The Post Office Girl by Stephen Zweig 265 pg to edit

Written in the 1930 and publish posthumously in 1982 and in English 2008. There is nothing dated about it.    11/1/25

Zweig born in 1881. Jean-Paul Sartre articulated a concept: The antisemite makes the Jew.

He wrote a memoir, The World of Yesterday, describing life before Nazism ended it. 

Before the rise of Nazism, Zweig was an incredibly popular writer well known both for his novels and for his biographies.  In Petropolis, Brazil he and his wife committed suicide..

1933 Nazis started burning  books and  Zweig's were amongst those burned.  In Israel some immigrants escaping Nazism brought some First Edition of books that became rare collectors items.

 A dark fairytale of Austria in 1926 an inconsequential village Klein-Reifling.  . Christine’s job at the post office is “miserably paid and miserable in general. She goes home to her invalid mother in a tiny attic apartment. Maybe she was happy with her mates, before the “guns of August”. Her brother died in the Great War and father soon after that.

All one wants is too expensive: Christine hardly dares to breathe for fear it might be too expensive. The obvious poverty of her appearance? She has no free will to do anything different. The telegraph seldom works till in suddenly  has a message with Christina name on it. Clara is her mothers sister. How will that go over at the luxury hotel?  She learns within a day to behave as they do. The pageant of idle busyness goes on all day. Twenty-eight years old and I’m still saving myself, still denying myself, still waiting. The subject of a rumor is always the last to hear it. Her poverty has been found out, and everyone is snickering.  

Christines Aunt Clara had been the mistress of a wealthy man, whose wife found out and to stop the scandal of attempted murder she had agreed to leave Europe to the US and for 5 years would receive a sum of money on the first of every month. She married Antony van Boolen and with her capital helped him set up a successful business in NY. The same war that had destroyed the wealthy in Europe had made them stone rich and they had 2 children.  Clara never revealed to her husband her story, she lives in a secret, and is always afraid of gossip.

In 1915 Hoflehner and Son was a successful taxidermy company but since people were not hunting animal and instead people the business failed. In 1919 the war ended but the poverty not. The war stole a whole decade of youth and there was no strength or courage for happiness.

She gets the invitation to meet her aunt and uncle in Switzerland and money to come. Her aunt sees her poor clothing and realized that instead of supporting charities should have supported her niece, and takes her on a shopping spree and spends money like water. Christina's good figure makes her attractive and she develops a personality to go with the clothes easily, she is transformed into another person. She is introduced to Colonel Elkins president of the London Geographical Society who she brighten up. Elkins's wife had died young and son had died by at German bullet at Soissons. (July 1918 France the American were there by then)  Even the wealthy hide secret unhappiness's Elkins gives her books in German about Sven Hedins Tibetan journey 1922. Also books on climbing the Matterhorn., the Alps.

She is called Fraulein van Boolen and we realize that names have a magical power. She is sent to get her uncle away from the gaming table and with her presence he has luck and so gives her half his winning which is equivalent of her working for 4 months. 

The school teacher is the one who writes her letters about the condition of her mother but she never even bothered to collect her letters. Happy people are poor psychologist but a troubled person in more alert. The engineer had been flirting with Carla but now is interested in Christine and Carla is upset. Christine had whispered her confidences with Carla and revealed the gaps in her worldliness. Now rumor starts circulating and the subject of rumor is the last to hear them. Colonel Elkins tries to show that he does not accept these rumours and gets seen publicly with her. He would like her to come to England with him to brighten up his castle.

The aunt is scared that her own background will be exposed and she never ever told her husband about it. The Cinderella story ends with Christine taking one new dress and the money given to her by the uncle and quietly walks to the railway station alone.

She returns home, the death of her mother does not move her emotionally. After the funeral the family want to divide the mothers thing and Christine does not want any of it, which includes the smell of poverty.

Part 2

At the Post Office she feels like in the movie Life Sentence that she is in jail and the window here also have bars on them. She finds herself very antagonistic with the poor individuals she has to deal with. She no longer goes to church or sings in a choir.

Christina visits her sister and Franzl and family in Vienna where they bump into  Ferdinand who was a brother in arms with Franzl as well as a POW in Siberia but Franzl got home while Ferdinand spent 2 years more  impressed into fighting and slave labour. Eventually the Red Cross got them home. Before the war he would have throttled anyone who made a joke of the Kaiser and the army, we bought that like schoolboys.  He had to be home to register up to a certain date to apply for Austrian citizenship as the Austro Hungarian Empire had collapsed. He now can't get citizenship or compensation as a wounded veteran.

Johan Nestroy 1801 to 1863 Comic Viennese Playwright. Die Rote Fahme ( The Red Flag) a German Revolutionary newspaper founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. 1918 of the Communist Party.

Ferdinand had returned after 6 years home which was foreign country.  His inheritance had been lost due to the war.

Christine finds so much in common and they spends a night together in a cheap hotel but are irritated by the loud sexual activity of the other occupants and the police checking up on everyone identity and arresting someone. She takes the early morning train to get to work.

Christine spends every Sunday in Vienne with Ferdinand, they had imagined they could help each other in dealing with the situation of poverty. She attempts to get transferred to the Post Office in Vienna with out success.

Ferdinand arrives at her Post Office - the constructing  company he works for is bankrupt he got only half his months salary and has reached the end, of this type of temporary work. 

People should be surrounded by people who love and care for them and friends are a most important asset. I want it all and now? People must be given hope. Must do something today that will give us a future. Embrace change as the essence of life is flow and small changes are important.  The American dream is not in Austria. Should they rob the post office at the end of the week and a day when there is a large deposit of cash.

They decide on a suicide pact but at the PO he sees there is a fortune of money in the safe and they discuss plans to take it and flee.  He goes into details of how they do this and travel to Paris with the money. It is far easier to just shoot yourself in the head.

The book does not have an ending

Afterword.

Post WW1 European Culture had been erased by history but was still in the minds of those who cherished it. His main influence at this time was Freud and not post modernism. Before he took his own life Zweig had just finalized the publication of 2 books but never managed to get this book in to a shape that satisfied him. Christina is persued by the sexy engineer Herr Wrong and the courtly old English General Herr Right. Her life is now worst than it was before as she knows what she has been missing.

