Veterans Day Hypocrisy

by Stephen Lendman

Some people confuse Veterans Day with Memorial Day. They're both federal holidays. The latter remembers combat related dead service personnel.

The former honors war and peacetime veterans. It largely thanks living ones. It does so disingenuously.

Veterans Day was formerly Armistice Day. It commemorates the war to end all wars. In 1918, guns on both sides largely fell silent. They did so on the 11th hour of the 11th day of 11th month.

In 1919, remembrance began. Woodrow Wilson proclaimed it, saying:

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

In 1938, Congress declared Armistice Day a legal holiday. It called it "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."

In 1954, Congress changed its name. Dwight Eisenhower endorsed it. He signed legislation designating November 11 henceforth as Veterans Day.

He issued a presidential order. It called on VA officials to form a Veterans Day National Committee. It mandated them to organize and oversee a national remembrance day.

Parades and public ceremonies commemorate it. They ignore what's most important. They glorify wars. America doesn't wage them for peace. Washington considers it abhorrent.

Veterans Day dishonors living and dead veterans. It ignores longstanding US imperial lawlessness. It airbrushes from history decades of what matters most.

It includes militarism, raw aggression, permanent wars on humanity, mass killing and destruction, exploiting resources and people, seeking unchallenged global dominance, and creating unspeakable human misery.

Depravity defines America's agenda. War is a national obsession. It's a longstanding addiction.

It's got nothing to do with national security. It's not about making the world safe for democracy. Americans are systematically lied to. Young men and women are enlisted on false pretenses.

Propaganda glorifies wars in the name of peace. Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Nations are destroyed to liberate them. Plunder is called economic development. Imperial lawlessness is called humanitarian intervention.

Ruthless dominance is called democracy. Monied interests alone benefit. Making the world safe for banksters and other corporate crooks matters most.

Youths are cannon fodder. They're used, abused and ignored. America's imperial appetite is insatiable. One war follows others. Nations are ravaged and destroyed one at a time or in multiples.

Veterans Day should condemn wars. It should feature ways to end them. It should prioritize never again. It should expose America's real agenda.

It should remember Lincoln at Gettysburg, saying:

"(W)e here resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

War raged months longer. Ending one leads to others. A destructive cycle of violence continues.

Remembrance should be contrition. It should pledge peace. It should honor anti-war activism. It should turn swords into ploughshares.

It should back rhetoric with policy. It should combine Veterans and Memorial Days. It should change them to Peace Day. It should pledge never again and mean it.

On November 9, Obama's weekly address ignored what's matters most. He didn't surprise. He lied like he always does. He's a serial liar.

He began saying "(t)hank you to that greatest generation who fought island by island across the Pacific, and freed millions from fascism in Europe."

"Thank you to the heroes who risked everything through the bitter cold of Korea and the stifling heat of Vietnam."

"And thank you to all the heroes who have served since, most recently our 9/11 Generation of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan."

He failed to say Korea, Vietnam, and all other US post-WW II wars were lawless. They were premeditated aggression.

They're responsible for crimes of war, against humanity, genocide, and unspeakable human suffering.

No one involved in them has reason to be proud. Past and present administration and Pentagon officials are war criminals. So are complicit congressional members and bureaucrats.

Obama claimed his "top priority" is assuring veterans "never have to fight for a job when (they) come home."

He "made sure" it wouldn't happen, he said. He lied. Unemployment is at Depression era levels.

Labor Department figures are manipulated. They're fake. Most jobs created don't pay enough to live on. Millions struggle to get by. So do vets.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans estimates around 63,000 homeless veterans on any given night.

Over the course of a year, it says, double that number experience homelessness. Numbers are increasing, it adds.

Uncaring government officials bear full responsibility. Services provided are meager at best. Nothing is done to address unemployment.

US resources go for war. Helping returning vets doesn't matter. They're replaced with new recruits sent off to fight. They're lied to about reasons why. They're largely ignored on returning home.

A previous article addressed record numbers of US military and veterans suicides. Most people don't know. Little gets reported.

Obama ignores it. He's preoccupied with waging wars. He's got others in mind. He's mindless about shocking numbers of active duty personnel and vets taking their own lives.

Unbearable emotional pain consumes them. Daily trauma builds. So does intolerable stress. Relief is desperately sought. Suicide is chosen. It's a last option. Others were exhausted.

Daily stress is bad enough. Combat exacerbates it. It's intolerable for many. America consumes its own.

Epidemic post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) levels affect hundreds of thousands of combat forces and vets.

Official numbers understate the problem. It's huge. Independent reports say up to half of Afghan and Iraq vets have emotional and/or physical combat injuries.

They'll never be the same again. They're traumatized. Many can't cope. Their suffering goes largely unnoticed. Many needing help don't get it.

Left untreated, things worsen. Able-bodied youths become physically and emotionally crippled. War is hell and then some.

Horrifying flashbacks persist. PTSD prevents normal functioning. Artificial limbs aren't like nature's.

Damaged emotions aren't made whole. Broken psyches aren't easily repaired. Shattered lives stay that way. Shocking suicide numbers explain best.

So do Depression level numbers of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and left on their own vets. Despair defines their condition.

They suffer out of sight and mind. They die the same way. America treats its own with disdain.

Countless numbers of vets are at risk. Suicide levels may increase. Advancing America's imperium matters most.

All federal holidays reflect hypocrisy. Commemorations hide vital truths. America's dark side stays out of sight and mind.

All politicians lie. Obama exceeds the worst of others. He prioritizes war on humanity and then some. He sanitizes his real agenda. Don't expect him to explain.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/veterans-day-hypocrisy/

US Atrocities in Afghanistan

by Stephen Lendman

US drones murder Afghan civilian men, women and children. American grounds forces do it up close and personal.

