Terror’s Advocate: a trial in itself

Terror's Advocate: a trial in itself

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/5178/

Barbet Schroeder's documentary about the rogue French lawyer Jacques
Vergès is a confusing study of a man with questionable principles.

by Nathalie Rothschild
29 May 2008

It is often the sign of a good documentary if the director leaves the
audience to consider new questions, rather than simply providing a
set of answers.
--

Yes, film is a medium that lends itself well to polemics and
propaganda, and there is no reason why filmmakers should necessarily
shy away from making 'biased' documentaries. But sometimes a film
will raise a multitude of complex questions in relation to a single
subject without telling us exactly what we ought to think at the end
of it. This is often a sign that the director trusts viewers to
engage with the film, without being nervous about what we will do
after leaving the cinema – like vote for the wrong politicians or eat
the wrong food.

Barbet Schroeder's documentary, Terror's Advocate, which is about the
controversial French lawyer Jacques Vergès, certainly doesn't give
any answers. Unfortunately, that is only because it is a confusing,
rambling film.

Vergès is notorious for defending the crème de la crème of terrorists
and tyrants. His clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus
Barbie, also known as the Butcher of Lyon; Venezuelan-born terrorist
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as Carlos the Jackal; and the Holocaust
denier, Roger Garaudy. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003,
Vergès was asked to represent Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister
under Saddam Hussein, and he later offered to act for Saddam, too.

The film starts off with Vergès' 'Cambodian connection'. There is a
glowing endorsement of Vergès by Pol Pot and images of the lawyer
fraternising with Khmer Rouges brothers, interspersed with an
interview in Vergès' office in which he says that technically there
was no genocide in Cambodia (with a quick cut to images showing piles
of human remains). We don't learn more of Vergès' involvement in
Cambodia's genocide tribunal or about his and Pol Pot's days as
members of the Association for Colonial Students in Paris. Instead,
it seems this sequence of the film is there as a message from the
director: 'This man is a genocide denier, and I am aware of it.'

What follows is a potted history of Vergès' career and an even
bittier history of international terrorism and post-colonial regimes.
Schroeder is unable to shed much light on either Vergès' life or on
world history. Despite a line of eloquent interviewees, great archive
footage and skilful camera work, the wealth of material has been
badly put together. When images of the many individuals Vergès has
defended and associated with, but who are not mentioned in the film
itself, appear alongside the final credits, it becomes clear that
Schroeder has only dealt with a small part of Vergès' 83-year life.
And it is not clear why.

Vergès is a grateful interviewee, enjoying his chance to pose as the
defender of the demonised and of anti-colonialist struggles, who has
always, in his own mind, pursued justice and a universal application
of the law; he continually sucks on a huge cigar and smiles slyly. He
is an impressive figure, and for the first part of the film he comes
off as quite the political hero. Born in Thailand in 1925 to a French
diplomat and a Vietnamese mother and brought up on the Indian Ocean
island of Réunion, Vergès later fought in the French Resistance and
was active in the anti-colonialist movement. 'For me', he explains in
the film, 'France was Montaigne, Diderot, the Revolution, and it was
intolerable to me that that could disappear'.

But Vergès is no blinkered patriot – he later defended members of the
Algerian independence movement, including Djamila Bouhired, who was
arrested for planting bombs in cafés and who became a symbol of the
Algerian struggle. Vergès later married Bouhired and they had two
children together.

In 1970, Vergès mysteriously disappeared for eight years. There are
various theories about where he went. Some believe he was hiding in
Cuba; others speculate that he sought refuge in the secret ANC
training camps in South Africa. Perhaps he went back to Réunion where
his twin brother is still living. Maybe he was hanging out with Pol
Pot in Cambodia or was arrested while acting as a Chinese agent.
Vergès himself skirts around the subject and so Schroeder relies on
the other interviewees to fill in the gaps.

It is during this sequence of the film that things just get
confusing. It seems impossible to find out where Vergès was during
most of the 1970s but the various guesses, unsubstantiated rumours
and contradictory testimonials give the film an air of conspiracy
theory rather than intriguing mystery.

Vergès is presented by many interviewees as a staunch defender of the
oppressed, enraged by his own early experiences of discrimination and
humiliation. But always identifying with victims or protecting, on
principle, those who are shunned by the majority is no noble cause.
This status as outcasts, it seems, is the lowest common denominator
that ties together all of Vergès' clients and political compatriots,
from the Algerian National Liberation Front to the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine, from Red Army Faction and the
Baader–Meinhof Gang to the Khmer Rouge (international pariahs).

Speaking of the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987, Vergès says he cannot
stand to see a man being humiliated (though the film notes it was
François Genoud, a Swiss Nazi who financed Palestinian terrorism, who
invited Vergès to represent Barbie). He certainly has a point when he
says that this was a showtrial. The court was set up in the town hall
in Lyon with space for 700 spectators and members of the press. With
a prosecution team of 40 lawyers on one side and Vergès on the other,
the then 73-year-old Barbie was found guilty of the 341 separate
charges brought against him.

Vergès, however, saw this as an opportunity to 'put France on trial',
to highlight its historical double standards and various crimes
against humanity. Not only did Vergès take advantage of Barbie's fate
himself, then, but he also uses the courtroom as a space to rewrite
history in the name of the victims he sympathises with; in effect,
Vergès creates his own showtrials.

Vergès nickname is 'Devil's Advocate' and it certainly seems apt. In
the film, he says that he is often asked whether he would defend
Hitler. His answer is 'I would even defend Bush – but only if he
would agree to plead guilty.' Now that is a man with a skewed sense
of history.

.

From quagmire to defeat

From quagmire to defeat

http://socialistworker.org/2008/05/30/from-quagmire-to-defeat

May 30, 2008

The war in Vietnam resulted in the greatest military defeat ever
suffered by the United States. Ever since, the U.S. ruling class and
its intellectual pundits have had to try to overcome what has become
known as the "Vietnam Syndrome"--the fear of the American ruling
establishment that any large-scale military engagement might become a
"quagmire" and provoke mass domestic opposition.

Joe Allen is a regular contributor to the International Socialist
Review and a columnist on film and television for SocialistWorker.org.

He is the author of a new book, Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S.
Lost, an examination of the lessons of the Vietnam era, with the eye
of both a dedicated historian and an engaged participant in the
movement against today's U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here,
with permission, we publish excerpts from one of the book's later chapters.
--

THE YEAR following the Tet Offensive of 1968 was the bloodiest year
of the American war in Vietnam. As revenge for the humiliation
suffered during the Tet Offensive, the United States unleashed a
frightening wave of destruction. Despite the huge military cost to
the National Liberation Front (NLF), it was clear that the Tet
Offensive had destroyed the ability of the United States to
effectively prosecute its war in Vietnam. In response, President
Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election. In a
close race against Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon was
elected president, in part because he implied that he had a "secret
plan" to end the war in Vietnam. "The greatest honor history can
bestow is the title of peacemaker," he said in his inaugural speech.
It is a testament to the political quandary that the American ruling
class found itself in that an anticommunist militarist could package
himself as a "peace" candidate.

Despite all the talk of peace, the war would continue for another
four years. Almost as many Americans died in Vietnam during Nixon's
presidency as in the Johnson years. How does one explain this? The
incoming Nixon administration set itself the goal of bringing the
American war in Vietnam to an end without it being seen as a defeat
for U.S. imperialism. In attempting to achieve this, Nixon would not
only raise to new heights the destruction the United States would
inflict on Vietnam, but would widen the war into neighboring countries.

These war policies revived and deepened the antiwar movement in the
United States. The antiwar movement would surge to the zenith of its
strength, while soldiers, sailors and air force personnel began to
rebel in larger numbers. A special commission appointed by Nixon to
assess unrest on the campuses following the invasion of Cambodia, led
by William Scranton, the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania,
argued that the country was "so polarized" that the division in the
country over the war was "as deep as any since the Civil War."
Scranton declared that "nothing is more important than an end to the
war" in Vietnam. It was the strength of this opposition that not only
led to the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, but also to
the adoption of repressive measures by an increasingly paranoid Nixon
administration that would lead to its downfall.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Opposition to the War Deepens

Nixon may have weathered the domestic storm of protest, but he was
far from being in a secure political position. It became clear to him
that any further efforts to expand the war with U.S. ground troops
would risk another potential domestic upsurge. His Cambodia adventure
lifted the lid on protest in communities that had seen little antiwar
activity beforehand. This was particularly true among Mexican Americans.

One of the most important events of the antiwar movement that took
place in the wake of the Cambodia bombings was the Chicano
moratorium. "The war in Vietnam politicized the Chicano community,"
according to historian Rudy Acuña. "Although the Chicano population
officially numbered 10 to 12 percent of the total population of the
Southwest, Chicanos comprised 19.4 percent of those from that area
who were killed in Vietnam. From December 1967 to March 1969,
Chicanos suffered 19 percent of all casualties from the Southwest.
Chicanos from Texas sustained 25.2 percent of all casualties of that
state." This slow burn of casualty rates combined with a rising
movement against racial discrimination and oppression made the war in
Vietnam a particular flash-point of anger.