Ferdinand had spent years in a Siberian prison camp only to return to a country that had no use for him. His dreams of becoming an architect are dashed  by poverty and of decent employment wrecked by injury to his hand. Ferdinand  refuses to accept his diminished expectation imposed by the war and this makes him a kindred spirit to Christina, while she thinks of the awful smell of poverty. Christine sees girls like her who have missed their chance of life as a result of the war.  An awareness of the unfairness of life. A bourgeois family fell into poverty during the war, Is this deprivation, this absence, what made Hitler possible: the void that Nazism filled.  Is the end two of them standing wide-eyed and enthusiastic amid vast, massed crowds, screaming Heil, Heil, Heil..

 

The Code Talkers the first and only memoir by one of the original Code Talkers of WW2 by Chester Nez and Judith Schiess Avila.

A Very Important Aspect  of the US Pacific War 27/12/24

The Navajo Nation is at the point where Utah , Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico all meet. Chester born in 1921 was with the original 29 men who devised the Navajo Code and took it to battle against the Japanese. As a little boy he was in Boarding School and punished for speaking his native language. He came from Checkerboard area of New Mexico. His sister Dora remained there and died in 2007 still without electricity. The US diversity of color, of background of language contributes to its strength.

The Code Talker was such a secret that it was classified till 1966 that is 23 years after the war.

1920s His family lived as subsistence formers with goats and sheep, which together was a good combination. It was unusual for an ewe to ignore her lamb but common for goats to neglect their kids. Breakfast was blue cornmeal mush and goats milk. They kept the flock constantly moving  this also made it more difficult for predators. His mother had died a few years earlier when he was small, burial places were kept secret. The  animals ate pinon and juniper branches and often they cut them off the tree where they were too high up to feed the livestock The liked porcupine meat which was like pork but had to be boiled a long time. From wools and yucca the make rugs which were traded when they needed coffee salt or flour.

The arrival of the Spanish and later the other Europeans had shrunk the reservation. Then there was the Long Walk 1866 where Navajos were moved 350 miles from Fort Defiance to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. The walk too 20 days and hundreds died in it from sickness or by the soldiers. This long walk build the nationhood of the Navajo shared history.

The government wanted them to learn English and to enter the work market. The were sent to missionary's Tohachi  boarding  schools and were assigned names. They were always hungry even after a meal. Later he was sent to Fort Defiance School. The school was meant to erase all the learned at home. This fort was build by Colonel Sumner in 1850s to squash a Navajo uprising. They had to have mandatory haircuts and issued school uniforms. The fields around were used to cultivate vegetables for the school. He sang in a Cattolic choir and was and alter boy. Navajo religion has respect for all things in nature, and corn pollen is used instead of holy water. 

The Great Livestock massacre's. To deal with the drought and dustbowl the FDR government brought out laws to reduce livestock  and overgrazing The Navajo were initially told to sell off their animal. This was a "voluntary" program from 1933, but in 1935 it became mandatory. This was to stop overgrazing and the dust bowl. Three quarter of the animal were corralled burned and buried by bulldozers. Some Navajo families were paid a pittance of $3 per head of animal. The livestock quota system is still being used today , it also resulted in the end of communal lands and the year round migration. The government promised that education would lead to jobs in New Deal public works.

During holidays at home adults asked him to translate letters into Englsih and gave him gifts of candy but more than that was the respect he received.

In Gallup ,New Mexico her went to high school where the classes were in English but they were allowed to speak their native language.

1923 the Great Earthquake struck Japan destroying half of Tokyo, this lead to an economic disaster which was part of the cause of the Japanese invasion of China by 1937.

1941 America shocked by Japans violence in China , nationalized Japanese assets in the US and Japan then signed an alliance with Germany. 

1941 7th Dec. Attack on Pearl Harbour.

From April 1942 recruiters called for men fluent in English and Navajo and joining the marines would mean leaving school and the reservation. 200 recruits from Widow Rock capital of the Navajo nation applied. These were men who had no birth certificate and so could add a year to their birthdate. Their original 29 were taken to Fort Wingate New Mexico. Civil engineer Phillip Johnston who grew up as the son of a missionary's couple in Navajo proposed the idea, since the language was not written and couldn't be learned from book. Also it was a language that resisted adopting English words and kept on inventing their own words. In the normal way it took hours to transmit coded messages here it could be done in seconds.

They had to learn basic training and had to learn to swim but most of them could and they were far fitter than other marines. They had to learn Morse Code, semaphore and how to fix radios. There were women in the marines, in the car pool, nurses and the food service.

Someone who had worked with codes taught them you have to have a word for each letter of the alphabet eg. A for ant then the used the Navajo word for ant. They had to invent words for different army ranks. A hand granade became a a potato, bombs =eggs and Japanese =slant-eyes. While in a base near San Diago they heard that Indians would not be served alcohol. So they crossed the open  border to Tijuana.

 The Japanese had managed to crack every US code used till when they Code speakers arrived. They were not allowed to reveal their mission to the other marines.

Guadalcanal Invasion Nov 1942 Part of the Solomon Islands. First Aircraft Carriers sent planes to dive bomb the beaches before they invaded. 13 Code Talkers arrived with General Vandergrift's 1st Marine Division. Then to keep safe the 3 aircraft carriers withdrew. Cruisers protected the transport ships that brought supplies. The Battle of the Savo Island was the worst defeat for the US Navy and it left the troops on Guadalcanal exposed. However the Marines captured Henderson Airfield. Over 20 thousand Japanese were on the island before they arrived. The Japanese here would not surrender part of  Bashido philosophy. They believed that by divine right should rule the world. To Americans capture was no dishonor.

Soldiers carried salt pills and Sulphur to put on wounds and Sulpha drugs the precursor of antibiotics and 2 mosquito nets. Radio the size of a shoe box weighted 30 pound. Immediately the battle began their code became indispensable the Navajo words were never written only spoken. When positions were given of the enemy it had to be accurate.

In the  past marines instead of the Shackle Code spoke English with lots of profane words to confuse the enemy.A daisy cutter is a bomb that explodes sideways. There was always the rotting smell of decomposing bodies. 

Grande Terra was the largest of the New Caledonian Islands. With the help of dogs they knew if an enemy bunker was empty or occupied. Dogs also located snipers in trees and at night could sniff out hostiles and the indicated this by putting up their tails. Almost  everyone got sores that festered and they called this" jungle rot" dysentery dehydration, typhus caused by insects, malaria from mosquitoes, for which they took atabrine.

November 1942 in a 3 day battle the US Navy sunk 30 Japanese ships and damaged 9 other ships. By flying aircraft from Henderson Field another 4 Japanese transports were destroyed. The Japanese Navy withdrew from Guadalcanal taking troops and supplies. Now most of the troops of Division were taken to Australia for R&R at the Australian Port City of Darwin that had been badly damaged by Japanese attack just like Pearl Harbour. The marines could not afford to release the Code talkers. 