US inflicted death, torture and other atrocities reflect daily life. Ordinary Afghans suffer most. They struggle to survive. American aggression is one of history's greatest crimes.

War criminals remain unpunished. Accountability is denied. Conflict persists. It's Washington's longest war. It's longer than WW I and II combined. It shows no signs of ending.

Trillions of dollars go mass slaughter and destruction. They're spent for unchallenged global dominance.

Vital homeland needs go begging. Targeted countries are ravaged and destroyed. Imperial lawlessness operates this way.

Its appetite is insatiable. It ignores rule of law principles. It does whatever it wants. It does it where, when, by what means, and under whatever pretexts it contrives.

It does so unapologetically. It targets one country at a time or in multiples. It wages direct and proxy wars. It does so without justification. It lies claiming otherwise.

Atrocities are virtually de rigueur. All US wars are dirty. In March 2012, 20 US forces murdered 16 Afghan men, women, and nine children aged two to 12.

Children were massacred while they slept. Two women were raped before soldiers killed them. Pentagon officials and media scoundrels whitewashed what happened.

One soldier was blamed for crimes 20 US forces committed. Nineteen got off scot-free. Cold blooded murder and other atrocities persist. They do so with disturbing regularity.

On November 12, Reuters headlined " 'Lack of US Cooperation halts Afghan probe into civilian killings," saying:

"Afghanistan's intelligence service has abandoned its investigation into the murder of a group of civilians after being refused access to US special forces soldiers suspected of involvement, according to a document obtained by Reuters."

War crimes were committed. US forces raided Wardak province. They did so from October 2012 to February 2013.

Seventeen Afghan men were detained. They disappeared. Residents found 10 buried in shallow graves. They were several hundred meters from where US forces are based.

"In the report authored by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agency, investigators said they had asked the United States for access to three US Green Berets and four Afghan translators working with them but were rebuffed," said Reuters.

On September 23, NDS published its report. "Despite many requests (it made, America hasn't) cooperated," it said. "Without (its) cooperation, this process cannot be completed."

Pentagon officials routinely whitewash serious war crimes. So do US commanders on the ground. Doing so is longstanding US policy. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

Under a decade long military agreement, Afghan officials can't charge US forces with war crimes. Whatever they do, they're immune.

Zakeria Kandahari is an Afghan translator. He works with US Green Berets. He's done so for nine years.

Documents Reuters obtained explained how US interrogations are conducted. Kandahari witnessed Sayid Mohammed's treatment.

He was murdered. Kandahari named three US Special Forces responsible. He kicked Mohammed," he said. He beat him. He threatened him.

"I handed him over to Mr. Dave and Mr. Hagen, but later I saw his body in a black body bag," he said.

Wardak residents accuse US forces of abducting Afghan men and boys. Interrogations involving torture follows.

Karzai is a US installed stooge. He's done nothing to stop what's persisted throughout his tenure. Failure to act responsibly reflects complicity.

Russia Today interviewed journalist Matthieu Aikins. He spent five months investigating the Wardak incident.

Local residents bore testimony. They supplied credible evidence. War crimes were committed. According to Aikins:

"The special forces team was deployed to an isolated valley west of Kabul, where the Taliban and other insurgents groups have a very heavy presence."

"Over last winter, the locals started complaining that the forces team and their translators were murdering people, abducting them, trotting them, and disappearing them."

"Just extraordinary allegations that at the time were essentially unproven."

In November 2012, residents first complained about a so-called Special Forces ODA 3124 unit.

When it withdrew in April, human remains were discovered near America's Nerkh district base.

Local authorities determined that ODA 3124 operations bore full responsibility.

Survivor testimonies confirmed it. Victims described being severely beaten and tortured.

ICRC representatives obtained more evidence. Because of an alleged US investigation, details weren't disclosed.

According to Aikins:

"In the five months that I spent reporting this story, not a single one of the witnesses that I spoke to had ever been contacted by the US military investigator."

"So it does really beg the question whether these investigators are actually going to be able to establish any sort of accountability of what happened."

It bears repeating. Pentagon officials routinely whitewash serious war crimes. So do US commanders on the ground.

Unaccountability is standard practice. US forces guilty of rape, torture and murder go unpunished.

On November 6, Aitkins headlined his Rolling Stone article "The A-Team Killings."

"Last spring," he said, "the remains of 10 missing Afghan villagers were dug up outside a US Special Forces base - was it a war crime or just another episode in a very dirty war?"

Six months after US Special Forces arrived in Wardak province, allegations of torture and murder surfaced.

Locals said 10 civilians were abducted. They disappeared. US Special Forces were responsible.

They killed another eight Afghans during their operations. Perhaps more bodies remain to be discovered.

On February 16, "a student named Nasratullah was found under a bridge with his throat slit," said Aikins.

Family members said US Green Berets abducted him. Other bodies were found. In July, Col. Jane Crichton lied, saying:

"After thorough investigation, there was no credible evidence to substantiate misconduct by ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) or US forces."

According to Aikins:

"(O)ver the past five months, Rolling Stone has interviewed more than two dozen eyewitnesses and victims' families who've provided consistent and detailed allegations of the involvement of American forces in the disappearance of the 10 men, and has talked to Afghan and Western officials who were familiar with confidential Afghan-government, UN and Red Cross investigations that found the allegations credible."

"In July, a UN report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan warned: 'The reported disappearances, arbitrary killings and torture - if proven to have been committed under the auspices of a party to the armed conflict - may amount to war crimes."

Aikins recounted Gul Rahim's killing. He spoke to three of his neighbors. They saw US Special Forces arrive.

