From The Veterans For Peace Archives-Slugging It Out Against The War Economy Monster In Good Times And Bad

Veterans For Peace Grand Peace Army Of The Republic National Encampment For The Poor People's Campaign -Boston Common- 2018-Arrest Veterans On Memorial Day If You Dare

By Josh Breslin

I have already mentioned that sometimes in this profession you get assignments that you are clueless about or don’t care about. That is not the case here as I asked, no begged editor Greg Green for the assignment after I had already attended a few meetings of the National Committee that was putting together a 50^th anniversary edition of the Poor Peoples Campaign which was either stillborn or destroyed in 1968 after Doctor King, the originator of the ideas and program had been killed. Sadly, poverty, poverty among blacks and poor whites is still with us and a national disgrace in such a well-fixed country and so those 50 years ago ideas still had some echo power in 2018.  

I should say that it was not by happenstance that I had attended the first National meetings down in Washington. I had been tipped off that a movement was aborning by my friends from Veterans Peace Action Sam and Ralph who had been delegated by their National organization to represent that group in the preliminary meetings to see what actions if any VPA would take in support of the efforts. As a result of those first meetings and wondering about the first PPC’s fate I had done a far among of research about 1968 and why the terms “stillborn” and “destroyed” were the only ones I had been able to find to describe what had happened back then. Although I had heard about some of the stuff, mainly the constant rainy weather that swamped the camps and made life miserable for the refugees there I had been in California with others living off the glow of the Summer of Love, 1967 on Captain Crunch’s converted yellow school bus zooming up and down the Pacific Coast Highway under a very different sign-drug, sex and rock and roll.

The 2018 PPC set its sights at a higher level at least on paper with the understanding that this was a long-term hard ass project with plenty of chances to succeed-and fail. The main thing though was to get some major coverage of the six weeks of actions planned for the May-June period. That is what Sam and Ralph tried to hammer home to VPA and other organizations like Code Pink who had bought into the idea, bought into the first stage of the campaign. Once people were committed to organizing around specific issues related to poverty and why then the planned events made sense, made sense to me as well standing on the sidelines. I wish things had gone as easily as the ease with which the plan was set up with that finale in Washington bring home “the bacon.”        

Ralph and Sam and other cadre from Veterans Peace Action and Veterans for Peace had been assigned to coordinate week three of the themed actions-the war economy and by extension its harmful and neglectful effects on the struggle against poverty. Taking a ton of material and social resources away to be pissed away on wasteful military junk. Both VPA and VFP had already signed onto a long-term project on the MIC led by Code Pink among others beyond the PPC goals so this was right from the get go. Since by design the actions were to take place in major cities over Memorial Day weekend extending into the following Tuesday by state capital actions from gathering petitions to acts of civil disobedience the natural event that came to mind almost automatically was an encampment, encampments.

Encampments had been a way of life for many political movements involving veterans from the old day national encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic which fought and bled to keep the Republic and abolish slavery to boot to the Bonus marchers in the early Great Depression days of the 1930s suppressed by General “Dug-Out Doug” MacArthur to the various veteran actions against the madness of the Vietnam War which almost ripped the country apart. Ralph and Sam, some of the cadre had cut their teeth on such events. Although this cohort was charged with coordinating the national actions they personally were to set up camp on Boston Common on Memorial Day along with whoever else wanted to go tenting. Such events on the historic Common require a permit and one of the lawyers arranged to get the permission to stage the event from noon until about 6PM.

What the lawyers, what nobody knew except the group around Sam and Ralph and those who had volunteered to stay was that they planned to stay overnight in order to both make their war economy message points and to be ready to “storm” the State House just up the road with petitions calling on the Massachusetts government to break with the MIC, particularly locally based Raytheon. Needless to say, staying in a major public space in downtown Boston overnight was a no-no. What Ralph in particular wanted was a “confrontation” over the issue on Memorial Day pitting veterans, many of them having seen the face of war, and the city officials although in reality the police. And they almost got their wish as some lower police commander had ordered paddy wagons and extra cops to take the encampment down like they had done several years previously at Occupy over on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Swish, that commander was gone and cooler heads prevailed by a decision to ignore the transgression as long as there was nothing disorderly to have to do something about. But it was a close thing, very close indeed.      
Ralph was pissed off a little since he saw the publicity value in the exercise. Still the next day he got his action, arrested for civil disobedience for “overstaying” the visit to the State House when the police wanted to close the doors.





For those in the know, maybe the clueless, no, non-observant, this war economy and its tentacles is a massive monster many years in the making. Groups like VFP and VPA are batting their heads against some very strong and entrenched interests like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed just to name the big guns. You battle as best you can on any front that makes sense from politely asking Congresspeople to stop voting for the endless war budgets to standing out in some desolate rain-swept corner drawing attention to what is happening inside some defense plant to acts of civil disobedience to make a point either at some State House or as the brethren up in Bath Maine have been doing blocking entrances on the increasing number of days when new ultra-weapon laden destroyers are christened.

All the way arguing for the conversion of those facilities into some more environmentally, socially and economically useful purposes to keep those workers more gainfully employed.  

