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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Veterans For Peace Spied Upon

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Veterans For Peace Illegally Spied on By Boston Police Fusion Center

October 18, 2012 at 11:39:36
By David Swanson (about the author) Permalink

Tag(s): Fusion Centers; Fusion Warfare; Police; Police; Police Abuse Of Power; Police Attack Journalists Media; Police Coverup; Police Response Tactics; Police State; Police State; (more...) Police State, Add Tags (less...)

Veterans For Peace in Boston, the late VFP member Howard Zinn, and several other peace organizations in Boston have been routinely spied on for years, and records kept on their peaceful and lawful activities. The Boston Police Department and the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, BRIC, (the local "fusion center") have collected and kept so-called "intelligence reports" documenting constitutionally protected speech and political activity. While not a single report refers to any engagement in or plans for violence, peace rallies are called "Criminal Acts," and the reports are labeled as dealing with "Extremists," "Civil Disturbance," and "HomeSec-Domestic."

Fusion center employees working for the Boston Police, the FBI, and the Homeland Security Department have been a constant presence at peace events and have interrogated peace activists about purely legal activities. The ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild have obtained documents and videotapes after suing on behalf of five organizations and four individuals. One of the organizations is Veterans For Peace -- Chapter 9 Smedley D. Butler Brigade. The ACLU/NLG report and a related video are here: http://aclum.org/policing_dissent
The video includes commentary by Pat Scanlon, Coordinator of Veterans For Peace, Chapter 9. Pat is a decorated Vietnam Veteran, a graduate of the United States Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, Maryland. He was an Intelligence Analyst, held a top-secret clearance and worked in Intelligence at MACV headquarters in Saigon for the year of 1969.
"While in the Army," says Scanlon, "I was in Military Intelligence. I saw and handled numerous files of investigations conducted by the U.S. Army on U.S. citizens and students participating in local peace activities in their communities and on college campuses. This recent revelation of the Boston Police monitoring peace activists in Boston is proof of what I believe is a continuation of forty years of this kind of surveillance and monitoring of peace groups and individuals around the country by police and other government agencies."
Scanlon objects to being labeled an "extremist" for opposing war. "Who are the real extremists here, let me get this straight. Members of Veterans For Peace, veterans who have dutifully served our country, many in the line of fire, many with military decorations, who have personally experienced the horrors of war and now stand for peace are labeled as extremists and monitored by local police departments as a threat. While those who illegally took this country to war in Iraq resulting in over 4,700 deaths of our young men and women, 30,000 wounded, 30% suffering from PTSD, suicide rates increasing 15% each year, 1,000,000 Iraqis killed, 3,000,000 Iraqi refugees now scattered in countries around the world: These folks are not considered extremists, yet members of Veterans For Peace are? What is wrong with that picture?"
Michael T. McPhearson, National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, and a Veterans For Peace Board Member, added, "I am saddened that my nation which I have served as a soldier in the army has wandered so far off track that calling for peace, justice and respect for life and liberty is considered an extreme position. Is the next step to quiet my voice and take my right to free speech?"
Leah Bolger, national president of Veterans For Peace, was dismayed to learn of these practices. "To learn that Veterans For Peace has been labeled as an 'extremist' organization is absolutely shocking," said Bolger. "Veterans For Peace is an organization of military veterans who, from the day of our inception in 1985, have dedicated ourselves to using non-violent means to end war and militarism. Our experiences with combat and the military have taught us that war is immoral and counter productive; we now use our voices as veterans to denounce and resist the illegal and immoral military actions of our own country. It is quite disturbing to learn that our government is so threatened by our voice that they have resorted to spying on us, and characterizing us as 'extremists.' This is a very sad commentary."
Fusion centers that combine federal and local departments and militarize policing are all over the country, not just in Boston. The ACLU/NLG report provides some context:
"These revelations come on the heels of a report by a bipartisan US Senate subcommittee, which found that the federal government's work with state and local fusion centers -- among them the BRIC -- 'has not produced useful intelligence to support Federal counterterrorism efforts.' 'Fusion centers' were created in the aftermath of 9/11, ostensibly so the federal government could 'share terrorism-related information with states and localities.' One of two 'intelligence fusion centers' in Massachusetts, the BRIC was created in 2005 as 'a way to further integrate the intelligence capabilities of Boston, local, state and federal law enforcement partners.' Since then, it has received millions of dollars in federal funding and operated entirely absent independent public oversight or accountability. According to the Senate subcommittee report released earlier this month, the lack of accountability at fusion centers nationwide has translated into poor results: the report found that the millions of dollars poured into centers like the BRIC have failed to uncover a single terrorist plot. Instead, fusion centers have 'forwarded "intelligence" of uneven quality -- often times shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.' When they were related to terrorism, intelligence reports produced by fusion centers 'duplicated a faster, more efficient information-sharing process already in place between local police and the FBI-led Terrorist Screening Center.' One Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told investigators that fusion centers produce 'a lot of"predominately useless information,' and at times, said another, 'a bunch of crap.'"
Watch WHDH-Channel 7 news report: http://bit.ly/TfIhnf
Listen to WBUR-90.9 news report: http://bit.ly/WEoUnb
Veterans For Peace was founded in 1985 and has approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every U.S. state and several countries. It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans' organization calling for the abolishment of war.