They heard gun shots. When they left. They saw Rahim's "bullet-ridden body lying among the apple trees, his skull shattered."

A man identified only as Omar was targeted. He witnessed Rahim's killing. He survived.

He was taken to America's Nerkh base. He was put in a plywood cell. Interrogations began the next morning.

His hands were bound above his head. He was suspended and beaten. Afghan translator Zakeria Kandahari was involved.

Two Americans interrogated him. He said he knew nothing about Rahim and local Taliban commanders.

Beatings intensified. Sessions lasted for two days. "At one point," said Aikins, "Kandahari held a pistol to Omar's head and told him that he would kill him as easily as he had killed his friend."

He was certain he'd die. At night, he was shackled in his plywood cell. Americans handed him over to Afghan forces. He realized he was being freed.

" 'I promised that I would kill you,' he says Kandahari told him, 'and I don't know how you're getting away alive."

Wardak is an intense battleground. It's "littered with bomb craters and burned-out tanker trucks," said Aikins.

Many disappeared Afghans "were rounded up by the Americans in broad daylight, in front of dozens of witnesses."

Aikins obtained credible testimonies. Mohammad Hazrat Janan is deputy head of Wardak's provincial council.

US forces terrorize people, he said. They do it "because they could not defeat the insurgents."

People abducted weren't Taliban, he explained. "(B)ut even if they were, no one is allowed to just kill them in this way."

Nerkh district feels besieged, said Aikins. It's a "hotbed of guerrilla resistance." It's close to Kabul. It's a "staging ground for suicide attacks on the capital."

US forces are stationed at Combat Outpost Nerkh. Green Beret units are called Operational Detachment Alpha, ODA, or A-Team. The Nerkha-based one is called ODA 3124.

It's involved in counterinsurgency operations. They part of what's known as "white" Special Forces. So-called "black" ones launch night raids.

CIA elements are involved in local operations. Insurgents control Nerkh rural areas. US forces are vulnerable to ambushes or roadside blasts.

Nerkh incidents didn't occur in a vacuum, said Aikins. "Over the past 10 years human rights groups, the UN and Congress have repeatedly documented the recurring abuse of detainees in the custody of the US military, the CIA and their Afghan allies."

According to Human Rights Watch Asia advocacy director John Sifton:

"The US military has a poor track record of holding its forces responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes."

"There are some cases of detainee deaths 11 years ago that resulted in no punishments."

Aikins said a former ODA 3124 interpreter named Farooq said he "routinely witnessed abusive interrogations during his time with the A-Team, involving physical beatings with fists, feet, cables and the use of devices similar to Tasers."

When Obama begins drawing down US forces, Green Berets and CIA will remain. According to Aikins, they'll be even less oversight than now.

Based on what he's seen and gotten from witnesses, "the fight in Afghanistan may get even dirtier."

Covert war may continue interminably. Afghans have enjoyed rare times of peace. They've had none for over three decades. Future prospects look grim.

For centuries, Afghans experienced what few can imagine. Marauding armies besieged cities. They slaughtered thousands. They caused vast destruction.

Imperial Britain and Czarist Russia vied for control. Local warlords exerted their own dominance. When Soviet Russia withdrew in 1989, a ravaged country remained.

Living Afghans can't remember peace, stability and tranquility. Endless conflicts persist.

Post-9/11, America's attack, invasion and occupation followed. Millions died. Countless others suffer horrifically.

It bears repeating. Nothing ahead looks promising. America came to stay. Permanent occupation is planned.

Afghanistan is strategically important. It straddles the Middle East, South and Central Asia. It's in the heart of Eurasia.

Occupation projects America's military might. It targets Russia, China, Iran, and other oil-rich Middle East states.

It furthers Washington's imperium. It prioritizes unchallenged global dominance. It seeks control over Afghan's untapped natural gas, oil and other mineral resources.

In June 2010, The New York Times headlined "US Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan," saying:

They're worth an estimated $1 trillion. Estimates are notoriously inaccurate.

Whatever they're worth, they include "huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium - are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe."

An internal Pentagon memo calls Afghanistan the "Saudi Arabia of lithium." It's a key material needed to produce "batteries, laptops and BlackBerrys."

Years of development are needed. Huge potential exists. Heavy investment is likely. An economic bonanza awaits profiteers.

Don't expect ordinary Afghans to benefit. Surviving concerns them most. Violence continues unabated.

Living conditions are deplorable. Vital services are lacking. Millions have little or no access to clean water.

Many don't get enough food. Life expectancy is one of the world's lowest. Infant mortality is one of the highest.

Extreme poverty, unemployment, human misery, and constant fear reflect daily life. Washington prioritizes conquest, colonization, plunder and dominance.

War without end rages. Human needs go begging. Wherever America shows up, death and destruction follow. So does unrelieved dystopian harshness. No end in sight looms.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/us-atrocities-afghanistan/

Michael James : Going Off Campus, 1965

Sam and Theophilius at sunset in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Photos by Michael James from his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul.

Pictures from the Long Haul:
Going off campus,
Idaho, Wyoming, and Connecticut, 1965

I proceeded to quote Tom Paine: “Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul.”

By Michael James / The Rag Blog / November 11, 2013

[In this series, Michael James is sharing images from his rich past, accompanied by reflections about -- and inspired by -- those images. This photo will be included in his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul.]

At UC Berkeley in the winter and spring of 1965 the Free Speech Movement battles continued. The court proceedings for the Sproul Hall arrests continued, as did rallies and negotiations. My sentence gave me a choice: 25 days in jail, a year’s probation, or a $250 fine. Believing that a year’s probation would limit my political activities, I took the fine, and said to the judge; “A lot of people across the land are coming to feel as I do,” and proceeded to quote Tom Paine: “Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul.”