The “Cold” Civil War Rages In America-In The Third Year Of The Torquemada (Oops!) Trump Regime- Immigrants, Trans-genders, DACAs, TPSers, Media People, Leftists, Hell, Liberals Know Your Constitutional Rights-It May Save Your Life

The “Cold” Civil War Rages In America-In The Third Year Of The Torquemada (Oops!) Trump Regime- Immigrants, Trans-genders, DACAs, TPSers, Media People, Leftists, Hell, Liberals Know Your Constitutional Rights-It May Save Your Life     

By Frank Jackman

Over the first year of the Trump regime as this massive control freak regime has plundered right after right, made old Hobbes’ “life is short, brutish and nasty” idea seem all too true for a vast swath  of people residing in America (and not just America either) I have startled many of my friends, radical and liberal alike. Reason? For almost all of my long adult life I have been as likely to call, one way or another, for the overthrow of the government as not. This Republic if you like for a much more equitable society than provided under it aegis. This year I have been as they say in media-speak “walking that notion back a bit.” Obviously even if you only get your news from social media or twitter feeds there have been gigantic attempts by Trump, his cronies and his allies in Congress to radically limit and cut back many of the things we have come to see as our rights in ordinary course of the business of daily life. This year I have expressed deep concerns about the fate of the Republic and what those in charge these days are hell-bend of trying to put over our eyes.

Hey, I like the idea, an idea that was not really challenged even by the likes of Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes in their respective times that I did not have to watch my back every time I made a political move. Now maybe just every move. This assault, this conscious assault on the lives and prospects of immigrants, DACAs, TPSers. Trans-genders, blacks, anti-fascists, Medicaid recipients, the poor, the outspoken media, uppity liberals, rash leftist radicals and many others has me wondering what protections we can count on, use to try to protect ourselves from the onslaught.

I, unlike some others, have not Cassandra-cried about the incipient fascist regime in Washington. If we were at that jackboot stage I would not be writing, and the reader would not be reading, this screed. Make no mistake about that. However there is no longer a question in my mind that the “cold” civil war that has been brewing beneath the surface of American society for the past decade or more has been ratchetted up many notches. Aside from preparing politically for that clash we should also be aware, much more aware than in the past, about our rights as we are confronted more and more by a hostile government, its hangers-on and the agents who carry out its mandates.

I have been brushing up on my own rights and had come across a small pamphlet put out by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a good source for such information in these times. I have placed that information below.

As the ACLU disclaimer states this information is basic, should be checked periodically for updating especially the way the federal courts up to and including the U.S. Supreme  Court have staked the deck against us of late. In any case these days if you are in legal difficulties you best have a good lawyer. The other side, the government has infinite resources, so you better get your best legal help available even if it cost some serious dough which tends to be the case these days with the way the judicial system works.

Most importantly when confronted by any governmental agents from the locals to the F.B.I. be cool, be very cool.  

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- In The Beginning Was The Jug- The 1960s Jim Kweskin Jug Band-Wasn't That A Time, Wasn't That A Time

In The Beginning Was The Jug- The Jim Kweskin Jug Band

By Sam Lowell

No question I was, am, a central figure in the still on-going fallout over the purge, and that is exactly the right term although half the writers here who were down and dirty in the fight prefer to tell the tale that the previous site manger “retired.” Like Allan Jackson, yes, I am using his given name despite the notice from new site manager Greg Green that we were in the future in the interest of “moving on” not to mention him by name or speak of his accomplishments (presumably Allan’s down sides are still fair game), would voluntarily retire from something he helped create and loved. I also acknowledge here that although I was Allan closest and longest known friend going back to elementary school that I sided with the young rebel writers, the self-styled “Young Turks” although I hate that term when it came to choosing sides.

Allan was getting more and more wrapped into some 1960s and forget the rest thing that disturbed me no end as I continually told him especially when he went over the edge in that overkill of the 50^th Anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 stuff. So when I “conspired” with the younger writers (some of who had before Allan went hog wild over the situation never heard of the event, were to young to give fuck about the legendary in the mist 1960s) I told everyone straight up that this would have to be a purge-no quotation marks needed. We, he and I, had come up in the rough and tumble of radical 1960s politics so Allan knew that my defection meant only one thing if we were to be successful. He would be out, in exile, although don’t believe all that stuff about him being holed up Utah sucking up to Mitt Romney and that white underwear Mormon crowd or Kansas with the hard-shell flat-landers that is just urban legend stuff he, or somebody at his direction, made up to make this whole thing seem like a Stalinist coup and he, Leon Trotsky-like suffered defeat and exile in some American Siberia for his efforts. I know my Allan and I would not be surprised that a counterattack against me and the blog will come any day.

As part of the change in course and presumably as a safeguard against things going haywire like they began to do under the Jackson regime Greg initiated on his own a seven member Editorial Board to filter ideas and motions through. Some people, some opponents have called the board a group of toadies and “yes” people for whatever Greg has in mind. That is their opinion. In any case I was asked to sit on the board and I have along with several younger writers and one of the older writers who had abstained on the Jackson removal vote (there were several abstentions by older writers which makes me think I was not alone in thinking Allan had gone over the edge but didn’t want to buck him for any number of reasons. I would argue that had any one of them voted for Allan then my “desertion” would have meant nothing except I might have been the guy rumored to be in Utah or Kansas. Such is life.)

Although the board is up and running for a few months now it has only been asked to approve one item-the “erasing” of Allan’s name from this site in the interest of whatever Greg thought that served. I have been around enough to know that it is beyond poor form to “erase” the past especially on a site dedicated to putting a big shining light on that past particularly the parts that get short shrift in the history books and mainstream media. I voted “no,” the lone dissenter with that one older writer’s abstention which may be his mode of operation on tough questions. Maybe that dissent will put me in better grace with Allan. 

I took this jug band, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band assignment because I am still crazy about this kind of music and because at least three of the original members of the band, Jim, Geoff, Maria are still performing occasionally together but usually individually and over the past several years I have seen them in various admittedly small venues around Greater Boston. I was surprised though when Greg mentioned to me that he no longer wanted to see pieces about “f—king” jug band music in the future and that this would be the last time he would let it pass since nobody under about the age of sixty gave a damn about this kind of music anymore.