The Brown Berets, a revolutionary nationalist group of young Mexican
American activists predominately from the Los Angeles area, formed
the first National Chicano Moratorium Committee in 1969. They called
their first demonstration against the war, in solidarity with the
nationwide moratorium movement, on December 20, 1969, with two
thousand participants. They staged another protest two months later
on February 28, 1970, with about six thousand Mexican Americans in
attendance. In March 1970, at the Second Annual Chicano Youth
conference in Denver, it was decided to organize hundreds of local
moratorium actions against the war that would culminate with a
national event to be held in Los Angeles on July 29. In between the
conference and the planned national moratorium were the invasion of
Cambodia and the ensuing explosion of nationwide protest and the
state murders of protesters at Kent State and Jackson State.

Los Angeles was infamous for the racism and violence of its police
and sheriff's departments toward Mexicans. The violence of the
virtually all-white Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department against
the Mexican Americans grew ominously as the moratorium approached.
Acuña captures both the confidence of the antiwar marchers and the
quiet hatred of sheriff's deputies as the march began:

On the morning of the 29th contingents from all over the United
States arrived in East Los Angeles. By noon participants numbered
between 20,000 and 30,000. Conjuntos (musical groups) blared out
corridos; vivas and yells filled the air; placards read: "Raza si,
guerra no!" "Aztlan: Love it or Leave it!" as sheriff's deputies
lined the parade route. They stood helmeted, making no attempt to
establish contact with the marchers: no smiles, no small talk. The
march ended peaceably and the parade turned into Laguna Park.
Marchers settled down to enjoy the program; many had brought picnic
lunches. Mexican music and Chicano children entertained those assembled."

Soon after the park filled, a small incident at a nearby liquor store
gave the police what Acuña calls "an excuse to break up the
demonstration." Five hundred helmeted, club-wielding deputies
attacked the peaceful crowd in the park. Their number eventually grew
to fifteen hundred as they occupied the park. Acuña again: "They
moved in military formation, sweeping the park. Wreckage could be
seen everywhere: baby strollers [were] trampled into the ground;
Victor Mendoza, walking with a cane, frantically looked for his
grandmother; four deputies beat a man in his sixties; tear gas filled the air."

There are many horror stories of racist violence from that day. "A
Chicano when he allegedly ran a blockade; his car hit a telephone
pole and he was electrocuted. A tear-gas canister exploded in a trash
can, killing a 15-year-old boy." But the worst was the murder of
Ruben Salazar, a popular reporter for KMEX-TV, the Spanish language
station. He and two coworkers stopped at a local bar after covering
the events at Laguna Park. Sheriff's deputies surrounded the bar and
shot a ten-inch tear-gas canister into the building that hit Salazar
in the head, killing him. Salazar was popular in the Mexican
community, making a name for himself by exposing police racism. He
had told coworkers that he received complaints and threats about his
reporting from L.A. Police Chief Ed Davis. Salazar's killers were
indicted by a federal grand jury for violating his civil rights, but
they were acquitted in federal court. The events at the Chicano
moratorium demonstrated not only the depth of anger toward the war
but also the willingness of government to use violence against
antiwar activists, particularly those who were people of color.

The invasion of Cambodia also accelerated opposition to the war in
the military. Vietnam veterans would now assume a leading position in
the antiwar movement, changing the face of the movement. Years later,
H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, lamented, "If the troops are
going to mutiny, you can't pursue an aggressive policy." Discontent
was so high, and the cost of the war was cutting so deeply into the
country, that support was collapsing even in military towns
previously known for their strident pro-war stances. Jon Huntsman, a
special assistant to the president, complained of the growing
"antiwar sentiment in once hawkish San Diego," home of the Pacific fleet.

The war was no longer politically sustainable for Nixon, who was soon
facing re-election. By April 1971, a Lou Harris poll revealed that by
a margin of 60 percent to 26 percent, Americans favored continued
U.S. troop withdrawals "even if the government of South Vietnam
collapsed." There was a "rapidly growing feeling that the United
States should get out of Vietnam as quickly as possible." On April 7,
1971, Nixon announced that another one hundred thousand U.S. troops
would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the beginning of December, leaving
roughly 184,000 still there. Though Nixon was reluctant to offer any
deadlines for complete withdrawal, it seems clear in retrospect that
the deadline he had in mind was the November 1972 election.

How deeply antiwar sentiment cut into the country was revealed in
late April, beginning with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War
(VVAW) actions in Washington between April 19 and 23, followed on
April 24, 1971 by a day of national demonstrations against the war.
According to Tom Wells:

Throughout the morning of April 24, demonstrators flooded the Ellipse
in Washington, the staging area for the day's march to the Capitol.
Most were young. Rank-and-file unionists, GIs, and veterans were
present in greater numbers than in past peace demonstrations.
According to a survey by the Washington Post, more than a third of
the protesters were attending such a demonstration for the first
time. 'I'm a member of the silent majority who isn't silent anymore,'
a 54-year-old-furniture storeowner from Michigan remarked. The survey
found that fewer than a quarter of the protesters considered
themselves radicals; most were liberals. At least thirty-nine members
of Congress endorsed the demonstration. So large was the turnout for
it that cars and buses carrying protesters were backed up for three
miles at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel by 11 a.m. Many of the occupants
never made it to the demonstration.

The demonstration in Washington was estimated to have grown to about
half a million by the end of the day, making it up to that date the
largest single demonstration in American history. That same day in
San Francisco, more than two hundred thousand people marched against the war.

The April 24 national demonstrations were followed by nearly a week
of actions, culminating in an effort to shut down the federal
government on May 3. Nixon declared Washington, D.C. "open for
business," but upwards of seventy five thousand antiwar protesters
scattered through out the city on May 3, blocking traffic, sitting in
at various government buildings, and harassing political figures. The
D.C. police, backed by the federal government, began mass arrests of
demonstrators early in the morning. By 8:00 a.m., more than seven
thousand had already been arrested, and more arrests were to come. It
was open season on anybody the police didn't like. "Martial law might
not have been declared, but it was in effect."

The city jails couldn't handle the numbers arrested so a makeshift
outdoor detention camp was built near RFK Stadium, surrounded by an
eight-foot-high fence. People were held without food, water, or
sanitary facilities. "Calling this a concentration camp would be a
very apt description," declared Dr. Benjamin Spock, who was also held
in detention. The Black residents of Washington responded
sympathetically to the protesters, giving them food, water, and other
necessities. Federal Employees for Peace held a rally in Lafayette
Park across the street from the White House in the middle of the
police crackdown.

While the May Day protests were chaotic and didn't achieve their
objective of shutting down the government, they did, in the words of
a Ramparts article, send "shivers down its spine." The backlash
against the federal government's martial law–like tactics proved to
be a disaster for Nixon. Even such cynical insiders as CIA Director
Richard Helms later admitted, "It was obviously viewed by everybody
in the administration, particularly with all the arrests and the
howling about civil rights and human rights and all the rest of
it...as a very damaging kind of event. I don't think there was any
doubt about that."

From the first Vietnam moratorium events in November 1969, to the
explosion of rage following the following the Cambodian invasion, to
the spring events of 1971, millions of Americans were drawn into
political action against the war. The actions were become more
militant, more working class, more multiracial, and more left wing.
In mid-November 1972, Nixon announced that another forty-five
thousand U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam leaving roughly
139,000 there in early 1972.

The American ground war in Vietnam was grinding to an end, but the
bloody American air war continued to inflict unfathomable destruction
on the people of Southeast Asia. While antiwar activity continued
into 1972, it was much smaller; the movement too had already reached
its zenith.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Did the Large Demonstrations Make a Difference?

"We had an agenda we wanted to implement, and the principal
impediment to that objective in Vietnam was the mass demonstrations,
given aid and comfort and support by the liberal media, which was
attacking the president constantly."
--Pat Buchanan, Nixon White House aide and speechwriter

One of the lingering debates concerning the antiwar movement of the
1960s was the effectiveness of the many national demonstrations in
stopping or not stopping the war in Vietnam. This debate existed from
the very beginning to the very end of the antiwar movement. Soon
after the first national demonstration against the war organized by
SDS, leading SDS members concluded that national demonstrations were
a waste of time. Every time proposals were advanced for a national
protest, arguments would surface about the efficacy of mass
demonstrations. Many student activists felt a vague sense that
something more was needed. For example, before the October 1967
Pentagon March, the SDS national office declared, "We feel that these
large demonstrations--which are just public expressions of
belief--can have no significant effect on American policy in Vietnam.
Further, they delude many participants into thinking that the
'democratic' process in America functions in a meaningful way."

It wasn't just SDSers who drew these conclusions; radical pacifist
Dave Dellinger in 1971 noticed "a fatigue, a quasi-disillusionment"
with legal, mass demonstrations, a view that they were "yesterday's
mashed potatoes."

Part of the reason that many activists thought that mass
demonstrations were ineffective was because both Johnson and Nixon
claimed they weren't swayed by them, and simply because the war
continued, year in and year out, no matter how big the protests
got--at least until 1970, when large-scale pullouts began.

But there was also a more political aspect to the debate. As the
movement radicalized, there were those in the movement who elevated
the tactic of street fighting to the level of principle. On the other
side, there were those who made a fetish of legal, mass
demonstrations, to the point of actively discouraging more
confrontational tactics on the grounds that they would deter mass
participation in the movement.

