EUNUCHS, HOMOS, CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, DEATH PENALTY

 Closing the Circle

Some time ago I posted on a contrast between China and the West - the role of eunuchs.  I suggested that Chinese emperors and leading bureaucrats were interested in protecting the government from pillage, even by those employed by the government.  That they feared "family values" were a threat to an employee thinking first of doing what was best for his employee, the government, the empire.  I recall seeing an old movie about a British government employee in one of its colonies in Africa.  He hires a young Black African.  Next week, the lad brings in a relative, asking the Brit to also hire this cousin.  And the following wee another relative.  It was a comedy, but I suspect there was considerable nepotism in large empires.

    I suggest that the way the Chinese empire sought to cut out such "family values," was by cutting off the balls of the employee.  He would work for government, and not have any children to pester him for more favors and would be more distant to relatives.  It is interesting that perhaps the most important Admiral in the Chinese navy, Admiral He, was a eunuch.  He led a fleet of some 30,000 sailors who sailed from China to East Africa with stops along the way.  This in the 1430s, before Portugal and Spain sent out their expeditions.  The first one of Columbus with 3 ships and about 100 sailors.  Eunuchs were an important part of Chinese government until the early 1900s and the last emperor.  

In addition to work as bureaucrats, eunuchs were also employed to guard the harems.  The number of women could vary, but some emperors had a different woman for each night of the year.  To prevent full males from getting to them, eunuchs had that job.

Harems were not limited to China.  With the expansion of Islam, and into nations at the cross roads of trade between the Orient and distant Europe and wherever.  True, a wealthy Muslim might have 4 wives, but if he were wealthy, he might want greater variety, so harems, though not as large as an emperors.  The East Africa slave trade had developed, and some of the strong men would be castrated to guard the harems of the Middle East, strong even after surgery.

My premise, one reason European kings had not harems was Christianity permitted them only one wife.  Now, of course, with wealth and power, they could have more women, but a large harem would bring condemnation.  Better a few extra girl friends on the side, small enough number to keep an eye on them keeping them behind bars.  So Europe did not need eunuchs for harems.

But what about "family values" encouraging bureaucrats to steal from the nation?  Were not eunuchs the best way to solve that problem?  Perhaps, but NOT in Europe.  Why?  With the fall of the Roman Empire there were various nations in Europe, and most were Christian, working with the church.  The church provided the most literate people who could help the government.  The best were probably priests.  Better yet, they would have no children of their own, no overly close relatives, they could devote their lives to the church and its ally, the Christian nation.

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

With the victory of Constantine over the Pagans in a civil war, Christianity was on the road to becoming the official religion of the empire.  One major change, Google AI gave 2 answers for the first anti-homosexual laws of the new regime: Constantine in 320, or Constantine II, somewhat later.  I do not know precisely how they defined it, or even if it was defined in the new laws.  However, the punishment for homosexuality was death.  This was an enormous change, for the Greco-Roman world was generally quite tolerant on the issue of homos.  Even the statues of gods and goddesses were often naked, to make the appeal to humans in various ways.  The Christians were, however, out to change things.  In the 500s, Emperor Justinian sought to collect and organize Roman law so it could be used and passed on to new Christian countries.  There was a slight change, homosexuals were to be tortured before being executed.  Justinian ordered the building of the beautiful Hagia Sophia in the then Roman capital of Constantinople.  (It is still a terrific building, changed into a mosque in the 1400s. into a museum after WWI, and a mosque again under Turkey's Pres. Erdogan.)

The Roman Empire, once Christian, stopped subsidies to pagan temples.  No one learnt to write or read Egyptian hieroglyphics, and for nigh 2 millennia, no one could tell what was written.  Justinian's code made it clear, Jews and pagans were 2nd class citizens.  Homos to be killed.  Now if you were a young guy growing up, and you are suddenly aware that you are homo, what are you to do?  To earn a living?  To not be denounced? ?  There was one profession where you did not have to marry a woman - indeed, they did not want you to do so.  You would learn to read, be around other men, be respected.  I suspect the death penalty for homos, in reality made many of them slaves inside the church as priests.  Some probably advanced quite high in the organization.  I certainly would not be surprised to hear about gay popes along the way.  On the other hand, I do not mean to imply that all priests were or are gay.  In 1,800 years, the percentage of gay priests might vary greatly, also depending on place, and bureaucratic leadership at the time.  I did see one survey suggesting about 33% were gay in parts of 20th century America.  But take surveys with a grain of salt.

And while this was happening in Christian Europe, something similar was occurring among the Muslims.  Not immediately, but they too learnt how to "enslave' a homo community.  Around the age of 14 young Christian boys had to show up for examination by their Muslim overlords.  Over time, rules said the authorities could not take the only son of a family; the one they would take would have to be healthy, intelligent, handsome, etc.  They were to be slaves of the sultan, called Janissaries, though this is usually the term for those selected into the Ottoman army.  The others would be bureaucrats for the state, or perhaps boy friends of important men, or...They would be quickly broken in, taken on the back of a soldier's horse, given a new name, forced to become Muslim, beaten and probably forced by the man on the horse to do other things.  They were told they could never marry or have a family.  Many of these may never have been homo to begin with, just like some criminals in jails for long terms may also discover the joys of same sex (compared to no sex).  Interestingly, The Janissary troops gained the reputation as the best soldiers of the Ottoman Empire.

History is full of ironies, and this is surely one.  2 religions that despise homos officially, basically enslaved them if the homos wanted to live.  In both, the homos contributed to the growth of the organizations that enslaved them, and how many there were and how much contributed never permitted to surface.  Yet, I would contend both Abrahamic religions have provided the rationale for hatred of homos and individual beatings and murders of homosexuals for centuries, - some called witches, demons, Sodomites, Fidel Castro preferred gusanos, or whatever, religions providing foundations for murder.

Another irony, neither the Christians nor Muslims invented the death penalty for male homo  behavior.  They simply took it from the Jews, Leviticus, states that a man who sleeps with another man as he would with a woman, then both those men are to be condemned to death.

The irony is when Christians and Muslims came to power, at times they were angry with Jews and wanted to kill them, so both Jews and homos were on the death lists of different eras suffering together.  In 1933 it is well known that Hitler began a boycott of Jewish stores, with Storm Troopers outside painting stars of David on shop windows, and talking to potential customers not to go into such shops, instead by from Germans (meaning Jews could not be real Germans).  The Nazis also moved quickly against homos, closing the famous ElDorado bar/club, stopping use of the mail by homo publications, raiding Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's building (he was away in France at the time, the British writer, Christopher Isherwood, stayed on the premises, and his experiences led him to write Berlin Stories, which eventually was the film Caberet).  Hirschfeld was a social scientist and activist for homo rights.  He appeared in the 1919 film Anders als die Anderen (Different from the Others, asking for repeal of the homo criminalization statute #171.  The Nazis tried to destroy every copy of that film.)  In early 1933 the Nazis raided the Hirschfeld premises, gathered all his books, and research materials, and conducted one of the first major burning of the books for the movie capers to teach German movie-goers what was to happen to un-German books.  Later they would also do the same to un-German people, like Jews and homos.  Then German science proved a connection - Jewish women were more masculine than most women; and Jewish men more feminine.  And who would bother to question the results of German science, except "frauds" like Albert Einstein.