Since Greg is considerable younger than I am I could see where it did not mean anything to him when he was growing up in Westchester County in New York but to cancel out in advance any reference to an important part of Americana in the 1920s and the revival in the 1960s seems short-sighted. Allan who also was crazy for jug music and who turned me onto the stuff in high school when he took me and our dates to the Unicorn Coffeehouse in Back Bay Boston to hear the legendary Harper Valley Boys do their jug, washtub, wringer magic. I will be bucking Greg a little on this one if I can find a spot to sneak a jug piece in.

Finally, and this part has nothing directly to do with jug music or anything else that has been presented here over the past almost fifteen years of this blog’s existence and prior to that the hard copy of it and it predecessors. I, like a number of irritated readers and a not a few writers have grown tired of seeing more than enough coverage of the internal crisis of the past few months here leading to the new regime. This new mandate by Greg with the majority of the Ed Board’s approval of “erasing” Allan Jackson’s name and work is kind of a watershed making me think the whole public airing has gone too far. Moreover the story is all over the place depending on who has their hackles up. This must stop and a return to ordinary commentary and reviews is in order.  

As a decisive member of the Editorial Board I have been able to negotiate with Greg a truce, an “armed truce” as one older wag put it which seems strange since the majority of personnel here have some very strong anti-war views. The “truce” has two parts. The first- all articles now in the pipeline, about fifteen, can carry whatever commentary about the internal dispute the writer wants to talk about. In return after that amnesty lot is posted there will be no overt references to the previous site manager or his achievements or failures. The second is that I will write as probably the most knowledgeable person around about all aspects of this publication and its personnel a full history of the site and of the internal dispute to be after it completion referenced in the archives as such for anybody to cite and refer others to -either writer or scholar. No guidance was given about how to do this task but I have decided to cut it up among the various parts of the American Songbook series which the jug band piece below is one example and then post the whole thing with comments from the two Ed Board members Greg has assigned to me for this work.              

********

Who knows how it happened maybe somebody in the band looked up some songs in the album archives, or found some gem in some record store, an institution that sustained many for hours back then in the cusp of the 1960s folk revival when there were record stores on almost every corner in places like Harvard Square and you could find some gems if you searched long enough and found Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (although sometimes the search was barren or, maybe worse, something by Miss Patti Page or Tennessee Ernie Ford stared you in the face). From there they found, maybe Cannon’s Stompers, the Mississippi Sheiks or the Memphis Jug Band, saw they could prosper going back to those days if they kept the arrangements simple, and that was that.

See, everybody then was looking for roots, American music roots, old country roots, roots of some ancient thoughts of a democratic America before the robber barons and their progeny grabbed everything with every hand. And that search was no accident, at least from the oral history evidence having grown up with rock and roll and found in that minute that genre wanting.  Some went reaching South to the homeland of much roots music and found some grizzled old geezers who had made a small name for themselves in the 1920s when labels like RCA and Paramount went out looking for talent in the hinterlands.

So there was history there, certainly for the individual members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim, Geoff Muldaur, Mel Lymon, Maria Muldaur, Fritz Richmond , all well-versed in many aspects of the American Songbook (hell, I would say so, even old tacky Irving Berlin got a hearing), history there for the taking. All they needed was a jug, a good old boy homemade corn liquor jug giving the best sound and so they were off, off to conquer places like Harvard Square, like the Village, like almost any place in the Bay area. And for a while they did, picking up chimes, kazoos, harmonicas, what the heck, even standard guitars and they made great music, great entertainment music, not heavy with social messages but just evoking those long lost spirits from the 1920s when jug music would sustain a crowd on a Saturday night. Yeah, in the beginning was the jug…    

From The World Cross-Country Championship Archives- The Day Boomer Cadger Hit The High White Note

From The World Cross-Country Championship Archives- The Day Boomer Cadger Hit The High White Note  

By Bart Webber

Yes, I am once again going back to the old days, the old track and cross-country running days which probably saved me from landing in some godforsaken jail like a few other North Adamsville corner boys or down in some ditch, some nameless potter’s field early grave last hurrah. At the very least it blew off enough steam when I could not take the anger which was blowing up my family home that I survived in one piece, although that too was a close thing, very close. But this stuff, these memories pings are not about me, although I wish they were, but about a guy who I ran against who ran like the wind, Boomer Cadger.

I have mentioned previously that I have running this stuff, running his photos too in the hope, the forlorn hope maybe that he would respond. So far all I have been able to find out about him, about his fate, is earlier stuff from his high school friend John Franklin whom I have been in contact with through social media, the place where I thought I might get a draw from Boomer. Without exaggeration pound for pound Boomer was the greatest runner, cross-country runner, running like a deer, of our generation and if a few things had gone slightly differently Boomer would have a much larger place in the archives of the world junior cross-country championships, the place where such skills were seriously recognized.            

An event I had not heard about since I had obviously lost contact with Boomer’s career after we graduated from high school and he no longer could beat my ass to the ground was the NYU Invitational Cross-Country Championship held in Van Cortlandt Park out Bronx-way (I think) in the summer after graduation. As far as I knew at the time from what I had heard about his homelife filled with drunken father and doped-up mother was he had enlisted in the Navy, half expecting to run for that outfit after no colleges offered him anything like a scholarship in the days when road running was seen as a perversion of nature. John Franklin filled me in on this event and I will weave that exploit into my story below and see if this lures the Boomer out.   

