisonment has become a hush. While the appeals process may produce some results, perhaps a reduction in sentence, the short way home for her is a presidential pardon right now. I urge everybody to sign on to the Amnesty International petition above to put the pressure on President Barack Obama for clemency.                   

***A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Adamsville South Elementary School Class Of 1958-Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

This is the way my old corner boy, Fritz Taylor, from down in “the projects” told me the story one night years later when we were sitting on the grey granite steps of our high school, Miller High, in Seaside Heights, that’s in New Hampshire. Those projects by the way, all white projects  unlike the ones you hear about lately which are mostly populated by minorities, had originally been build right after World War II to help stem the heavy demand for housing from returning servicemen with young families and not enough dough to finance a house. The original idea as well was that the housing was temporary and had been built with a certain careless abandon by some low-bidder contractors. Fritz’s and my family had been among those families in the 1950s who did not get to participate in the “golden age” and so we were long time tenants all through our school years until we graduated from Miller High. Between the isolated location of the projects and the high number of kids the place had it had its own elementary school, Snug Harbor (sounds nice right, however, that school was also expected to be temporary and built as such by those same low-bidder contractors), where we both had gone through all six grades together (we started in the time before kindergarten became a step in one’s education). I am telling you about this because the story happened down there long before we got to high school.

So there we were sitting there on the steps, no dough in our pockets, our main guy for a ride out of town, Benny, also a corner boy, on a family vacation up in Maine, no girls in hand, or prospects either since any girls we were interested in had no interest us either because we had not car or because we were from the projects, come to think of it forget that last part it was because we were car-less and that world was filled with guys with cars, “boss cars,” swooping down on the interesting girls, talking slowly. Talking kind of softly for us although loudly or softly no one would have been around to heard us that warm summer night with about six weeks to go before school started again and we could go back and start our junior year, kind of dreamy too really about the first times we had been smitten by a girl, not necessarily a forever smitten thing (forever then being maybe a month or six weeks, no more except for some oddball couples who found love and stayed together for the next fifty years if you can believe that in this day in age) but with a bug that disturbed our sleep.

Yeah, that is exactly the way to put it, when some frail disturbed our sleep, the first of many sleepless nights on that subject.  (That “frail” a localism for girl, heavily influenced by our corner boy with the car Benny watching too many 1930s and 1940s George Raft or James Cagney gangster and Humphrey Bogart hard-boiled private detective movies.) So we were sitting there thinking about how we were now chasing other dreams, well, maybe not other dreams but older versions, sweet sixteen versions of that same dream.  Of course at sixteen it was all about girls but as it turned out that subject had its own pre-history way back when. Just ask Fritz Taylor if you see him.

Fritz Taylor, if he thought about it at all and at times like that dream vision night at sixteen on the steps in front of the high school he might have, probably would have said that he had his history hat on again like when he was a kid, loving history or even the thought of history since Miss Winot blew him away with talk of ancient Greeks and Romans. Blew him away so that when he got in trouble with that teacher for saying something fresh, and it really was, a swear word expression, “what the fuck,” that he heard all the time around his house which he thought everybody said when they were angry, assigned him a paper to write of five hundred words and he wrote an essay about Greek democracy which she actually read to the class she was so impressed. Miss Winot, blew him away more when she freaked him out with talk of Egypt and Pharaoh times with the Pyramids and the slaves and all time and he begged his older brother to drive him all the way down to the art museum in Boston to look at old Pharaoh stuff some guys from Harvard had unearthed. But all that is just stuff to let you know what kind of guy Fritz was in elementary school before he wised up, or kind of wised up, in high school. Funny one time when I wanted to take the bus down to Boston when I got the Pharaoh bug in high school he dismissed me out of hand. Done that, he said. So that night he had his history hat on so I knew I was in for a story, a bloody silly story if I knew Fritz but we had nothing better to do so I let him go on. Let him go on that sixteen years old summer night when out of the blue, the memory time blue, he thought about more modern history, thought about her, thought about fair Rosimund.

No, before you get all set to turn to some other thing, some desperate alternate other thing, to do rather than read Fritz’s poignant little story, this is not some American Revolution founding fathers (or mothers, because old-time Abigail Adams may have been hovering in some background granite-chiseled slab grave in a very old-time Quincy cemetery while the events to be related occurred since Fritz was crazy about her too once he figured out she was the real power behind John and John Quincy) or some bold Massachusetts abolitionist regiment, the fighting 54^th, out of the American Civil War 150th anniversary memory history like Fritz used to like to twist the tail around when you knew him, or his like. This is about “first love” so rest easy.

Fritz, that early summer’s night, was simply trying to put his thoughts together and figured that he would write something, write something for those who could stand it, those fellow members of our class who could stand to know that story. Although, at many levels that was a very different experience from that of the average, average Miller High class member the story had a universal quality that he thought might amuse them, amuse them that is until the name, the thought of the name, the mist coming from out of his mouth at the forming of the name, holy of holies, Rosimund, stopped him dead in his tracks and forced him to tell me that story and to write that different story later.