Eventually the University agreed to permit tables and discussion in Sproul Hall Plaza, and reversed their edict on no political activity. And political activity there was. The U.S. war on the people of Vietnam was in the forefront. I got involved with the Vietnam Day Committee initiated by Jerry Rubin, Stew Alpert, and others. In May we held a two-day teach-in, which thousands attended. Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska was a featured speaker. He and Oregon’s Wayne Morse were the first Senators to stand in opposition to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam.

Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters showed up in a wildly painted school bus; Allan Ginsberg, Wavy Gravy, and others were on the scene. Protest singer Phil Ochs came to perform. Before he took to the stage I was fortunate to hang out with him at the home of Neil Blumenthal, a Berkeley psychologist and the Free Speech Movement’s resident shrink.

Man on Harley, Route 53, Connecticut.

For the teach-in I helped compile a pamphlet with articles on Vietnam and the war. While laying it out at the Berkeley Free Press, I leaned on the light table and fell through the glass (no injuries, luckily, and the shop owner took it in stride). When the pamphlet made it to press, I remember the brass bell on the Multilith offset that gave a constant ding-ding at the tempo of the press’s speed. The pressman was David Goines, who became a well-known poster artist.

Students for a Democratic Society was the organization that caught my attention, and then my love and devotion. Back when we surrounded the police car with Jack Weinberg in it -- the event that really set the Free Speech Movement in motion -- I had found a leaflet put out by SDS calling to “build the interracial movement of the poor.” SDS “traveler” (field organizer) Mike Davis, now a noted author, came through town and signed me up into the ranks of SDS. At an SDS party I talked and drank wine with Michael Harrington, who I had heard speak in 1962 at the University of Chicago, along with the old socialist Norman Thomas. Harrington’s ’62 book The Other America exposed the dramatic extent of poverty in the U.S.

The summer of ’65, while the anti-war movement was building at Berkeley and across the land, some of us were making plans to move into West Oakland. We would be among SDS members involved in the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP), which had begun organizing in 13 cities, trying to build an interracial movement of the poor. Paul Booth, an SDS leader, came to California to help with what would be called the West Oakland Community Project (WOCP). We were idealistic. We said, “Let the people decide.” An SDS button proclaimed Sam Cook’s lyric “A change is gonna come.”

Twelve of us --11 white, one black -- were involved in the WOCP that summer. We had a house at 320 Henry Street near the Southern Pacific Railroad yards. People in the community wondered who we were and what was going on. A ragtag group of men who lived at the Catholic Worker’s Peter Maurin House came by to check us out. [Peter Maurin was a Catholic activist who along with Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement]. They’d been drinking wine and their spokesman was challenging, but mellowed out when we shared our hopes and intentions.

Lots of people were working for change in Oakland. There were freedom schools, summer work projects, and labor projects. The issue that got traction in our efforts was beautification. It may not seem radical, but responding to the way the city was tearing down fences and ruining people’s gardens at Peralta Villa Public Housing without notice or community input, was about letting the people decide, a major SDS principle. The Peralta Villa folks were pissed off, and they let the city know about it. The fence removal was halted, a small but significant victory.

A mostly white group of Berkeley students organizing in a poor black community did not bring us far on the road to a revolution. Perhaps the biggest deterrent to sustained work by WOCP was the exploding growth of opposition to the Vietnam War. There was considerable anti-war activity on campus and energies were pulled in that direction.

To top it off, there were the troop trains, and the efforts by hundreds to stop them. During August there was a demonstration at the railroad tracks in Berkeley. My clearest memory of that day is a soldier’s face, probably a conscript, who was on the Union Pacific train from Fort Riley in Kansas, heading to the Oakland Army Terminal to be shipped off to Nam. He was at the window with a shaved head. His face was laughing yet somehow also fearful as he watched me take the picket sign I held and slap it against the window. “U.S. Out of Viet Nam!” I hope he made it back.

Sam and Theophilus in Wyoming or Nebraska.

At the end of the summer I headed back east. My Staples High School pal, football lineman Sam Whiteside, was on the West Coast. He and I, along with two women from the Oakland Project and a young black SNCC activist named Theopholis Smith, headed east in Sam’s Chevy wagon. Theo had been on a break from his work in the South and was heading back to the voter registration battlefield in Alabama.

I was back on the road, heading east from Berkeley by car for the first time. Sam, like me, was up for a circuitous route, and I had a camera with me. We drove through Nevada, then Idaho, and on to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where at sunset I caught a picture of Sam and Theo climbing a over a fence. Later that night we spotted Indians swaying and staggering along the road. We were riding through a Crow reservation as we neared Dubois, Wyoming. In Dubois we ate at a bar while a piano player tickled the keys. We joined him in song before driving off into the night.

By morning we were in my ancestral homeland of Nebraska. Near Valentine we decided to stop and take a jump into the Niabrara River. Sam cut his foot, and got stitches from a doctor in Valentine. I talked to the doc about the war, which he supported. As my family will attest, this was the beginning of a lifetime of bringing up politics with folks anywhere I am -- in an elevator, at a gas station, attending a wedding, on the phone with an operator at a credit card company in wherever. “And what state are you taking this call in? Hope you guys are going to vote out so-and-so!”

In Chicago we went to the Uptown neighborhood, where the JOIN (Jobs or Income Now) Community Union office was located on Argyle. There I met Sandra Cason, aka Casey Hayden, who had just left her work with SNCC in Mississippi after Stokley Carmichael (Kwame Ture) had booted the white members out. Sam and the others left me there.

Cross, cowboy, Conoco, and Wonder Bread truck in Idaho.