***********

Boomer Cadger ran like the wind, was like the wind. Maybe today you can see guys and gals too who run like gazelles, deer animals like that loping along to your almost jogging like beat but back then if you were looking it was mostly guys like me beating the pavement to some pedestrian beat. I have tried to emphasize that in the various archival captions I have presented of late surrounding my own youth as a cross-country runner running up against my rival from North Quincy High School about twenty miles from North Adamsville where I grew up. I have also tried to cut him down to size a bit although not too much I hope since for most of my career I bit his dust. The only reason all of this even came up initially was that a few of us from the old days were having drinks one night at Jimmy Jack’s Pub and we got into the inevitable “who was the best you ever saw” in various high school sports in our time. In the early 1960s before sports even at the high school level became major money-makers and the aim of sports outfits. (For example, the so-called track shoes of the day today would have the manufacturers in court to explain their role in the rate of increase in knee replacements by those looking for legal recourse. Yes, they were that flimsy maybe worse)         

Most of those present were “real” sports players like Tiger McPhee a football player who naturally picked our own run over everything that moved fullback Thunder Thornton from our high school who led the Warriors to a state divisional championship. Others like Bees Devine picked scoring machine Slim Davis who played for the Knicks for a while before they got Earl “the Pearl” Monroe to carry them from Reading High in basketball. I, of course, picked Boomer Cadger from main rival North Quincy even if with some still present resentment. When I went into the reasons the others were surprised about what I had learned about Boomer recently from his high school friend John Franklin who was something like the class historian at his school. John had told me that Boomer (real name William, Bill only recently learned by me from John) had been training on the sand at Adamsville Beach in the summer. This technique learned from the great mile world record-holder of the time Australian Herb Elliott and his monster of a coach, Percy something but a monster is all you need to really know. It only gets more testing-apparently Boomer also subscribed to the great triple gold medal long distance Olympic champion Emil Zatopek’s regime of interval sprint runs, many of them to build up speed and endurance.              

According to Franklin Boomer did this on his own since his coach was some old wino, some bag of bad humor who knew somebody in the school department who got him in  and who was just serving his teaching time grabbed since he was a World War II veteran with preference hanging around bothering young girls looking up their dresses and who knows what else. Connected to but clueless about training track and cross-country runners. (For example, he knew nada about running shoes but had a friend who owned Sammy’s Sports and so all the team had to buy their worthless shoes from him or run in cumbersome Chuck Taylor’s.) John said Boomer was always reading sports magazines so must have picked it up then when track and running got more play than today.

This is what I do know having raced against Boomer in both cross-country and track. Whatever drove him to excellent (or just to get out of what was a horrible home life) happened after eighth grade. You see I beat Boomer in the mile (the longest junior high school kids could go in sanctioned events) that year in a regional meet. Whipped his ass. Then the next fall in a regional cross-country meet he blew me away; I ate his dust. Thereafter he improved always more than I did and so  

this residual moan and groan. He would go on to a fifth-place finish in the world junior cross-country championships and then not much else. But he was like the wind in his prime. I wonder now whether that time I beat him in eighth grade didn’t spur him on, didn’t get him to the training magazines.    

Maybe yes, maybe no but what Franklin told me recently only makes it so obvious that with some serious coaching, maybe a trip to boarding school if somebody had taken an interest, maybe if he had gotten some tutoring or had been driven by the books as much as by the running he could have been a college wind, who knows in those days the Olympics could have loomed. If you had asked me when I started this so-called tribune to an opponent if that was in the cards I would have said no. But after Franklin told me about that race in New York, the NYU Invitational who knows. All I know is that only the best around get invited or dare to show up as in the case of Boomer.  

This is the race guys, college guys like skinny from hunger Ireland’s Emmett Riley from Villanova, well-trained guys like Jack Raines from NYU and Miles Archer from Saint Joseph’s have won. All those guys if I recall would go to the Olympics although I don’t think any won gold. So Boomer showed up on his way to Naval boot camp out in Lake Michigan I think it was. Showed up wearing his high school dead beat uniform and his tacky coach’s buddy Sammy suicidal track shoes. Showed up, paid his fee and meandered around waiting for the race to start keeping away from the big names he knew from his sports newspapers, Lenny Dodge, Carson Dorry, Lorn Davis. At the start of the race he was in maybe the third fourth row to keep from going out too fast with the speed boys from college. Smart move because that was a hot day. A hot day for Boomer too as he beat the whole freaking field by about sixty yards with one of his greatest sprint finishes. And you thought I was kidding when I compared him to the wind, picked him as the best ever in my sport in high school  

Yeah what old Boomer did that day was what I would later find out in jazz, in any music it seemed had hit that high white note everybody reached for.     

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- Happy Birthday Woody Guthrie The Father We Never Knew-Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part One-The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Woody Guthrie

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Woody Guthrie Performing "Hard Traveling'".


CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001



"Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc One; Woody Guthrie on “Hard Travelin’”, Big Bill Broonzy on “Black , Brown And White”, Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”, Josh White on “One Meat Ball” Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”, Cisco Houston on “Midnight Special”, The Weavers on “Wasn’t That A Time”, Glenn Yarborough on “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue”, Odetta on “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain”, The New Lost City Ramblers on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on “San Francisco Bay Blues”, Peggy Seeger on “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Hoyt Axton on “Greenback Dollar” and Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”."


Woody Guthrie on "Hard Travelin'". In a sense the folk revival of the 1960s would have had a huge hole in it if not for the work of Guthrie in creating a vast amount of material in the 1930s and 1940s about the trials and tribulations of working people, including those who had been dispossessed of their land. Children’ songs, work songs, protest songs old Woody gave us a complete package to add to the traditional musics brought over from the old countries and that created by earlier artist like Stephen Foster.