The mass demonstrations were undoubtedly insufficient by themselves
to force the United States out of Vietnam, but they played an
important role in drawing in and educating new antiwar forces, as
well as raising activists' confidence that the movement was widening
its base and gaining overwhelming public support. Halstead offers the
example of 13-year-old Raul Gonzales, who described the impact of
running across the April 15, 1967, mobilization against the war in
Kezar Stadium on San Francisco:

I didn't know what was going on. So I asked someone. They said it was
a demonstration to get the troops out of Vietnam...Personally, I was
against the war, but I didn't really know why. I thought maybe I was
the only one against it. The rally impressed me...I had no arguments
against the war. From talking to people at the demonstration, and
listening to the speeches, I got arguments. It strengthened my
feelings. I took the arguments I learned there and the literature
that was being passed out and used that with my friends. Those who
were wavering tended to side with me now that I had the facts and
figures and the stuff I'd gotten at the demonstration.

Yet, at the same time, many activists were right in their conclusions
that more than large, set-piece protests were necessary to end the
war. Ultimately, it was a combination of protest at home (including
mass demonstrations, sit-ins, civil disobedience, student strikes,
etc.), rebellion among GIs, and the armed struggle of the Vietnamese
people that forced the United States to get out of Vietnam. In all
this, there was no Chinese wall between different forms of protest or
tactics--from mass peaceful demonstrations to blockades, sit-ins,
strikes, and so on. These different manifestations of protest flowed
in and out of one another and often one led to the other. The role of
mass protests was to mobilize the maximum public manifestation of
antiwar sentiment--a kind of movement roll call--used to feed the
movement's further growth in all its different manifestations.

The mass demonstrations also had an impact on soldiers, as well as on
the movement's attitude to soldiers. Fred Halstead recalls how all
this began at the October 1967 March on the Pentagon:

The army brought in several thousand troops--in addition to federal
marshals and police--to defend the Pentagon. Most of the troops were
ordinary soldiers acting as military police for the weekend. Of those
who confronted the crowd a few were angry, even brutal. But many were
visibly embarrassed by the situation, and some became friendly in the
course of contact with the demonstration. Word of this spread among
the demonstrators, and afterward throughout the movement as a
whole.... Before the Pentagon action, the idea of reaching GIs was
pressed by a minority. After the October 21, 1967 march, the movement
as a whole began to embrace the idea with some enthusiasm.

The impact of mass demonstrations on American GIs around the world
only grew as the war went on. It would be hard to see how soldiers,
sailors, and airmen would have moved against the war in such large
numbers without the impact of millions marching against the war at home.

.

David Horowitz relishes jeers from UC Santa Cruz students

Conservative David Horowitz relishes jeers from UC Santa Cruz students

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_9412458?source=most_viewed

Kurtis Alexander - Sentinel Staff Writer
Article Launched: 05/29/2008

Before David Horowitz stepped into the lecture hall to face a wary
crowd of UC Santa Cruz students this week, he was seeking assurances
from university officials that campus police would have his back.

Such is life for a former liberal turned right-wing pundit who
travels from campus to campus insulting nontraditional curriculum and
chastising what he sees as a liberal bias at public universities.

His Web site named UC Santa Cruz the biggest culprit last year.

So Tuesday night, amid a skeptical student body, dozens of
demonstrators and talk of a faculty/student protest on the other side
of campus, Horowitz spent a good chunk of his hour-and-a-half
presentation at the Jack Baskin Auditorium on the defensive.

"What you're witnessing here is a witch hunt, and I'm the witch," he
told the standing-room-only crowd of about 200.

Horowitz, who often shrugged and sighed as he does on cable news
stations, stood by his central platform -- that universities need a
balance of political thinking -- and cast himself as the outsider
willing to expose this unpopular truth.

But as reasonable as his points may have been, his jabs at some of
the university's most cherished thinkers -- feminists, Marxists,
Muslims -- seemed to alienate many in attendance and ultimately
undercut the efficacy of his message.

"He was just ranting," said junior Maeghan Tanner.

Others, though, were shaken by Horowitz's statements. A handful of
demonstrators banged on windows and held signs that read "Racist" and
"Kill Whitey," references to his positions against affirmative action
and reparations for slavery. Two audience members got in verbal spats
with Horowitz and were shown the door by police.

The reactions seemed to only embolden the pundit.

"You people are being robbed of your education dollar," he said. "You
can't get a good education if they're only telling you half the story."

His statements follow the argument of his well-known September 2007
article that called UCSC's curriculum "anything but academic" and the
college "beyond any doubt the most radical university in the United
States." In the article, Horowitz claimed popular professors like
Angela Davis and Paul Ortiz spoon-feed students a liberal agenda,
preventing students from seeing the bigger picture.

Across campus on Tuesday night, community studies professor Ortiz was
holding a "teach-in" with about 75 others to counter the presence of
the conservative.

"I would love to have the opportunity to debate him," said Ortiz on
Wednesday. "But I don't think he's really interested in a debate ...
it's more about entertainment and provoking people."

Ortiz, like many at the Baskin theater, took issue with how well
Horowitz really knows UC Santa Cruz and whether his claims of bias on
campus are legitimately researched.

Horowitz acknowledged that he'd only interviewed four or five
students for last year's story about the university and that his
methods were not those of U.S. News and World Report. He also said
his observations of bias only apply to UC Santa Cruz's liberal arts
programs, not its science and engineering divisions.

Horowitz appeared to win a few people over with these concessions.
And similarly, the larger-than-life figure, by the end of the night,
seemed impressed by the attention he was given by students.

"You've been a good audience," he said more than once.

Horowitz, who recently wrote the best-selling "Party of Defeat: How
Democrats and Radicals Undermined America's War on Terror Before and
After 9/11," has not always been a leading figure on the right.

Raised by parents who were card-carrying Communists, his early
political life involved the 1960s anti-war movement and fundraising
for the Black Panthers. These actions, he told the audience, he now,
at 69, regrets.

"And," he said, "I was never as stupidly left as your professors."
--

Contact Kurtis Alexander at 706-3267 or kalexander@santacruzsentinel.com.

.

1968 to 2008: a student’s take on history

1968 to 2008: a student's take on history

http://cityonahillpress.com/article.php?id=1278

May 22, 2008
Rachel Tennenbaum
Gender/Sexuality Editor

The revolution is coming.

Last week I was on the phone with my dad and we were talking about
the University of California and its various goings-on. I told him
about the problems with rising student fees, the ensuing, almost
inevitable, privatization of the UC system and the privatization of
research, such as the collaboration between UC Berkeley and BP. And
then I told him that I felt as though this was an example of the
direction in which the world was heading: a general co-modification
of everything, including education, and an overall out-of-touch
mentality between humans, their communities and the greater planet.

Then I got totally shot down.

"Rachel," my dad told me, "you sound like some crazy lefty college
conspiracy theorist."

What my dad wanted were facts ­ he needed numbers to support my claim
that I felt the world was ending.

After this conversation, I called my mom and told her about my
frustrations. "Dad doesn't get it," I told her, "He just wants facts.
And all I know how to do is feelings."

My mom began to talk about her youth, and she mentioned the year
1968. A 12-year-old French girl, my mom tells me that she did not
even recognize the streets of Paris, they were so crowded that May
exactly 40 years ago. It was 1968, when students took over
everything, in Paris, in New York, in Mexico. The images have stuck
with her forever ­ they've come to represent the epitomization of movements.

1968. The year begins on a dour note ­ on Jan. 10, the 10,000th
American plane is lost over Vietnam. January quickly progresses into
February, and Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a sermon in Atlanta.
Preaching at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the speech is especially
moving because in it, the reverend begins to eulogize his own life.
"I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr.
tried to give his life serving others," he says. "I want you to say
that I tried to love and serve humanity." Exactly two months later in
Memphis, Tenn., King is shot and killed.

Spring rushes in and with it the rumblings of student rebellion. On
April 23, students at Columbia University gather to protest their
university's proposal to build a gym in Morningside Park, arguing
that the building lent itself to both segregation and gentrification.
The protest doubly serves to criticize Columbia's involvement with
the U.S. military and the Vietnam War. Demonstrations last a week,
and students take over Hamilton Hall. Columbia scraps plans to build the gym.

A month later, it is Paris that is up in arms. May 6 marks Bloody
Monday, the most violent day in the French student revolt. Five
thousand students march through the Latin Quarter of Paris. More than
20,000 students, teachers and supporters shut down the University of
Paris. Riots ensue with the police. The students espouse freedom,
leftist ideals and demand for their voices to be heard. France
changes forever. President Charles De Gaulle resigns a year later ­
some argue that it is because of the events of May 1968, a month that
lives in infamy for student movements everywhere.

Student movements pick up again in the fall, this time in Mexico
City. On Oct. 2, a march protesting the military's occupation at a
Mexican university ends in Tlatelolco Square for a peaceful rally.
The police and military open fire and shoot into the crowd, killing
between 200 and 300 people. Ten days later the Olympic games begin.
American Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists in
a Black Power salute when awarded their medals, and are then stripped of them.

The year ends with Richard Nixon elected President, and with the
launch of Apollo 8, the first U.S. mission to orbit the moon.

"It was facts," my mother concludes. "But before facts, it was a
feeling. It was a movement." And she says the same is true today.

2008. In January, the price of oil hits $100 a barrel for the first
time. Kosovo declares independence from Serbia, and China conducts a
military crackdown in Tibet. This leads to major consequences in
April, when people gather to protest China's actions at the Olympic
Torch relay in London on April 6, Paris on the eighth and San
Francisco on the ninth.