My main point, I am convinced the Leviticus assertions are wrong, and dangerous.  I think Levi took us all for a ride.  Levi took us in the wrong direction.  If there had been a democratic vote of the Gods of that era, say 2,700 years ago, most gods and goddesses would have found nothing wrong in homo love, and instead of calling for the death penalty, might have encourage the love.  And it was practiced in their countries.  Even Zeus carried a baby in his thigh.  The Indian Kama Sutra depicted love scenes on walls in India, both hetero and homo.  No condemnation by the gods.  Some African tribes initiations of boys included homo acts.  Amerindians had an institution, the berdache, a kind of same sex marriage.  J don't think China had laws against homos until the Western influence of Mao.  It was part of Japanese culture, including among the samurei.  Homo love was found all over the world BECAUSE it is natural to humans.  Perhaps not as natural as reproductive sex, but natural anyway.  Of course, when covering near 3,000 years of human history, there would be changes.  The British Empire imposed its Christian, anti-homo laws on colonies, even India in the age of Victoria.  Happily, France had a revolution, and the horrific Justinian Code was revised freeing Jews, Protestants, and homos in France, where Napoleon's army conquered, and in French colonies.  The French colonies did not impose Levi's laws.  (It is possible things in the French colonies may have changed, as they did in the home country during the early 1940s under Martial Petain as his collaborationist government in Vichy sought to undo the reforms of the French Revolution in many areas. The horrible irony, jn early 1940s in Germany and other parts of Europe, Jews and homos wound up in the same camps, the concentration camps, and in the death camps.  Tell your gods to repeal the Leviticus laws.

MY ANSWER TO TOMAS PUEYO'S QUESTION, - WHY DID ISLAM SPREAD SO FAST?

 Hugh Murray,  With the victory of Constantine, Rome turned its back on its religious and to some extent, its cultural past, - the opposition to the joys of the Coliseum, for example.  In the 500s, with the codification of Roman Law under Justinian, it is clear that pagans and Jews were to be 2nd class citizens of the new empire.  Homosexuality, which was prevalent in the Greek and even Roman worlds, brought with it in addition to the death penalty imposed around 320 with Constantine.  Under Justinian, there would still be the death penalty, but torture would precede that to make it worse.  There was no immediate end of all Roman culture, and the Library of Alexandria continued to inspire thought freely, but the trend was away from free inquiry, into religious issues, the beginning of the closed mindedness we associate with the Middle Ages.  When the Roman Empire (or if you prefer Byzantine) defeated the Seleucids the victors  took away their statue of the long haired Adonis, to show the old faith of the Mid-East was conquered..  When Islam came on the scene, That empire was no longer what it had been, and the Roman Empire no longer what it had been.  Suddenly, there was now one new group crashing onto the scene with a new culture and a new religion.  The clash of Islam was a war of one new religious group with 2 tired. spent empires.

  Jews were already 2nd class citizens in Christian Europe, so they might adopt more easily to the 2nd class status of Islam.  And while Christians and Muslims continued to war against each other  in the Med. Sea, Jews who had relatives in both Christian Europe and now also in Islam's N Africa could become what Pirenne called them, Jew and merchant were interchangable words by the time of Charlemagne.

     Islam conquered because the traditional values of Greco-Rome, and possible of the Mid East, had been overthrown already by another new religion.  So the struggle became a battle between the 2 newbies.

 Jews were already 2nd class citizens in Christian Europe,, so they might adopt more easily to the 2nd class status of Islam.  Christians in North Africa had been top dog; would they not decide to accept 2nd class citizenship under Islam?  Could they?  Wars continued between Islam and Christendom, especially in the Med Sea, each side enslaving the captives.  And while Christians and Muslims continued to war against each other, Jews who had relatives in both Christian Europe and now also in Islam's N Africa could be come merchants, a risky business as pirates, and war ships might confiscate their packages.  But in time, barred from owning land and doing many things, Jews became merchants.

     Islam conquered because the traditional values of Greco-Rome, and possible of the Mid East, had been overthrown already by another new religion.  So the struggle became a battle between the 2 newbies.  The Muslims also used camels, as they had in Arabia.  The Roman Empire's North Africa planned to defend itself through the sea, but the Muslims invaded Egypt and moved westward using camels, more adept to the sandy African expanse.  So Islam conquered to Morocco, then most of Spain and Portugal.  The land of St. Augustine was now the land of Allah. 

Much of the long post by Pueyo concerns rain etc., is interesting, but sometimes it is hard to believe the the tv weather man for one week, much less for over 600 years.  Interesting with a grain of salt.

His point about change in sexual population under Islam - a man can have 4 wives, so 25% of the men had no woman!  He says, this makes them more warlike, determined to capture a wife.  All those men without women!?  Greek armies, lovers.  Alexander may have fu**ed the wife of Darius, and his own wife, but his great love was his fellow warrior.  The Sacred Band of Thebes, a group of male lovers, etc.  Even the Roman general Julius Caesar was teased by his troops.  Much later a Prot. leader in France declared Paris is worth a mass, became Roman Catholic, and yhen king of France.  Caesar became quite friendly with the king of Pergamen?  Perhaps Caesar reasoned, a kingdom is worth my ass.  When the king died, he willed his kingdom to the Roman Republic.  Of course Caesar also had a wife, fu**ed Cleopatra, etc. Many swung both ways, and slaves had no choice.

     Even if Mohammad declared death for homos, in time, things changed in Islam.  The Janissaries', sons of Christians, taken around age 14 to become slaves of the Sultan, and some of them would eventually form the best fighting units in Islam.  They had new names, could not marry or have a family, forced to convert to Islam, so I suspect it was a gay group.  The Christians had the death penalty for homos until the French Revolution, when Justinian's legal work was revised, and in France Jews, homos, and Protestants won equal rights.  And where Napoleon's army swept in, so did his liberation of the oppressed.  Was it only under Islam that the army was a source of liberation?  Could armies be gay?  Well, a King of France decided it was also true of Knights Templar, and he therefore sought to confiscate all their properties as a consequence.  Proof- the Templar symbol of a knight riding a horse, but a young man riding the same horse at his back.  Whether the charges were true or false, several kings used the charges to confiscate Templar properties.  Others also say, twas the beginning of the Masons.

