***Johnny Boy, Indeed-Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Suspicion, starring Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1941

The twentieth century, the triumphant “age of democracy,” at least in the developed West was not a particularly good time for properly trained elite school gentlemen, assorted nobles, and wayward royalty as the stresses of war, the masses, and the vigor of more secular states did in more empires than one could shake a stick at from Russia to Britain and France and broke up empires without regret. They, those sullen gentry, especially daunted second sons and certainly forlorn third or more with no hope inheriting more than a piss-pot, those degreed nobles who could neither hold onto their estates against a fellahin world or pay the damn mortgage after successive generations of entailment, social if not legal, those “kings” among men working as dime a dozen waiters in Parisian cafes or huddled in some backwater corner reliving their former splendors to a bored world all had that insufferable proper training, good breeding and only hanging with the best café society.

But the twentieth century (and now extending into the twenty-first) besides bringing fellahin uprisings and democratic veneers was preeminently the “age of the cash nexus” as well and that little problem of entailed estates, social or legal, and mortgaged to the hilt princely residences required more that some nodding acquaintance with fellow blue-bloods before selling the family silverware for one last blast before the streets.  All of this by way of introducing a stellar British example of the wayward proper gentry left adrift in the twentieth century (and extending into the twenty-first for the progeny), Johnny A., (no full last name needed as his is emblematic of the breed), and his self-imposed financial problems in the film under review, Suspicion.  Oh yes, since this film does not hinge on some left-wing sociological analysis and has the imprimatur of Sir (belatedly Sir) Alfred Hitchcock, a director known for mudding the waters with some off-hand intrigue and suspense before resolving all doubts, has the smell of murder in the air, murder most foul if certain imaginations are allowed to get the better of the situation.      

Here’s why we can speak candidly of murder, murder most foul. Our boy Johnny A. (played to a tee by Cary Grant who seems to have been born to fill such ruined high bred, good fellow well met, gentry cinematic roles), all good breeding and manners was a sporting man, a serious sporting man who had run out of possibilities with the known gentry but who still had those nagging problems of owing every Tom, Dick, and Harry around. And one of those Tom, Dick, and Harrys is his friendly bookie who is looking for his dough when Johnny boy’s nags ran out. See he figured that if Johnny had won he would have to have paid out so fair is fair. And Johnny is smart enough to see that if he wants to live another day to make that surefire bet that will get him on easy street that he must agree with such a proverbial thought.

So what is a hard-pressed man about town to do? Well here was Johnny’s scam (guys like Johnny spent many a sleepless night working out the details of such plans rather than face the prospect of gainful employment which would lead to nightmares). Or what looks to an untrained eye like an easy scam He “hit” on this dowdy spinsterly rural gentlewoman, Lina (played by Joan Fontaine, who as the film progresses remarkably loses that dowdiness, loses it all the way to an Oscar), who also has plenty of breeding, very good manners and, some dough, although as a 1940s woman she is not expected to use her obvious intelligence beyond the knitting table. Oh yes she is also looking for a man to sweep her away (although she did not know it). See Johnny, all bluster and sweet sweep her off her feet moves, figured to marry her and live off of her largess like any proper squire. Which he did, both swept her off her feet and married her. Nice work Johnny and good luck on easy street.

 

Well not quite. The problem was Lina’s father, a gentleman of the old school, who had insured Lina’s spinsterly future by keeping her on a short leash, a yearly allowance and not any real dough. And once he passed on later in the film, to show one final kick in the shins distain for Lina’s choice of husband, he left Lina with a thimble full of good thoughts but no dough. Oops, Johnny.            

Once Johnny figured out the score (after running up the bills on the expectation of fatherly largess) he of course decided to go to work, nothing too heavy maybe managing some well- established estate, and make something of himself. Make a crestfallen Lina proud. Hold on, have you been reading this plotline, Johnny was a sport not a worker bee and so the only work he was doing, his only gainful employment, was scratching away at every scheme he could figure out to keep the creditors from the door, or worse. And that is where murder, murder most foul, really where suspicion of such deeds comes in. A series of events unfolds which look very much like somebody is being set up for murder, murder by the book if you want to know, and that somebody is Lina. At least as Johnny grows distant, as untoward things begin to happen that is what Lina believed her fate to be.

That series of unexplained coincidences from the mysterious death of Johnny’s partner in a real estate scheme just before it was to be completed by a party, or parties unknown, to those various suspense-building untoward things happening to Lina drives the last part of the film. Remember too Johnny was a sport, a con man, a flimflam man and not built for murder. Know this as well, if you can believe this about sporting Johnny, in the end, despite his financial problems and whatever drove him to pull his scams on her he actually loved his Lina. Go figure, right.     