Used cans with a few pebbles were attached to a string around the camp so they would make a noise by tripping at night. There were plenty of crocodiles' and crabs that could clip your finger off. New Code talkers arrived and were each attached to a veteran. Japanese troops were on Mount Austen but Japanese but the Japanese Navy managed to quietly evacuate them thus by Feb 1943 Guadalcanal was secure, this was the longest of the Pacific war battles and had lasted 6 months. Most of the native population now started coming out of hiding and brought wounded and children and the corpsmen treated them.

1943 Preparations were begun to  attack Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It was the army that provided most of the entertainment.  Admiral Chester Nimitz controlled forces from the Pacific Ocean Areas Command through the Solomon Island. Supreme Allied Commander Douglas Mc Author was taking the north  coast of New Guinea and nearby islands. These forces included US, Australia and N. Zealand as well as the Netherlands.  After a  battle dead bodies began to decompose  and a lot of DDT was sprinkled on them but did not stop flies and maggots.

Over 1,000 US soldiers and 7000 Japanese died here. Marines enjoyed a special comradie and would trust their lives to each other.

They returned to Guadalcanal for retraining, they had to expand the code vocabulary for new equipment like the Bazooka which came in 1943. In N. Africa the Germans captured some and made their our. 

Guam was US  territory since 1900 but was capture by Japan in late 1941. Operation Forager was against the Mariana Island, Saipan ,Tintan and Guam. Soldiers found that by not wearing underwear it was easier to stay dry in the tropical climate. Officers mixed with men and often removed signs of rank as these made them targets.

The Navajos had to transmit messages asking for ammunition and had to keep moving after a transmission to avoid attacks. A man who could get the troops supplies they needed was invaluable. The Chamorro natives  came out of hiding when the Japanese had been defeated and climbed the coconut palms with a rope  to get food. The Natives also gave information about where the Japanese. This Island was taken in 3 weeks by August 30 1944.

 The Japanese had not managed to get their code. At this time all black and white soldiers were segregated even their blood supplies, but the marines put absolute trust into the Navajos. Captured Japanese were given medical care and fed on soldiers rations at a time that it was believed all captured US troops had been killed. From Guam the left by C47 planes back to Guadalcanal.

1944 Sept Peleliu in the Palau Island chain 470 miles from the Philippines. It is an island with about 500 caves and the Japanese had fortified these, it is also heavily covered with vegetation. The used flame throwers and the enemy would run from these bunkers on fire. The soldiers had a shortage of water were sent from the ship oil barrels of water that tasted oily. These Islands housed the Japanese administration headquarters of the South Pacific.

Anguar also Palau chain The first night here they heard the voice of Tokyo Rose blasted from a Japanese loudspeaker. Here 2 Navajos were regarded as Japanese and they told them to call the communication officer to confirm who they were. Bull dozers were used here and the sealed many bunkers. Many US troops mistook Navajo on the radio for Japanese.

The term code talker had not yet been coined but Marines were warned not to call the Navajos or Indians.  Letters from the US routinely took 8 months to arrive and orders were that they had to destroy them after reading.

Peleiliu had the highest casualty rate in the South Pacific 1500 US troops were killed and 6,700 wounded or missing.

11,000 Japanese killed many of them Korean laborers. Wounded Japanese after too many had attacked the sescuers were shot or just left. Peleliu was necessary to take to get to the Philippines but Mc Arthur got there a month before Peleliu  was secured and the media coverage was on MacArthur.

A Navajo soldier was captured and forced to decode the messages but he was incapable of that. After that the code talkers were given body guards by the Marines. 

Jan 1945 Iwo Jima was the home of no indigenous animal life. This Island had been colonized by Japan in the 1800s and was the eventual gateway to attacking Japan. At this point the author was sent home.

Code talkers took part in every major battle of the Pacific War. Had the Japanese managed to decode this the war would have turned out differently. He was at hospital in S. Frisco with battle fatigue. He was warned not to talk about the code 

1945 May German Surrender it then took another 4 months for the Japanese to surrender.

1945  Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima 6th August  and Nagasaki 9th August. The observation of what the atomic blast had done was transmitter back home by Navajo code.2nd Sept Japan capitulates.

Native American were made US citizens in 1924 they only got the vote in 1948 after he finished his service. He got home to Gallup by Greyhound bus. They never discussed the war in front of children so that they would not glorify war.

He wanted to get an education so as not to remain on the Checkerboard all his life. The Haskell High School later became the Haskell Indian Nations University. With his experience as a marine he expected to fit into mainstream America. Using the GI Bill he went to the University of Kansas to become a commercial artist.

1952 Married and had a family and job and lived in Albuquerque, N M.

1968 The Code Talkers could break their silence. He spoke at Harvard about his WW2 experience. 1971 President Richard Nixon honored the code talkers. 1982 President Ronald Reagan declared August 14th National Code Talkers Day. Under President Bill Clinton the original 29 code takers were given gold medals and the others were given silver. By War end there were about 400 code talkers 13 had been killed in action.

2002 Windtalkers movie. After this he became in demand as a speaker Larry King, 60minutes, Today Show and National Geographic.

Brotherhood of Warriors by Aaron Cohen and Douglas Century 2008

Aaron Cohen speaks on U tube articles about the current situation. He is still promoting this book and I realized that I had already read his book before I started this blog 

25/5/19 Behind enemy lines with a commando in one of the worlds most elite counter terrorist units- 1995 to 1998

This is an autobiography. The book starts with the Dizingoff bombing in Tel Aviv on 4th March 1996. He happened to be at a flat with his mate an officer in Duvduvanim nearby and the 2 of them went and took charge of helping until the ambulance and police took over. (This is moving to me as I knew 2 of the 16 who died that day, they were South African immigrants a mother and her daughter.) He was born in Montreal and his parents divorced and he was moved around to Florida then LA where his mothers career took off as a scriptwriter and she married Abby Mann.