The original article by Tomas Pueyo raised the question of why Islam spread so quickly. 0n Substack, a source I seldom use.  Unfortunately, I began the read about it 1am; I am a poor typist, and with poor eyesight.  His article stressing geography was quite interesting, with maps; his discussion of the 2 major areas of long-lasting warfare rang true, and his discussion of the quick conquest of North Africa by Islam convincing.  It perked my interest, and I wanted to add other reasons, like internal weaknesses, especially of the Christian West. His article stresses climate, rain, etc.  I take the local tv weather forecast with a grain of salt, and that is only for a week; he covers weather for several hundred years.  His name appears only once, and I constantly had trouble on my computer going back and forth trying to get it right while Substack kept interrupting for my name, etc.  I am 87 and must urinate every hour or so, and had no time for the irritations.  Bottom line, he wrote an excellent article and I urge all to take a look.  My stress on the internal problems of Christian was written in an hour, top of my head, but I think it basically correct.  He raised an important question, perhaps more important as Islam and modified Christianity face another confrontation today.  Hope it inspires us to think about the earlier conflicts.  I also hope I finally got his name right.  I apologize for many more mistakes of spelling, typing than usual, but I was in a hurry to get this out.  We have only had 1,500 years of clashes now.   Hugh

An important point about the latest clash between the West and Islam.  There In the last 1,400 years since Muhammad, there have been some major changes in Christentum.  2 very important ones, the American Revolution providing a great deal of freedom for citizens without regard to their religions.  Also, the French Revolution, with its revision of the Justinian law code that had imposed legal restrictions on religious minorities and worse on homos.  There are probably several other equally important changes in the Christian West making in a freer place to live, work, and create.  Meanwhile, I know of no such reforms in Islam.  "Death to America, death to Israel," the terror attack destroying 2 of the then tallest buildings in the world, the World Trade Center in NYC, (where I worked some years ago) and other threats and terror attacks in the US.  To me the choice is clear - I stand with Trump and the West.  I do not mean all Muslims are terrorists, but enough are, enough are unwilling to accept the basics of freedom for all in the West.  So they cannot enjoy the same freedoms, as I see it.  Long live America and its Allies.  Hugh Murray

SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM IN DALLAS INTERVIEW WITH HUGH MURRAY A DECADE AGO

 Yesterday Tony Flood, my friend and a fellow Aptheker research assistant decades ago on various projects re W E B Du Bois, stumbled upon an interview with me that The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza conducted ten years ago. This blog's terms of service may not permit t me to provide the internet address here, but you can find it easily enough by searching <hugh murray jfk>.  The full interview is about 1  1/2 hours, no visual, just audio.  You also get to hear my voice, which is NOT a selling point.  The topic is the JFK assassination, or my tangential connection to those events.  My book will have more detailed material, and on other aspects of growing up in New Orleans many decades ago.----HUGH MURRAY

LEIPZIG, NEW ORLEANS, MINNEAPOLIS AND THROWING A ROCK

 This js my conclusion of the possibilities of bloodshed during protests.  I noted it took the Chinese authorities a month before they decided to crack down on Tiananmen, and they brought in troops from another province to do so.  I noted at a Black college in New Orleans, when a line of armed police was met by a line of Black students, that if a student had thrown a rock and hit a cop, blood, shooting first on campus, and possibly beyond might have occurred.

     Now I stress my support of ICE, the group trying to enforce the law in rounding up invaders who now reside in the US.  I would argue that the young man killed by ICE had provoked them, the equivalent of throwing a rock.  He was there to obstruct them from doing their duty in rounding up illegal aliens.  He had used violence against ICE and their vehicle, and they retaliated with force killing him.  HE WAS NOT A PEACEFUL PROTESTOR.  He was there to cause trouble, trained in tactics to provoke.  When you see the savagery of the mobs of Minneapolis, not just their vocal taunts, but throwing things aimed at the lawmen.  This is NOT peaceful protest.  The laws on the books for years should be enforced.  Billionaires like George Soros fund "non-governmental" organizations, which, in effect, train people to throw rocks, cause trouble, destroy law and order, loot stores, and if not revolution, promote chaos.  I also think the government should crack down on NGOs whose purpose is to create chaos in out country.

Hugh Murray

FROM RT - DISTURBING STORY ABOUT SCIENTISTS IN THE USA

 

High-profile US scientist deaths mark ‘disturbing pattern’ – media

Nine top American researchers and administrators in key fields have died or gone missing in the past three years

Published 8 Apr, 2026 21:31 | Updated 8 Apr, 2026 22:35

FILE PHOTO. ©  Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Nine deaths and disappearances of high-profile US scientists in the last three years has set a “disturbing pattern,” according to US intelligence sources cited by the Daily Mail.

In the latest incident, the body of missing cancer research scientist Jason Thomas was discovered in a Massachusetts lake last month. The month prior, retired Air Force General William McCasland, who reportedly worked on the US nuclear program, went missing, while astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was gunned down on his porch in California.

“You can say these are all suspicious, and these are scientists who have worked in critical technology,” the Daily Mail cited former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker as saying.

Foreign intelligence services belonging to both US allies and adversaries have targeted Americans in possession of top scientific secrets over the decades, he reportedly said. “It’s been happening since the Cold War… Especially when nuclear technology and missile technology were first coming to the forefront.”

Prior to his disappearance, McCasland led the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), where he reportedly oversaw the funding of a jet engine project by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) materials chief Monica Reza, who also went missing last year, just months after assuming the position.

Grillmair’s work on the US NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor orbital telescope is also tied to the Air Force, as both are used by the US military to track foreign satellites and missile launches, the outlet reports.

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 America heads back to the Moon. But there’s a big problem

Two other scientists at NASA’s JPL have reportedly died since 2023: Frank Maiwald and Michael Hicks. No foul play has been alleged in the latter two cases, and no cause of death has been made public, according to the Daily Mail.

Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias, who both worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which has cooperated with the AFRL on nuclear research, were reported missing last summer. Both reportedly left their New Mexico homes on foot and left their cars, keys, wallets and phones before disappearing.

Another respected physicist Nuno Loureiro, who was reportedly working on breakthrough fusion energy research, was fatally shot in Massachusetts in December.

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It is possible that there are now so many scientists in the US that the murder, death, missing rate described in this story is simply comparable to that of the general population.  Still, it does make you wonder.  Hugh Murray.

From RT - CARLSON ON END OF AMERICAN EMPIRE

 

Iran war is ‘the end of American empire’ – Tucker Carlson

The US is unable to restore order in the Strait of Hormuz, casting doubt on its role as a global policeman, the conservative host has said

Published 3 Apr, 2026 13:26 | Updated 3 Apr, 2026 14:30

American journalist Tucker Carlson gestures during an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on February 6, 2024. ©  Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov

The Iran war has ushered in the “end of American Empire”, conservative host Tucker Carlson has argued, suggesting that US President Donald Trump’s call for allies to secure the Strait of Hormuz proved that Washington could no longer function as the world’s policeman.

Speaking on his podcast on Thursday, Carlson commented on Trump’s remarks in which the president threatened to bomb Iran into the “stone age” without providing an exact timeline for a ceasefire while urging other countries to “take the lead” in unblocking the Strait of Hormuz – a strategic chokepoint which accounts for around 20% of global oil trade.

Washington’s NATO allies, however, have been reluctant to step in following US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Carlson argued that “the nation that forces the peace is the nation in charge,” adding that “the country that forces order on the Persian Gulf, that opens the Strait of Hormuz, is the nation that runs the world by definition.”