On The 155^th Anniversary Of The Heroic Captain John Brown-Led Fight For Black Liberation At Harper’s Ferry-Josh Breslin’s Dream    

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

I remember a few years ago my friend and I, Josh Breslin, from the old working- class neighborhoods of North Adamsville, a town south of Boston, were discussing the historical events that helped form our political understandings back in the early 1960 since we were, and are, both political men driven by historical examples as much as by the minutia of organizing principles. And while we have diverged on many of the influences since then as we have a fair degree of differences on the way to change the world and what agencies can do that (basically working within the current political system or moving over to the base of society and organizing from the ground up within or outside of the system depending on circumstance) we both agreed whole-heartedly that one of our early heroes was old Captain John Brown and his heroic efforts with his small integrated band of men at Harper’s Ferry down in what is now West Virginia but the just Virginia, a slave-holders stronghold. As we discussed the matter more fully we found we were hard pressed to explain what first captured our attention and agreed that then would have not had the political sense then to call Brown’s actions heroic although we both understood that what he did was necessary.

 

See, coming up in a mainly Irish working-class neighborhood we were always aware, made particularly aware by grandfathers who had kindred over there in those days, of that heroic struggle in Easter 1916 that was the precursor to the long sought national liberation of Ireland from the bloody British. So when we first studied, or heard about John Brown we instinctively saw that same kind of struggle. Both of us also agreed that we had had back then very strong feelings about the wrongness of slavery, a wretched system going back to Pharaoh’s time if not before, although Josh was more ambivalent about the fate of black people after Civil War freedom than I was since there was in his household a stronger current of anti-black feeling around the civil rights work down south in those days than in mine. (Strangely my father, who was nothing but a corn liquor, fast car, ex-coal miner good old boy from down in Kentucky was more sympathetic to that struggle that Josh’s Irish grandfather whom Josh could never get to call black people anything better than “nigras.” At least we got my father to say “Negro.” Jesus.)                

 

A couple of week after that conversation Josh called me up from California one night where he was attending a professional conference near San Jose and told me that he forgot to tell me about what he called a “dream” he had had as a kid concerning his admiration for John Brown. Of course that “dream” stuff was just Josh’s way of saying that he had sketched out a few thoughts that he wanted to share with me (and which will undoubtedly find their into a commentary  or review or something because very little of Josh’s “dream” stuff fails to go to ink or cyberspace). Some of it is now hazy in my mind since the hour was late here in the East, and some of it probably was really based on stuff we had learned later about the Brown expedition like how Boston Brahmins and high abolitionists like George Stearns secretly funded the operation or Brown’s attempts to get Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Tubman on board (neither name which we would have known very much about then), and some of the stuff was probably a little goofy since it involved Josh in some hero worship. Since he will inevitably write something on his own he can make any corrections to what I put down here himself. Know this though whenever I hear the name John Brown mentioned lately I think about Josh’s telephone call and about how the “old man” has held our esteem for so long. Here is what I jotted down, edited of course, after that conversation:   

 

From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harper’s Ferry. I would say that was in about the sixth grade when I went to the library and read about Abraham Lincoln before he became president and how he didn’t like what John Brown did because he knew that that action was going to drive the South crazy and upset the delicate balance that was holding the Union together. Frank though thinks it was the seventh grade when we were learning about the slavery issues as part of the 100^th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War and his name came up as a “wild man” out of some Jehovah Calvinist burning bush dream who was single-handedly trying to abolish slavery with that uprising. Was ready to “light the spark” to put out the terrible scourge of slavery in the land with some spilled blood. That slavery business, if you can believe this really bothered both of us, especially when we went to a museum that showed the treatment of slaves and the implements used to enforce that condition down South. And I remember one time going to the Museum of Fine Arts and saw how old Pharaoh used his slaves to build those damn pyramids to immortalize himself. Yeah, the hell with slavery, any kind.   