For his bar mitzvah year he returned to his father in Montreal. Abby Mann - Avraham Goodman 1927 to 2008 wrote the script for Judgement in Nuremburg 1961 by Stanley Kramer. In Hollywood he met the actors who came to their house to discuss the scripts. Most Hollywood kids were wealthy spoilt brats like him and when he got into trouble his mother sent him off to military school Canada near Niagara. Here he was able to find himself, as rules were set down. Back home he met an Israeli general who told him if he gets to Israel not to overdo how great he is. He arrived on Kibbutz Hazorea to do an ulpan and worked in the kitchen but met the people in the fish breeding who were officers in the Matkal and managed to work with them in work physically exhausting. In the army he refused to be taken into ordinary infantry, phoned an old lady who knew everyone and got into the gibush at Wingate. He survived this even with a sprained ankle. Matkal would not take him security only wanted born Israeli's of known families but he was sent to training that would be Duvduvan.(undercover, counter terror) During the training they keep working on them physical and phycological to eliminate, and those were sent off to paratroopers or infantry. The volunteers for these elite unites came mostly from secular idealist but as a result of the 73 and 82 wars these types wanted the good life offered abroad and the kippa sruga (knitted skullcaps of general religious) were the one who showed this initiative. There was also a unit of physically strong Sfaredim (Jews of Eastern origin) who were not fighting material but by having then next to high class units had some effect. They were now trained on weapons for urban warfare, everything from handguns to small Uzi's folding F16 and Kalashnikovs. They learn Krav Maga developed by Imi Lichtenfeld to protect Jewish youth against anti-Semitic thugs in Bratislava in the 1930. Then they had lessons on disguise some could grown beards other dressed as women. They had to get cheap Chinese copies of clothes, shoes as certain brands gives one away. A cosmetician taught makeup. Initially he guarded the surrounding while the operation was on later he went in. Once there was shooting from inside so they put an RPG in the wanted person was killed so they could not get him alive to question. Once he had to meet a British educated Hamas organizer and posed as an American reporter in a café till the rest of the team pounced. He says that Fatah and Hamas are more like armed mafia's gangs than political movements and people are left very little free will. They found out that Abu Jihad was to be at a wedding in Nablus and 2 men went in as quests grabbed him and carried him out. This was such a Hamas neighbourhood that the locals felt too secure. After his 3 year stint Aaron returned to LA but was in a state of post traumatic stress back home. Eventually he met Israelis there working in security many without green cards. When word got out that he was available he was in demand and later started training police. He ends the book explaining that America after 9/11 is not mentally equipped to deal with a terrorist problem and Islamic terror had long term goals and has time. Later he took part in war movies.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro.

Robert Cara wrote 4 books on L B Johnson  The part I was interested in was Civil Rights 

1865 Dec The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. This was the first of 3 Reconstruction Amendments.

1868 July, 14th Amendment This gave rights to citizens of every state including voting rights, this would mean that slave states had a bigger population and would get greater representation. Ex-slave states were thus not encouraged to register black voters. 14th Amendment of 1868 The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, later used to do with Same sex marriage. Amendment XV 1870 prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote. 13, 14, 15 are known as the Reconstructionist amendments. Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896), was a landmark of the US supreme court decision upholding constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal".[1] In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the Separate Car Act) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Homer Plessey was an octeroon but was required to be in the coloured car. The case went to the Louisiana high court and then the US Supreme court. This was the basis of all the Jim Crow Laws till 1954 1948President Truman abolished segregation in the US army. This took till 1963 to achieve. Earl Warren appointed to Supreme Court in 1952 by Eisenhower this led to the1954 April Brown vs Board of education Supreme court declares Segregation unconstitutional/ -------------------------------------------------- Many black soldiers opted to stay in the army after World War II. There were actually more opportunities for them in the service than back in the Southern states of the U.S.A. When the U.S.A. became involved in the Korean war 1950, thousands of African-Americans soldiers returned to the battlefield. Defense Directive 5120.36 1963 by McNamara --------------------------------------------------- 1949 The Felix Longoria Wake. the body of a conscripted soldier who died in the Philippines was returned to his family Three Rivers Southern Texas. The owner of the Funeral Palour refused to have the service at the Funeral Chapel as he said the whites wont like it. This controversy was in the press for 6 weeks till Senator Johnson arranged for him to be buried in Arlington and attended the service. “The enormous power held by each of the southern committee chairmen individually was multiplied by their unity, by what White called a “oneness found nowhere else in politics.” The symbol was the legendary “Southern Caucus,” the meetings of the twenty-two southern senators which were held in the office of their leader, Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia, whenever crisis threatened—meetings that were, White said, “for all the world like reunions of a large and highly individualistic family whose members are nevertheless bound by one bond.” In those meetings, the southern position was agreed upon, its tactics mapped, its front made solid.” The Southern Caucus used other bills against the CR bill

----------------------------------------- LBJ "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long The Republican Party was Lincoln's old party and on the centenary of Lincoln Day LBJ wanted something to show. In LBJs first speech to congress he mentioned Civil Rights for all Americans and 4 days after the assassinations he met Civil Rights leaders, he met each separately and convinced them that he would support them and needed their help. Rowe Kennedy had style but Johnson had substance. Johnson said there are show horses and work horses you have to decide which you are. American liberalism period was from the New Deal until Reagan, that active government should improve American life. Both FDR and LBJ were more interested in accomplishments than principles. Under the New Deal the National Youth Administration was set up under Johnson in Texas where 24% of eligible blacks were enrolled compared to only 24% of eligible white youth. LBJ voted against Civil Rights bill as he depended on support of the oil industry, he always felt that economic growth would solve the race problem. When southern leaders signed a petition against the Brown decision Johnson did not sign it as he knew it would end his chances of becoming president. He felt that the Race question obsessed the south and diverted it from dealing with its economic and education problem. The watered down Civil Rights bill of 1957 was to speed up desegregation in school but it had a symbolic effect. JFK won as Johnson was able to get him the southern votes. One of the roles he worked at under Kennedy was the committee of Equal Employment opportunities.- Federal contracts could only go to companies that made an effort to combat racism. "Lets make it fashionable to end discrimination" by Civil Rights under Kennedy was completely stymied. 1963 a few month before Kennedy's assassination Martin Luther's march on Washington his " I had a dream' failed to move congress. On becoming President ,Johnson announced that he would be the custodian of Kennedys legacy, and he needed Kennedys aids for an image of continuity. He liked Dean Rusk because Bobby disliked him. Walter Heller had assembled the poverty program and made little head way with Kennedy but Johnson immediately said that is my kind of program give it top priority. Johnson decided that the Civil Rights issue was a time when a poker player puts everything on the stack. Some Southerners said they could support a Civil Rights bill without the Public Accommodation clause but Johnson said that was the substance of the bill. The bill passed the house and Hubert Humphrey worked getting it through Congress. When people stopped waiting for someone else to take care of their problem and formed their own movement. Between 1954 and 1965 the movements philosophy was non violence within the American Legal System. 11 years till the militants took over in 1965 mostly in the north.