http://davidswanson.org

David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online (more...)

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Update

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*********

We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

*********
The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.

I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.

**********

Update 10/18/12: Hearing regarding motion witnesses begins, defense gains access to more evidence

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Yesterday was the beginning of a two-day hearing in which the defense and prosecution will argue over which witnesses will testify about delays in court proceedings. Coombs wants to use witnesses to argue that Bradley Manning has been denied a speedy trial as guaranteed by law, and thus his charges should be dismissed. Read our notes from Day 1. You can also read about Day 1 and Day 2 of the court proceedings on Firedoglake’s website.
Judge Lind has ruled that the government must turn over an additional 600 e-mails to Bradley Manning’s defense. The emails discuss the military’s plans to respond to queries from reporters about Manning’s detention, preparing for protests, changes to Manning’s list of visitors and other details, according to the judge. This is a small victory in these court proceedings, and will give the defense a fuller picture into the motivations behind Bradley’s solitary isolation at Quantico. Read more here.

Bradley Manning supporter Peter Van Buren is known as the author for “We Meant Well: How I helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.” He says “I am a former US State Department employee and I wore my Free Bradley Manning T-shirt to work on my last day to remind my former State colleagues what freedom of speech means.” Thank you, Peter.

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Pre-Trial Hearings

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*********

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

***********

“Why can’t you be reasonable?” judge asks military in case to limit secrecy in Bradley’s trial

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The CCR argued its case at the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces today for transparency in Bradley Manning’s court-martial trial. Judges questioned why the government forced the issue to come to court at all.
By Nathan Fuller. October 10, 2012.

The CCR’s Shayana Kadidal

During oral arguments in the Center for Constitutional Rights’ lawsuit against the government seeking public access to basic court documents in Bradley Manning’s court-martial trial, judges for the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces demanded the government explain why it wouldn’t simply provide these documents in the first place.

When Army lawyer Capt. Chad Fisher said that the court wasn’t constitutionally required to provide public access to documents like prosecution briefs, transcripts, and rulings, Judge Margaret Ryan interrupted him to ask what she called a “common sense” question.
“Why can’t you just give it to them? Instead of making this a constitutional case, why can’t you just be reasonable?”

Fisher was unable to directly answer the question. Instead, he gave an array of responses that circumvented the basic issue: he repeated his belief that the court wasn’t obliged to make these records public, he said the fact that the public could attend the hearings meant they were “open,” he complained that the defense wasn’t asking the proper authority, and he reiterated the government’s position that the availability of FOIA provided sufficient public and press access.

The five judges repeatedly questioned and challenged each of Fisher’s points, particularly the idea that FOIA requests, to which the government frequently takes weeks, months, or even years to respond, provided sufficient and contemporaneous access, especially considering the fact that FOIA requests in this case have already been denied. They also pushed back on Fisher’s claim that “Nothing has been withheld” from the public and the press, based on the idea that attending the hearings amounts to fully accessing the proceedings.

“How is oral argument sufficient if you can’t read the briefs?” one judge asked.

“It’s not as if they’re speaking a foreign language,” Fisher responded.

But as journalists from the 30 major media outlets who submitted a supportive brief in this case explained, the media (and therefore the public) needs these documents to adequately cover the case:

“Journalists rely heavily on court documents to gain and provide to readers the background of and context surrounding a legal controversy — awareness and understanding of which is often necessary to accurately report on the dispute. Prior access to the materials also allows reporters, the overwhelming majority of whom have no legal background or education, to process the oftentimes complex legal theories at their own pace, or to interview a legal expert who could explain the issues, so they are better equipped to understand what is transpiring in a proceeding they attend.”

