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Tag Archives: Vietnam War

Remembering the Catonsville Nine, 1968

17 Tue May 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Imperialism, Anti-War, Free Speech, Mindfulness

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American War (in Vietnam), Catonsville Nine, Father Daniel Berrigan, Jeremy Scahill, Plowshares Movement, SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, the draft, Vietnam War, Weather Underground, William Kunstler

LUMPENPROLETARIAT    GONZO:  I first heard about the Catonsville Nine last week during a speech given by Jeremy Scahill in Berkeley, California.  But actually it kind of flew over my head the first time because Scahill mentioned so many things during his Assassination Complex address at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley.  And I wasn’t feverishly scrawling notes, as I would if I were at a formal university lecture.  [1]

48 years ago today, the Catonsville Nine took a historic stand against militarism, war, and imperialism and, in so doing, inspired generations to work for peace.

Messina

***

WIKIPEDIA—[accessed 18 MAY 2016]  The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War.  On May 17, 1968, they went to the draft board in Catonsville, in the U.S. state of Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured home-made napalm over them, and set them on fire.

The Nine were:

  • Father Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest
  • Philip Berrigan, a former Josephite priest
  • Br. David Darst, a De La Salle Christian Brother
  • John Hogan
  • Tom Lewis, an artist
  • Marjorie Bradford Melville
  • Thomas Melville, a former Maryknoll priest
  • George Mische
  • Mary Moylan

George Mische and Father Phil Berrigan were prime organizers of the Catonsville Nine.  The organizing process was very democratic, with interminable meetings and “who’s in, who’s out” handraisings.

Fr. Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis had previously poured blood on draft records as part of “The Baltimore Four” (with David Eberhardt and James Mengel) and were out on bail when they burned the records at Catonsville.  (The first documented action against draft files is reputed to have been by Barry Bondhus in Minnesota, who, along with other family members, carried human waste into a draft board and defaced draft records.)

The Catonsville Nine were tried in federal court October 5–9, 1968.  The lead defense attorney was counterculture legal icon William Kunstler.  They were found guilty of destruction of U.S. property, destruction of Selective Service files, and interference with the Selective Service Act of 1967.  They were also sentenced to a total of 18 years’ jail time and a fine of $22,000.  Several of the nine—Mary Moylan, Phil Berrigan, Dan Berrigan and George Mische—went “underground” when it came time to show up for prison—in other words, the FBI had to try to find them.  Father Dan Berrigan caused considerable embarrassment to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover by popping up and giving sermons and then fading back into the “underground”.

Fr. Daniel Berrigan wrote, of the Catonsville incident:  “Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children…”  The whole of his statement is in The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.

Large demonstrations occurred outside the Federal Courthouse on Calvert Street during the trial.  The trial came soon after the events of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where considerable violence took place.  The Nine’s trial, with religious people involved, made the overall peace movement a bit harder to dismiss since protesters in Chicago consisted of younger, student and SDS, Weather Underground, and youths with long hair.

Both the judge, Roszel C. Thomsen, and the prosecutor, Stephen H. Sachs, realised the historic proportions of the event but allowed little leeway to the defendants’ arguments.  In these early trials of such actions the government always overcharged and always tried to keep the trials to “nothing but the facts,” i.e., did the Nine destroy files or did they not?  The Nine, on the other hand, often referred to a higher law that they were following—God’s moral law—as well as such precedents as the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II. They called several expert witnesses.  At one point, prosecutor Sachs quipped that “the government is not a balloon attached to the consciences of the Nine.”

Learn more at WIKIPEDIA.

***

ALSO SEE:

  • “Jeremy Scahill’s ‘Assassination Complex’ Book Tour Benefits Free Speech KPFA”, Lumpenprolariat, 9 MAY 2016.

***

[1]  But, then, I knew I was going to replay my audio notes, i.e., my audio recording of the lecture.