Read more

 Trump derides NATO over no-show in Iran war

For decades since WWII, the nation capable of maintaining order was assumed to be the US, but the Hormuz crisis has shown it’s no longer the case, the journalist continued. “We can’t open the Straits of Hormuz,” Carlson said. “The President of the United States said that last night – someone else do it. So we’re done.”

He argued that even if the US were to completely destroy Iran as a cohesive nation, the remaining warlords would have no difficulties in disrupting the maritime route by laying mines, using cheap drones, or even just by threatening to do so, meaning that the hostilities would have to end in a diplomatic settlement with Tehran sooner or later.

”What’s happening in Iran is the end of American empire as we understand it. And that’s sad. Empire’s dying. But it’s not the end of the United States,” he added.

Carlson acknowledged that the transition would bring “a lot of suffering and sadness,” but noted that it also carried the promise of a US that could turn its attention to the Western hemisphere, also rich in resources and vital for America’s stability, without the need to occupy “countries you’ve never been to.”

Carlson, generally supportive of Trump, has been a vocal critic of US-Israeli strikes on Iran, prompting the US president to claim that the journalist “has lost his way” and is not really part of the MAGA movement.

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TIANANMEN, LEIPZIG, and SUNO in NEW ORLEANS

In the fall of 1968 there was a poetry contest at Southern U. in New Orleans.  This was a branch of the much larger Southern U. in Baton Rouge, which around this time was the largest Black university in the world.  Baton Rouge also was home to Louisianad State U., the traditional white state university, which had been built up in the 1920a and 30 by Gov. and then Senator Huey Long.  The Long family had flirted with the Socialist Party decades earlier, but generally, there was only one political party in Louisiana, the Democratic Party.  

    In the early days of FDR;s New Deal, he won wide support, from the the radio priest Father Coughlin to the young Sen. Huey Long from Louisiana, who as governor had provided free text books for kids in public schools and improved roads, building a nes state capitol, and setting a new record for a filibuster in the national Senate.  Of course, he was a Democrat (like everyone else in the South who wanted to win an election, and he did not question segregation a white supremacy, the pillars of the Democratic Parties throughout the South.  The common phrase "the solid South" meant solidly Democratic, and solidly for segregation and white supremacy.

     Like other states after WWII, with expansion of universities, many in New Orleans did not want the added expense of going off to Baton Rough for public education, so there was pressure for a public institution in New Orleans.  The Crescent City actually had a number of universities - Tulane (and Newcomb), a private univ. with a high reputation, and like prestigious universities of the North, with a separate college for women.  It was a whites only institution.  There was Loyola U. of the South, a Roman Catholic institution, which in the 1950s permitted a few Blacks to attend its law school, and perhaps other departments for some colored priests.  There 0was Dillard U. a private, Protestant univ. for both young Black men and women (in the 1950s there was at least one white student, and in the 60s a few Northern whites did their "junior year abroad" at Dillard.  And there was Xavier U., a Roman Catholic univ. for Blacks, and it had a dental school.

     In the 1950s, to make a state univ. more affordable, LSUNO, a branch of Baton Rouge's LSU, was established in New Orleans.  Originally, all white, but judicial decisions re school integration in the city, leading to the school crisis of November 1960 when two elementary schools were integrated amid such great hostility it became an international incident.  Some Blacks began to enroll at LSUNO.   There was one thing forbidden to the new campus - it could not have a football team to compete with LSU's nationally recognized team.  Probably to prevent too much integration at LSUNO, SUNO was founded in New Orleans in a rather new middle-class Black subdivision of the city, Pontchartrain Park.  It was a commuter college with no dorms.  Most students were graduates of the segregated schools of NO, and some chose SUNO because they assumed it would be harder to get a good grade and a degree at the mainly white LSUNO.

    At SUNO, all the students were Blacks.  At first, all the faculty was Black too,  but around 1965 it hired a Korean, and for 1968-69, I was hired to teach History, Vera Krieger in English, and George Haggar, born in Lebanon, to teach Political Science.  He had published in a major PS journal.

     Back to the poetry contest of Fall 1968, both Vera and I were among the judges.  In high school, my debate partner had often partaken in dramatic readings, so I was familiar with that.  Our debate team of 4 guys had won state championship, so I was aware of oral readings.  I don't recall most of the contestants and their readings.  They were conventional.  They could have read Wordsworth or Poe or Whitman, or Keats.  The title of Val Ferdinand's poem, I can recall, but cannot place it on the blog without trouble - his title was "Nig***s In the Streets," and it was delivered with body motion, emotion, action.  After a decade of protests that grew steadily angrier and more violent, his poem and delivery struck a chord  of "relevant" a popular word of the era.  I don't recall the 3rd judge, but all 3 of us voted for Ferdinand who received the prize.

     New Orleans became the center of international news reporters when DA Jim Garrison opened the trial of Clay Shaw for conspiring to murder John Kennedy.  Haggar and I could not attend all sessions, but I drove from SUNO to the court when we had off periods, and we saw some significant testimony, like Dr. Finck from the autopsy who was ordered not to complete his probe of the entrance wound in Kennedy's back.  His testimony showed that military leaders, NOT DOCTORS, were in charge of Kennedy's autopsy.  Both Haggar and I were politically incorrect, and this added to our skepticism of the media.  Haggar informed me that the assassin of Robert Kennedy was a Palestinian, and if ever released, he would be a hero in the Middle East.  Haggar seemed to be close to Lynn French (a male), Ferdinand, and other students who tended toward activism.

     Haggar told me to be at the flag pole around 8am on the first of a month (April? 1969).

I was there when some students pulled the ropes to bring down the American flag, which they replaced with the black, red, and green of Black Nationalism, and they hoisted the new colors for the university.  They were not anti-American, but they wanted more from SUNO than a second-rate LSUNO.  Just as Du Bois who had studied at Harvard and Berlin, suddenly felt at home when he went to teach at Fisk, so the students now sought to infuse some Black culture into the new school.  To achieve this, a boycott of classes began. This n a student strike, demanding better facilities, a Black agenda, and facilities more akin to the "white" LSUNO campus.  The student boycott of classes began and lasted weeks, then into the next month.  A few students brought their rifles to the uni.  Class rooms were empty.  At one point the state police (or city police, I forget) were ordered to come on campus with loaded weapons and bring order to the university.  Perhaps 40 police with loaded weapons formed a line and began to move slowly from the grass to the buildings.  Then a line of say 60 students, perhaps 30 feet directly across  from the police line formed. 2 lines, with the Black students were Vera, me, and Haggar, and a Black Muslim young teacher.  The police moving slowly closer toward us.  The Black line beginning to grow.  Then no movement by either side.  Both sides staring at each other.  I thought then, if someone throws a rock and hits a cop, there will be blood from bullets.  Neither side is moving.  Glaring at the other.  What is going to happen?