I think I am right thought about when I first heard about the “old man” because I know I loved Lincoln, loved to read about him, loved that back then we celebrated his birthday, February 12^th, and we got the day off from school. Loved that Lincoln was basically forced at the governmental level to implement Brown’s program to root out slavery once the deal went down and he was merciless about its extermination once he got “religion” on the matter. Of course neither I nor Frank would have articulated our thoughts that way then but we knew “Massa Lincoln” was on the right side of the angels in his work as much as he hated to burn down the South in the process. But there was no other way to get the damn issue resolved and I think that is what he learned from the Captain whether he gave credit to the man or not. By the way this I do know that while we celebrated Lincoln’s birthday in the North as the great emancipator and Union-saver Frank once told me a story about one of his cousins down south and how when he mentioned that he had Lincoln’s birthday off that cousin said “we don’t celebrate that man’s birthday down here,’’ in such a way that Frank began to understand that maybe the Civil War was not over. That some people had not gotten the word)   

I knew other stuff back then too which added to my feel for the Brown legend. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a prior existence as John Brown’s Body, a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they bravely headed south. Funny but back then I was totally unaware of the role of the Massachusetts 54^th Regiment, the first black regiment raised although with white officers when Father Abraham gave the word, whose survivors and replacements marched into Charleston, South Carolina, the heart and soul of the Confederacy, after the bloody Civil War to the tune of John Brown’s Body. That must have been a righteous day. Not so righteous though and reflecting a very narrow view of history that we were taught back then kind of fudging the very serious differences back in Civil War times even in high abolitionist Boston was not knowing thing number one about Augustus Saint-Gauden’s commemorative frieze honoring the men of the 54^th right across from the State House which I passed frequently when I went on to Boston Common.

I was then, however, other than aware of the general narrative of Brown’s exploits and a couple of songs and poems neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the ante bellum struggle against slavery of which he represented the extreme activist left-wing. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery. Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was executed I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Some 150 years after his death I am proud to stand in the tradition of John Brown. [And I am too, brother!-Frank]

If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth, of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As various biographies point out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the ‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life- the raid on Harper’s Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it and their latter-day apologists for the institution about his so-called ‘madness’. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.

For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly, it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. Like them without warts and with a discernible thrust from early adulthood that leads to some heroic action. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions in Kansas (concerning allegations of the murder of some pro-slavery elements under his direction) have also clouded his image. However if one looks at Kansas as the start of the Civil War then all the horrible possibilities under the heat of battle mitigate some of that incident although not excusing it anymore that we would today with American soldiers in places like Afghanistan and Iraq busting down doors and shooting first. However, when the deal went down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like but even a slight acquaintance with great historical figures shows that they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.

Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy for the Harper’s Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination of slave revolt modeled after the Maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s earlier Virginia slave rebellion and rural guerilla warfare of the ‘third world’ type that we have become more familiar with since that time. 150 years later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs. The execution of the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with connections to the plantations would not have hurt the chances for success at Harper’s Ferry.

What is not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist “avenging angel” in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. (Strange, or maybe not so strange now, both Frank and I who grew up upright Roman Catholics gravitated toward those photographs of Brown with his long unkempt beard as some latter day Jehovah and I remember Frank had a photo on the wall in his room with just such a photograph from I think a detail of the big mural in the State House in Kansas.) In short Brown   was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist sense of pre-determination that he would not have been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement led by Emerson and Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported Brown and kept his memory alive in hard times. In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the Old Testament prophet. This old time prophet animating spirit is not one that animates modern revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand today the depths of his religious convictions on his actions but they were understood, if not fully appreciated, by others in those days. It is better today to look at Brown more politically through his hero (and mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind that picture of him.

By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown.  He prophetic words upon the scaffold about purging the evil of slavery in blood proved too true. But that demeanor in the face of defeat was very appealing to me back then.  I have learned since that these results, the imprisonments or executions are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order if one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871 when that experience was crushed in blood after heroic resistance. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar with now there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by history.

Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ still cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such theories. Historians and others have also misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy that led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians to take the sting out of there proper political implications.

From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to was immediately successful reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the American constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone. Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political freedom. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the reign of ‘Jim Crow’ and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time. Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown, and of his friend Frederick Douglass.

I used to fervently believe that if Douglass had come on board as Brown had urged the chances for success would have been greater, at least more blacks (mostly free blacks and not plantation blacks for obvious reasons) and more radical whites who could have been mobilized as a result of all of the events of the 1850s especially the struggle against the Fugitive Slave Act and the struggle against the imposition of slavery in Kansas. Now I am not so sure that Douglass’ acceptance would have qualitatively changed the outcome. He went on to do yeoman’s work during the Civil War articulating the left black perspective and organizing those black regiments that shifted the outcome of the war at a decisive point. In any case honor the memory of old Captain John Brown and his heroic band at Harper’s Ferry.         

 

November 11-16: National days of action against the new US wars in the Middle East.  Watch for details.