In May, the nation is again in upheaval. On the first of the month,
longshoremen, workers and students take to the streets to protest the
war in Iraq, fight for worker's rights, and shed light on U.S.
immigration policies. At UC Santa Cruz, students rally in the Quarry
Plaza, then march through town.

UC students find themselves up in arms two weeks later when the UC
Board of Regents votes to raise student fees. Protests ensue at the
regents' meeting at UCLA.

Meanwhile, in Iraq there are 4,080 confirmed U.S. soldier deaths and
at least 85,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. The Olympics will open in
Beijing Aug. 8, and Nov. 4 is our next presidential election.

The parallels are quite eerie.

2008 is a tumultuous year, to say the least. We are seeing another
heated presidential election. We are stuck in another horrific, slow,
deadly war. We're seeing another Olympics again becoming politicized.
We are fighting for equal rights ­ still.

What did we learn about history repeating itself?

And how do we differ from 1968?

While we are dealing with social crises, it's undeniable that as a
planet we are faced with problems that we've never seen before, and
to a degree that we've never dealt with before. Even my parents agree
with this statement, which is a bit disheartening. "No," they tell
me, "things weren't this bad when we were your age."

What do we make of this?

I see that Santa Cruz is like Paris, and that if change is going to
start anywhere, it will start here. This is a call to the student
body of which I am a part.

In Santa Cruz we're seeing great leaps made. People are fighting big
battles here. In the area of sustainability we see programs like the
Farm and the Education For Sustainable Living Project (ESLP). The
Cantú Center, the Women's Center ­ they work tirelessly to promote
cultural awareness. We have a Pro-Peace club working for love. We are
seeing unity between campus workers, the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the student body.
We're seeing people fight for things that they believe strongly in,
and for all of the argued flaws, there's passion. People are getting
in touch with big things here. People get it.

And you know what? My dad relates to '68 too. He was at Columbia, at
Morningside Heights. This is where everything blew up. There were
feelings behind his work and they pushed facts that he insists on
now, that some of you are probably insisting on. This is all of us.

A small group of students rioting made changes in art, in film. They
changed the country, and they changed the world. Did you hear that?
Students can change the country, and the question then remains, why
not us? And how are we going to act? We've got good ideas on how to
save society, the planet and ourselves. What's it going to be?

So with these facts and uncanny parallels in hand, it falls to us,
UCSC students. We'll go big. We'll start in the forest, in the trees,
on the beach, in the water. In the classrooms, in the rallies. Hell,
we've already begun.

And yeah, it may be idealist, but it's our only option.

So good luck.

The revolution is here.

.

Military Recruiters Must Be Confronted [by Ron Kovic]

Stopping the War Machine:
Military Recruiters Must Be Confronted

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080526_ron_kovic_on_berkeley_recruitment_resistance/

May 28, 2008
By Ron Kovic

As a former United States Marine Corps sergeant who was shot and
paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in
Vietnam on Jan. 20, 1968, I am sending my complete support and
admiration to all those now involved in the courageous struggle to
stop military recruitment in Berkeley and across the country.

Not since the Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s has there been a
cause more just than the one you are now engaged in. Who knows better
the deep immorality and deception of military recruiters than those
of us who, decades ago, entered those same recruiting offices with
our fathers, believing in our hearts that we were being told the
truth­only to discover later we had been deceived and terribly
betrayed? Many of us paid for that deceit with our lives, years of
suffering and bodies and minds that were never the same again. If
only someone had warned us, if only someone had had the courage to
speak out against the madness that we were being led into, if only
someone could have protected us from the recruiters whose only wish
was to make their quota, send us to boot camp and hide from us the
dark secret of the nightmare which awaited us all.

Over the past five years, I have watched in horror the mirror image
of another Vietnam unfolding in Iraq. So many similarities, so many
things said that remind me of that war 30 years ago which left me
paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for life. Refusing to learn
from the lessons of Vietnam, our government continues to pursue a
policy of deception, distortion, manipulation and denial, doing
everything it can to hide from the American people their true
intentions and agenda in Iraq. As we pass the fifth anniversary of
the start of this tragic and senseless war, I cannot help but think
of the young men and women who have been wounded, nearly 30,000,
flooding Walter Reed, Bethesda, Brooke Army Medical Center and
veterans hospitals all across our country. Paraplegics, amputees,
burn victims, the blinded, shocked and stunned, brain-damaged and
psychologically stressed, a whole new generation of severely maimed
men and women who were not even born when I came home wounded to the
Bronx Veterans Hospital in New York in 1968.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which afflicted so many of us
after Vietnam, is just now beginning to appear among soldiers
recently returned from the current war. For some the agony and
suffering, the sleepless nights, anxiety attacks and awful bouts of
insomnia, alienation, anger and rage will last for decades­if not
their whole lives. They will be trapped in a permanent nightmare of
that war, of killing another man, a child, watching a friend die ...
fighting against an enemy that can never be seen, while at any moment
someone, a child, a woman, an old man­anyone­might kill them.

These traumas return home with us and we carry them, sometimes
hidden, for agonizing decades. They deeply impact our daily lives,
and the lives closest to us. To kill another human being, to take
another life out of this world with one pull of a trigger, is
something that never leaves you. It is as if a part of you dies with
that person. If you choose to keep on living, there may be a healing,
and even hope and happiness again, but that scar and memory and
sorrow will be with you forever. Why did the recruiters never mention
these things? This was never in the slick pamphlets they gave us.

Some of these veterans are showing up at homeless shelters around our
country, while others have begun to courageously speak out against
the senselessness and insanity of this war and to demand answers from
the leaders who sent them there. During the 2004 Democratic National
Convention, returning soldiers formed a group called Iraq Veterans
Against the War, just as we had marched in Miami in August of 1972 as
Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Still others have refused
deployment to Iraq, gone to Canada and begun resisting this immoral
and illegal war. Like many other Americans, I have seen them on
television or at the local veterans hospitals, but for the most part,
they remain hidden like the flag-draped caskets of our dead returned
to Dover Air Force Base in the dark of night, as this administration
continues to pursue a policy of censorship, tightly controlling the
images coming out of that war and rarely allowing the human cost of
its policy to be seen.

Many of us promised ourselves long ago that we would never allow what
happened to us in Vietnam to happen again. We had an obligation, a
responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, as human beings, to raise
our voices in protest. We could never forget the hospitals, the
intensive-care wards, the wounded all around us fighting for their
lives, those long and painful years after we came home, those lonely
nights. There were lives to save on both sides, young men and women
who would be disfigured and maimed, mothers and fathers who would
lose their sons and daughters, wives and other loved ones who would
suffer for decades to come if we did not do everything we could to
stop the momentum of this madness.

Mario Savio once said, "There's a time when the operation of the
machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't
take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put
your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon
all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to
indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that
unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all."

It is time to stop the war machine. It is time for bold and daring
action on the part of us all. Precious lives are at stake, both
American and Iraqi, and military recruiters must be confronted at
every turn, in every high school, every campus, every recruiting
office, on every street corner, in every town and city across
America. In no uncertain terms we must make it clear to them that by
their actions they represent a threat to our community, to our
children and all that we cherish. We must explain to them that
condemning our young men and women to their death, setting them up to
be horribly maimed, and psychologically damaged in a senseless and
immoral war, is wrong and unpatriotic and will not be tolerated by
Berkeley­or, for that matter, any town or city in the United States.

The days of deceiving, manipulating and victimizing our young people
are over. We have had enough, and I strongly encourage all of you to
use every means of creative, nonviolent civil disobedience to stop
military recruitment all across our country. I stand with you in this
important and courageous fight, and I am confident your actions in
the days ahead will inspire countless others across our country to do
everything they can to end this deeply immoral and illegal war.
--

(Note: This statement represents portions of several essays and
writings I have done over the past five years.­R.K.)

.

1968: The general strike and the student revolt in France

1968: The general strike and the student revolt in France

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/may1-m28.shtml

Part 1­A revolutionary situation develops

By Peter Schwarz
28 May 2008

The following is the first in a four-part series of articles.

There is barely another historical event that has commanded so much
public attention as the 40th anniversary of the uprisings of 1968. In
recent weeks, hundreds of articles, interviews, documentaries and
television films have been published on the student protests and
labour disputes that took place in that year­with certainly more
coverage in Germany than for any other comparable anniversary.

How is this interest in the events of 1968 to be explained?

The answer has less to do with the past than with the present and the
future. The year 1968 was characterised not merely by "student
revolts," which shook the US, Germany and France as well as Italy,
Japan, Mexico and many other countries. It was the prelude to the
biggest offensive by the international working class since the end of
the Second World War. This offensive lasted seven years, assumed on a
number of occasions revolutionary forms, forced the resignation of
governments, brought down dictatorships and rocked the system of
bourgeois rule to its foundations.

This was most apparent in France when in May 1968 10 million workers
took part in a general strike, occupied factories and brought the
government of General Charles de Gaulle to its knees. In 1969 the
so-called September strikes took place in Germany, and Italy
underwent a "hot autumn" of industrial confrontations. The US saw
mass antiwar demonstrations by the civil rights movement and
rebellions in inner-city ghettos. In Poland and Czechoslovakia­the
Prague Spring­workers revolted against the Stalinist dictatorship. In
the 1970s, right-wing dictatorships were toppled in Greece, Spain and
Portugal. During the same period, the US army suffered a humiliating
defeat in Vietnam.