***

[17 MAY 2016  07:00 PDT]

[Last modified  05:27 PDT  19 MAY 2016]

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Dinosaur Jr. Versus Henry Rollins Live On KEXP (2011)

07 Wed Oct 2015

Posted by ztnh in History of Rock and Roll, Music, Philosophy

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2011, Dinosaur Jr, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Heavy Blanket, Henry Rollins, J Mascis, Liar, Lou Barlow, Low Self Opinion, Murph, The Lemonheads, transcript, Vietnam War

640px-Dinosaur_Jr._at_WTAI_in_StockholmLUMPENPROLETARIAT—In 2011, Dinosaur Jr. was touring their classic album entitled Bug.  (I’ll have to find my 2011 Dinosaur Jr. concert ticket stub to include with this article and, maybe, some notes about their SF Bay Area stop on that tour.)  Dinosaur Jr. actually never played Bug live before due to creative (and personal) tensions within the band.  Bassist Lou Barlow was sacked soon after the album’s release.  Indeed, from some of the interviews I’ve read over the years from Mascis and Barlow, I thought they’d be as unlikely to musically reunite as, say, The Smiths‘ Morrissey and Johnny Marr.  Murph, the band’s drummer would also move on and work on other projects between 1993 and 2005, including joining The Lemonheads in 1995.  Since coming back together as a trio in 2005, the original line up of Dinosaur Jr. has released three more albums:  Beyond (2007), Farm (2009), and I Bet On Sky (2012).  (Beyond features one of my all-time favourite album covers.  Indeed, if we’re not careful, our living rooms have the uncanny ability of swallowing us alive.)

In this live performance in the KEXP studio from December 17, 2011, Henry Rollins chats with the band in between songs from Bug.  Rollins is a big Dinosaur Jr. fan. and has featured J Mascis’ work on his radio show before, such as J’s musical group Heavy Blanket.

Messina

“Dinosaur Jr. Live on KEXP, Hosted by Henry Rollins“

“Liar” by The Rollins Band

“Low Self Opinion” (1992) by Rollins Band

“Rollins Explains His Search and Destroy Tattoo“

[TRANSCRIPT]

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Is that—you have a search and destroy tattoo.  Is that the type of thing you gotta live to be able to wear it?”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “Uh, what do you mean?”

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Well, I’m not sure if that—like, I don’t know where that comes from?  Is Search and Destroy some—?”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “Search and Destroy is a term, that was used in Vietnam—”

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Oh, okay.”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “—when a search and destroy mission was to go along a designated path, go to any village you would find, eliminate the kids and old people, flush them from the village and burn it to the ground.

“And the concept of search and destroy, for me, is just my attitude towards life, which is to explore everything thoroughly, each emotion, each strength, each weakness, break it into its component parts, and find out where the truth lies.  You know?  Take—push it.

“And, at the end of the mission, hopefully, you’re spent. [1]  That’s my concept.  You know?”

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Mm.”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “It’s a very Nietzschian-type thing, like pulling yourself towards death by living life so fully.  And the way I do it—my little way of doing it—is by performing and pushing myself physically and mentally and really trying to express myself flat out, without holding back.”

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Is it a test for yourself?”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “M-hm.  Yeah.  I’m not really interested in life outside of what really pushes me.  Life is pretty boring in a lot of ways.  It’s a ritual.”

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Mm.”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “You know?  You got your ritual.  I got mine.  You know?  So, if you think about it, you know, the first guy felt like the fifth guy, feels like the twentieth guy.  You know?  I mean it’s just biology.  And the first meal, the tenth meal, sleep, wake up.  You know.  It’s a circle.

“So, for me, to make it interesting and to mean something, I really find meaning in the grind, in the push.  You know?”

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:  “Mm.”

HENRY ROLLINS:  “I find most illumination in states of exhaust and fatigue.  You know?  That’s where I get my high.  You know?  Like when I play with the band, I push myself very physically and from that I really get gone into the music.  You know?  I really enjoy it.

“It hurts like hell to play.  Never did a gig that was any good, that didn’t hurt.  And just, you know, sometimes we book these tours like eight weeks.  It makes me wince, just going: Gawd, am I gonna survive this.  But I like being in situations where I gotta really pull myself together to get through it.  And it’s not Cambodia.  It’s not San Quentin.  You know?  I’m not dodging bullets.  It’s just a club.  But it’s as close as I get to to it, so I can really push myself to see what I’m made of.  And that’s what I’m interested in.”

***

[1]  cf. catharsis, shamanic communing, Jim Morrison, the lizard king, et al.

***

[Transcript by Messina for Lumpenproletariat.org]

[Last modified 13:58 PDT  18 NOV 2015]

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