     The police are armed, but they are in a Black university in a Black residential neighborhood.  Armed, they may be nervous. What might a thrown rock do?  After a few long minutes, the student line begins to disperse, then disappears.  The police go slowly to take over the campus.  After several more weeks, the strike was broken.  The Governor came to SUNO for the first time and promised some reforms.  (According to Haggar, the governor promised him anything he wanted if he would break the strike.  Haggar maintained, he did not lead the strike and lacked such power even if he had wanted a deal, which he did not.  But in summer 1969, one strike leader suddenly was editing a new Black newspaper, but it did not mean the governor was paying him off.  

     My promised job that summer was cancelled, and I was told I was now blacklisted.  I have no idea if it is true that I was on a blacklist, I only know I have never held another teaching post in the US since SUNO.  The talented Val Ferdinand soon headed the Free Southern Theater, changed his name to Kalamu Ya Salaam and then edited a most influential magazine, Black Collegiate for 13 years.  Haggar was deported to Canada, wrote a book praising a woman hi-jacker, changed the spelling of his name to Hajjar, and became more involved in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  Hajjar is still academic, but defending the cause of Palestinians.   To clarify, I am pro-Israeli.  I could find no info on Vera, and as she was rather young, attractive woman, she probably married and has a new name.  I forgot the name of the young Black Muslim teacher.  We all lost our jobs with SUNO, and Ferdinand and other student activists were expelled.  In 1977 Salaam and Tom Dent, son of the former Pres. of Dillard U. in NO were on a trip to Beijing.  overnight google changed its AI, and I had trouble finding who sponsored (paid for) the the Chinese govt., or the US State Dept. or whom?) Afro poets has this about the trip: " In 1977, he was part of the first African American activist delegation to the People's Republic of China.."   I finally found the answer, the trip of some 20 Black American educators was paid for by the Chinese government.  Interestingly, on some sites, Salaam mentions 2 other universities he attended, but does not mention SUNO.  True, he was expelled, but he was a leader of a major student strike there,.  The SUNO strike never gained the national publicity as the one at Cornell U. in New York, which occurred at the same time, but the SUNO strike was certainly a major strike among Black universities.

      My main point, for a few minutes on SUNO campus, if someone had thrown a rock and hit a policeman, there could have been students wounded, then trouble for the police as they tried to leave the area, and then trouble in New Orleans  with battles between the races.  In NO, there was no shooting, no deaths.  In Leipzig and Berlin, tense situations relaxed with no killings.  In Beijing, things went differently.  But I contend, in each case, things could have turned out differently.   Hugh Murray

TO SHOOT OR NOT TO SHOOT - BEIJING AND LEIPZIG

 The local PBS television station ran an old documentary tonight, In Their Own Voice, an hour long discussion on the rist of Angela Merkel.  Born in Hamburg, Fed. Rep. of Germany (West Germany) around 1954, her father, a Lutheran pastor was asked to take a church in the German Dem. Rep. (East Germany).  The baby Angela naturally accompanied her parents.  My point here is not to restate her schooling and her career as a physicist in the DDR.

     My shock with the program is something passed over quickly.  15 April 1989 to mourn the death of a reformist leader of the Chinese Communist Party, students began to gather in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.  Days passed and symbols of dissent appeared, such as a small statue of liberty, and signs urging reform.  On the night of 3 June the first reports of shooting, and the following day troops from the Peoples; Liberation Army began the crackdown on dissent, wounding and killing.  The Beijing spring was over, and the CCP asserted total control of the nation.

On 4 September 1989 Monday demonstrations for peace (and reform) began at the Nikolai Church in Leipzig, DDR, and though the authorities certainly were aware, and the usual police took notice, still, there seemed to be no consequences.  The following Monday, more demonstrators; and the Monday after that.  Hungary had opened its border to the West, and some DDR citizens had walked right through.  The Leipzig demos kept growing too, reaching 70,000 in early October.  Just down the street from the Nikolai Church was the famous Thomas Church, where Johann S. Bach had been choir director for 27 years.  And nearby was Auerbach's Keller where Faust had begun to seal a deal with Mephistopheles.

On 18 October 1989 Eric Honecker, leader of the DDR  and the ruling Socialist Unity Party resigned.  Was he deemed too soft to crack down, or to rigid?  The leaders of the DDR now seemed unsure of what to do.

On 9 November 1989, allegedly because of confusing announcements people began to rush the check points in the wall, hoping they would be open.  Finally, one did open and the wall was considered open thereafter.

I do not think either the Chinese crack down, or the DDR;s crack up were inevitable.  People made decisions, and German police and the NVA had cracked down on the East Berlin protests of 1963.  Why not in 1989?  An old German friend just wrote me to say I made a mistake.  He says the NVA was not created until 1955, and the Vopos (Peoples; Police remained in their barracks.  Instead Walter Ulbricht, then leading the DDR, called upon his Soviet allies for help, and it is they who crushed the protests of 1953 in East Berlin.  In time, however, the NVA and Vopos gained reputations of following the orders of the DDR leadership.

  One could ascribe the contrast between Beijing and Leipzig by saying China was a huge, rich nation, and it could crack down and tell the rest of the world, f u.  But China was not so rich in 1989, it was NOT the industrial giant we know today.  It was behind Japan and other Asian nations having suffered the Cultural Revolution and other "experiments" that usually did not work.  The DDR was never as rich as West Germany - while America's Marshall Plan helped rebuild the West, the Soviets, who had lost so much from Hitler's invasion, began by plundering what they could from what would become the DDR.  But the DDR had built up over the years; not as rich as its Western cousins, but high on the East European scale.  Why not shoot the peace demos in Leipzig?  Or open up to the West?  I do not think it was an easy decision for leaders of the DDR, certainly NOT inevitable.  To skip over this very important decision I find remarkable.  And I am here to criticize the failure to discuss the people who had to choose, to shoot or not to shoot, that was the question.  A most important one, and with an answer quite different from the one in Beijing just a few months earlier.  NEITHER THE DECISION IN BEIJING NOR IN LEIPZIG WAS INEVITABLE.  People make history; it is not an automatic setting of a clock.  And ignoring that decision, even if the theme of the program was Merkel, is unfair to history.

From April until November 1989 protests in 2 major nations occurred putting the leaders of those nations on the spot.  Each nation was led by communist parties, each had cracked down on dissent before.  The issue came before them again.  What would they do?  China cracked down; the DDR cracked up.  Each might have gone the other way.  The decisions of that year changed the world.  Hugh Murray

(On a personal note - I had taught in Leipzig a few years prior to the Monday demonstrations.  The uni. had a Sprachlager, a camp where students were to use English as much as possible, as it was not easy for DDR students to visit Britain.  One exercise for the students, they were to compose a poem akin to the limerick poems, popular is schools and in pubs.  As my German language was wanting, my British colleagues then demanded that I do like our German students, and compose a Limerick, but in German.  I went along with their demand.  I recall most of my poem - "Da war die Studenten aus Leipzig. sie waren nicht faul, sondern fleissig,  da la ti da, da la ti do (I forgot those lines, ending, Sie fordert die Wahrheit, nicht scheissig."  In English, There were the students from Leipzig, they were not lazy, but hardworking. la ti da, la ti da, They demanded the truth, not BS".  They liked my poem very much. - Hugh)

While in Leipzig, I visited the flat of one of my British teacher colleagues.  We were chatting and a knock on the door.  She opened it, and a handsome young man entered.  She introduced us.  She noted that his field was science, and he worked with Klaus Fuchs.  I immediately recognized the name - Fuchs was a German scientist who hated the Nazis, fled to the west, and became one of the scientists working to develop an A-bomb in the West.  He was also a spy for the Soviets, was caught, and spent a decade in prison.  I had no idea he was working in the DDR, but said, well, as an American, I should leave now, as to cause no troubles - I certainly did not want to be accused of spying.  The gal assured me that as a teacher here, there would be no trouble.  Feeling uncomfortable, I left her flat sooner than anticipated.  As she was a beautiful young woman, I suspect she and her other guest did not miss me.