Casey and I visited Old Town, a pioneer hip neighborhood and happening place. The night heat was close to unbearable, and the sidewalks were packed with people. A guy on a motorcycle, his squeeze on the back, was jumpy and jittery as he revved his bike, moving through the crowds crossing the street. I suggested to Casey, “Let’s get out of here!” We took the Chicago Northwestern RR to Lake Forest, 30 miles north. It was cooler there, where we stayed at the home of my anthropology Prof Gerry Gerasimo.

The next morning we said goodbye to Gerry and his wife Dottie, who had been a classmate of mine. Casey and I grabbed our stuff and hitchhiked east, stopping for a night at an SDS ERAP project in Cleveland, located in a mostly poor white neighborhood near the Great Lake Erie. The next day, thumbs out, we hitched rides and made it to Connecticut.

We linked up with fellow Berkeley sociology student Nigel Young and his wife Antonia, serious peace activists from England. Nigel told me about writing “U.S. out of Guatemala” on a wall in London in 1956, when he got arrested while trying to figure out how to spell Guatemala. They were quite a couple, he in mod all black: turtleneck, black pants, short black jacket, and pointy-toe black shoes. Antonia wore a big long fur coat. (This was before there was much talk of animal rights.)

All four of us headed west in a gray 1957 Plymouth station wagon “drive-away” that needed to be delivered to California. We stopped at the Custer Battlefield and Museum in Montana, where the park ranger-guide kept referring to “the hostiles” coming over this hill, and doing this or that. With Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull already heroes in my consciousness, I found his rap to be offensive. In Billings we stopped to eat at a place with an adjacent bar that had a dirt floor and a sign “Check guns at door.” That made sense.

We cruised through Yellowstone National Park, took in the geysers, and had our progress momentarily halted while a bull buffalo decided to mosey along the middle of the road. In Idaho we crossed over a mountain and stopped to eat early in the morning. On the jukebox I noticed Johnny Cash covers of Dylan tunes, and thought: “Wow, something is happening here, the times indeed are a-changing.”

A ranch in Idaho.

On a back road we stopped at an abandoned ranch where I found a branding iron. Down the road we had to stop for a herd of sheep. The shepherd was Basque, didn’t speak English, and wore a jean jacket and pants and engineer boots. Later Nigel enlightened us about the struggles of the Basque people in Spain.

Back at school in Berkeley, I was a graduate teaching assistant. Casey was bereft, missing her comrades in Mississippi, and returned to her family’s home in Victoria, Texas. I tried to restart the Oakland Project along with Vivian Rothstein. From 12 of us, we were down to two. We moved into a different house where neighborhood kids ripped us off. Honest talk led to the goods being returned.

Barry and Betty, both of whom had worked in the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP), soon joined Vivien and me in our efforts. We took a trip to a commune near Big Sur. As we approached we heard beating drums, apparently a sunset ritual to help the sun to go down over the Pacific. A number of longhairs came running at us with clubs, but backed off when Barry yelled he was there to see his sister.

It quickly became clear that the Oakland Project had run out of steam. Though my heart was still with the interracial movement of the poor, I needed to figure out the best place for me to help work toward that vision. Knowing now that I wanted to leave Berkeley, to go off campus and organize, I began contemplating my next moves.

[Michael James is a former SDS national officer, the founder of Rising Up Angry, co-founder of Chicago's Heartland Café (1976 and still going), and co-host of the Saturday morning (9-10 a.m. CDT) Live from the Heartland radio show, here and on YouTube. He is reachable by one and all at michael@heartlandcafe.com. Find more articles by Michael James on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

David McReynolds : We Are All Wounded Veterans

12 November 2013

David McReynolds : We Are All Wounded Veterans

March to alternative Armistice ceremony in Regents Park in London, November 11, 1938.

Until the guns fall silent:
We are all wounded veterans

In the bad wars -- which are the only wars we have fought for some time now -- there is the terrible knowledge that the enemy was never really the enemy.

By David McReynolds / The Rag Blog / November 12, 2013

There was something infinitely sad and even repellent about the recent celebration of Veterans Day. This was once Armistice Day, the observation of the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day in November 1918, when the guns fell silent and the great war ended. The war to end all wars.

There is certainly a difference between those veterans who survived a war in defense of their country, and those who took part in a war of aggression. Whatever pacifists may feel about war, there was a purpose for those in the Allied forces in World War II who were defending their countries after they had been attacked. Sadly, this cannot be said about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

The whole veteran thing is complex. War, for those who actually experienced it -- who didn't serve their time at a supply base -- is hell. I remember, as a child, wondering how any man could get out of the trenches and walk through a field of death with sounds beyond thunder bursting all around. I still don't know. I only know I would never have the courage to do it.

My father, when a visiting pastor at our church assured the men in the congregation who had served in the military that they need not feel burdened by a sense of guilt over what they might have done, since they had only carried out orders from the state, took the pastor aside after the service and, with barely controlled fury, said, "Don't you dare tell me that I am not guilty for what I did. I did it because I didn't know what else to do, and only the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ can redeem me for the sins of violence".

Even in the best of good wars what of the men on the losing side, who suffered the same horrors but had no brass bands to welcome them home, no mayors and pastors to bless them? The Nazi side was criminal, but the soldiers in their army -- and in the Japanese army -- fought with courage and returned home to ruins.

What can we say of those wars in which we had no real national interest? The Vietnamese did not attack us, Iraq posed no national threat, nor did the Afghans. Our men and women fought because they were ordered to. Some -- a very small handful of them -- enjoyed the violence. Most were terrified or brutalized by it.

Most of all, what I think of on Veterans Day is that, with the miracle of modern medicine, the men and women who in other wars would have died from their wounds, now survive and return without all of their limbs, missing parts of their faces, or brains, facing a life ahead of them of physical therapy.