Hard Travelin'

I've been havin' some hard travelin', I thought you knowed
I've been havin' some hard travelin', way down the road
I've been havin' some hard travelin', hard ramblin', hard gamblin'
I've been havin' some hard travelin', lord

I've been ridin' them fast rattlers, I thought you knowed
I've been ridin' them flat wheelers, way down the road
I've been ridin' them blind passengers, dead-enders, kickin' up cinders
I've been havin' some hard travelin', lord

I've been hittin' some hard-rock minin', I thought you knowed
I've been leanin' on a pressure drill, way down the road
Hammer flyin', air-hose suckin', six foot of mud and I shore been a muckin'
And I've been hittin' some hard travelin', lord

I've been hittin' some hard harvestin', I thought you knowed
North Dakota to Kansas City, way down the road
Cuttin' that wheat, stackin' that hay, and I'm tryin' make about a dollar a day
And I've been havin' some hard travelin', lord

I've been working that Pittsburgh steel, I thought you knowed
I've been a dumpin' that red-hot slag, way down the road
I've been a blasting, I've been a firin', I've been a pourin' red-hot iron
I've been hittin' some hard travelin', lord

I've been layin' in a hard-rock jail, I thought you knowed
I've been a laying out 90 days, way down the road
Damned old judge, he said to me, "It's 90 days for vagrancy."
And I've been hittin' some hard travelin', lord

I've been walking that Lincoln highway, I thought you knowed,
I've been hittin' that 66, way down the road
Heavy load and a worried mind, lookin' for a woman that's hard to find,
I've been hittin' some hard travelin', lord

Veterans For Peace Grand Peace Army Of The Republic National Encampment For The Poor People's Campaign -Boston Common- 2018-Arrest Veterans On Memorial Day If You Dare

 Veterans For Peace Grand Peace Army Of The Republic National Encampment For The Poor People's Campaign -Boston Common- 2018-Arrest Veterans On Memorial Day If You Dare

By Josh Breslin

I have already mentioned that sometimes in this profession you get assignments that you are clueless about or don’t care about. That is not the case here as I asked, no begged editor Greg Green for the assignment after I had already attended a few meetings of the National Committee that was putting together a 50^th anniversary edition of the Poor Peoples Campaign which was either stillborn or destroyed in 1968 after Doctor King, the originator of the ideas and program had been killed. Sadly, poverty, poverty among blacks and poor whites is still with us and a national disgrace in such a well-fixed country and so those 50 years ago ideas still had some echo power in 2018.  

I should say that it was not by happenstance that I had attended the first National meetings down in Washington. I had been tipped off that a movement was aborning by my friends from Veterans Peace Action Sam and Ralph who had been delegated by their National organization to represent that group in the preliminary meetings to see what actions if any VPA would take in support of the efforts. As a result of those first meetings and wondering about the first PPC’s fate I had done a far among of research about 1968 and why the terms “stillborn” and “destroyed” were the only ones I had been able to find to describe what had happened back then. Although I had heard about some of the stuff, mainly the constant rainy weather that swamped the camps and made life miserable for the refugees there I had been in California with others living off the glow of the Summer of Love, 1967 on Captain Crunch’s converted yellow school bus zooming up and down the Pacific Coast Highway under a very different sign-drug, sex and rock and roll.

The 2018 PPC set its sights at a higher level at least on paper with the understanding that this was a long-term hard ass project with plenty of chances to succeed-and fail. The main thing though was to get some major coverage of the six weeks of actions planned for the May-June period. That is what Sam and Ralph tried to hammer home to VPA and other organizations like Code Pink who had bought into the idea, bought into the first stage of the campaign. Once people were committed to organizing around specific issues related to poverty and why then the planned events made sense, made sense to me as well standing on the sidelines. I wish things had gone as easily as the ease with which the plan was set up with that finale in Washington bring home “the bacon.”        

Ralph and Sam and other cadre from Veterans Peace Action and Veterans for Peace had been assigned to coordinate week three of the themed actions-the war economy and by extension its harmful and neglectful effects on the struggle against poverty. Taking a ton of material and social resources away to be pissed away on wasteful military junk. Both VPA and VFP had already signed onto a long-term project on the MIC led by Code Pink among others beyond the PPC goals so this was right from the get go. Since by design the actions were to take place in major cities over Memorial Day weekend extending into the following Tuesday by state capital actions from gathering petitions to acts of civil disobedience the natural event that came to mind almost automatically was an encampment, encampments.

Encampments had been a way of life for many political movements involving veterans from the old day national encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic which fought and bled to keep the Republic and abolish slavery to boot to the Bonus marchers in the early Great Depression days of the 1930s suppressed by General “Dug-Out Doug” MacArthur to the various veteran actions against the madness of the Vietnam War which almost ripped the country apart. Ralph and Sam, some of the cadre had cut their teeth on such events. Although this cohort was charged with coordinating the national actions they personally were to set up camp on Boston Common on Memorial Day along with whoever else wanted to go tenting. Such events on the historic Common require a permit and one of the lawyers arranged to get the permission to stage the event from noon until about 6PM.