Still, once the initial trauma wore off, Fritz thought what better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane, that Rosimund-strewn memory lane. Those days although they were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, paled beside this Rosimund-related story that cut deep, deep into his brown-haired mind, and as it turned out one that he have not forgotten after all. So rather than produce some hokey last dance, last elementary school sweaty-palmed dance failure tale, some Billie Bradley-led corner boy down in the back of Snug Harbor doo wop be-bop into the night luring stick and shape girls like lemmings from the sea on hearing those doo wop harmonies, those harmonies meant for them, the sticks and shapes that is, or some wannabe gangster retread tale, or even some Captain Midnight how he saved the world from the Cold War Russkies with his last minute-saving invention Fritz preferred to relate a home truth, a hard home truth to be sure, but the truth Here is his say:

At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably supposed to learn, maybe required to, depending on the whims of your school district’s supervisory staff and maybe also what your parents expected of such schools, to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks - the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. After all that is what it is there for isn’t it. At least it was that way a few years back, and if things have changed, changed dramatically in that regard, you can fill in your own blanks experience. But here that is where fair sweet Rosimund comes in, the paired-off part.

I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. You are ready to flee, boy or girl flee, to some safe attic hideaway, to reach for some dusty ancient comfort teddy bear, or for the venturesome, some old sepia brownie camera picture album safely hidden in those environs, but flee, no question, at the suggestion of those painful first times when sweaty-handed, profusely sweaty-handed, boy met too-tall girl on the dance floor (age too-tall girls hormone shooting up first, later things settled down, a little). Now for those who are hopped up, or even mildly interested, in such ancient rituals you may be thinking, oh well, this won’t be so bad after all since I am talking about the mid-1950s and they had Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the television to protect us from having to dance close, what with those funny self-expression dance moves like the Stroll and the Hully-Gully that you see on re-runs. And then go on except, maybe, the last dance, the last close dance that spelled success or failure in the special he or she night so let me tell you how really bad we had it in the plaid 1960s. Wrong.

Oh, of course, we were all after school black and white television-addled and addicted making sure that we got home by three in the afternoon to catch the latest episode of the American Bandstand saga about who would, or wouldn’t, dance with that cute girl in the corner (or that leering Amazon in the front). That part was true, true enough. But here we are not talking fun dancing, close or far away, but learning dancing, school-time dancing, come on get with it. What we are talking about in my case is that the dancing part turned out to be the basics of country bumpkin square-dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy, yes, sweaty-palmed, star-crossed ten-year-old boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” and some off-hand “doze-zee dozes(sic)” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with the girl that I had a “crush” on, a serious crush on, and that is where Rosimund really enters the story.

Rosimund see, moreover, was not from “the projects” but from one of the new single-family homes, ranch-style homes that the up and coming middle-class were moving into up the road. In case you didn’t know, or have forgotten, I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” down at the Seaside Heights Housing Authority apartments. The rough side of town, okay. You knew that the minute I mentioned the name, that SHHA name, and rough is what you thought, and that is okay. Now. But although I had started getting a handle on the stick "projects" girls I was totally unsure how to deal with girls from the “world.” And Rosimund very definitely was from the world. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it at her name. Rosimund. Enchanting name, right? Thoughts of white-plumed knighted medieval jousts against some black-hooded, armored thug knight for the fair maiden’s hand, or for her favors (whatever they were then, mainly left unexplained, although we all know what they are now, and are glad of it)

Nothing special about the story so far, though. Even I am getting a little sleepy over it. Just your average one-of-the-stages-of-the-eternal-coming-of-age-story. I wish. Well, the long and short of it was that the reason we were practicing this square-dancing was to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of school-time activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. Parents, refreshments, various local dignitaries, half the school administrators from downtown whom I will go to my grave believing could have cared less if it was square-dancing or basket-weaving because they would have ooh-ed and ah-ed us whatever it was. But that is so much background filler. Here is the real deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosimund, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square-dancer look, some now farmer brown look but back then maybe not so bad.

I thought I looked pretty good. And Rosimund, looking nice in some blue taffeta dress with a dark red shawl thing draped and pinned across her shoulders (although don’t quote me on that dress thing, what did a ten-year old boy, sister-less, know of such girlish fashion things. I was just trying to keep my hands in my pockets to wipe my sweaty hands for twirling time, for Rosimund twirling time) actually beamed at me, and said I looked like a gentleman farmer. Be still my heart. Like I said I though I looked pretty good, and if Rosimund thought so well then, well indeed. And things were going nicely. That is until my mother, sitting in a front row audience seat as was her wont, saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me, and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity.

Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home by said irate mother and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father also heard about it when he got home from that hard day’s work that he was too infrequently able to get to keep the wolves from the door, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosimund.

Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Just like you might have remembered about me back in the day. Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. …But, oh, Rosimund.