Shayana Kadidal, the CCR lawyer arguing in court today, similarly contended earlier this year that providing openness-in-name-only effectively “choked off” coverage of Manning’s hearings.
But the judges, not seemingly satisfied with Fisher’s responses, kept returning to the more elemental point that the government could avoid this litigation and a potential ruling that would affect courts-martial to come by simply turning over the documents requested. The court already has a process in place to redact documents, the judges noted, and parties settle extrajudicial matters with a compromise out of court all the time, so it seems perfectly feasible for the government to comply with the CCR’s reasonable request for access to the documents.

In the midst of this questioning, Fisher did concede what the CCR has long observed: that Guantanamo tribunals – hardly beacons of transparency – were less secretive than Bradley Manning’s court-martial, because the public could access filed briefs and transcripts to those proceedings.
The CCR’s Kadidal fielded a similar though not quite as lengthy barrage of questioning from the appeals court judges. The first issue they raised was whether this court even has jurisdiction to make a ruling on this case, as their jurisdiction has been narrowly limited and it isn’t clear that they have standing to make a ruling that affects the press and public alike. Kadidal responded that the government hadn’t raised this issue in their replies, and so he would need an additional 10 days to file a supplement that addresses the court’s jurisdiction.

Judge Ryan also wanted to know whether there was precedent for this court to compel the production of documents that didn’t yet exist. She was referring to the CCR’s request for transcripts of RCM 802 conferences, the private telephonic meetings Judge Denise Lind holds between Ft. Meade hearings with both the defense and the prosecution. She also wanted Kadidal to account for how exactly the documents would hypothetically be produced: who would transcribe the hearings, or who would pay a stenographer?

Kadidal responded that an audio file would be acceptable, but on the issue more generally, he said he believes the court should make a First Amendment ruling granting the press the right to these documents and let lower courts adjudicate the logistics. Judges replied that it was unclear that the First Amendment affords contemporaneous access to these documents: in other words, it might be wholly constitutional for the court to provide these documents after the fact.

Kadidal will submit his jurisdictional supplement in 10 days, and the government will submit a reply less than a week later. It’s unclear when or if this court will issue a ruling, or when exactly the parties might return to court. We’ll update our coverage of this case as it unfolds.

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Take action! Pressure the military to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*

We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

*

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as “Collateral Murder” and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death.

However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day. I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the Bradley Manning Support Network website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.

****

Take action! Pressure the military to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

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Pressure the military to do the right thing. Call the military Public Affairs Office at Fort Meade and demand that transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents must be made available to the press and public! Call 301-677-1361 then sign the letter below!
By the Bradley Manning Support Network. October 9, 2012.

Bradley Manning will have spent 983 days in prison before his trial begins in February.

This Wednesday, October 10th, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) will argue before the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces to bring transparency to the secretive trial of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Army PFC Bradley Manning. This hearing is open to the media and public. CCR attorneys will argue that the military must make transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents available to the press and the public.
“Public scrutiny plays a vital role in government accountability. Media access to the Manning trial proceedings and documents is critical for the transparency on which democratic government and faith in our justice system rests,” said CCR Legal Director Baher Azmy at the time of the initial filing. CCR has called Manning’s proceedings more secretive than tribunals at Guantanamo Bay in many aspects.
Let’s show our support by putting pressure on the military to do the right thing. Transcripts, judge decisions, prosecution motions, and other basic documents must be made available to the press and public!

Call the military Public Affairs Office at
301-677-1361.
Ask them what can be done to improve the situation.

Ask the Fort Meade Public Affairs Office to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Pre-Trial Hearings

Click on the headline to link to the "Private Bradley Manning Support Network"for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

*********

The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death. However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the Bradley Manning Support Network website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

************

Courtroom notes, Bradley Manning’s motions hearing: October 17, 2012

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Bradley Manning returned to Ft. Meade today for another motions hearing. Judge Lind will rule tomorrow on the defense motion to compel witnesses in the next hearing and on whether an author made Collateral Murder’s contents public at least a year before Bradley’s arrest.

By Nathan Fuller. October 17, 2012.