 

Tuesday, November 11

Armistice / Veterans Day Parade and Vigil

We will gather between 12:00 pm (noon) and 12:30 pm on the corner of Charles and Beacon Streets.
1st Parade steps off at 1:00 pm – our parade will follow the same route then we will continue to Faneuil Hall for our Armistice / Veterans Day for Peace Event.

Parade at noon; rally 3:00 pm

Faneuil Hall • Boston

Attention Veterans & Peace Activists

Please Join Veterans For Peace and The Leftist Marching Band for
Armistice / Veterans Day Peace Parade and Peace Event

 Houses of Worship throughout Massachusetts will Ring Bells for Peace at 11:00 am, November 11th

Armistice Day / Veterans Parade for Peace & Faneuil Hall Peace Event

Veterans for Peace will proudly walk behind the first parade on Armistice / Veterans Day in Boston. We honor and celebrate the original intention for Armistice Day – a Day of Peace. 

Veterans from different eras will recite original works of Poetry, Prose and Song

 

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BOMBING AND BIGOTRY:

The Wars Abroad, the Wars at Home

 

Martin Luther King: “The bombs that are falling [overseas] are exploding in our cities”

 

BPD Petitions - Please Sign & Share!

Many of you have already signed the ACLU petition to the BPD calling for three key reforms. The petition is now online here: End Racially Discriminatory Police Practices in Boston (for residents of Boston) and Support the Movement to End Racially Discriminatory Police Practices in Boston (for people who aren’t residents of Boston).

We encourage you to please sign one of these two petitions and share widely among friends and supporters!

 

The Targeting of Young Blacks By Law Enforcement

While the election of Barack Obama as president may have seemed to some to herald a new era in American race relations, the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, made clear that one of the venerable flash points in race relations—the police (or in the case of Sanford, self-appointed police) killings of young black men—is very much still with us. Discriminatory police treatment of African Americans remains one of the hardiest perennials in American life, as the “stop-and-frisk” tactic that New York’s police force employed against young blacks until just last year made clear.  More

 

L.A. confrontation highlights relationship between Zionism and anti-black racism

On 18 October 2014, a self-professed “racist” pro-Israel counter-protester at a Block the Boat action in Los Angeles told black Palestinian solidarity activist and radio personality Margaret Prescod to “take your Ebola a*s and get out.” …That Zionists are open about their racism is not surprising. Their support for the ethnocratic state of Israel is doubtless, at least in part, motivated by this racism. As journalist Rania Khalek has noted, Zionism “enable[s] Israel’s genocidal ambitions” by normalizing this racism within an ethnoreligious-supremacist political philosophy. Zionism’s hyper-nationalism inspires egregious stereotypes that lead to the demonization and subsequent dehumanization of entire peoples. The same racist (il)logic that leads to the generalization of all Palestinians as “terrorists” leads to seeing all people of African descent as having Ebola…  Racist Zionist protesters like these remind one that the Palestinian solidarity movement is a fundamentally anti-racist movement.   More

 

Upcoming Events  Build 15 at the Polls! November 4th All Day Join the Vote Yes on 5 campaign at the polling stations on election day November 4th. Stay all day and talk to folks about why they should support $15/hr or just take a shift! Please contact us if you can help! Build the Campaign for Question 5! For a $15/hr minimum wage October 18th - 1:00 PM  West Roxbury Public Library RSVP Today! The 10th Suffolk State Representative District, comprising West Roxbury, South Brookline and Roslindale, has a unique opportunity to make an impact for a $15/hr minimum wage in Boston. On November 4th, the 10th Suffolk will have the historic opportunity to vote 'Yes' on an advisory ballot question to support the adoption of a $15 an hour minimum wage.  A strong 'Yes' vote would have a major impact on the discussion around and campaign to fight for $15 and other issues facing working people in Boston. The 10th Suffolk has the ability to be at the forefront of this. Join us on Saturday, October 18th, to come out and discuss with your neighbors how to make the strongest possible impact for $15 in the district. We need as many supporters and volunteers as possible to make this reality!   Get Involved with Vote Yes on 5 today! 15NowNewEngland@gmail.com Facebook.com/votefor15minwage - www.15Now.org 910-639-3948

In The Desperate Search For Peace- The Maine Veterans For Peace-Sponsored March For Peace and Protection Of The Planet From Rangeley To North Berwick-October 2014 -Take Two 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

“You know I never stepped up and opposed that damn war in Vietnam that I was part of, a big part of gathering intelligence to direct those monster B-52s to their targets. Never thought about much except to try and get my ass out of there alive, in one piece. Didn’t get “religion” on the issues of war and peace until sometime after I got out when I ran into a few Vietnam veterans who were organizing a demonstration with the famous Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) down in Washington and they told me what was what. So since then, you know, even if we never get peace, and at times that seems like some kind of naïve fantasy I have felt I have to be part of actions like today, like today with guys like you and other members of Veterans for Peace, to let people know, to let myself know, that when the deal went down I was where the action was, ’’ said Jack Scully to his fellow Vietnam veteran Peter Mullin.