Watching the PBS hour on Angela Merkel, I learned that she too was a scientist.  Did she work under Fuchs?  Google AI answered, Fuchs and Merkel were in different sections of science.  Moreover, he was about to retire as she was just beginning, so there was no real elder/novis contact between them.  

  

LEE HARVEY OSWALD and GUY BANISTER - Rethinking the Past

 It was fall 1955 and I was beginning my senior year at Warren Easton Sen. High School in New Orleans.  A new movie was to play at the huge Saenger Theater on Canal and North Basin Sts.  I would be double dating with Tex Sanders, a tall, friendly guy, and someone with whom I bowled now and then.  My date was someone I'd dated before, and was talking some to Mary Jane, a gal I did  not know.  The theater was packed, and when it ended, it seemed the vast audience let out a collective sigh of relief.  Unlike the tv families, where each week the problems of the family were solved within a half hour, not counting the commercials.  Perhaps the problems portrayed were not too serious, and the family is happy with the dad's solution.  Yet, in this film, 3 families are portrayed, and none are anything like the tv's version of Father Know's Best, Ozzie and Harriet,  et al.  Sal Mineo's parents send him a check for his birthday, Natalie Wood's dad slaps her and calls her a whore; and James Dean's dad is hen-pecked, dominated by his wife while he wears the apron.  The 3 try to form their alternate family for a night or 2.  A rare critique of the family of the 50s.

As we all attended the same school, we saw each other after.  Mary Jane was a pleasant your gal, and she was worried about me.  She had heard I was pushing race-mixing, for example.  She explained, that is communism, and I should talk to her dad who knew about the topic.  He could set me aright.  I did not realize, but her dad was Guy Banister.  She elaborated, he had been a leader of the FBI in Chicago, and knew about the Communist ways of causing trouble.  She wanted me to meet her father.  After Chicago, Guy Banister had served as temporary Supt. of the New Orleans Police Dept.  He then opened a detective agency.

It was possible her dad had already heard of me.  During the summer of 1955 I had attended Pelican Boys State, sponsored by the American Legion.  I had been elected to the Senate, and we were supposed to debate a proposed law in the Louisiana Legislature on our last day.  The Legion was hoping the topic would be required ROTC in all public schools.  I thought a more pressing issue was at hand and should be debated; I proposed the integration of the public schools of Louisiana.  A fellow senator was aghast, and said my proposal should NOT be debated as I was the only person in favor of it.   Suddenly, many other senators stood up and disagreed with my opponent.  We decided to debate integration on the last day.  How would the vote go?  I had no idea.  Nor did the pro-segregationist Legion, but they must have been sufficiently worried, so that they demanded we close the meeting before a vote could be held.

To satisfy Mary Jane, I went to her hope.  Mr. Banister was sorting mail.  I went to him, introduced myself, he grunted.  There was no real dialog, but we both went through the motions to satisfy Mary Jane, who was a sweet, concerned you gal.  

One forgets the turmoil stirred in the South following the 1954 Supreme Court decision overturning a precedent of over half a century, that separate and equal was the proper way to manage racial affairs.  Segregation was actually older than that, but the Plessy decision had made it national policy.  However, in 1954 syddebkt segregatuib was deemed unConstitutional.  The new decision was seen as a threat to our way of life in the South; part of a Communist plot to cause trouble at home.  In May 1955, to commemorate the Black Monday decision of 1954, most Easton students left the school to march downtown to show how they felt about Earl Warren's horrible decision.  The state got time on  the radio to educate the public on this major issue.  Thus, the State Sovereignty Commission had expert witnesses expose the origins of the American Civil Liberties Union.  Founded by a Communist during the era of WWI, it continued to this day as a trouble-making Commie front.  At least 3-hours of radio time were devoted to this expose.

Some leaders of the American Legion were also leaders of LUAC, the Louisiana Un-American Activies Committee.  In 1963, along with the newly elected DA of NO, Jim Garrison, they would raid the offices of the Southern Conference Education Fund, a pro-race mixing group.  Strangely, LUAC did not go after an open Marxist who was then handing out pro-Castro panphlets, and even given an-hour-long interview on WDSU radio.  Strange that LUAC was not interested in Lee Oswald!  Oh, and the pro-Communist Oswald was getting the leaflets from the office of the staunch anti-Communist, Guy Banister.  How strange!    

MORE TO COME,   HUGH MURRAY

Meanwhile, you might find related material that will explain the Oswald-Guy Banister alliance in New Orleans in summer 1963, and much else in an article recommended by Texan Robert Morrow - The latest exposition on this important topic by Jeremy Kuzmarov of Covert Action Magazine: Should Lee Harvey Oswald Be Exonerated? - CovertAction Magazine

In high school, I found the Unitarian Church and joined it.  My first visit, a Black couple sat beside me.  I thought, should I leave?  Isn't this against the law?  I could feel the blood rush to my face.  I decided to stay, and returned, knowing the church was for integration.  I attended Tulane U. on a scholarship.  Met 2 professors at church, one taught at Dillard (HBCU) and his wife taught at Xavier U. a RC HBCU.  They were both of Jewish heritage, refugees from Nazi Europe.  I asked if I could sit in Dr. Iggers history class at Dillard.  A Black who tried to enter Tulane would have been arrested.  I had no trouble at Dillard, sat in the class for a year and made friends.  No arrest.  In spring 1960 I picketed with the new Consumers' League, don't buy where you can't work group.  Sit-ins begin in North Carolina, and spread south.  But nothing happens in New Orleans.  The local NAACP  opposes such actions.  In the Negro Y on Dryages St. in NO, a local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality CORE is formed.  CORE would sponsor a major training camp for August 1960; 7 members from NO will attend.

One day our teacher/speaker was Jackie Robinson, the baseball player who integrated the major leagues.  It was an election year, and he was openly for Nixon and the Republicans, as were many if not most Blacks in the South who experienced the Democrats as white supremists.  A few days later, to a far smaller audience, Martin Luther King spoke to our CORE group, about his experience in changing the rules with the Montgomery bus boycott.  The reason for the small audience - half of our  CORE folks were in jail.  We had sought to integrate a restaurant inside Shell's City super market.  Most of our goup sat at integrated tables, and they were arrested.  New Orleans Ruth Dispenza and I sat at a table; she was a light-skinned Black, and the waitress thought we were a white couple.  So, no arrest.  King told us he was quietly for Kennedy and the Democrats, though his dad, minister of a major church in Atlanta, favored Nixon and the Republicans.  One reason, Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, and that proved a big drawback even when Al Smith ran against Hoover in 1928.

