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Memorial service: Donna Aakjar
Misjudging the American people
People who don’t study history — or think they can rewrite history to suit their ideals — are fundamentally unsound, morally and practically. Their undoing may happen all at once, over short periods of time, over periods of passionate revolt or, indeed, years. But it will happen, historical facts simply cannot be swept aside.
America was founded by disaffected people. America was populated — in waves of immigration — by disaffected people from across the globe. Not one person who immigrated to America who came here hundreds of years ago, two hundred years ago, one hundred years ago, fifty years ago, or in the past few decades came here to become part of a rigid and fixed establishment, to become a sheep as a followers, nor just someone to fit in with a crowd. Americans, each and every one of us, are ambitious, fiercely independently minded, setting personal freedom as our core existence, never permitting the concept of loss of liberty to become commonplace.
Do you feel I am wrong? Think simply of the first settlers here. These men and women were allowed to actually own — freehold — the land they farmed. Nowhere else on the entire planet was that possible at the time. That’s a fundamental USA right. Or you might ask yourself, when you get stopped speeding by a police car, what is you first reaction? Compliance or questioning authority? What do you say to the officer? Probably a defiant, “Why have you stopped me?” Because in America you have the right to defend your personal freedom, question authority, rebel – so you speak up from only that perspective, not that you want to break the law, but you are not sure your independence is subject to the law at that time. You are a rebel. You are American.
We are a nation of rebels. Think I am wrong? Remember back to 1970 when students and “peaceniks” across the country demonstrated, often facing down police with batons, guns, watercannon, and tear gas against the Vietnam War. Students at Kent State were shot dead in that protest. Think of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, clearly out-gunned, out-manned on the streets across the nation. Lawbreakers? Hell yes but unarmed, vulnerable, defiant. Rebels, in a true, real, American way. Pink hatted ladies marching? Think they are not rebels? They are and they will be back in force, soon.
Now, stop for a moment and ask yourself — if you have any grasp of world history — could any of the typical American demonstrations, riots even, have happened in Italy or Germany in the 30s? People there did not have the same spirit of independence as Americans do, they could not, in their innermost being, understand being that defiant. They were raised to be subservient, not free-thinking, not liberated.
Even today, think of that American crossing the street in the middle of a block. Jaywalking is a technical offence. But how many Americans jaywalk? How many Germans do even today? None. The simple truth is, we’re not a very law-abiding nation of individuals. Sure we’ll comply, we’re not deliberately law-defiant speeding over the limit, “Yes officer, you’re right I was speeding… sorry…” But somewhere in our mind, at that moment, we had reason, and that reason is always based on our feeling of our right to proceed with liberty; to do as we damn well please, not simply to follow orders. Orders are, often in America, first questioned and then seen as only a slight barrier to common-sense self-motivation.
And that’s why authoritarian regimes here can never prosper. They will fail, sometimes quickly, sometimes over weeks, months, maybe even years or after a calamity like a war. But the spirit of the very people who chose to be here, generationally chose to be here, is fiercely independent and those few who seek to change that moral code have misjudged the real America. Authoritarians will fail. Historic fact cannot be rewritten to suit their false hopes. And wannabe authoritarians are, in truth, foolish to think otherwise. In their ignorance of what makes America great, they cannot help but lose.
Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, New York, now lives in Gila, New Mexico.
The following excerpts from The Millerton News were compiled by Kathleen Spahn and Rhiannon Leo-Jameson of the North East-Millerton Library.
May 30, 1934
‘Work Relief Is Suspended In Dutchess’; Five-hundred men on work relief projects in the twenty towns of Dutchess County, outside the cities of Poughkeepsie and Beacon were laid off last Thursday night when the work-week ended and will not return to work until next week when the June TERA allotment becomes effective. All projects were suspended because the funds allotted to the county for this month had become exhausted, according to Harold R. Dean, executive director of the TERA, who said that the men would not go back to work until the week of June 3.
Sufficient funds were held out from the $50,000 May allotment to continue home relief during the interim for the 600 or 700 families on the county’s home relief lists, Mr. Dean disclosed. It is mandatory under TERA regulations that home relief be continued.
Home relief as estimated for the month is deducted from the monthly allotment Mr. Dean explained, of which the county is to be reimbursed to the extent of seventy-five per cent by the state. The balance is used for work relief.
The administrative force, comprising about fifty, was not suspended as there is enough clerical work to keep the entire force busy during the enforced lay-off of the work relief men. Need is not aqualification for employment in the administrative department.
No disturbances were anticipated by Mr. Dean because of the suspension of work relief. The work relief lists produced “a decent bunch of workers,” he said, and that field workers had reported that the men had accepted the lay-off without comment or disturbance.
May 29, 1975
‘Millerton Theatre Reopens’; The Millerton Movie Theatre will be open for business beginning June 18.
The theatre, vacant since the Fall of 1974, has been leased for the summer by the Ferguson family of New York City, who know the Tri-State area quite well having spent the past 13 summers in their Lakeville home.
The Millerton Theatre will be operated by Laura Ferguson, 19, a student at Berkeley, her sister Sharon, 18, who attends Duke University and a friend, Tom Babbitt, 20, also a Berkeley student. They hope to operate the theatre until Labor Day.
When asked why her family was going into the movie business, Sharon Ferguson said, “We saw in the paper that the theatre was closing up and we thought it was a grand shame.”
Sharon said they intend to offer present-day feature movies and some revivals. They are looking through catalogues now and setting the schedule.
“It’s definitely not going to be X-rated stuff. That’s a bad idea,” said Sharon.
An admission price has also not yet been decided on.
Sharon admitted that she, Laura and Tom were going into the venture “totally as amateurs” but contended, “It can’t be that much of a deficit just for the summer.”
Suggestion boxes have been placed in local stores including Terni’s, Millerton Super and the Lakeville Food Center so that area residents can offer ideas on what films they would like presented on the Millerton screen.
‘CBS News, N.Y. Times Hit Millerton’; The abrupt closing of Rudd Pond got attention beyond the confines of the Tri-State area this past weekend. A television film crew from CBS News appeared in Millerton Saturday. After a detour for lunch at the Interlaken Inn, the crew proceeded to Rudd Pond for filming.
The story was shown Sunday night on the CBS Evening News, replete with brief interviews with Millerton Mayor John Hermans and Village Trustee Richard Weinstein.
‘Town May Sue State Over Rudd Pond Closing’; The Village of Millerton and the Town of North East may serve the State of New York with a show cause order for abruptly closing the Taconic State Park at Rudd Pond last week.
The Village and Town Boards were to meet Wednesday night, May 28, to determine what action to take against the state.
North East Town Attorney Robert Trotta said that “any state agency cannot act in an arbitrary and capricious way” and that if a show cause order is served it will be up to the courts to decide if the state acted within its jurisdiction.
Trotta reported that the state turned down the Town’s request last year to lease or deed the land at the southern end of the Rudd Pond park by Belgo Road. The Town had sought to obtain the area with its orebed pool for a town park. Trotta said that the State informed the Town that the Rudd Pond swimming facility was adequate for the area
Town Supervisor Frank Perotti said that the Town and village may seek to rent the park from the State, but he said he has been informed that there is “only a very slim chance that this can be done.”
New York State Assemblyman Benjamin P. Roosa Jr., who represents this area of Dutchess County, called the Rudd Pond shut-down “purely political.” He said that there is an “impasse relating to the state budget. Assemblyman Roosa asserted that if the Town and Village sought to lease the park, he would “encourage the State to let it be used.”