Peter had been sitting in the passenger seat of the car Jack was driving when he made his comment as they were travelling back to Jack’s summer place in York after they had just finished participating in the last leg of the Maine Veterans for Peace-sponsored walk for peace and preservation of the planet from Rangeley to North Berwick, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles over a ten day period in the October breezes, the wayward October 2014 breezes. (Mike Kelly, a younger veteran from the Iraq wars, a newer member who neither of the Vietnam veterans knew well other than he had suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)  and had received a disability allowance, whose story they would find out more about some time later sat in back silently drinking in what these grizzled old activists were discussing)

The organizers of the march had a method to their madness since Rangeley was projected to be a missile site, and the stopping points in between were related to the war industries or to some environmental protection issue ending in North Berwick where the giant defense contractor Pratt-Whitney has three shifts running building F-35 missiles and parts for fighter jets. The three veterans who had come up from Boston to participate in the action had walked the last leg from Saco (pronounced “socko” as a Mainiac pointed out to Peter when he said “sacko”) to the Pratt-Whitney plant in North Berwick, some fifteen miles or so along U.S. Route One and Maine Route Nine.  

As Peter let Jack’s comment sink in this is what he had already had known about Jack, whom he had worked with on several anti-war campaigns previously, before he made his comment. Jack, born and raised in the Irish diaspora ghettoes of hard rock Philadelphia, had enlisted in the Army in 1968, before he was to be foregone conclusion drafted as he called it, along with his friends from the neighborhood (“a package deal” he called it so they would all go to basic training together at nearby Fort Dix), Pudge, Pinky and Five Fingers (guess what that five fingers had been doing to earn that sobriquet). None of them would have thought for a second about not going in when called, had enlisted just to get a better deal, not get stuck in the infantry like a lot of draftees (so they thought), could not have stood the gaff in the neighborhoods back home from friends, from the neighbors, and worse, from the family if they had done otherwise. Options, if they had been thought about at all, would have been eliminated out of hand, going to jail for draft refusal was not the kind of crime the corner boys of Irish working class neighborhoods in Philadelphia went to jail for back then, flight to Canada was out of the question because running away from anything human, except a pursuing cop, was unmanly, and applying for conscientious objector status was out, none of them were in that category if they had known what it was and how to apply (and an application would have been rejected out of hand since the church had a “just war” position while objection then required total opposition to war). No, Jack and his boys were reared in the traditional Irish Catholic verities of home, church and country pushed weekly at church and on television by Bishop Sheehan and reinforced by the screeds from some high-shelf pulpit of the hard anti-communist prelate Cardinal Spellman of New York City. Where was there room in that mix for a confused young man from North Philadelphia, if he had been confused, to make a conscientious stand against the war in those precincts.

And so Jack dutifully went in, was in the course of training assigned to military intelligence school to learn how to evaluate bombing runs and enemy targets and then duly sent to the only place where such specialists were in demand in those days, the hellhole sweaty, sultry god forsaken Republic of Vietnam. Right at MACV headquarters out by the airport at first then various field stations within fifty miles of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) later.  From about the second week Jack could sense that something was not right, that the work he was assigned to do was evil. Every day his conscience was troubled, but the way he dealt with that conflict was to try to survive a day at a time, that, and smoke as much of the plentiful dope that was always just laying around as possible.

After Jack had been a couple of months in-country it did not help that Pudge had been killed when his encampment down in the Delta had been overrun one night by Charlie. (Pudge, Pinky and Five Fingers not being as bright as Jack, who had been to a semester of college, were assigned to infantry training, their worst fear,  another specialty that was then in hot demand in stinking ‘Nam). Jack had reacted to the news by taking his rifle out in the street and tried to go and shoot every “gook” (his usage at the time) that he could see. Fortunately he was so stoned at the time that he fired out into nothing in the night before his barracks mates subdued him. When after six months in-country Five Fingers was seriously wounded up in Pleiku and had to be Evac-ed home Jack began to shoot up, do H to keep the demons at bay.