It is one thing for me, at 84, to remind myself that, if I want to ease the pains of walking, I need to do prescribed exercises. But how unfair that these youth, who should be returning home to run, to play baseball with their children, to make love with vigor, must instead adjust to artificial arms and legs, to endless painful hours of physical therapy.

Those who saw combat do not return whole. Their dreams reek of death, of comrades torn apart, of foreign children shot by accident.

And we do nothing at all to bring to justice those who sent these men and women into wars which were, in a fundamental sense, unjust. And even in the good wars there is still the memory of an enemy who, in death, turned out to be only an adolescent. In the bad wars -- which are the only wars we have fought for some time now -- there is the terrible knowledge that the enemy was never really the enemy. That if there is an enemy it is the government that asks us to celebrate the service of the veterans.

Let us honor the veterans -- all of them, of any nationality. But remember also that in these wars there are other veterans whose fate is not mentioned by Obama, the mothers in Iraq, the wives in Vietnam, the children in Afghanistan, and all the wounded in distant lands, for whom there is no modern medical science. Only dust, blood, and pain.

So our goal, and a goal I suspect I share with a great many veterans, is to work for a world where there are no new veterans and where, perhaps to diminish the chance of such wars, we bring to justice those who so lightly send our young into foreign lands.

[David McReynolds was the Socialist Party's candidate for President in 1980 and 2000, and for 39 years on the staff of the War Resisters League. He also served a term as Chair of the War Resisters International. He is retired and lives with his two cats on New York's lower east side. He can be reached at davidmcreynolds7@gmail.com. His writings can be found on his website, Edgeleft.org. Read more articles by David McReynolds on The Rag Blog.

The Rag Blog

Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 11, Section 2

15 November 2013

Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 11, Section 2

Henri Curiel was the leading figure in the Egyptian communist movement in the 1940s.

A people's history:
The movement to democratize Egypt

Part 11: 1945-1946 Period/Section 2 -- Egyptian communist groups grow and face government retaliation.

By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / November 15, 2013

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman's Rag Blog "people's history" series, "The Movement to Democratize Egypt," could not be more timely. Also see Feldman's "Hidden History of Texas" series on The Rag Blog.]

In The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970, Selma Botman noted that some “young, modern, emancipated Egyptian women” in the 1940s “went on to become leaders of students’, women’s and leftist movements” in Egypt and “joined the budding underground communist movement.”

But according to Botman, during the 1940s Egyptian “communist women did not work primarily through existing women’s organizations” in Egypt “like Huda Shaarawi’s Feminist Union or Fatma Nimit Rashid’s Feminist Party, largely because of ideological differences;” but, instead, “set up a new group in 1944-45 called the League of Women Students and Graduates from the University and Egyptian Institutions [Rabitat Fatayat al-Jamia wa al-Maahid al-Mirriyya] which “included some 50 women.”

Four separate Egyptian communist groups existed in Egypt in the early 1940s, but the founder of the Egyptian Movement for National Liberation [al-Haraka al-Mussiyya Tahamar al-Watana], Henri Curiel, was considered “the leading figure in the whole of the Egyptian communist movement in the 1940s,” according to Botman.

In early 1945, Curiel’s Egyptian Movement for National Liberation [EMNL] had founded the Congress of the Union of Workers of Public Companies and Institutions (whose members were shopkeepers, tram workers, cinema workers, textile workers, and electrical industry workers in Egypt) that “was carefully monitored” by the UK-backed monarchical Egyptian government, according to the same book.

So, not surprisingly, when the EMNL “scheduled a mass meeting on May 1, 1946 to coordinate the diverse affairs of Egyptian labor,” the Egyptian government’s “Prime Minister Sidqi prevented the meeting from taking place,” according to The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970.

But on May 1, 1946 EMNL activists and other anti-imperialist Egyptian left nationalists still were able to form a new group, the Congress of the Union of Egyptian Workers, which then made the following demands for the democratization of post-World War II Egyptian society:

1. the total evacuation of UK imperialist troops from Egypt’s Nile Valley;
2. the same standards and labor laws for all Egyptian workers;
3. factory closings in Egypt should be prevented;
4. the firing of workers from their jobs in Egypt should be prohibited;
5. all Egyptian workers imprisoned for their involvement in union or patriotic activities should be released;
6. a 40-hour work limit without any reduction in pay should be established for all Egyptian workers;
7. all Egyptian workers should receive at least one weekend holiday; and
8. the first day of May should be established as an annual Labor Day holiday in Egypt.

And besides gaining some mass support from Egyptian workers by 1946, the EMNL, during the 1940s, “also made inroads” into the Egyptian army and among “a group of noncommissioned officers” in the Egyptian air force, according to Botman's book.

Another communist group that existed in Egypt in 1946, Iskra, had been founded in 1942 or 1943 by an Egyptian leftist named Hillel Schwartz. Iskra, however, focused more on recruiting Egyptian intellectuals than did the EMLN group. Although Schwartz’s underground Iskra group had fewer members than Curiel’s EMNL communist group in the 1940s, it had a higher percentage of women in its membership.

As one of its legal front groups, the outlawed underground Iskra also had created in 1944 a House of Scientific Research [Dar al-Abhath al-Ilmiya] -- which published Muhammad Hasan Ahmad’s Egyptian anti-imperialist left critique of the politics of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood group, The Muslim Brotherhood in the Balance [al-Ikhwar al-muslimun fi al-mizan].