ABFE0825-3388-4958-B83F-A9D0A1CDCBE0_mw800_s

AP photo of PFC Bradley Manning

Developments since last hearing in August:
To start today’s motion hearing for PFC Bradley Manning, Judge Denise Lind recapped for the press and public what has taken place since court was last in session. 1) After reviewing the approximately 700 Quantico emails that the prosecution had tried to hold back from the Defense, Lind ruled against the prosecution, finding all but 12 were relevant. 2) On September 28, Lind largely granted the government’s redactions and substitutions for DHS, Department of State, and CIA documents. 3) Before litigating the defense’s speedy trial motion, the parties need to agree on a chronology of relevant events thus far. The prosecution sent the defense a 231-page document, which was rejected because it was a non-searchable PDF, mostly consisting of extraneous content. Continuing their strategy of ongoing delay, the prosecution then sent a 20-page Word document still containing irrelevant information, which the defense will be forced to review and whittle down into an appropriate timeline.

The prosecution refuses to provide an accurate portrayal of the pretrial timeline, because, as Coombs noted in his motion, the prosecution’s repeated and unjustifiable delays point “unmistakably to the conclusion that PFC Manning’s statutory and constitutional speedy trial rights have been trampled upon with impunity.”

Innocent until proven guilty: could others have been responsible?

A major issue today was David Finkel’s 2009 book The Good Soldiers, which the defense says includes verbatim transcript excerpts of the ‘Collateral Murder’ video. The government doesn’t believe the court should recognize that the transcripts are “verbatim” and doesn’t believe they definitively prove that Finkel was in possession of the video before its 2010 release. Judge Lind will compare the video and the book excerpts and rule tomorrow on whether she’ll take judicial notice of Finkel writing a “verbatim” transcript.

On the defense’s motion to compel witnesses, Lind will rule tomorrow when the court resumes at 1:00pm EST. The witness testimony requested would give more background on the prosecution’s extensive and potentially illegal pretrial delays.

Prosecution continues to block evidence showing lack of harm.

Fearing that evidence be introduced showing Bradley Manning to be a whistleblower deserving judicial protection, the prosecution continued its attempts to gag all references to the lack of harm caused, particularly a defense list of statements made by government officials. These include comments by the Defense Department’s Geoff Morrell, a White House press release, letters between Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Senator Carl Levin, a Defense Department briefing, a State Department briefing, Andrea Mitchell’s interview of Joe Biden, and a transcript of Congressman John Conyers speaking to the House of Representatives on the beneficial effects of WikiLeaks’ releases.

The government initially rejected most of these items because the defense submitted a number of news articles citing the quotes at issue, calling the news stories “hearsay” that didn’t directly reflect the government’s positions. But since Coombs has now provided the government briefs themselves, the prosecution opposes the majority of the statements on relevancy grounds. The prosecution’s Captain Morrow appeared to take issue with a CNN article as opposed to a newspaper article (such as from the New York Times), because the CNN post appeared on the Internet instead of in print.
The only reason the government wants to suppress these already-public statements, Coombs contends, is to obscure the fact that the whistleblower who released these cables to WikiLeaks brought no harm to U.S. national security.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Mimi’s Last Chance, Circa 1963

Mimi Murphy knew two things, she needed to keep moving, and she was tired, tired as hell of moving, of the need, of the self-impose need, to keep moving ever since that incident five years before, back in 1958, with her seems like an eternity ago sweet long gone motorcycle boy, Pretty James Preston. I knew this information, knew this information practically first hand because the usually polite nod or wave but loner Mimi Murphy had told me her thoughts and the story that went with it one night after she had finished a tough on the feet night working as a cashier at the refreshment stand in the Olde Saco Drive-In Theater out on Route One in Olde Saco, Maine.

That night she had passed me with a bottle of high-end Scotch, Haig &Haig, showing its label from a brown bag in her hand while I was going down the stairs in the rooming house we lived in on Water Street in Ocean City, a few miles from Olde Saco. A number of people, including Mimi and me, were camped out there in temporary room quarters after the last of the summer touristas had decamped and headed back to New York, or wherever they came from. The cheap off-season rent and the short stay until the next summer crowd showed up requiring no lease drew us there. Most residents, mostly young and seemingly unattached to any family or work life kept to themselves, private drinkers or druggies, a couple of low-profile hustling girls who didn’t bring their work home, guys maybe just out of the service, or between jobs, and so on. I had seen a couple of guys making passes at Mimi to no effect but thought nothing of it since they also targeted the hustling girls too. Ditto there.