What the lawyers, what nobody knew except the group around Sam and Ralph and those who had volunteered to stay was that they planned to stay overnight in order to both make their war economy message points and to be ready to “storm” the State House just up the road with petitions calling on the Massachusetts government to break with the MIC, particularly locally based Raytheon. Needless to say, staying in a major public space in downtown Boston overnight was a no-no. What Ralph in particular wanted was a “confrontation” over the issue on Memorial Day pitting veterans, many of them having seen the face of war, and the city officials although in reality the police. And they almost got their wish as some lower police commander had ordered paddy wagons and extra cops to take the encampment down like they had done several years previously at Occupy over on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Swish, that commander was gone and cooler heads prevailed by a decision to ignore the transgression as long as there was nothing disorderly to have to do something about. But it was a close thing, very close indeed.      
Ralph was pissed off a little since he saw the publicity value in the exercise. Still the next day he got his action, arrested for civil disobedience for “overstaying” the visit to the State House when the police wanted to close the doors.

From The Archives -Poor People's Campaign 2018

From The Archives -Poor People's Campaign 2018-Oh What Might Have Been But Instead Nothing But Ashes, Bitter Ashes

By Josh Breslin

Sometimes in this profession you get assignments that you are clueless about or don’t care about. That is not the case here as I asked, no begged editor Greg Green for the assignment after I had already attended a few meetings of the National Committee that was putting together a 50^th anniversary edition of the Poor Peoples Campaign which was either stillborn or destroyed in 1968 after Doctor King, the originator of the ides and program had been killed. Sadly, poverty, poverty among blacks and poor whites is still with us and a national disgrace in such a well-fixed country and so those 50 years ago ideas still had some echo power in 2018.  

I should say that it was not by happenstance that I had attended the first National meetings down in Washington. I had been tipped off that a movement was aborning by my friends from Veterans Peace Action Sam and Ralph who had been delegated by their National organization to represent that group in the preliminary meetings to see what actions if any VPA would take in support of the efforts. As a result of those first meetings and wondering about the first PPC’s fate I had done a far among of research about 1968 and why the terms “stillborn” and “destroyed” were the only ones I had been able to find to describe what had happened back then. Although I had heard about some of the stuff, mainly the constant rainy weather that swamped the camps and made life miserable for the refugees there I had been in California with others living off the glow of the Summer of Love, 1967 on Captain Crunch’s converted yellow school bus zooming up and down the Pacific Coast Highway under a very different sign-drug, sex and rock and roll.

That research though was the kicker to win Greg to my side in covering the PPC since he and I agreed that if the 2018 version was to avert the 1968 fate then knowing the pitfalls was important even if I was only covering the events planned for the late Spring of 2018. Beyond the weather by the way, beyond the critical loss of Doctor King, and beyond the other issues of the day like Vietnam which were putting domestic social concerns in the shade the whole operation was beset by internal bickering, cross purposes and the not unusual internal leadership wrangling and power plays (the gap between the lifestyles of the leadership set up in hotels while the ranks sloughed through the muds only highlighted those wrangles).

The 2018 PPC set its sights at a higher level at least on paper with the understanding that this was a long-term hard ass project with plenty of chances to succeed-and fail. The main thing though was to get some major coverage of the six weeks of actions planned for the May-June period. That is what Sam and Ralph tried to hammer home to VPA and other organizations like Code Pink who had bought into the idea, bought into the first stage of the campaign. Once people were committed to organizing around specific issues related to poverty and why then the planned events made sense, made sense to me as well standing on the sidelines. I wish things had gone as easily as the ease with which the plan was set up with that finale in Washington bring home “the bacon.”        

From The Veterans For Peace Archives-Slugging It Out Against The War Economy Monster In Good Times And Bad

Veterans For Peace Grand Peace Army Of The Republic National Encampment For The Poor People's Campaign -Boston Common- 2018-Arrest Veterans On Memorial Day If You Dare

By Josh Breslin

I have already mentioned that sometimes in this profession you get assignments that you are clueless about or don’t care about. That is not the case here as I asked, no begged editor Greg Green for the assignment after I had already attended a few meetings of the National Committee that was putting together a 50^th anniversary edition of the Poor Peoples Campaign which was either stillborn or destroyed in 1968 after Doctor King, the originator of the ideas and program had been killed. Sadly, poverty, poverty among blacks and poor whites is still with us and a national disgrace in such a well-fixed country and so those 50 years ago ideas still had some echo power in 2018.  

I should say that it was not by happenstance that I had attended the first National meetings down in Washington. I had been tipped off that a movement was aborning by my friends from Veterans Peace Action Sam and Ralph who had been delegated by their National organization to represent that group in the preliminary meetings to see what actions if any VPA would take in support of the efforts. As a result of those first meetings and wondering about the first PPC’s fate I had done a far among of research about 1968 and why the terms “stillborn” and “destroyed” were the only ones I had been able to find to describe what had happened back then. Although I had heard about some of the stuff, mainly the constant rainy weather that swamped the camps and made life miserable for the refugees there I had been in California with others living off the glow of the Summer of Love, 1967 on Captain Crunch’s converted yellow school bus zooming up and down the Pacific Coast Highway under a very different sign-drug, sex and rock and roll.

The 2018 PPC set its sights at a higher level at least on paper with the understanding that this was a long-term hard ass project with plenty of chances to succeed-and fail. The main thing though was to get some major coverage of the six weeks of actions planned for the May-June period. That is what Sam and Ralph tried to hammer home to VPA and other organizations like Code Pink who had bought into the idea, bought into the first stage of the campaign. Once people were committed to organizing around specific issues related to poverty and why then the planned events made sense, made sense to me as well standing on the sidelines. I wish things had gone as easily as the ease with which the plan was set up with that finale in Washington bring home “the bacon.”        

