LEFT, RIGHT AND THE SECOND MAINE MILITIA
Christopher Ketcham, Time - In early October, the Second Maine Militia opened its meeting with the traditional shooting of the televisions. The 50 or so "members" (there are no rolls and no one pays dues) chatted quietly as the blasts rang out. A small cannon was fired into the woods, parting the trees and shaking the windows of the house nearby. But no real televisions were harmed. The sets were just cardboard boxes painted with inane smiley faces and decorated with slogans like "Feel good!" "Proud to be USA!" "Safe in the homeland!" The aluminum-foil antennas, however, did collapse miserably from the real gunfire.
The purpose of the annual meeting, the same as it has been since the militia started in 1995, was to bring together the politics of left and right over speeches, food, live music, and, of course, live ammo. The attendees were a wildly diverse group: young activists and anarchists in black, old beat-up Maine woodsmen with beards to their bellies, retired white-haired college professors, Second Amendment zealots, conservatives, libertarians, Marxists. But they all shared the belief that the U.S. government has lost its moral authority, that both political parties had "degenerated," as one attendee put it, "into whores for wealth and arbiters of empire."
"From the beginning, we were the No-Wing Militia," said Michael Chute, 54, who served as range officer for the slaughter of the televisions. "We ain't right wing, we ain't left wing. We're trying to get the folks to see the problem ain't left versus right, it's up versus down." He uses a tool analogy. "A Republican is a standard screw," said Chute. "A Democrat is a Philips screws. So whichever way you vote you get the screw." . . .
Earlier in the festivities, a few people had made speeches. One of the presenters, a retired professor of economics from Duke University named Thomas Naylor, 73, who heads up a secessionist movement in Vermont, suggested that Maine secede from the union. I asked Naylor, who doesn't own or particularly like guns, what he thought of the Second Maine Militia. "It's a variation on the Swiss shooting club, with social and political overlays," he explained. "It's a fairly benign way of confronting one's powerlessness.". . .
Michael Chute kindled a fire as night fell and the party was ending, and I sat down with his wife, who wore big boots and a blue bandanna that tied back long kinky hair. "We should secede," she said, almost to herself. Over her jungle-camo jacket she strung a bandolier that held what looked like the 7.62 mm rounds for her AK-47, the rifle she calls "my baby" because "it kicks just a little bit and has a deep sound." But there was nothing deadly about her ammo: the shell casings were affixed with pencil points. "The point being," the novelist explained, "that we should make our pencils our bullets."
The purpose of the annual meeting, the same as it has been since the militia started in 1995, was to bring together the politics of left and right over speeches, food, live music, and, of course, live ammo. The attendees were a wildly diverse group: young activists and anarchists in black, old beat-up Maine woodsmen with beards to their bellies, retired white-haired college professors, Second Amendment zealots, conservatives, libertarians, Marxists. But they all shared the belief that the U.S. government has lost its moral authority, that both political parties had "degenerated," as one attendee put it, "into whores for wealth and arbiters of empire."
"From the beginning, we were the No-Wing Militia," said Michael Chute, 54, who served as range officer for the slaughter of the televisions. "We ain't right wing, we ain't left wing. We're trying to get the folks to see the problem ain't left versus right, it's up versus down." He uses a tool analogy. "A Republican is a standard screw," said Chute. "A Democrat is a Philips screws. So whichever way you vote you get the screw." . . .
Earlier in the festivities, a few people had made speeches. One of the presenters, a retired professor of economics from Duke University named Thomas Naylor, 73, who heads up a secessionist movement in Vermont, suggested that Maine secede from the union. I asked Naylor, who doesn't own or particularly like guns, what he thought of the Second Maine Militia. "It's a variation on the Swiss shooting club, with social and political overlays," he explained. "It's a fairly benign way of confronting one's powerlessness.". . .
Michael Chute kindled a fire as night fell and the party was ending, and I sat down with his wife, who wore big boots and a blue bandanna that tied back long kinky hair. "We should secede," she said, almost to herself. Over her jungle-camo jacket she strung a bandolier that held what looked like the 7.62 mm rounds for her AK-47, the rifle she calls "my baby" because "it kicks just a little bit and has a deep sound." But there was nothing deadly about her ammo: the shell casings were affixed with pencil points. "The point being," the novelist explained, "that we should make our pencils our bullets."
posted by TPR | 12:38 AM
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