Since I had never bothered Mimi, meaning made a pass at her (slender, no, skinny, Irish red-heads with faraway looks and no, no apparent warm bed desires, that year and in those days not being my type after tumbledown broken-hearted youthful years of trying to coax their favors to no avail over in the old Little Dublin neighborhood around the Acre in Olde Saco), she must have sensed that being contemporaries, she was twenty-one then and I twenty-two, that maybe she could unburden her travails on a fellow wayward traveler. And she was right, and she did as she invited me up into her room with no come hither look but with no fear, no apparent fear, anyway. After a couple of drinks, maybe three, of that dreamboat scotch that died easy going down (I had been down on my uppers for a while and was drinking strictly rotgut low- shelf liquor store wines and barroom half- empty glass left-overs but that is my story and not Mimi’s so I will move on) she loosened up, taking her shoes off before sitting down on the couch across from me. Here is the gist of what she had to say as I remember it that night:

She started out giving her facts of life facts like that she had grown up around this Podunk town outside of Boston, Adamsville Junction, and had come from a pretty pious Roman Catholic Irish family that had hopes that she (or one of her three sisters, but mainly she) might “have the vocation,” meaning be willing, for the Lord, to prison cloister herself up in some nunnery to ease the family’s way into heaven, or some such idea. And she had bought into the idea from about age seven to about fourteen by being the best student, boy or girl, in catechism class on Sunday, queen of the novenas, and pure stuff like that in church and the smartest girl in, successively, Adamsville South Elementary School, Adamsville Central Junior High, and the sophomore class at Adamsville Junction High School.

As she unwound this part of her story I could see where that part was not all that different from what I had encountered in my French-Canadian (mother, nee LeBlanc) Roman Catholic neighborhood over in the Acre in Olde Saco. I could also see, as she loosened up further with an addition drink, that, although she wasn’t beautiful, certain kinds of guys would find her very attractive and would want to get close to her, if she let them. But from all evidence she didn’t let them, lately anyway. Just the kind of gal I used to go for before I took the pledge.

About age fourteen thought after she had gotten her “friend” (her period for those who may be befuddled by this old time term) and started thinking, thinking hard about boys, or rather seeing that they, some of them, were thinking about her and not novenas and textbooks her either she started to get “the itch.” That itch that is the right of passage for every guy on his way to manhood. And girl on her way to womanhood as it turned out but which in the Irish Roman Catholic Adamsville Junction Murphy family neighborhood was kept as a big, dark secret from boys and girls alike.

Around that time, to the consternation of her nun blessed family, she starting dating Jimmy Clancy, a son of the neighborhood and a guy who was attracted to her because she was, well, pure and smart. She never said whether Jimmy had the itch, or if he did how bad, because what she made a point out of was that being Jimmy’s girl while nice, especially when they would go over Adamsville Beach and do a little off-hand petting and watching the ocean, did not cure her itch, not even close. This went on for a couple of years until she was sixteen and really frustrated, not by Jimmy so much as by the taboos and restrictions that had been placed on her life in her straight- jacket household, school and town. No question she was ready to break out, she just didn’t know how.

Then in late 1957 Pretty James Preston came roaring into town. Pretty James, who despite the name, was a tough motorcycle wild boy, man really about twenty-one, who had all, okay most all, of the girls, good girls and bad, wishing and dreaming, maybe having more than a few restless nights, about riding on back of that strange motorcycle he rode (a Vincent Black Lightning stolen, not by Pretty James, from some English guy and transported to America where he got it somehow, the details were very vague) and being Pretty James’ girl. One day, as he passed by on his chopper going full-throttle up Hancock Street, Mimi too got the Pretty James itch.

But see it was not like you could just and throw yourself at Pretty James. That was not the way he worked, no way. One girl, one girl from a good family who had her sent away after the episode, tried that and was left about thirty miles away, half-naked, after she thought she had made the right moves and was laughed at by Pretty James as he took off with her expensive blouse and skirt flying off his handle-bars as left her there unmolested but unhinged. That episode went like wildfire through the town, through the Monday morning before school girls’ lav what happened, or didn’t happen, over the weekend talkfest first of all.

No Pretty James’ way was to take, take what he saw, once he saw something worth taking and that was that. Mimi figured she was no dice. Then one night when she and Jimmy Clancy were sitting by the seawall down at the Seal Rock end of the beach starting to do their little “light petting” routine Pretty James came roaring up on his hellish machine and just sat there in front of the pair, saying nothing. But saying everything. Mimi didn’t say a word to Jimmy but just started walking over to the cycle, straddled her legs over back seat saddle and off they went into the night. Later that night her itch was cured, or rather cured for the first time.