Johnson knew that symbolism was important and took on a black secretary Gerri Whittington and arranged for her to appear on a TV program. 1964 On New Years Eve LBJ was invited to the University of Austin faculty club which was segregated and walked in with Gerri Whittington on his arm and after that the club declared it was no longer segregated. When Gerri had asked him if he knew what he was doing he said "sure half the people will think you are my wife and that is fine by me" Walter Lipman -In the senate debate and discussion were replaced by delay and stultification Till he became president he had voted against all Civil Rights bills including that under Truman. Johnson had never been a segregationist and had quietly made efforts on behalf of poor blacks and Latinos but supporting Civil Rights in Texas was political suicide After the Brown case southern members sign a petition against the implementation , Johnson did not sign it as this southern manifesto would end his chances for the presidency. Mc Pherson – Johnson felt that the race question obsessed the South and diverted its attention from economic and education problems. UNDER Kennedy he said "let's make it fashionable to end discrimination" Soon after coming to office Johnson met the civil rights leaders and explained the challenge. He got George Meany of the trade Union to give support as well as the steel, electrical workers and auto workers unions. He knew that a new president could get legislation through while the momentum lasts. --------------------------------- LBJ said that Dickson the head of the Republicans is a man who thinks of the country before he thinks of his party. Dirksen the Civil Rights Act would pass because it was an idea whose time had come. The National Interreligious Convocation was taking place and Washington and they supported civil rights. Senators who wanted aid for sparkly populated states wanted aid for dams irrigation projects and the earthquake that struck Alaska were prepared to vote for cloture. Elections were coming up for the Senate and they wanted to start campaigning. Johnson But the times also called for a leader who could subdue the vast political and administrative forces arrayed against change. “We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for 100 years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.” The best hope of moving the civil-rights bill from the House Rules Committee—whose segregationist chairman, Howard Smith of Virginia, had no intention of relinquishing it—was a procedure called a “discharge petition.” If a majority of House members sign a discharge petition, a bill is taken from the committee, to the chagrin of its chairman. Johnson made the petition his own personal crusade. Even Risen credits his zeal, noting that after receiving a list of 22 House members vulnerable to pressure on the petition, the president immediately ordered the White House switchboard to get them on the phone, wherever they could be found. Johnson engaged an army of lieutenants—businessmen, civil-rights leaders, labor officials, journalists, and allies on the Hill—to go out and find votes for the discharge petition. He cut a deal that secured half a dozen votes from the Texas delegation. He showed Martin Luther King Jr. a list of uncommitted Republicans and, as Caro writes, “told King to work on them.” He directed one labor leader to “talk to every human you could,” saying, “if we fail on this, then we fail in everything.” As a leading southern senator put it, “You know, we could have beaten John Kennedy on civil rights, but not Lyndon Johnson.” The pressure worked. On December 4—not two weeks into Johnson’s presidency—the implacable Chairman Smith began to give way. Rather than have the bill taken from his committee, he privately agreed to begin hearings that would conclude before the end of January, and then release the bill. Smith looked set to renege on his agreement in the new year, but reluctantly kept his word, allowing the bill to be sent to the full House on January 30, 1964. Risen credits others with this development, suggesting that it was Representative Clarence Brown of Ohio, a Republican member of the Rules Committee, among others, who got Smith to move. Risen is particularly sharp on the evolution of the Republicans during these tumultuous years, but here he accords them too much clout. Brown had to answer to House Republican Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana, whose support Johnson likely bought by proposing, and then personally securing, a NASA research facility at Purdue University, Indiana in Halleck’s district. And the entire Republican caucus in the House was wilting under Johnson’s relentless and very public campaign to portray “the party of Lincoln” as obstructing civil rights by opposing the discharge petition. Johnson kept the bill moving in the Senate by dislodging President Kennedy’s tax-cut bill from the Finance Committee. As vice president, Johnson had advised Kennedy not to introduce civil-rights legislation until the tax cut had cleared Congress. Kennedy didn’t listen, and now both bills were stuck. (Like House Rules, Senate Finance had a wily segregationist for a chairman: Harry Byrd of Virginia.) Risen minimizes the significance of this problem, writing that the tax bill “presented no procedural obstacle to the civil rights bill, only a political one.” (And when does politics ever derail legislation?!) As Caro explains, the tax bill was a hostage. By holding it in committee, the South pressured the administration to give up on civil-rights legislation, with the implication that the withdrawal of the latter might produce movement on the former. But Johnson and Byrd were old friends, and during an elaborate White House lunch they came to an understanding: if Johnson submitted a budget below $100 billion, Byrd would release the tax bill. Johnson then personally bullied department heads to reduce their appropriations requests, and delivered a budget of $97.9 billion. The Finance Committee passed the tax bill on January 23, 1964, with Byrd casting the deciding vote to allow a vote, then weighing in against the measure itself. The Senate passed the tax bill on February 7, mere days before the civil-rights bill cleared the House. Finally, Johnson helped usher the bill to passage in the Senate by working to break the southern filibuster, which was led by his political patron, the formidable Richard Russell of Georgia. In light of the Senate’s fiercely guarded independence, the president could not operate in the open; he had to use proxies like Humphrey, who was his protégé and future vice president, as well as the bill’s floor manager. Johnson impressed upon Humphrey that the vain and flamboyant Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois was the key to delivering the Republican votes needed for cloture: “You and I are going to get Ev. It’s going to take time. We’re going to get him. You make up your mind now that you’ve got to spend time with Ev Dirksen. You’ve got to let him have a piece of the action. He’s got to look good all the time. Don’t let those [liberal] bomb throwers, now, talk you out of seeing Dirksen. You get in there to see Dirksen. You drink with Dirksen! You talk with Dirksen! You listen to Dirksen!” Johnson demanded constant updates from Humphrey and Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, and always urged more-aggressive tactics. (“The president grabbed me by my shoulder and damn near broke my arm,” said Humphrey.) Even though Senate Democrats did not deploy all those tactics, Johnson’s intensity nevertheless set the tone and supplied its own momentum. He kept up a steady stream of speeches and public appearances demanding Senate passage of the strong House bill, undiluted by horse-trading. And he personally lobbied senators to vote for cloture and end the filibuster. Risen contends that Johnson “persuaded exactly one senator” to change his vote on cloture. Given that it is of course impossible to know what motivated each senator’s final decision, this lowball figure is expressed with too much certitude. Evidence presented by Purdum and Caro suggests that Johnson’s importuning, bribing, and threatening may have made an impact on closer to a dozen. The Senate invoked cloture on June 10, breaking the longest filibuster in the institution’s history. The full Senate soon passed the bill. Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964, ). The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The word "sex" was added at the last moment Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA) added the word. His critics argued that Smith, a conservative Southern opponent of federal civil rights, did so to kill the entire bill. The Bill was passed 8 days before the Republican Convention. and immediately turned his energies to what would become another landmark statute: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. LBJ understood that the desegregation would not happen until blacks became voters, in the south any black who applied to register would be beaten. LBJ needed this bill because there was no way that the Civil Rights could be a reality in the South until the Negro population could vote and finally change the statue quo. The march on Selma Alabama was declared illegal by Governor George Wallace, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge was the incident called "Bloody Sunday" Johnson wanted to send Federal troops to deal with this but that can only be done at the request of the State. However Wallace ask for a meeting with the president to get into the limelight, and saying he needed Federal funds to handle the situation. This was sufficient excuse for LBJ to send troops to protect the marchers. Johnson convened a prime time joint session of Congress and gave the American Promise Speech to introduce an immediate voting rights bill " no delay no hesitation and no compromise "and we shall overcome. He totally aligned himself with the civil rights cause and dispatched Federal inspectors to offending counties.----------------- A march from Selma to Montgomery organized by King for the right to register as voters was declared Illegal by the state governor George Wallace. The marchers were attacked at the Petrus bridge and this was all shown live on TV What became known as "Bloody Sunday.. Johnson wanted to send Federal troops but to do this needed the request of the governor. Wallace wanted to get into the limelight and requested a meeting with LBJ suggesting that Georgia could not handle this alone and wanted federal funds for help. Wallace's request was the excuse Johnson needed to send Federal troop to protect the marchers. Johnson convened a Prime Time joint session of the Congress and gave The American Promise speech to introduce an immediate voting rights bill, "no delays no hesitation no compromise " and we shall overcome. Federal inspectors would be dispatch to offending counties. the Voting Rights Act of 1965. came with the Selma struggle at the Edmond Petrus Bridge that followed Johnson speech "We shall overcome" Voting rights bill of 1965 Other general provisions specifically outlaw literacy tests. In 1968 when King was assassinated this was used to pass the "Open House Law" ---------------- 5 Days later the Black Rioting started at Watts California. "Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.” ------------------ Walter Heller had assembled a poverty program and he presented it to Johnson who said "that is my kind of program, give it the highest priority. Unconditional war on poverty led to the 1964 Equal opportunity act. In the 1964 election Johnson won by 61.1% better than FDR had done and he now tried to bring about the Great Society. But the war in Vietnam and the Great Society could not be pursued at the same time. Just like Wilson and FDR domestic reform had to be abandoned to lead the nation to war. "" shall overcome" the other tune that plague Johnson's presidency was Hey hey LBJ. How many We kids have you killed today." When a Besides person has enough power to do what they want to then "power reveals" ------------------------------------------ Other bills included ending discrimination in public accommodation , education employment even in private housing . A century after Lincoln, LBJ became the most important codifier of compassion.. During his final years, Wallace recanted his racist views and asked for forgiveness from African Americans.