We returned to NO, and within a week conducted the first sit-in in modern NO history, despite the NAACP's opposition.  The NAACP Youth Chapter quicky supported us with picketing, and the adult organization quietly ended its opposition.  The Mayor and Chief of Police remained hostile, denouncing the violation of state law, and asserted such lawlessness would not be tolerated.  We were arrested, but at night released on bail.  We had missed all meals in jail.  Archie Allen, Black from Dillard, one of the 7 arrested, Carlos Zervigon, Hispanic sympathetic supporter, and I went to a Black place to eat.  We entered and sat at a table.  The waiter approached, "I can serve you (to Archie), but not you two.  He looked again, Wait, I can serve you (Archie) and you (to Carlos), but not you (to me).  Are we going to have a 2nd sit-in the same day.  No.  We just left without eating.

Tulane's policy - students arrested are suspended until proven innocent.  I hhad a weekend job at a Tulane library and was a grad student, but now all was up in the air.  I could not stay home, so went from one friend to another that week.  My dad let me keep the car.  Tulane's Board relented - the old rule for usual crimes would remain, but these were political crimes, so the punishment would not occur.  Meanwhile the local judge had other ideas.  When the 7 of us sat together in his court room, when he entered, he began shouting at us for integrating his court in violation of state laws, and he would hold us in contempt if we did not sit properly.  The 2 whites moved to the side.  We were all found guilty and became convicted felons, years before Donald Trump would be given the same title.

Meanwhile, Oliver, the other white from NO who had gone to Miami, and was arrested there, was tired of living in a distant burb and wanted to live in the city of NO, and I needed a place,  We decided to look for a place together.  Found one, furnished, $45 a month, living room, bed room, kitchen, bath.  2 blocks from the St. Charles street car line.  I barely knew Oliver.  In Miami we were assigned rooms to integrate the conference, so I roomed with 2 Black students and was surprised when they did not shave in the morning but used a depilatory cream to dissolve the hair.  I learned more about Oliver when we moved together.  First, his annoying habit of never looking at you directly when speaking to you, I found the reason - he was legally blind.  He probably did not know precisely where my eyes were.  I learned he had a rough time growing up, was on the path to becoming a juvenile delinquent, quitting school, etc.  There were 2 people who would set him on the proper path, one a relative, who taught him the basics so he could be an electrician.  If all else failed, he would have a job.  Second, he joined the Civil Air Patrol, and its leader David Ferrie, a pilot who seemed to know so much, pushed Oliver to return to school and go on despite his disability.  David Ferrie was gay, but Oliver, I found out as his roommate, was strictly straight.  Ferrie pushed Oliver to go on, and he did so at Loyola U. (next door to Tulane U).  In time, I was paid to read some of Oliver's sociology text books to him.  Father Fichter at Loyola was pushing him too.  Oliver was a year or 2 older than I was but seemed much more self assured of himself.

One night I returned, and Oliver said, "*i want you to learn how to use this," as  he handed me a box.  I opened it, and surprise, it was a pistol.  A Ruger, like the famous German Luger.  But I had applied for a draft status as a conscientious objector.  Our efforts in CORE were using non-violence to change society.  How can I now start to use a gun?  My parents were getting threating calls on the phone all the time, but no one was after them - it was me they wanted.  We never got such calls, but the reason: we had no telephone.  Maybe the enemy was outside just outside, but we would not know until too late..  Am I supposed to let the blind guy defend us?  While I do nothing?  No, I could not throw this burden on a legally blind man.  I would have to learn how to use the pistol.  And a few weeks later, I wrote my draft board, I was no longer claiming a CO status.  

Around 1952 or53 I graduated from 8th grade at Benjamin Elementary, a co-ed public school.  Next year I planned to attend S J Peters Boys High, for 4 years of high school.  But the entire school system changed, no more boys and girls separate highs, all public highs would be co-ed.  And junior highs were introduced, So K-6, followed by 7-9 for jun. high, and then 10-12 for sen. high.  All co-ed.  So instead of boys high, I went to 9th grade at Beauregard Jun. High, for one year.  That same year in the 8th grade classes was Lee Harvey Oswald.  It is possible we spoke, perhaps in a lunch line, "How much is that?"  In reality we never met, nor did we converse.  Oswald attended Beauregard for 2 years.  At the same time he became a member of the Civil Air Patrol, headed by David Ferrie.  If Ferrie could help other troubled youths, why not Oswald?  Some say while in NYC Oswald had become a juvenile delinquent and was influenced by communists.  Ferrie was strongly anti-Communist, working with refugees from Castro's Cuba, working for Carlos Marcello's mafia, and with Guy Banister and other anti-coms.    When Oswald finished junior high, he could go on to Easton - my high school.  Instead he wanted to join the marines.  How many 17-y-o American communists want to join the marine corps?  I suspect, far more probable, the patriotic Ferrie pushed Oswald in the patriotic direction.  Oswald's mom said a man in a uniform urged her to sign papers so he could join up younger than the usual age.  She did so.  And Oswald joined up.  A patriot!

What did Oliver do after graduation from Loyola, - he signed up with the US Aide for International Development, and he would go to Laos (next to Vietnam) in 1962+.  When he returned, he married, had children and led in improving computers and other devices for the blind and other handicapped.  There is a building named for him on the UNO campus.

Was Oswald following a similar path?  What went wrong?

One more thing re the Oswald-Banister connection.  In summer of 1963 I finally finished my MA Thesis and would be able to graduate in August with a Master's degree.  My thesis was long, some 260 pages on the Scottsboro, Ala. rape cases of the 1930s, in which I discussed the conflict between the NAACP and a Communist front group, the International Labor Defense, for control of the case and contrast in tactics. Summer in NO is hot and humic, but I was going to the Tulane Library, which like most air-conditioned buildings of that era, was cold, so I had to carry a sweater on entering.  Summer break, and few were in the library.  I opened the door and no one.  Near the stairs was a small table, and today there was a stack of leafets on it.  As I passed it, I read, "Hands off Cuba, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee."  I only knew one person who had been involved with Fair Play in another city, a Tulane U. grad student in philosophy.  I took a leaflet, and went to look for him in the library's closed area except for grad students.  He was at his desk.  I raised the leaflet so he could see it, and asked, "What are you putting out?"  "Iet me see that."  He knew nothing about it, nor did I.  Should we send our names to the PO address on the leaflet?  I joked, well, it might be the FBI.  We decided to do nothing till we knew more.  He took the leaflet and taped it to the door to his dorm room.  Where it remained until November. 1963.