The background to these events was the first profound crisis of the
capitalist economy since the Second World War. In 1966 a recession
shook the world economy. In 1971 the US government severed the link
between gold and the dollar and in so doing stripped away the
foundation of the world monetary system set up in Bretton Woods in
1944, which had formed the framework for the postwar boom. In 1973
the world economy sank even further into recession.

The wave of international protests, strikes and rebellions left their
mark. In a series of countries, wages and working conditions
improved­often to a considerable extent. The '68 movement also left
traces in the spheres of culture and broader social life. It swept
away the cloying and claustrophobic atmosphere of the 1950s and
1960s, bringing considerable improvements in the rights of women and
minorities. Universities were expanded and opened up to broader
layers of society. But capitalist rule and property relations
remained intact. The bourgeoisie was forced to make political and
social concessions, but it was able to hold on to power.

At the end of the 1970s the counteroffensive began. Margaret Thatcher
came to power in Great Britain, Ronald Reagan in the US and Helmut
Kohl in Germany. Social concessions were reversed and attacks on the
working class intensified.

Today storm clouds are on the horizon again, and social divisions are
more profound than ever. Millions are unemployed or work in
precarious jobs. In Eastern Europe and Asia an enormous army of
workers is being exploited for rock-bottom wages. The recent
financial crisis demonstrates that a collapse of the international
banking system is increasingly probable. Tensions between the great
powers are increasing and imperialist wars­such as that in Iraq­are
once again on the agenda. The inevitable result will be new conflicts
and class struggles.

This is the principal reason for the current interest in the events
of 1968. They could repeat themselves in another form. As the ruling
class tries to prepare itself, workers and young people must also
prepare by drawing the lessons from the experiences of 1968.

This series of articles concentrates on the events in France. Here,
class conflicts erupted to the surface with explosive power in May
and thoroughly disproved the thesis of the New Left that the working
class had been successfully integrated into capitalism via
consumption and the domination of the media. What appeared in January
to be a relatively harmless dispute between students and the
government turned within the space of a few weeks into a
revolutionary situation. The country was paralysed, the government
powerless and the trade unions had lost control of the situation. At
the end of May the working class was not only in a position to force
the resignation of the government led by President de Gaulle, but
also to overthrow the capitalist system and establish its own power.
This would have fundamentally changed the course of political events
throughout Europe­both east and west.

Such a development was prevented by the French Communist Party (PCF)
and its trade union ally, the CGT (Confédération générale du
travail), which strictly refused to take power and used all of its
influence to strangle the mass movement. The Communist Party received
additional backing from the Pabloite United Secretariat led by Ernest
Mandel and its French branches­the Parti communiste internationaliste
(PCI) led by Pierre Frank and the Jeunesse communiste révolutionnaire
(JCR) led by Alain Krivine. For 15 years the Pabloites had
systematically attacked the Marxist traditions of the Trotskyist
movement. Now they disorientated and misdirected students seeking an
alternative to Stalinism by putting forward Che Guevara and
anarchistic-type activism as role models.

The first part of this series deals with the development of the
student revolt and the general strike up to their highpoint at the
end of May. The second part examines the way in which the Communist
Party and the CGT helped General de Gaulle regain control of the
situation. The third part will deal with the role of the Pabloites
and the fourth with the Organisation communiste internationaliste
(OCI) led by Pierre Lambert. The OCI, still the official French
section of the International Committee of the Fourth International at
the time, adopted a centrist position in 1968 and soon after ended up
trailing behind the Socialist Party.

France before 1968

France in the 1960s is characterised by a profound contradiction. The
political regime is authoritarian and deeply reactionary. Its
personification is General de Gaulle, who appears to come from a
different era and who models the Fifth Republic entirely on his
person. De Gaulle is 68-years-old when he was elected president in
1958, and 78 when he resigns in 1969. However, under the ossified
regime of the old general, a rapid economic modernisation takes
place, fundamentally altering the social composition of French society.

At the end of the Second World War, large parts of France are based
on agriculture, with 37 percent of the population still making a
living from the land. In the subsequent 20 years, two-thirds of
French farmers leave the land and move into the cities, where
they­together with immigrant workers­add to the ranks of the working
class a young and militant social layer, difficult for the trade
union bureaucracy to control.

After the end of the Algerian War in 1962, the French economy grows
rapidly. The loss of its colonies forces the French bourgeoisie to
orient its economy more strongly towards Europe. In 1957 France had
already signed the Rome Treaty, the founding document of the European
Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union. The
economic integration of Europe favours the construction of new
branches of industry, which more than compensate for the decline of
the coal mines and other old industries. In the areas of automobiles,
aircraft, aerospace, arms and nuclear power, new companies and new
factories open up with the support of the government. They are often
situated outside of the old industrial centres and are among the
strongholds of the general strike in 1968.

The city of Caen in Normandy is typical in this regard. The number of
inhabitants increases between 1954 and 1968 from 90,000 to 150,000,
of which half are under the age of 30. Saviem, an offshoot of the
carmaker Renault, employs around 3,000 workers. They are on strike in
January, four months before the general strike, temporarily occupying
the factory and engaging in fierce fighting with the police.

A radicalization is also noticeable within the trade unions. The old,
Catholic union, the CFTC (Confédération Française des Travailleurs
Chrétiens), breaks apart, and the majority of members reorganizes on
a secular basis in the CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du
Travail), which acknowledges the "class struggle" and at the start of
1966 agrees to a unity of action with the CGT.

The establishment of new industries brings with it a feverish
expansion of the education sector. New engineers, technicians and
skilled workers are urgently required. Between 1962 and 1968 alone,
the number of students doubles. The universities are overcrowded,
poorly equipped and­like the factories­controlled by a patriarchal
management with antiquated attitudes.

The opposition to the poor educational conditions and the
authoritarian university regime­among other things, the prohibition
of members from student residence halls visiting student
accommodation of the opposite sex­is an important factor in the
radicalization of students, who soon combine such issues with
political questions. In May 1966 the first demonstration against the
Vietnam War takes place. One year later, on 2 June 1967, student
Benno Ohnesorg is shot dead by police in Berlin, and the German
student protests find an echo in France.

In the same year the effects of the worldwide recession are being
felt and have a radicalizing impact on workers. For years, living
standards and working conditions had fallen behind the pace of
economic development. Wages are low, working hours long, and inside
the factories workers have no rights. Now unemployment and the
workload are increasing. The mining, steel, textile and construction
industries stagnate.

The leadership of the unions arranges protests from above in order
not to lose control. But local protests from below build up and are
brutally suppressed by the police. In February 1967 workers at the
textile manufacturer Rhodiacéta in the city of Besançon are the first
to occupy their factory, protesting against job cuts and demanding
better working conditions.

Farmers also demonstrate against falling incomes. In 1967 in the west
of France, several demonstrations by farmers develop into street
battles. According to a police report at the time, the farmers are
"numerous, aggressive, organized and armed with various projectiles:
bolts, cobblestones, metal splinters, bottles and pebbles."

At the beginning of 1968, France appears relatively quiet on the
surface, but underneath social tensions are fermenting. The entire
country resembles a powder keg. All that is needed to cause an
explosion is a random spark. This spark is provided by the student protests.

Students revolt and general strike

The University of Nanterre is among the colleges constructed in the
1960s. Built on land previously belonging to the armed forces, just
five kilometers outside of Paris, it is opened in 1964. It is
surrounded by poverty-stricken neighborhoods, so-called Bidonvilles,
and factories. On January 8, 1968, protesting students clash with
Youth Minister François Missoffe, who is in the region to open a new
swimming pool.

Although the incident itself is relatively insignificant, the
disciplinary measures instigated against the students, as well as the
repeated interventions by police, escalate the conflict and make
Nanterre the starting point of a movement that quickly spreads to
universities and high schools throughout the country. At its center
are demands for better learning conditions, free access to
university, more personal and political freedoms, the release of
arrested students, as well as opposition to the US war against
Vietnam, where at the end of January the Tet Offensive begins.

In some cities, such as Caen and Bordeaux, workers, students and high
school pupils jointly take to the streets. On April 12, a solidarity
demonstration takes place in Paris in support of the German student
Rudi Dutschke, who has been gunned down on the street in Berlin by an
enraged right-winger.

On March 22, 142 students occupy the administration building at the
University of Nanterre. The administration reacts by closing the
university completely for an entire month. The conflict then shifts
to the Sorbonne, the oldest university in France, located in the
Latin Quarter in Paris. On May 3, representatives from various
student organizations meet to discuss how the campaign should
proceed. Meanwhile, extreme right-wing groups are demonstrating
outside. The university dean calls the police who proceed to clear
the campus. A huge, spontaneous demonstration erupts. The police
react with extreme brutality and students respond by erecting
barricades. By the end of the night, around a hundred are left
injured and hundreds more arrested. On the day after the arrests a
court hands out harsh sentences to 13 students based solely on the
exclusive testimony of police officers.