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Sweet Sunday by John Lawton 2002  351 pgs.   10/12/24

This is a novel about the 1960s with a mystery.

The author was in  High school with Buddy Holly in class of 55 in Lubbock, West Texas. He shook hand with LBJ and met Norman Mailer twice.

1954 Dien Blen Fhu the Vietnamese brought heavy weapons in pieces on bicycles and completely surprised the French by destroying their garrison there and resulted in the French leaving Vietnam.

1969 Norman Mailer ran for Mayor unsuccessfully and wanted to make the city a separate State. Mailer had fought in WW2 so was not part of this generation. This was the year Apollo 10 landed on the moon. "Moon Summer" The moon walk followed with Apollo 11. At a talk to be given by Norman Mailer a Viet Cong flag was up and said if it is not removed he won't speak. He did not like beards and was against dope.

WW2 we had won the good fight and owned the 20th Century, and wanted to make a kinder gentler place.

Pentagon march of 1967. Jerry Rubin was head of the Yippies, he was not the Brightest but was born to lead. Yippie a Hippie who has his head busted by a cop.

1934 to 2020 Gloria Steinem is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism.

His family had settled in Texas high plains soon after  the Comanches last rout 1877. His mother died the day Japan surrendered Sept 7 1945. 

1967 He got a licensee as a Private Eye PI, and got a gun license with the job but never carried a gun. He helped blue collar people who could not get out of the draft and fled to Canada. Many a parent felt their sons were cowards and some hardly knew their sons. Wealthier kids could avoid the  draft by studying.

His father hated lawyers - to breed one of his own seemed the obvious solution. This Vietnam vet had died of "natural causes"  Cancer induced by Agent Orange.

His brother Huey got drafted and so fell out with his father a WW2 vet. There was a war between the generations. The draft board saw so many faking to be weird they couldn't tell who was faking.

"War makes men" that's crap all it does is make dead boys.  This colonel Feaver arrived and wanted 10 volunteer and this group all went and they committed a massacre's at the village afterwards the lieutenant shot himself in the head from what he saw. Welcome to Nam I finally killed somebody. Later on we discover that Colonel Feaver was without orders from Saigon and doing this on his own. The 9 soldiers were unwitting renegades and he had chosen them as they were greenhorns and there was no paramedic. (fictional part perhaps the My Lai was the real example) The 5 left of the group of 9 were given honorable discharges purple hearts and full pension. This was the first television war, but it was not live. The book The Quiet American by Graham Green 1955 already understood American in Vietnam.  Feaver was could not be discharged from the army as then they could no longer charge him.

William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) tells the story of three veterans returning from World War II

They return from Vietnam to a segregated America even Washington was clearing blacks out under the guise of urban renewal. "Vietnam was getting colored folk to kill colored folk"

1776 was no a revolution it was a change of ownership. HG Wells gave The Men in the Moon - if you don't like the world change it.

1950 Interstate travel was officially desegregated. Schools were desegregated in 1954 but in 1957 troops had to be sent to Little Rock to enforce it. 1957 the Supreme court desegregated bus terminals. The Freedom Riders the first bus in Aniston, Alabama was firebombed. LB Johnson was the greatest horse trader in Washington.

Howard was a University in Washington for blacks established in 1867 after the Civil War initially as a school of Divinity.

1962 with the Cuban missile crises the world changed forever. Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida. MAD stand for Mutually Assured Destruction. No one can win. To get to Cuba from America you had to fly to Austria cross into Hungary to get your flight.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC had a badge of a white and black hand holding each other.