Finally, mercifully, Jack’s tour was up, he had extended his tour six month just to get out of the service a few months early. After being discharged he went home but home was no longer what it had been, he deserved no hero’s welcome, deserved no free drinks at Sully’s from the corner boys and their fathers and so slipped out of town one night and headed south. The first stop was Washington and that is where he met the kindred from VVAW who talked to him, finally got him to make sense of what the hell he had been through. Through fits and starts over the next couple of years he got his “religion” and that was that.                

After Peter thought about what Jack had said about his commitment to such actions as that day’s he made this reply, “You know I didn’t step up and oppose the Vietnam War very seriously until pretty late, after I got out of the Army in 1971 and was working with some Quaker-types in a GI bookstore near Fort Dix down in New Jersey (both of the other men gave the usual signs of recognition of that place, a place where they had taken their respective basis trainings) and that is where I got, what did you call it Jack, “religion” on the war issue. You know I have done quite a few things in my life, some good, some bad but of the good that people have always praised me for, that social work I did for a while, and later teaching I always tell them this- there are a million social workers, there are a million teachers, but these days, and for long time now, there have been very few peace activists on the ground so if you want to praise me, want to remember me for anything then let it be for this kind of work, things like this march today when our forces were few and the tasks enormous.”             

This is what Jack already had known about Peter before he made his comment. Peter, born and raised in the Irish diaspora ghettoes of hard rock North Adamsville just outside of Boston, had been drafted in the Army in 1969, kicking and screaming a little not over the morality of the war but that he was leaving his flirty girlfriend behind who would be hit on by every guy, even his corner boys, in the neighborhood and might just succumb to some sweet talk. Unlike Jack though he went in alone since, being a little older that Jack and his crowd, his corner boys had already done their service (one, Jimmy J. from down his street, had been killed during the Tet Offensive). Here is the common drill though. None of them, including Peter, would have thought for a second about not going in when called, most had enlisted to get a better deal (so they thought), none could  have stood the gaff in the neighborhoods back home from friends, from the neighbors, and worse, from the family if they had done otherwise. Options, if they had been thought about at all, would have been eliminated out of hand, going to jail for draft refusal was not the kind of crime the corner boys of Irish working class neighborhoods went to jail for back then, armed robbery being more likely, and then maybe a deal with the judge to go into the service in lieu of jail time. Flight to Canada was out of the question because running away from anything human, except a pursuing cop, was unmanly, and applying for conscientious objector status was out, none of them were in that category if they had known what it was and how to apply (and would have been rejected since the church had a “just war” position while objection then required total opposition to war). No, like  Jack and his boys,  Peter and his boys were reared in the traditional Irish Catholic verities of home, church and country pushed weekly at church and on television by Bishop Sheehan and reinforced by the screeds of the hard anti-communist prelate Cardinal Spellman of New York City. Where was there room in that mix for a confused young man from North Adamsville, if he had been confused, to make a conscientious stand against the war in those precincts. Where, indeed.

So Peter went in, losing that flirty girlfriend to some guy from Hull during basic training down at Fort Dix and then assigned to infantry training. And infantry trained soldiers in 1969, despite everybody with any sense knowing that the whole damn war was lost, were being respectfully requested in the hellhole, sweaty, sultry Republic of Vietnam. And so Peter went to the hellhole, and unbelievably, came back without a scratch although he lost about twenty pounds from the loss of fluids that he could never keep up with as they sweated away in the horrible humidity. But like Jack he had seen things, done things that no man should have ever had to have done. He wasn’t much for talking about that stuff, then or now, even with veterans. Spend most of his time in-country stoned on grass, maybe a little cocaine, like every other GI with any sense (except the southern boys, southern white boys, who didn’t do dope but drank their time away, mostly cheap PX whiskey).           

Finally, mercifully, Peter’s tour was up, in those days, in late 1970, they were letting Vietnam guys with short time get stationed near home when possible and he was assigned to Fort Devens about forty miles from Boston. One day as he was leaving the post he ran into some anti-war protestors, mostly Quakers from around the area and not some student SDS-types from Boston who he had kind of scorned, who told him they had staged a weekly vigil in front of the fort for the previous year. He said he would to talk to them sometime after telling them he had been in ‘Nam and could sure use somebody to talk to. They told him to come to a Friends meeting, and that it probably best to do so in Cambridge away from the fort where he could relax and not be monitored. He did do so one Sunday on a weekend pass, talked a lot to a very sympathetic young Quaker woman, Susan, whom after several meeting he started to date, kind of, kind of they both called it even after they had gone to bed together later after he had been discharged.