The government and media strive to portray the street battles in the
Latin Quarter as the work of radical groups and troublemakers. The
Communist Party also joins the chorus against the students. Its
number two figure, Georges Marchais, who later becomes the party's
general secretary, fires a broadside against the student "pseudo
revolutionaries" on the front page of the party's newspaper Humanité.
He accuses them of abetting the "fascist provocateurs." Marchais is
above all unsettled by the fact that the students "distribute
leaflets and other propaganda material in increasing numbers at
factory gates and in the districts of immigrant workers." He bellows:
"These false revolutionaries must be exposed, for they are
objectively serving the interests of the Gaullist regime and the big
capitalist monopolies."

Such baiting has no effect, however. The country is shocked by the
brutal actions of the police, which are broadcast by radio stations.
Events now take on a momentum of their own. The demonstrations in
Paris become bigger and bigger with each passing day, and spread to
other cities. They are directed against police repression and demand
the release of those the students arrested. High school pupils also
participate in the strike. On May 8 a first one-day general strike
takes place in western France.

From May 10-11 the Latin Quarter is engulfed by the "Night of the
Barricades." Tens of thousands barricade themselves in the university
district, which is then stormed by police at two o'clock in the
morning using tear gas. Hundreds are injured.

The following day, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, who has just
returned from a state visit to Iran, announces the reopening of the
Sorbonne University and the release of students in custody. However,
his actions can no longer control the situation. The unions,
including the Communist Party-dominated CGT, call a general strike
for May 13 against police repression. The unions fear losing control
over the militant workers if they act otherwise.

The strike call meets with a huge response. Numerous cities
experience the biggest mass demonstrations since the Second World
War. In Paris alone 800,000 take to the streets. Political demands
come to the forefront. Many demand the toppling of the government.
During the evening, the Sorbonne and other universities are
re-occupied by the students.

The plan of the trade unions to limit the general strike to one day
fails to materialize. On the following day, May 14, workers occupy
the Sud-Aviation factory in Nantes. The plant remains under control
of the workers for one month, with red flags flying over the
administration building. The regional director, Duvochel, is held
captive by the occupiers for 16 days. The general manager of
Sud-Aviation at this time is Maurice Papon, a Nazi collaborator, war
criminal and head of the Paris police in 1961, when he was
responsible for the killing of demonstrators protesting against the
Algeria war.

Workers at other factories follow the example at Sud-Aviation, and a
wave of occupations spreads across the country from May 15 through
May 20. Everywhere red flags are hoisted, and in many factories the
management is held captive. The actions affect hundreds of factories
and offices including the country's biggest factory, the main Renault
plant in Billancourt, which had played a central role in the strike
wave of 1947.

Initially the workers raise immediate demands, which differ from
place to place: fairer remuneration pay, a shortening of working
times, no dismissals, more rights for workers in the factory.
Workers' and action committees spring up in the occupied factories
and surrounding areas drawing in local residents, students and pupils
alongside the striking workers and technical and administrative
staff. The committees take responsibility for the organization of the
strikes and develop into forums of intensive political debate. The
same is true for the universities, which are to a large extent
occupied by students.

On May 20 the whole country is at a standstill­hit by a general
strike, although neither the trade unions nor any other organizations
have issued a call for such a strike. Factories, offices,
universities and schools are occupied, production and the transport
system paralyzed. Artists, journalists and even soccer players join
the movement. Ten million of France's 15 million-strong workforce are
involved in the action. Later studies have revised this figure down
somewhat to 7-9 million, but it still remains the most massive
general strike in French history. "Only" 3 million workers had taken
part in the general strike in 1936, while 2.5 million workers
participated in the general strike of 1947.

The strike wave reaches its peak between May 22 and 30, but lasts
long into July. More than 4 million workers remain on strike for
longer than three weeks and 2 million longer than four weeks.
According to the French Labor Ministry, a total of 150 million
working days are lost in 1968 because of strikes. In comparison the
strike by miners in Great Britain in 1974, which brought down the
Conservative government led by Edward Heath, resulted in a total of
14 million lost working days.

On May 20 the government has largely lost control of the country. The
demand for the resignation of de Gaulle and his government­"ten years
are enough"­is pervasive. On May 24, de Gaulle attempts to regain
control over the situation with a televised speech to the nation. He
promises a referendum giving students and workers more rights in
universities and companies. But his appearance only demonstrates his
impotence. His speech has no impact whatsoever.

In the first three weeks of May a revolutionary situation has
developed in France that has few precedents in history. With a
determined leadership, the movement could have sealed the political
fate of de Gaulle and his Fifth Republic. The security forces still
stood behind the regime, but they would hardly have withstood a
systematic political offensive. The sheer size of the movement would
have had a corrosive impact on their ranks.
--

To be continued

.

The Extra Long Life of 'Che'

The Extra Long Life of 'Che'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052204117.html

41/2-Hour Cannes Premiere Tests Cinephiles' Stamina

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2008

CANNES, France, May 22 -- After Steven Soderbergh's
4-hour-and-28-minute epic film about the grueling guerrilla campaigns
of the revolutionary hero and international male model Ernesto "Che"
Guevara paused for an intermission, bedraggled columns of cinephiles
stumbled from their seats into the lobby of Grand Theatre Lumiere,
rubbing feeling back into their eyeballs. Ushers, acting as emergency
medical corps, quickly administered fresh water and rations of Kit
Kat candy bars.

Troops huddled in the foyer to smoke last cigarettes and contemplate
what was to come, which was the rest of the film. But discipline was
strict, just a 15-minute respite and then once more into the breach
-- though at least one guest broke down to covertly gobble McDonald's
in a toilet stall.

Comrades, it is our duty to report: There were deserters.

Traitors! Too weak to sustain the continued emotional investment
necessary to survive the long, tragic, long, doomed Bolivian campaign
of Benicio Del Toro in Part 2 of "Che." The most highly anticipated
movie of the Cannes Film Festival took a heavy toll. The premiere got
underway at 6:46 p.m. and ended at 11:25 p.m. Upon seeing on the
screen the words "Day 328," a faint moan could be heard in our
section. But the struggle will continue. It must. Soderbergh does not
yet have an American buyer for his film. Distribution or death!

Reaction to the movie was, as they say, mixed. It appears that some
support Soderbergh and others have joined the résistance. At the
film's conclusion, the audience at the world premiere rose and gave
Soderbergh, Benicio and their cast of internationalistas a sustaining
ovation, shouting "fantastico" and "bravo!" Soderbergh, stone-faced
during intermission, finally broke into a smile and waved.

But Todd McCarthy of Variety expects it will be "back to the drawing
board" for an "intricately ambitious, defiantly nondramatic" work
that not only avoids the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, but
forgets to include "any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor,
fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and
remains such a legendary figure."

Meaning "Braveheart" it's not.

"The film reeks of authenticity but also self-indulgence. A
potentially great performance by Benicio Del Toro in the title role
is buried beneath Soderbergh's stylistic tics and an almost complete
lack of dramatic tension," wrote Peter Howell in the Toronto Star.
"An incredibly ambitious, highly detailed mess," according to Roger
Friedman at FoxNews.com.

But Glenn Kenny of Indiewire found plenty to like in "Che," which
"benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't
always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and
intellectual curiosity." James Rocchi of Cinematical calls the end
result "masterful -- expressive, innovative, striking, exciting."

Perhaps it is just us, but we flashed on the HBO "Entourage" episode
where Vince and the boys take their Pablo Escobar film to Cannes and
it bombs. Did we mention that the Soderbergh film is 268 minutes
long? In Spanish? That the work includes Che's speech to the United
Nations, seemingly in its entirety? "Lawrence of Arabia" (we checked)
did its job in 210 minutes.

At the news conference on Thursday, Soderbergh was dismissive and
defensive. The filmmaker was asked, very politely, couldn't he have
made his movie -- and introduced his Che to America -- in less time
than it took to fly to Bali? Nope. "I can only make something I want
to see," said Soderbergh, whose career has veered lately from fat and
happy ("Ocean's Thirteen") to heartless and generally disliked ("The
Good German").

You see, Soderbergh explained, there is so much context. You gotta
have the context, or you wouldn't get Che. You have to have Part 1,
which is the victory of the Cuban revolution, where the Argentine
doctor fought alongside Fidel Castro, and won against all odds, to
get Part 2, in which the iconic Che travels incognito to Bolivia to
try to spark continental revolution, except the Bolivian peasants
aren't having it and Che is hunted down by the military and the
Yankees and shot like a dog.

It seems as if the weight of history weighed them down. All these
details, which the film obsesses on, like they were going to be
graded by Fidel. The director said he himself was not a true
believer, nor was he really interested in the Cuban revolution. He
was interested in Che. "He's great movie material," said the
director. "Who lived one of most fascinating lives of the last century."

Del Toro mentions that they had enough material to make a seven-hour
film, and suggested that upon seeing the movie for the third time,
"they'll see things." Del Toro, who served as a producer on the film,
said, "The love people felt for this man made me want to get to know
more about this man."

Though Soderbergh does not appear to speak Spanish himself, he said,
"You can't make a film like this with any credibility if you don't
make it in Spanish."

His screenwriter, Peter Buchman, was asked very politely why he
decided to forgo the usual dramatic conventions. Soderbergh said,
yeah, "why aren't there more movie moments?"

"I quickly learned with Steven that movie moments were a bad idea,"
Buchman said." We wanted to get at the character of the man in a
different way."