1963 Paul Simon song about counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, a quarter million people coming to look for America. Civil Rights March on Washington.   Peyote cap a hallucinating  mushroom.

Alice Babette Toklas 1877 to 1967 was Gertrude Steins companion in Paris and wrote a biography of Gertrude she is also famous for a cooking book.

1969 Woodstock is described in the book with free love, Many came to see Bob Dylan but he had, had a motorbike accident. This was part of the Civil Rights and the anti Vietnam war protest mood.

1974 Trick Dicky( Richard Nixon) told thousands of lies and got kicked out of office.

1936 to 1989 Abbie Hoffman died of drug overdose suicide.

1938 to 1994 Jerry Rubin Died in LA after being struck by a motorist. He had studied for a while at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

1977 Under Carter the draft dodgers were given an amnesty.

Colonialism: A moral reckoning 2023 by Nigal Bigger 2023 480pg

This book high light  some of the better aspects of British Colonialism which is a very controversial subject. 17/11/24

From the early 1800s the Empire was committed to abolishing the slave trade in the name of a Christian conviction of the basic equality of all human beings. It ended endemic inter-tribal warfare, opened local economies to the opportunities of global trade, moderated the impact of inescapable modernization, established the rule of law and liberal institutions such as a free press, While the British Empire was not without fault, its crimes have been greatly exaggerated and its virtues have been almost wholly ignored.  the Comanche extended their imperial sway over much of what is now Texas, while the Asante were expanding their control in West Africa. And in the 1820s King Shaka led the highly militarized Zulus in scattering other South African peoples. Anglo-American liberal world order that has prevailed since 1945.and they are the target at present  human societies all over the world have had slaves since prehistory. 

 In 1784  the prodigiously polyglot Sir William Jones in founding the Calcutta Asiatic Society .Rhodesia outperformed Ethiopia dramatically in terms of modern development[.]”

1950s and 1960s several million Chinese voted with their feet, fled the lawless mainland and found refuge in the colony of Hong Kong.

The whole campaign Rhodes must fall started in Cape  Town University in 2015 . This was build on land donated by Rhodes. The protests moved to Stellenbosch University the Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Later 2016 Pretoria and the  Orange Free State University and the issues of Afrikaans as a language medium came up also. At Oxford Oriel Collage where Rhodes scholars get bursaries. There many felt that they should be proud of British Colonialism.  This is what encouraged Nigel Bigger to write this book.

Rhodes was a moral mixture, he supported a franchise in the Cape Colony that gave Black African in the Cape Colony the same franchise as Whites based on education and property. He financed a black newspaper. The first black man was a beneficiary of  Rhodes a scholarship 5 years after his death.

In history there were many empires that came and went including in 1820 Shake's militarized empire that scattered other native South African peoples. The British was one of the biggest empires and gave birth the the USA , Canada Australia and New Zealand. 

The British were involved in the slave trade but later became the leading navy in patrolling to destroy the trade.  The beginning of Britain in S. Africa was when in 1814 the Dutch surrendered the Cape to them. Hong Kong was the last big colony given up in 1997.

The British Empire was not from its inception a coherent project and not the fruit of a single motive. The European Empire of the Nazi Regime that lasted 7 years from the Anschluss of Austria 1938 till the surrender to the Allies 1945 was the fruit of a single mind, Hitler's  Nazi project. Initially Wessex over England and England over Wales was the desire of a state of security. The Tudor colonies in north America were to secure England against Spanish Catholic domination of Phillip who wanted to wipe out Protestantism. Some overseas colonies were taken as a consequence of international rivalry. Later it was part of rivalry with France and the Napoleonic Wars. Later Russia became a rival for India. Then in WW1 Germany became a threat and Britain acquired more territory in Africa the Americas and the Middle East.

Rival Indian leaders enlisted British military expertise and the British trained their troops.  The often paid in land and allowed the British to tax, Warren Hasting in 1875 became the first governor  general and the East India Company just developed as commercial opportunities came up. Warren Hasting became fascinated by India's Hindu and Buddhist past mastered Bengali and pioneered the revival of Sanskrit. He and other rendered a service to Indian nationalism that few natives could have done. There was never a widespread  European immigration to India and in 1900 there were only 154,691 British to 300 million Indians.

Between 1815 and 1924 25 million continental Europeans migrated.  Till 1783 when the USA became independent convicted Britons were transported there to serve out their sentences.  After 1788 their destination became Australia till this ceased in 1868.

The reasons for migration differed in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers sought to escape the Church of England and for religious freedom. 1783 British loyalists left the USA to Nova Scotia. Emigrants from Lowland Scotland and Ireland fled poverty, like the famine of the 1840s In the 1860s Livingstone lobbied the British government to suppress slavery and Nyasaland (Malawi today) was set up for agriculture to be an alternative to slavery.. 

Between 1895 and 1902 it is estimated that a million firearms entered British and German east Africa. The British realized that they must be wary conflict with Germany over colonies. 

Britain in 1880s had a strategic interest in the region between the lakes Victoria ,Kyoga , Albert , Edward and Tanganyika. Briain had taken over running Egypt who had gone bankrupt and these lakes were the source of the Nile. Egypt  had borrowed money for his economic expansion at the same time as cotton from the southern USA returned to the market to compete with Egypt after the civil war. The British Controller General was Lord Cromer who at heart felt he was responsible for the Egyptian peasant and so increased the tax burden on the landlords. He also did away with the corvee and substituted paid labour to clear the canals. Egypt was made up of Muslim peasants , landowners, clerics, but  also Armenians , Syrians and Coptic Christians and for the government to transcend ethnic biases you needed the British. British administration had brought prosperity to Egypt. Cromer left Egypt in 1907 but it took till 1956 for the last British troops to leave Egypt. Many Egyptians had welcomed the British in the 1890s but after WW1 with Egyptian nationalism the British had restored Egypt to an independent Kingdom.

In 1919 General Sir Henry Wilson chief of staff had warned the government that holding Palestine would bring similar problems to that of Ireland. The benefits would be outweighed by the military liability.

After WW1 Widrow Wilson promoted  the principle of self determination. Before this time all British Colonies with a majority white population had become self ruling  Dominions Canada , Australia , New Zealand.

The motives  for building the Empire were many and various and differed between the trader, migrant, soldier, missionary entrepreneur, financier, government official and statesmen. Of course good motives get corrupted by vices.