On Tuesday, 26 November I was back from my new teaching job, and my mom told me 2 men at the front door wanted to speak with me.  They wanted to know about the leaflet.  I explained, I had thought it was published by a friend, Harold Alderman, a philosophy student at Tulane, but he knew nothing about it.  Nor did I.  I did not follow up with an letter to the address on the leaflet.  They asked of my views on Kennedy, and I said, look at the back of my car, I retained the Kennedy sticker for the 1960 election.  They left.  Soon after, the phone rang.  It was Alderman telling me he had given my name to the FBI.  Neither of us knew about the origin of the leaflets.  The irony, had we written to the address, it would have gone to the office of Guy Banister, anti-com so he could have added our names to his list of local commies.  The first book that mentions me is a volume of the Warren Report, perhaps v. 26, that describes this incident.  I suspect I was already on Banister's enemies list.

One ajent asked me if I had heard of anyone having connections to Oswald.  I had gone out Friday night to a bar looking for friends.  "Who the hell is Oswald?" was my question.  One person told me they had heard Bob Heller, a Tulane student had seen Oswald distributing leaflets in NO and had spoken to him.  The agent took notes, and later interviewed Heller.  Heller had seen Oswald leafletting and wondered if he might need legal help, but did not talk to Oswald.  Sineibe called me a fink every time he saw me on campus.  I have no regrets about cooperating to find what happened in Dallas.  Would I have a right to criticize the Warren Commission if I had not cooperated with its inquiry? 

When the FBI agents came to see me, I basically said I knew nothing, because that is what I thourht at that time.  In the summer of 1963 I had no idea the Fair Play leaflets were stsored at the office of Guy Banister.  I had no idea that Oswald was working out of Banister's office, and the 2 appeared together in various locals.  Had I known that the week after the assassination, I would have brought that up with the FBI.  But I would not learn of the Oswald-Banister connection until the Garrison probe of the later 1960s.  How could the vehiment anti-com Banister work with the self proclaimed Marxist Oswald.  It is the subject the government sought to avoid.  Another reason they hated Garrison, the only elected official in the US to openly challenge the lies of the Warren Report.

THE MIDDLE EAST IN WWII

I have been ill for several days.  Perhaps I can begin to repair this post.  The reason for it, I recall an old map of the area during WWII.  Iran was divided into 3 parts - the northern third of the country was occupied by Joseph Stalin's forces.  The sourthern third by those of Winston Churchill's British Empire, and the middle third was what was left of independent Iran.  Churchill, some decades earlier, had thought that the communist menace should have been smothered in the cradle in the early years of the Russian Revolution.  The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 was a great surprise to the world, the 2 fiercest foes were suddenly "friens," and all the propaganda they had raged against the other was now buried, as each would use their hatchets on other nations.

     Interestingly, when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany.  Stalin was supposed to invade too, but the Soviets were involved in an undeclared war in Asia, officially Mongolia vs Manchukuo, a Soviet satellite vs a Japanese satellite.  The Soviets beat the Japs rather handily, and some 6 weeks after Germany invaded Poland from the West, Soviets invaded from the east.  There is a telling moment in the film, Europa, Europa, as Poles are seen swimming across a river to the East to flee the incoming German troops.  Suddenly, some are not swimming back.  What happened?  News of Soviets invading from the East.  Many Poles now thought it preferable to head toward the Germans, while Jews kept fleeing eastward toward the Soviets and away from the Germans.  Hitler and Stalin divided Poland and much of Europe.  In summer 1941  Hitler launched his surprise attack against the Soviets; not Germany alone but Finland, Roumania, Bulgaria, etc., civilized Europe against the communist menace.  And Stalin's forces lost, surrendered, and were swept out of their positions. Others content the reason the Soviets did so poorly then, they were preparing their own sneak attack on Hitler, and were prepared for offence, parachutes, other types of equipment, but not for defense.  Since Hitler struck first, his forces suddenly had millions of POWs, and the armies of Europe marched to crush the Soviet empire.  By December, Moscow itself was in sight.  The end of the war, in Germany's favor might be concluded by early 1942.  As many Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and especially Ukrainians joined the Germans, things were dire for Stalin.  It was decided a quick way to supply Stalin with needed material would be through Iran, so Stalin and Churchill agreed ib tge 3part division of Iran.

     There was a famine in Iran, 1942-43.  Were the Soviets diverting food for Iranians to shipments to the USSR?  Or a natural drought that can occur in the Middle East.  Meanwhile, in India Churchill is still blamed for a famine killing millions in the Jewel in the Crown of Britain.  A friend recently thought the defacing of a London statue of Churchill was quite fitting.

     The Teheran Conference from 28 Nov. to 1 Dec. 1943 had the first meeting of the Big Three, Churchill, Stalin, and America's Pres. Franklin Roosevelt.  Each nation agreed to the implementation of further plans to weaken and defeat Germany, and Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan after the European war concluded.  The Allies won the war, and Britain withdrew on time from the southern third of the nation.  Stalin delayed about 9 months and more negotiations, but eventually left the northern sector of Iran too.

     My point, in all the discussion now about Iran, almost no one mentions that the nearest major power is Putin's Russia.  Admittedly, Putin has had his hands full in Ukraine, but how tempting is it for him to think of Iran perhaps 90 miles across the Caspian Sea???  It is not that close, but Russia is the only major power that close to Iran, juar a Caspian away.  And in a nation that was once 1/3 Russian (Soviet)  Hugh Murray

FROM RT - THE HORRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF RACIAL QUOTAS

 

UK released killer because ‘detaining him was racist’ – inquiry

Valdo Calocane, a migrant who killed three people in 2023, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but was not institutionalized

©  Zac Goodwin / PA Images via Getty Images

Valdo Calocane, a migrant diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who went on a deadly stabbing spree in the UK in 2023, was previously released by mental health workers for fear of being labeled racist, an inquiry into the Nottingham triple murder has heard.

Calocane, who went to the UK from Guinea-Bissau in 2007, fatally stabbed teenage university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and another man, Ian Coates, on June 13, 2023. He went on to steal Coates’ van and ran down three pedestrians, leaving them with serious injuries.

On Monday, a public inquiry heard that Calocane was pronounced a paranoid schizophrenic in July 2020 and placed under the care of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. It transpired that the man, who had failed to turn up to appointments and refused to take his medication, was later discharged by the NHS.

During the proceedings, it also came to light that at one point in 2020, mental health professionals considered isolating the aggressive patient after he attempted to kick down a neighbor’s door. However, the NHS staff decided to release Calocane into the community over concerns related to the “over-representation of young black males in detention,” the inquiry learned. The decision was made despite one psychiatrist warning that “perhaps [he] will end up killing someone.”

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On top of that, the bereaved families accused the Nottinghamshire police of attempting to cover up their failures to arrest the paranoid schizophrenic before he went on the deadly stabbing spree.

Calocane had a history of violent assaults as well as stalking and harassment complaints. None of the incidents apparently attracted the police’s attention.

The pedestrian survivors alleged that the local authorities originally told them that they had no prior dealings with Calocane. During the inquiry, however, a representative of the Nottinghamshire police acknowledged that the force had been aware of a series of “unpleasant and antisocial” incidents involving him. The official insisted, however, that “they did not reasonably herald that he would become a triple killer,” and that it was “simply not correct” to suggest a cover-up.

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