Soderbergh said, "I find it hilarious that people say movies are too
conventional" and then they criticize him for being unconventional.
As for the "nondramatic" tone of the film, what Soderbergh sought was
"a sense of what it was like to hang out with this person." This cool
guy Che. "And that's it."

"It's all a very elaborate way for us to sell our own T-shirts," said
Del Toro. They hope.

.

Barack Obama's communist connections

[2 articles]

Barack Obama's communist connections

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/vernon/080526

by Wes Vernon
May 26, 2008

The frontrunner for this year's Democrat presidential nomination
burst upon the scene from out of nowhere only in recent months. Two
or three years ago, Barrack Hussein Obama was an unknown outside his
Chicago bailiwick and in some other Illinois quarters. Even his time
in the Illinois State Senate was unremarkable.

So what do we know about him?

As this column has noted (see "Violent chickens roost on candidates'
shoulders" ­ April 21, 2008), Senator Obama has some Marxist
skeletons in his closet.

These include a Hawaiian "poet" named Frank Marshall Davis (whose
identity Obama tried to hide when referencing him in his book). Davis
had some considerable influence on the young Obama when they both
lived in Hawaii. Obama himself says as much in his book, referring to
his early mentor merely as "Frank." It took some recent digging to
confirm that Davis was in fact that influence. Did Obama really think
that the very act of hiding the man's true identity would make no one curious?

Davis has also been identified as a member of the Communist Party.
When the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1956 asked him to
affirm or deny his membership in the party, he refused to respond,
citing the Fifth Amendment. Adding to that is the fact ­ revealed in
the news conference referenced below ­ that Davis began his communist
career in Chicago and was a friend and associate of the singer Paul
Robeson and the longshore union official Harry Bridges, both secret
Communist Party members.

Were it not for the Internet and talk radio, you would not know of
this ­ or other Obama associations ­ that should prompt media
curiosity involving a candidate for President of the United States.

We also have cited Obama's ties to the pro-communist terrorist couple
William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant for their
records of violent activity in sixties and seventies. They escaped
prison on a legal technicality.

But we have just scratched the surface

Comes now Herbert Romerstein, whose professional background in
security and intelligence matters we have mined on previous
occasions. He knows where the bodies are buried in this town. And
Cliff Kincaid's America's Survival, Inc., has wisely utilized the
wealth of information Romerstein possesses.

At a news conference here in Washington on May 22, Kincaid and
Romerstein released two documents that are chockablock with names,
dates, places ­ page after page detailing the "Obama connection" to
communists, socialists, and violent radicals. One deals with Obama's
associates in Hawaii, the other is focused on his background in Chicago.

Romerstein provided the wealth of knowledge required for this
undertaking. Kincaid provided the shoeleather for up-to-date
sleuthing, including a trip to Chicago.

The beginning

The Feb. 22 issue of Politico ­ a Washington sheet basically for
political insiders ­ added momentum to an already-major investigative
project on the part of America's Survival.

On that day, it ran a story spotlighting what might be called Obama's
political "coming out" 1995 reception at the home of Ayers and Dohrn.
Politico did not reveal any extensive background of those present.
However, with the encyclopedic memory of Romerstein ­ whose personal
library pinpoints the activities of thousands of America's enemies ­
America's Survival helpfully filled in the blanks.

Then-State Senator Alice Palmer announced to those gathered at the
Ayers/Dohrn residence that she was stepping down to make a run for
Congress and introduced Obama as her chosen successor.

Who is Alice Palmer?

Palmer is much more than the "influential liberal" described by Politico.

Ten years before the aforementioned meeting, Alice Palmer was an
official of a notorious Communist front group (so identified by the
FBI), the U.S. Peace Council, an affiliate of the World Peace
Council, an international Soviet front. It goes without saying that
during that era of the eighties, both of these mouthpieces for Moscow
were working feverishly to undermine President Reagan's arms buildup
which played a major role in the downfall of the Soviet Union. That
was the time of the worldwide Soviet-inspired nuclear "freeze"
movement in 1983, when Palmer was also mentioned as a participant on
the World Peace Council's Prague assembly.

In 1986, Palmer wrote an article for the People's Weekly World, a
house organ for the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). In that dispatch,
Palmer favorably recounted her experiences attending the 27th
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

(Note: Because Palmer later tried to reclaim her place in the State
Senate, Obama moved to have her taken off the ballot. Thus this year,
according to America's Survival, she is supporting Senator Hillary
Clinton for President.)

Red press rejoices

Frank Chapman, a member of the U.S. Peace Council Executive
Committee, wrote what could be called a gloating letter to the
People's Weekly World right after Obama's victory this year in the
Iowa Democrat Party caucuses. Therein, he said the following:

"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move: It was a
dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle.
Marx once compared [the] revolutionary new era of struggle with the
work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground
that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the
old revolutionary 'mole,' not only showing his traces on the surface
but also breaking through."

So who is the mole?

A "mole" on whom Karl Marx would have smiled benignly if he were
here? Chapman writes exuberantly as if he believed there was a "mole"
in the Obama campaign. Perhaps Obama himself? Is anybody in the
mainstream media just mildly curious?

As for Ayers and Dohrn

Apologists for William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn (whose links to
Obama were an issue during his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign) liked to
say that the violent doings of their Weather Underground didn't kill
anyone other than their own members in accidental explosions.

Not so. Undercover informant Larry Grathwohl testified before the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1974 that Ayers emphatically
said Dohrn placed a bomb on the window ledge of a police station in
San Francisco that killed a police sergeant. That young officer had
his whole life ahead of him, but as America's Survival puts it, "to
Ayers and Dohrn, he was a 'pig.'"

Oh, yes, and here is an example of the nature of terrorists who pose
as "bleeding-heart liberals:"

Grathwohl reveals in his own book that ­ as plans were made for the
San Francisco police station bombing ­ he pointed out to Ayers that
the explosion could also "kill a few innocent customers at a
restaurant next door," adding "most of them are black."

Replied Ayers (according to Grathwohl's account): "We can't protect
all the innocent people in the world."

And there is more.

The cast of characters in this drama grows.

In an interview with this column, Romerstein elaborated on a comment
he made at the America's Survival news conference. The veteran
intelligence authority cited a former Obama advisor, Robert Malley.

You may have heard in the news earlier this month that Malley
suddenly cut his advisory ties to the Obama campaign after
acknowledging he had talked with Hamas, which is on the State
Department list of terrorist organizations. You also may recall that
Hamas advisor Ahmed Yousef was quoted as saying, "We like Mr. Obama.
We hope he will win the election." Not surprisingly, Senator John
McCain made an issue of that, adding that his hoped-for presidency
would be Hamas's "worst nightmare." It was then that Malley
disappeared from the Obama scene.

Here's what has not been widely reported: Malley is Program Director
for the International Crisis Group, lavishly funded by billionaire
George Soros, whose number one aim in life is to steer America and
the world sharply leftward. He reportedly would like to see a
national convention by 2020 to write a new constitution for the United States.

Robert Malley's father, Simon Malley, according to Romerstein and the
Discover the Network, was an important figure in the Egyptian
Communist Party, was pro-Soviet, passionately anti-Israel, and
anti-West. He was booted out of Egypt and later out of France for
awhile, to be welcomed back later when the more leftwing government
of the socialist Francois Mitterrand took over in Paris.

Romerstein and others believe that the effect of many of Robert
Malley's policies and approaches to the Middle East are antithetical
to the best interests of the United States. Whatever the intent,
critics argue, the net result ­ to whatever extent of Malley's
influence ­ is a plus for Hamas, Hezbollah, and other enemies of the
United States. An example cited is his view of the 2000 Camp David
Summit, in which he participated as a negotiator. Malley rejects the
opinion that all the blame for that conference's failure rests with
PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat.

Martin Peretz, in the New Republic, described Malley as "a rabid
hater of Israel," and described several of Malley's articles in the
New York Review of Books as "deceitful."

Many Americans thought the Clinton administration's security and
foreign policies were at times ­ to put it kindly ­ bizarre. Malley
served in some important posts in that White House, including as
assistant to National Security Director Sandy Berger.

So who is Barack Obama?

At the end of the America's Survival news conference, Kincaid said
America's Survival (A) has no intention of feeding this information
to the Clinton or McCain campaign, (B) has no connection in any way
with any political campaign, and (C) was hoping the media would
approach questions on Obama's background with the same kind of
investigative digging evident in "a very good" Washington Post story
that very day dealing with the McCain campaign's relations with lobbyists.

So again, who is Barack Obama?

We have only skimmed some highlights here on the Obama connection to
Marxist radicals. There is much more to tell. We will revisit the
issue ­ not necessarily in consecutive columns, but at the very
least, to the extent that the mainstream media choose to ignore the issue.

In the meantime, some comments by Romerstein in our own interview
with him are worth pondering:

"Obama speaks in slogans and never explains the thinking that goes
into his statements. That's what we need to know: To what extent do
these people influence him ­ the communist Frank Davis, the
neo-communists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, the anti-Semitic
pro-Arab terrorist groups that he met with in Chicago. To what extent
do they influence his thinking, and will he repudiate those people?"
--

Wes Vernon is a Washington-based writer and veteran broadcast journalist.