Slavery and the slave trade were well established in Africa long before the Europeans arrived, the Portuguese were the first to seeks slaves in the 1440s. It is estimated that a total of 12,508,351 slaves were exported. The British came into this trade in 1707 and exported 3,259,443.

 1787 in London the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was inaugurated. The 1791 rebellion of slaves in Saint Dominque could not be suppressed by either the French or the British and it led to Haiti independence in 1804 and helped the way towards abolition. With the influence of William Wilberforce in 1834 throughout the British Empire slaves were emancipated and the British taxpayer contributed £20 million towards it to pay out slave owners rather than coerce them.

1814-1815 At the Congress of Vienna the British attempted to get all the nations to a general abolition treaty.  Between 1833 and 1865 the British navy had ships stopping the transport of slaves from Africa at one time they had as many as 36 ships on this duty. The British government leant on the Khedive of Egypt to stop slavery with general Charles Gordon going into the Sudan where the British were suppressing slavery against the Mahdi.In Zanzibar the consul general did away with slavery in stages and finally did in 1907.

Sir Stanford Raffles after 1807 applied this law to Penang and banned the importation of slaves into Java 1818, and established a school for their Children in Bencoolen.

On the subject of race at a time the Anglo Saxon race was considered superior. When Rhodes arrived in South Africa in 1870 and saw the Bantu Africans it was obvious to him that British civilization was way ahead in natural science, technology and finance, communications. naval power. Later on Rhodes never sought to overturn the colour blind franchise that existed in the Cape Colony since 1853 based on property and education and works.. He fought against the proposal to disenfranchise the Cape Blacks in 1899.Rhodes is  considered patronizing.  Is it patronizing when others need help?  King Faizal of Iraq in 1922 did not want Churchill to withdraw British troops.. In 1896 Rhodes parlayed with the Ndebele at great risk he learned of the humiliations that the blacks had suffered and  the white settlers had brought down this retribution on themselves. He allocated part of the land to be kept in perpetuity for the blacks .He  stipulated that the scholarships at Oriel Collage would be awarded without regard to race.

1857 The Indian Mutiny had effects on racial relations and Queen Victoria rebuked Her PM Lord Salisbury when he referred to the first Indian MP Dadabhai Naoroji as a black man.  The British attempts to stop customs like childhood marriage and female infanticide's antagonized. Indians who lived in England including Mohandas Ghandi did not experience British  racism until they returned to India or South Africa.

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh 1956 181pg.

This is a novel that tries to show the social effect of partition of the average Indian. 18/11/24

movie of this book was released in 1998  

India before partition had a population of 400 million with an annual increase of 4 million.

Mano Majra, the fictional Indian village on the border of Pakistan, here people from all religions and sects once lived in harmony, but outside there are Moslem and Sikhs killing each other.

“Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis” 

The District magistrate is a man in moral conflict who has probably used his power over the years with much corruption. He is washing himself like Pontius Pilate and drinking alcohol to flee guilt.  

 Iqbal is a Sikh a political agitator for workers rights but when it comes to action he does nothing. Jugga is described as a budmash, a bad man, by others but ultimately becomes a hero. 

1947 The cataclysmic events of the partition of India and creation of  Pakistan. This is a  social document on the upheaval, by a Punjabi whose family was uprooted.  Summer of 1947 was a long hot one. Riots broke out in  Calcutta and spread to Noakhali in East Bengal, Bihar and the Punjab. By the time the monsoons came a million people were dead. Rivers change their courses and moods without warning. The bridge has 18 enormous spans and a single track , express trains don't stop only the slow passenger  trains one in the morning from Lahore to Delhi and one in the evening to Lahore. The trains coming through set the times like prayers in the morning or  that of the evening meal.

Decoits killed the village money lender. Father and grandfather were decoits but they never robbed in their own village. With the monsoon Sutlej River is a grand and terrifying sight. No body in the villages knew of the British and the partition of Hindustan -Pakistan or about Gandhi or Jinna.

The police had heard of several young well to do men in peasant garb doing uplift work , some communist agents, all capable of making a lot of trouble. He claimed to be a social worker. He was asked why the English left. Everyone is welcome to his religion.

In Punjab the young men were all alike they wanted wives who were virgins' and women good at household chores. The match had to correspond to the horoscope. The press had an article on Indian ballet , movies and movie stars and  Tagore, Bengali poet, writer1861 to 1941. Rabindranath

In India the subject of sex always came up and you saw it on the billboards advertising aphrodisiacs' and cures for the bad effect of masturbation's, remedies and quacks against bareness, no people used some must incestuous  insults as here.

September things started going wrong trains were no longer punctual and ran through the night., the changed driver before going into Pakistan. A ghost train arrived from Pakistan nobody on the roof and a stench of death. People were kept away. The villages were paid for firewood and paraffin and the army burned the bodies.

Monsoon is another word for rain the Arabic means season. The winter is simple cold rain but the summer is proceeded by drought, hot and thirsty, rivers and everything dries up till the monsoon that lasts for 2 or more months is welcomes.

Hijras (Hermaphrodites')   are not Moslem or Hindu. They  were dancers singer and entertainers. Sikhs who objected to them heard their joke "Are you worried that you will stop having children because of our presence"

The Moslems were rounded up and put in a camp for their own protection but they asked "What have we got to do with Pakistan?" We have lived all our life in this village. Where on earth would a man's life depend on whether on not his foreskin was removed ?

India is constipated with a lot of Humbug. Take religion. For the  Hindu it means little besides cast and cow protection. For the Muslim circumcision's and kosher meat. Parsi  fire worship and feeding vultures. The ethics that should be the kernel of a religious code has been carefully removed.

When people go about with guns and spears you can only talk back with guns and spears.

Nooran was  pregnant with Jugga's daughter and his mother said what does a Moslem weavers daughter want with my  Sikh's peasant. son.   Malli's gang were let loose and took all goods left by the Moslems.

Now the topic of conversation was that the Sutlej river kept on going up and there were villages that had been flooded. Dead bodies were floating down that were not drowned but murdered.

With light they saw a ghost train that had arrived from Pakistan but there was no wood to burn and it was too wet. A bulldozer appeared and dug a trench that was filled with bodies. 

Do you know how many trainloads of Sikhs and Hindus have come over ?How many massacres' have taken place in Rawalpindi , Gujranwala and Sheikhupura. This young army officer organized that they kill the Moslems on the train to Pakistan and they must show that they are men

A rope had been put across the rail line on the bridge it would have been like a knife cutting people on to of the train.  The young tall man(Jugga ?) started cutting it and some one shot at him to stop him, just as the train arrived he cut though the last strand and fell down with the rope under the train.