After being discharged he went home but like with Jack home was no longer what it had been, he deserved no hero’s welcome, deserved no free drinks at Dublin Grille  from the corner boys and their fathers and so slipped out of town one night and headed to Cambridge and that good Quaker woman’s arms. Stayed with Susan there until she talked him into going to Fort Dix with her and help with the GI anti-war work there centered on a coffeehouse that had been set up. Peter did that for a while, stayed with that sweet Quaker woman too but he was no Quaker and so he moved on after a while. But it was those Quakers who talked to him, talked to him without condescension, and finally got him to make sense of what the hell he had been through. Over the next couple of years he got his “religion” and that was that.               

With that exchange between the two men done the three men, as the sun started setting, headed back on the last stretch to York in silence all thinking about what they had accomplished that day.  

It had been a long day, a long Monday to begin a hectic week, starting early for Peter since, due to other commitments, he had had to drive up to York before dawn that morning. Those commitments included having stayed up late the night before working on a leaflet in support of the imprisoned heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower transgender Army soldier, Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley), who had been serving a thirty-five sentence at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for basically telling the American people, telling her fellow soldiers, telling Peter, the truth about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other nefarious acts of the American government abroad,  which was to be passed out at the Veterans Day anti-war parade in Boston. That previous night’s task a labor of love which had also included a few years of work on Chelsea’s behalf ever since he heard about the case in the fall of 2010 which Peter saw as some penance for his own failure to speak up in the military in his time.

Jack and Mike already in York too had gotten up early to make sure all the Veterans for Peace and personal gear for the march was in order. They were expected in Saco (you know how to say it now even if you are not from Maine, or never been there) for an 8:30 start to the walk and so left York for the twenty-five mile trip up to that town about 7:30. They arrived at the inevitable Universalist-Unitarian Church (U-U) about 8:15 and prepared the Veterans for Peace flags that the twelve VFPers from the Smedley Butler Brigade who came up from Boston for the last leg would carry.

That inevitable U-U remark by the way needs some explanation, or rather a kudo. Of all the churches, with the honorable exception of the Quakers, the U-Us have been the one consistent church which has provided a haven for peace activists and their projects, various social support groups and 12- step programs. And, of course, the thing that Peter knew them for through his companion who spent many hours in such places improving her voice by practicing in front of small audiences in what he felt had been the last gasp effort to preserve the folk minute of the early 1960s by opening their doors on a monthly basis and turn their basements or auditoria into throw-back coffeehouses with the remnant folk performers from that milieu playing, young and old.                  

And so a little after 8:30 they were off, a motley collection of about forty to fifty people, some VFPers from the sponsoring Maine chapter (who when Peter inquired to Brent, the organizer and all-around wizard, found out that they had taken turns doing the various legs as they were able to do so from Rangeley on down), the Smedleys (who as previously mentioned were making this last leg to finish the week off in good style. Peter had mentioned to Jack on the way up to Saco that they would horn in on the accolades for the march by showing up on the last day to be before the cameras and microphones looking like they had walked the entire distance. Jack laughed that such illusionary actions were part of politics, what the hell), some church peace activist types (the usual U-Us and Quakers, but also a few from a Hindu commune in Portland, a commune of Westerners who had converted along the way seeing that religion as one of searching for self-peace and world peace, who proved to be very interesting when Jack talked to couple of them on the route, a few young environmental activists (representing the protection of Mother Earth part of march but unlike a lot of such young people linking up the tremendous social waste of the military with the soon-to-be over the top climate problems not usually connected by that movement), and a cohort of Buddhists in full yellow robe regalia leading the procession with their chanting and pacing drum beating.

These Buddhists were well-known to Jack and Peter from various peace actions in Boston and the annual peace walk they walked each year from their monastery in Northampton, Massachusetts to some distant location, perhaps as far away as Washington, D.C. Peter joked to one of them, a Westerner, that they were the walkingest people he knew. She replied that the walking freed up energies to bring some little peace in the world. And Peter to his surprise seeing them still going strong after several miles of walking swore that he picked up his own flagging pace just being part of their procession.     

Those Buddhists, or some of them, had been on the whole journey from Rangeley unlike most participants who came on one or a few legs and then left. A little saunter of one hundred and twenty miles for them, child’s play. The group started appropriately enough walking up the eternal America Main Street although if you know about coastal Maine that is really U.S. Route One which would be the main road of the march until Wells where they would pick up Maine Route Nine into North Berwick and the Pratt-Whitney plant.