According to The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970:

This book...expressed Iskra’s view of the Muslim Brotherhood... The organization was identified as fascist in outlook and as a potentially dangerous competitor. It was criticized for spreading divisive Islamic propaganda the aim of which was to separate Muslims, Copti, and Jews, and for weakening the nationalist movement against imperialism by refusing to participate in joint activity with other political groups. Moreover, it was condemned for diffusing the anticipated opposition by urging Muslim workers to cooperate with Muslim industrialists because of religious communality...

Coincidentally, however, when the Egyptian monarchical government’s Prime Minister Sidqi, “in retaliation against the unity of the people around the National Committee of Workers and Students [NCWS]” in Egypt, according to The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970, “moved against” the anti-imperialist Egyptian left and nationalist left opposition on July 11, 1946, “with the arrest of hundreds of journalists, intellectuals, political and labor leaders, students and professionals, on...trumped up charges,” Iskra’s House of Scientific Research was also closed down by the Egyptian government -- along with 10 other Egyptian political, cultural, and labor organizations and all of the Egyptian left’s journals.

Prior to the July 11, 1946, repression of dissident Egyptian groups, a third Egyptian communist group, the Popular Vanguard for Liberation, had set up a women’s committee to “politicize and organize women comrades” in Egypt, according to Selma Botman’s book, which hoped to accomplish the following political objectives:

1. to distribute internal propaganda within the Popular Vanguard for Liberation Group to challenge male chauvinist ideology among leftist Egyptian men with respect to Egyptian women’s role in the fight for democracy and a socialist society in Egypt;
2. to organize women factory workers in Egypt;
3. to mobilize the wives and sisters of Egyptian leftist men to become more politically active;
4. to watch for signs of male chauvinist behavior towards their sisters and wives by Egyptian men;
5. to publicize the special economic and political problems faced by unmarried Egyptian women and Egyptian housewives in 1940s Egyptian society; and
6. to agitate about the rising cost of living in 1940s Egyptian society.

In its July 11, 1946, crackdown on anti-imperialist left and nationalist Egyptian dissidents, the government arrested 200 people but only ended up accusing 20 Egyptian left dissidents of “criminal” behavior and only 49 other imprisoned dissidents of “communist activities.”

Besides shutting down Egypt’s House of Scientific University in July 1946, the monarchical regime also shut down at the same time Egypt’s Committee to Spread Popular Culture, Egypt’s Popular University, Egypt’s Union of University Graduates, Egypt’s Center for Popular Culture, Egypt’s Twentieth Century Publishing House, and Egypt’s League of Women Graduates from the University and Higher Institutes, along with three Egyptian bookstores (including the al-Midan bookstore of leftist Egyptian Movement for National Liberation founder Henri Curiel).

In addition, newspapers of the dissident Egyptian groups were banned. And, according to a report of Egypt’s International League of Human Rights cited by The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970. “over 250 flats were literally turned upside down,” “every paper, every book was examined,” and “bedrooms were forced open and wives and sisters undressed, were terrorized with armed policemen pointing guns at the bed.”

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

***Out In The 1950s Be-Bop King Records R&B Night-“Dancing With The Devil”-You Had Better Get In Line Because Her Dance Card Is Full- A CD Review

A YouTube film clip of Lonnie Johnson high heaven singing the classic R&B, rock and rock, bop and stroll, Tomorrow Night. Yes, Lonnie is in the house.

and LaVern Baker

and Elvis

DVD Review

Dancing With the Devil: 25 Essential Blues Classics, various artists, King Records. 2004
Okay, okay call me Mr. Janus, call me fickle, call me, well, call me perplexed. Every time I think I have it down pat, pat as can be, about what genre “fathered” (or “mothered”) my “generation of ’68” childhood growing up absurd in the half-benighted 1950s rock and roll birth I change course. Mainly it depends on what was the last CD, last YouTube click , or last whatever other source I have filled my head with. A couple of weeks ago it was definitely those mad men swing masters like Benny Goodman and his hard, sexy sax players (and occasional clarinet per Benny swingman). A couple of days later it was definitely Joe Turner be-bopping his big snapping fingers beat on Shake, Rattle and Roll putting later Elvis and Jerry Lee renditions in the shade. Last week it was most positively either Ike Turner and his Rocket 88 or rockabilly maven Warren Smith and his Rock and Roll Ruby. This week, well, this week it is the R&B influences represented by this King Records compilation, Dancing With The Devil: 25 Essential Blues Classics. So hear me out.

Look I grew up in that red scare, cold war, atomic bomb’s going to get you so you best put your sorry little head under that wooden desk and don’t ask questions dark night made darker by being left out of the great American golden age 1950s by, well, by being working class poor. I mean real poor. The music around the house was strictly country (Hank Williams, Earl Tubbs, etc.) representing my father’s rural Appalachian roots or that 1940s Frank, Bing, Rosemary Clooney, we won the world war so our songs rule stuff blaring out of the local hokey radio station. It was not until I got my first transistor radio (look that up on Wikipedia if you are clueless about what that was , or is for old fogies, maybe). Then I could pirate my way to many midnight stations in the “comfort” (three boys to a room comfort so not much) of my room. And what I got at midnight was blues, or rather R&B coming from who knows where but not Boston (usually Chicago or New York) from people who distinctly did not sound like they were from Boston.

And they weren’t. They mainly had come north from the rural South in one of the waves of black migration up river (Mississippi River, okay), got jobs in the factories, or didn’t, and played music on the side at some electrified juke joint. Those who did make good music wound up making records for all kinds of “race” labels so there was no mystery as to why I didn’t know this music from around the house. But I knew it from then on. And I know it now.