Ralph and Sam and other cadre from Veterans Peace Action and Veterans for Peace had been assigned to coordinate week three of the themed actions-the war economy and by extension its harmful and neglectful effects on the struggle against poverty. Taking a ton of material and social resources away to be pissed away on wasteful military junk. Both VPA and VFP had already signed onto a long-term project on the MIC led by Code Pink among others beyond the PPC goals so this was right from the get go. Since by design the actions were to take place in major cities over Memorial Day weekend extending into the following Tuesday by state capital actions from gathering petitions to acts of civil disobedience the natural event that came to mind almost automatically was an encampment, encampments.

Encampments had been a way of life for many political movements involving veterans from the old day national encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic which fought and bled to keep the Republic and abolish slavery to boot to the Bonus marchers in the early Great Depression days of the 1930s suppressed by General “Dug-Out Doug” MacArthur to the various veteran actions against the madness of the Vietnam War which almost ripped the country apart. Ralph and Sam, some of the cadre had cut their teeth on such events. Although this cohort was charged with coordinating the national actions they personally were to set up camp on Boston Common on Memorial Day along with whoever else wanted to go tenting. Such events on the historic Common require a permit and one of the lawyers arranged to get the permission to stage the event from noon until about 6PM.

What the lawyers, what nobody knew except the group around Sam and Ralph and those who had volunteered to stay was that they planned to stay overnight in order to both make their war economy message points and to be ready to “storm” the State House just up the road with petitions calling on the Massachusetts government to break with the MIC, particularly locally based Raytheon. Needless to say, staying in a major public space in downtown Boston overnight was a no-no. What Ralph in particular wanted was a “confrontation” over the issue on Memorial Day pitting veterans, many of them having seen the face of war, and the city officials although in reality the police. And they almost got their wish as some lower police commander had ordered paddy wagons and extra cops to take the encampment down like they had done several years previously at Occupy over on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Swish, that commander was gone and cooler heads prevailed by a decision to ignore the transgression as long as there was nothing disorderly to have to do something about. But it was a close thing, very close indeed.      

Ralph was pissed off a little since he saw the publicity value in the exercise. Still the next day he got his action, arrested for civil disobedience for “overstaying” the visit to the State House when the police wanted to close the doors.

*********
For those in the know, maybe the clueless, no, non-observant, this war economy and its tentacles is a massive monster many years in the making. Groups like VFP and VPA are batting their heads against some very strong and entrenched interests like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed just to name the big guns. You battle as best you can on any front that makes sense from politely asking Congresspeople to stop voting for the endless war budgets to standing out in some desolate rain-swept corner drawing attention to what is happening inside some defense plant to acts of civil disobedience to make a point either at some State House or as the brethren up in Bath Maine have been doing blocking entrances on the increasing number of days when new ultra-weapon laden destroyers are christened.

All the way arguing for the conversion of those facilities into some more environmentally, socially and economically useful purposes to keep those workers more gainfully employed.   

Malignant Obsession-Bette Davis and Leslie Howard’s Film Adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” (1934)-A Film Review

Malignant Obsession-Bette Davis and Leslie Howard’s Film Adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” (1934)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Film Critic Sam Lowell

Of Human Bondage, starring Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name, 1934

No question love can take some funny turns from eternal bliss to the malignant obsession of medical student Phillip Carey, played by Leslie Howard, for waitperson (then known as waitresses) Mildred Rogers, played in an incredible performance by Bette Davis in the film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. The human, the very human capacity to find love in some very wrong places gets a full-throated workout in this 1934 film. Moreover even though the smitten and tortured character here is a man the feelings know no gender boundaries.     

The first problem for our troubled medical student is the class issue in very class-bound England then, and now. The play between the up and coming doctor and the tart-like waitperson could only spell trouble even if Mildred had been only half as perfidious as she was-always looking for the main chance-for the next Mister Big. The second problem was that the very smitten Phillip was physically- challenged (then called “crippled” which Mildred at one point made a point of being disgusting by when truth time came a-calling). The combination would have been daunting even if Mildred had been less of an opportunist. See while she was leading Phillip on she was also seeing her meal ticket-her Mister Big. Phillip played the sap for her on that one thinking he would marry her when all she was doing was making moves to marry Mister Big. Well Mildred should have checked his credentials or at least his marriage because Mister Big dumped her-turned out he was already married. All he did was leave her to the wind with child. Still Phillip took her back.                  

Okay once is okay but then the next best thing came along, a fellow medical student of Phillip’s and she was off again. Still once it was question of helping or her on the streets with an unwanted child he succumbed again. But he was getting wiser. At least he wasn’t as smitten as in those fresh bloom days. All she kept doing though was holding him in contempt while feeding off his feelings for her. At some point, a point where a young gentile women is interested in him, he begins to withdraw, begins to break from his feverish desire for Mildred as she begins her descent down into well, the gutter, the ”life,”  the hard streets. In the end T.B got her (then called consumption and if I recall earlier called the vapors), left her on deep cheap street and an unloved grave.

Phillip, well Phillip finally got himself free, got free once Mildred passed the shades. Took life in his own hands and grabbed that gentile woman who was made for him. Still Mildred led him on a not so merry chase. An excellent performance by Miss Davis especially one scene when she went berserk and cut up all of Phillip’s precious nude paintings (he had started out as a failed art student) and another when after she had been finally rebuffed by Phillip she spewed forth her utter contempt from day one. Watch this one-and read the book too.            