Pouring another drink Mimi sighed, poor Pretty James and his needs, no his obsessions with that silly motorcycle, that English devil’s machine, that Vincent Black Lightning that caused him more anguish than she did. And she had given him plenty to think about as well before the end. How she tried to get him to settle down a little, just a little, but what was a sixteen old girl, pretty new to the love game, totally new, but not complaining, to the sex game, and his little tricks to get her in the mood, and make her forget the settle down thing. Until the next time she thought about it and brought it up.

Maybe, if you were from around Adamsville way, or maybe just Boston, you had heard about Pretty James, Pretty James Preston and his daring exploits back in about 1957 and 1958. Those got a lot of play in the newspapers for months before the end. Before that bank job, the one where as Mimi said Pretty James used to say all the time, he cashed his check. Yes, the big Granite City National Bank branch in Braintree heist that he tried to pull all by himself, with Mimi as stooge look-out.

She had set him up for that heist, or so she thought. No, she didn’t ask him to do it but she got him thinking, thinking about settling down just a little and if that was to happen he needed a big score, not the penny ante gas station and mom and pop variety store robberies that kept them in, as he also used to say, coffee and cakes but a big payday and then off to Mexico, maybe down Sonora way, and a buy into the respectable and growing drug trade.

And he almost, almost, got away clean that fatal day, that day when she stood across the street, an extra forty-five in her purse just in case he needed it for a final getaway. But he never made it out the bank door. Some rum- brave security guard tried to uphold the honor of his profession and started shooting nicking Pretty James in the shoulder. Pretty James responded with a few quick blasts and felled the copper, dead. That action though slowed down the escape enough for the real coppers to respond and blow Pretty James away. Dead, DOA, done. Her, with a tear, sweet boy Pretty James.

According to the newspapers a witness had seen a tall, slender red-headed girl about sixteen across the street from the bank just waiting, waiting according to the witness, nervously. The witness had turned her head when she heard the shots from the bank and when she looked back the red-headed girl was gone. And Mimi was gone, maybe an accessory to felony murder or worst charge hanging over her young head, and long gone before the day was out. She grabbed the first bus out of Braintree headed to Boston where eventually she wound up holed up in a high-end whorehouse doing tricks to make some moving on dough. (She mentioned some funny things about that stay, which was not so bad at the time when she needed dough bad, and about strange things guys, young and old, wanted her to do but I will leave that stuff out here.)

And she had been moving ever since, moving and eternally hate moving. Now, for the past few months, she had been working nights as a cashier in the refreshment stand at Olde Saco Drive-In to get another stake to keep moving. She had been tempted, a couple of times, to do a little moon-lighting in a Portland whorehouse that a woman she had worked with at her last job, Fenner’s Department Store where she modeled clothes for the rich ladies, had told her about to get a quick stake but she was almost as eternally tired at that prospect as in moving once again.

So Mimi Murphy, a few drinks of high-shelf scotch to fortify her told her story, told it true I think, mostly. A couple of days later I saw her through my room’s window down on the street in front of our rooming house with a suitcase in hand looking for all the world like someone getting ready to move on, move on to be a loner again after maybe an indiscrete airing of her linen in public. Thinking back on it now I wish, I truly wish, that I had been more into slender, no, skinny, red-headed Irish girls with faraway looks that season and maybe she would not have had to keep moving, eternally moving.

[Some research by our rooming house denizen later in the “Adamsville Gazette” for 1958 revealed that the police had chalked up the James Preston bank hold-up and security officer murder and his subsequent death as the act of a lone gunman. They did not pursue the red-headed girl lead for long. The Murphy family, in an unrelated article, had put out a one thousand dollar reward for any leads to the whereabouts of their daughter, Mimi.-JLB]

AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Veterans For Peace Spied Upon

Veterans For Peace Illegally Spied on By Boston Police Fusion Center

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Update

Update 10/18/12: Hearing regarding motion witnesses begins, defense gains access to more evidence

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“Why can’t you be reasonable?” judge asks military in case to limit secrecy in Bradley’s trial

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Take action! Pressure the military to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

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Take action! Pressure the military to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

Ask the Fort Meade Public Affairs Office to improve media access to the Bradley Manning trial

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning- Pre-Trial Hearings

Courtroom notes, Bradley Manning’s motions hearing: October 17, 2012

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Mimi’s Last Chance, Circa 1963

Join Veterans For Peace On Veterans/Armistice Day Sunday November 11th In Boston For An Anti-War March And Program

FromThe Partisan Defense Committee- Free Bradley Manning!

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