Peter had a flash-back thought early on the walk through downtown Saco as he noticed that the area was filled with old red brick buildings that had once been part of the thriving textile industry which ignited the Industrial Revolution here in America. Had been the place where his old friend, Josh Breslin, met out in California after he got out of the service who had tried to escape from the place and who just couldn’t get it out of his blood and eventually returned to the area now living in Old Orchard. Josh had told him many stories about growing up here, about how the mills leaving in the 1950s to head to the cheap labor non-union South had almost destroyed his father, and about the pull of the place on him after he had “sown his wild oats.”

Yes, Peter “knew” this town much like his own North Adamsville, another red brick building town, and like old Jack Kerouac’s red brick building Merrimack River Lowell which he had been in the previous week to help celebrate the annual Kerouac festival. All those towns had seen better days, had also made certain come-backs of late, but walking pass the small store blocks in Saco there were plenty of empty spaces and a look of quiet desperation on those that were still operating just like he had recently observed in those other towns. And the same look on the early morning winos, homeless, stranglers and vacant eyed they passed along the way. 

That sociological observation though was about the only one that Peter (or anybody) on the march could make since once outside the downtown area heading to Biddeford and Kennebunk the views in passing were mainly houses, small strip malls, an occasional gas station and many trees. As the Buddhists warmed up to their task the first leg proved to be uneventful except for the odd car or truck honking support from the roadway. (Peter and every other peace activist he knew always counted honks as support whether they were or not, whether it was more a matter of road rage or not in the area of an action, stand-out or march). Both Peter and Jack made it their business to connect with the Maine VFPers on the march in order to update and encourage them to send a contingent down to Boston for the Saint Patrick’s Day anti-war peace parade which the Smedleys had organized for the past four years in opposition to the pro-war orientation of the “official” parade in South Boston that day after they had been excluded from that official parade (along with the GLTBQ community, generic peaceniks and anybody else who did not buy into their narrow program). They both also, since they had connections to Maine, although not having been born there like some of the marchers could never claim Mainaic status, talked to others along the way to get an idea of what had been going on in Maine since the days when everybody would march on George H.W. Bush’s place in Kennebunkport to protest his and his son’s wars.          

And so the three legs of the morning went. A longer stop for lunch followed and then back on the road for the final stages trying to reach the Pratt-Whitney plant for a planned vigil as the shifts were changing about three o’clock.   

[A word on logistics since this was a straight line march with no circling back. The organizers had been given an old small green bus by a supporter up in Ellsworth for their transportation needs. That green bus was festooned with painted graffiti drawings which reminded Peter of the old time 1960s Ken Kesey Merry Prankster bus and a million replicas that one could see coming about every other minute out of the Pacific Coast Highway hitchhike minute back then. The green bus served as the storage area for personal belongings and snacks and, importantly, as the vehicle which   would periodically pick up the drivers in the group and leaf-frog their cars toward North Berwick. Also provided rest for those too tired or injured to walk any farther. And was the lead vehicle for the short portion of the walk where everybody rode during one leg before the final walk to the plant gate.]       

So just before three o’clock they arrived at the plant and spread out to the areas in front of the three parking lots holding signs and waving to on-coming traffic. Receiving a fair share of peace signs, the ubiquitous two fingers spread apart to form a V and the occasional honk. That was done for about an hour, including massing at the Employees parking lot to take advantage of the mass exodus which had to wait at a stop sign before hitting Route Nine home. After that crowd thinned out they gathered together and formed a circle, sang a couple of songs, took some group photographs before the Pratt-Whitney sign and then headed for the cars to be carried a few miles up the road to friendly farmhouse for a simple meal before dispersing to their various homes. In all an uneventful day as far as logistics went. Of course no vigil, no march, no rally or anything else in the front of some huge corporate enterprise, some war industries target, or some high finance or technological site would be complete without the cops, public or private, thinking they were confronting the Russian Revolution of 1917 on their property and that was the case this day as well. 

Peter did not know whether the organizers had contacted Pratt-Whitney, probably not nor he thought should they have, or security had intelligence that the march was heading their way but a surly security type made it plain that the marchers were not to go on that P-W property, or else. As if a rag-tag group of fifty mostly older pacifists, lukewarm socialists, non-violent veterans and assorted church people were going to shut the damn place down, or try to, that day.         

Nothing came of the security agent’s threats as there was no need for that but as Peter got out of Jack’s car in York he expressed the hope that someday they would be leading a big crowd to shut that plant down. No questions asked. In the meantime they had set the fragile groundwork. Yes, it had been a good day and they had all been at the right place. 

 

Stop The Wars!-Stop The Desecration Of Mother Earth!