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME Left Unchecked, Trump Will Obliterate Right to Asylum Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has made 600 unilateral changes in immigration policy, more than any president in recent memory. Pursuant to its “zero tolerance policy,” the administration arrested undocumented immigrants who crossed the border, took thousands of their children away, put them in cages and then lost track of them, in violation of the Constitution’s Due Process Clause and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Trump instituted a Muslim ban, tried to add a citizenship question to the census, reneged on President Barack Obama’s promise to the Dreamers, and is terrorizing immigrant communities with threats of mass raids. In an escalation of his war on migrants, Trump’s new asylum rule undermines well-established law and prevents refugees fleeing persecution from receiving asylum. More

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

Left Unchecked, Trump Will Obliterate Right to Asylum

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has made 600 unilateral changes in immigration policy, more than any president in recent memory.  Pursuant to its “zero tolerance policy,” the administration arrested undocumented immigrants who crossed the border, took thousands of their children away, put them in cages and then lost track of them, in violation of the Constitution’s Due Process Clause and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Trump instituted a Muslim ban, tried to add a citizenship question to the census, reneged on President Barack Obama’s promise to the Dreamers, and is terrorizing immigrant communities with threats of mass raids. In an escalation of his war on migrants, Trump’s new asylum rule undermines well-established law and prevents refugees fleeing persecution from receiving asylum.   More

Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Unravelling of US Empire Puerto Ricans had an important victory in July with the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló after more than one million people protested to demand his removal.

Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Unravelling of US Empire

Puerto Ricans had an important victory in July with the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló after more than one million people protested to demand his removal. This was a powerful display of people power, but changing the head of state does not confront the real issues for Puerto Rico: ending colonialism and ensuring self-determination.  Hawaii, which was an independent nation that became a state in 1959 after the U.S. stole it, is facing protests against a telescope on its tallest mountain, a sacred area. While the telescope is the focus of the protests, the real issues are much deeper and point to a growing demand for independence. This is not being reported in U.S. media or noted by U.S. political leaders. The demands for independence of Hawaii and Puerto Rico are part of the unraveling of U.S. Empire.   More

The Fight Over Mauna Kea Is About More Than a Telescope

The battle between astronomers and indigenous Hawaiians over Mauna Kea began decades ago. Even before the TMT was a full-fledged project, Hawaiians objected to the desecration of their sacred space, on which 13 observatories already operate…  Hawaiians want no new telescopes on Mauna Kea, and they have a moral right to make that claim. According to Pisciotta, it is about “our right to religious freedom.” There have been attempts to cast the opposition to the TMT as “anti-science,” or as a battle between religious irrationality and rational inquiry into our natural world. But activists in the movement rarely, if ever, express opposition to scientific research. The TMT represents the latest assault on the rights of indigenous Hawaiians, whose rights have been marginalized in favor of corporate, colonial and military interests for far too long.   More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Conflict or Compromise: U.S. and Iran on a Knife’s Edge

The simmering confrontation between the United States and Iran is delicately poised on a knife’s edge between an emerging bargain and steadily mounting potential for direct armed conflict…  Since President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or nuclear agreement, the confrontation between the United States and Iran has gradually escalated. Washington has waged an aggressive campaign of “maximum pressure,” mainly in the form of sanctions and financial warfare, against Iran. Tehran, finding itself increasingly boxed in by an ever-constricting economic vice, has responded with a carefully calibrated program of “maximum resistance,” especially in the form of low-intensity and sometimes deniable attacks on commercial and military assets in the Gulf region. While it is widely assumed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has coordinated or conducted these attacks, it has been careful not to cross any redline that would necessitate a military response.   More

Economic Sanctions Will Kill Tens of Thousands of Innocent Iranians

The illegal economic sanctions that the Trump administration has imposed on Iran are ruining its economy by increasing the inflation rate—from nine percent before the sanctions to 35-40 percent today—as well as unemployment, and forcing countless numbers of small businesses to close. Whereas Iran’s economy grew by 12.5 percent in 2016, it has shrunk by six percent in the first six months of 2019… The worst aspect of the sanctions is their human toll, caused by severe shortage of critical medicines and medical equipment for millions of Iranians. Fear that common citizens will be unable to obtain the medicines they need is everywhere in Iran, and for good reason. Every year, there are 112,000 new cases of cancer in Iran, one of the fastest growth rates of cancer in the world. The most painful aspect is the situation faced bychildren with cancer whose chances of growing up have been dramatically reduced.  More

Sanctioning Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif Undermines U.S. Diplomatic Credibility

In the latest tit-for-tat in the battle between the United States and Iran, this week the Treasury Department, at the behest of the State Department, imposed sanctions on the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. This follows Donald Trump’s June 24 Executive Order 13768, which imposed sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Husseini Khamenei. Sanctioning Khamenei is of no consequence, since he obviously is not planning a trip to the United States or any other form of intercourse with it. Not so with Zarif. In the first place, it is most unusual to place the chief negotiator for an unfriendly (or even enemy) nation on the “unwelcome” list…  If Trump does want to open negotiations with Iran, as he repeatedly says, this act weakens even further those within the Iranian political struggle who would like to see some way out of the current crisis with the West, as opposed to hardliners who seem indifferent to the risks that they are running.  More

Most Dem Presidential Candidates Are Attacking Trump’s Korea Policy—From the Right

Led by former vice president Joe Biden, the leading Democratic candidates for president in 2020 have focused on President Trump’s friendly (though presently shaky) relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as a prime example of a foreign policy that’s gone off the establishment tracks and left traditional US allies in the dust. With their next televised debate set for next week, Biden and most of his competitors hope to convince voters—especially those who voted Republican in 2016—that Trump’s personalized style of US power projection presents an existential danger not only to the United States but also to its friends around the world.   More