That now leads to this King Records compilation which, no question, has many, many riffs that sound a hell of a lot like the birth of rock and roll just now. Try Lonnie Johnson’s Tomorrow Night done later by Elvis, LaVern Baker, Jerry Lee and a million others. Or what about the beat in Wynonnie Harris’ All She Wants To Do Is Rock. How about Little Esther on Aged And Mellow Blues. Not good enough-try this. Wilbert Harrison on This Women Of Mine. Or the freaking rock beat on Earl King’s Don’t Take It So Hard. Okay now for the big ammo Joe Tex’s Another Woman’s Man and Hank Ballard’s Look At Little Sister. I thought that would get your attention. But let’s cut to the chase. The Stones and Beatles (and many others from the 1960s second wave British rock invasion) were spoon-fed on R&B and blues stuff. And while this particular song by Albert King, Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong (good advice, by the way) is a little too late to have been at the roots of rock it has all the guitar riffs that those later groups thrived on. So I rest my case. Unless of course next week I hear Sonny Burgess’ Red-Headed Woman. Then call me Janus.

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- The School Dance -Last Chance For Romance- A Final Nod To Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand”

A YouTube film clip of The Angels performing Till.

 
CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘60s: Last Dance, Time-Life, 1991
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘50s: Last Dance of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance at some Miss Somebody‘s Saturday morning dance studio. Egad.

Fair, enough, true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that entailed getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually a part of the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners, no question. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here. What does stand some further inspection is something that has received scant notice in all this welter of detail, with the exception of that overblown coverage of the last dance. Nothing on the inner workings of the dance itself.

Actually, and I will only speak to the late fifties and early sixties but I am sure this observation will hold up for other times as well, there are two school dance sequels, that first tremulous middle school dance series, and the later even more significant high school dances. Age, more convoluted socials relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (or nowadays, perhaps, same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or, more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or off-hand nuzzling (or, have mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the high school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were current in the time of my high school time.

These musical selections "spoke" to that gnawing feeling in the back of your mind, half hidden by massive teenage psychic overlay, of the need to take a constant survey of what is going on in your little so-called world. A moment's glazed stare as you wait to get into the dance venue allows you to think through the litany of problems to be addressed as soon as you get a breather. Shall I give examples?

For example; being stood up for a date; or when that certain he or she did not call; or that certain he or she had another date; or that certain "unto death" friend of yours took that certain he or she away from you; or when that certain he or she said no, no for any number of things but you know the real “no,” right?; or, finally, that mournful, pitiful midnight crying time when sometime he or she, did or did not do, or did or did not say, or he or she forget to remember, and so on. But those issues will wait for another day because right now the doors are opening and you have more pressing issues in your heated little mind. Hope drives your every move from here on in.

I don’t have to spend much time on the physical and technical details of the dance, hell, you can describe them in your sleep. And if you can’t do so watch a film like 1973’s American Graffiti, the segment on the local high school dance, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors could have been 1962 anyplace U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet anytime U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance, could have taken place at my high school when I was a student in the early 1960s). From the throwaway crepe paper decorations that festooned the place placed around the gym by the ever helpful Girls Club or Tri-Hi-Y up to the ever-present foldaway gym bleachers to those evil-eyed chaperones to the platform the local band (a band that if it did not hit it big would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other important occasions) covering the top hits of the day performed on it was a perfect replica of my own experience.

Also perfect replica in that film were the classic boys’ attire for a casual dance, plaid or white sports shirt, chinos, stolid shoes, and short-trimmed hair (no beards, beads, bell-bottoms, it’s much too early in the decade for that) and for the girls blouses (or maybe sweaters, cashmere, if I recall being in fashion at the time, at least in the colder East), full swirling dresses, and, I think beehive hair-dos. Wow! Of course, perfect replica were the infinite variety of dances (frug, watusi, twist, stroll, etc) that blessed, no, twice blessed, rock and roll let us do in order to not to have to dance too waltz close. We all owe Chubby Checker and Gary U.S. Bonds a debt that can never be repaid. Mercy.

Damn, my going on and on about the physical descriptions is just so much eye wash. The thing could have been held in an airplane hangar for all we really cared. And everyone could have been dressed in paper bags. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, are the hes looking at those certain shes, and visa-versa. The endless small meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell). Except for those wallflowers that are permanently looking down at the ground, and pleased to be doing it. And that, my friends, is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom.

That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation)of those evil eyes, the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomprehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven that it was a slow one. Ah, to be young was very heaven as old man Wordsworth had it in another context. Enough memory said.

Stick outs on this CD compilation include: the late legendary blue artist Etta James’ Something’s Got A Hold On Me (fast); The Angels’ Till (slow, ouch! on feet); Bo Diddley’s Road Runner (fast); and Donnie Brooks’ classic (the one you prayed they would play) Mission Bell. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
********

'Till lyrics

Till the moon deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you

Till the tropic sun turns cold
Till this young world grows old
My darling, I'll adore you

You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me, oh, oh, oh

Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine

instrumental interlude

You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me

Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine

***When Willie Sutton’s Theory Of Capitalism Ruled The Roost- Woody Allen’s “Take The Money And Run”- A Film Review

Short Film Reviews

Take The Money And Run, Woody Allen, 1969
This is an early film of comedian /actor/director Woody Allen starring himself in the lead as Virgil Starkwell, a bungling wannabe bank robber whose hijinks land him in prisons, in bed with a lovely girl and the halls of academia as an expert on crime. In this film we can see the outlines of Woody’s seemingly endless love affair with early black and white crime and film noir classics. There is a little more use of sight gags here than in his later films but through it all Woody is still the funny bumbling New York Jewish kid that a long series of films will explore in greater detail. The use of an old time newsreel announcer to describe and set the framework of the film and detail the action is an interesting twist. Not the best Woody Allen film but a good look at the niche that he created for himself in American urban comedy/ social commentary cinema.