--------

Report: Obama mentored by Communist Party figure

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65066

Investigations show ties to radicals who shaped him, helped launch
his political career

Posted: May 22, 2008
By Jerome R. Corsi

Barack Obama had extensive ties with extreme anti-American elements,
including agents of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA, in
Hawaii and Chicago, according to two new reports released yesterday
in Washington, D.C., by two experienced internal security investigators.

Investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid and Herbert Romerstein, a
former investigator with the U.S. House Committee on Un-American
Activities, presented evidence Obama was mentored, while attending
high school in Hawaii, by Frank Marshall Davis, an African-American
poet and journalist who was also a CPUSA member.

The authors, in a separate report, document Obama's ties to radicals
in Chicago who helped launch his career.

In a paper entitled "Communism in Hawaii and the Obama Connection,"
http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/hawaii-obama.pdf
the authors document that in 1948, Davis decided to move from Chicago
to Honolulu at the suggestion of what they describe as two "secret
CPUSA members," actor Paul Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the
International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen Union, or ILWU.

In Chicago, Davis had worked for the Chicago Star newspaper; in
Honolulu, he was hired as a reporter for the Honolulu Record, both
identified by Kincaid and Romerstein as "communist front newspapers."

In his autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama discusses the
influence a mentor identified in the book only as "Frank" had on his
intellectual development.

Obama described Frank as a drinking companion of his grandfather, who
had boasted of his association with African-American authors Richard
Wright and Langston Hughes during the time Frank was a journalist in Chicago.

Romerstein, in addition to having served as investigator with the
U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities, served in the same
capacity with the House Committee on Internal Security and the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was the head of the
Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation for the U.S. Information
Agency. Romerstein is also co-author of the influential book "The
Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors,"
which included extensive documentation of the communist activities of
Roosevelt administration staffer Alger Hiss.

Kincaid is the founder and president of America's Survival Inc., an
independent watchdog group that monitors the U.N. and international
terrorism. He is also editor of Accuracy in Media's AIM Report.

Are you a member of the Communist Party?

Kincaid and Romerstein quote Kathryn Takara of the University of
Hawaii, who wrote a dissertation on the life of Frank Marshall Davis,
confirming Davis was a significant influence on Obama when the
senator attended Punahou prep school in Hawaii from 1975 to 1979

A transcript of a 1956 hearing before the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee discovered by internal security affairs researcher and
writer Max Friedman showed Davis took the Fifth Amendment when asked
by the subcommittee if he was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party.

In the second report, "Communism in Chicago and the Obama
Connection," Kincaid and Romerstein present evidence supporting their
contention the SDS organization from which the Weather Underground
organization and radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn came,
received financial contributions from the CPUSA, which in turn
receive its funding from Moscow.

Obama's run for the Illinois state Senate was launched by a
fundraiser organized at Ayers' and Dorhn's Chicago home by Alice
Palmer. Palmer had named Obama to succeed her in the state Senate in
1995, when she decided to run for a U.S. congressional seat.

Nine years before Palmer picked Obama to be her successor, she was
the only African-American journalist to travel to the Soviet Union to
attend the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
according to an article Palmer wrote in the CPUSA newspaper, People's
Daily World, June 19, 1986.

"There has been no explanation of why Ayers et al. played a role in
launching Obama's political career," Kincaid wrote.

Kincaid and Romerstein present documentation that Tom Hayden, another
major figure in the SDS, is today one of four principal initiators of
the "Progressives for Obama" movement, which calls for ending the war
in Iraq "as quickly as possible, not in five years."

According to Kincaid and Romerstein, U.S. Peace Council executive
committee member Frank Chapman "blew the whistle on communist support
for Obama's presidential bid and his real agenda" in a letter to the
People's Weekly World after Obama's win in the Iowa Democratic Party caucuses.

"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move; it was a
dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle,"
Chapman wrote. "Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the
work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground
that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

Kincaid and Romerstein wrote, "The clear implication of Chapman's
letter is that Obama himself, or some of his Marxist supporters, are
acting like moles in the political process. The suggestion is that
something is being hidden from the public."

.

Digging Halted at Manson Ranch

Digging Halted at Manson Ranch

http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=8352879&nav=9ptCcCva

May 21, 2008
By Nathan Baca, News Channel 3

The search for more victims at Charles Manson's former desert hideout
is over. Inyo County Sheriff's deputies ended their search early
Wednesday afternoon. No human remains were found.

The secluded Barker Ranch is in the Panamint mountain range in Death
Valley. News Channel 3 was the only local station with an inside look
at the remote ranch house.

Frozen in time, the inside of the Barker Ranch house shows few clues
identifying its former occupants: notorious mass murderer Charles
Manson and his "family."

Now, a team of Inyo County Sheriffs deputies is digging up the
grounds around the Barker Ranch, looking for other murder victims at
four possible burial sites. The search begins with gold prospector
Emmett Harder. Forty years ago, Charles Manson was his neighbor.

"When these hippies showed up then, why, they were just some of the
people that came in and out. They came to our mining camp. Carl and I
were brining high grade gold off the top. We have a mine that we
opened up," said Harder as he showed a 1969 photo of Charles Manson.
"This is Carl Rona, and this is Charles Manson, then. And I kinda
described him as a self-styled evangelist because he kept talking to
Carl about the Book of Revelations."

As we drive towards Manson's hideout, this canyon brings a whole new
meaning to 'secluded.' Its remoteness in the Death Valley National
Park gave Manson the chance to live by his own rules.

The Manson Family came to the secluded desert ranch to wait out the
coming race war they believed would come in 1969 between blacks and
whites. They were also looking for "the bottomless pit," an
underground city they believed existed underneath Death Valley.

Emmett recalls, "Charles Manson said, 'We're not hippies. We've
escaped from Haight-Ashbury and we're down here where we get away
from the troubles of the world.'"

When police officers came to arrest Manson, he was found hiding
underneath a cabinet. After Manson was convicted for seven murders,
Manson family member Susan Atkins told Emmett that bodies were buried
close to the Barker Ranch.

"I was told about by this girl another graphic account of members of
the family who decided to escape and when Manson and the rest of the
boys find out they had taken a dune buggy and were getting away, they
went after the, and she gave me a graphic account of that they'd come
back with trophies to demonstrate they'd murdered them," said Harder.
"The other murders, nobody was concerned about them. One was a boy
who's Volkswagen car broke down."

After hearing the account in Emmett's recent book, Sergeant Paul
Dostie of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department brought "Buster," a dog
specially trained in finding buried remains. The dog found five sites.

Scientists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee
brought equipment that can effectively smell the dirt for dead
bodies. It also found some possible burial sites.

But the digging is slow, one inch at a time.

"I think our greatest fear is that we're three feet off and we can't
dig up the whole desert," said Sgt. Dostie.

Harder adds, "My first visit there in years and I got misty eyed and
I felt the horror of what they had done to themselves and what they
had done to other people. When I had been there with them, why...
They were a happy group of young people, enjoying the desert and
enjoying the freedom."

.

The Steve Miller Band still flies like an eagle

The Steve Miller Band still flies like an eagle

http://newsok.com/the-steve-miller-band-still-flies-like-an-eagle/article/3247252/?tm=1211520244

May 23, 2008
By Gene Triplett
Entertainment Editor

Time may keep on slippin' into the future, but it's not getting past
Steve Miller without being put to good use.

Not this year anyway, as 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the
release of his band's first two albums, "Children of the Future" and
"Sailor." To celebrate, he's unleashing "Live from Chicago," a
special DVD boxed set documenting his two-night stand at the 2007
Ravinia Festival in the city where he interned with the blues greats.

He's also just completed enough new tracks to fill three albums ­ his
first studio recordings since 1993's "Wide River."

And he's embarked on a 37-city North American tour that will bring
him to the Zoo Amphitheatre on Thursday with show-opener Joe Cocker.

"We just played three nights at the Fillmore just to have some fun
and warm up, and then we went into Skywalker Ranch to record and we
brought in Andy Johns to do the engineering, and we've just had a
phenomenal month of recording and playing gigs and we're ready to go,
man," Miller said from his mountain home in the central Idaho Rockies.

The third of the three sold-out shows marked his 109th appearance at
the storied San Francisco auditorium. He took his first bow there in
1967, lured away from the fading Chicago blues scene by the promise
of the flower-power movement and its accompanying rock 'n' roll renaissance.

"Those days are long gone," he said. "That (sense of community) was
one of the most remarkable things about those times. It's sort of
tough to keep something like that together. ... That was really a
pretty idealistic time. Probably couldn't pull something like that
off nowadays. But it was like a big co-op, a community of artists and
promoters and lawyers and poster designers and sound people.
Everybody was working on it together, and that's what it took to make
it all happen, and it changed the whole world of rock 'n' roll, and
when you go see a rock 'n' roll concert today, it was those people
back in San Francisco that had that idea and brought it to fruition,
made it all happen."

But Miller still is making things happen four decades after the
Haight-Ashbury heyday, revisiting the bluesy roots that predate even
those heady times. The bonus features disc from the DVD contains a
film of Miller taking a taxi-cab tour through the south side Chicago
neighborhoods he used to frequent in 1964-'65, after he'd moved there
from Dallas. This was where the smoky clubs and barrooms regularly
featured such heavy blues hitters as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters,
Jimmy Reed and Little Walter.

"It was a rude awakening because everything was gone," Miller
recalled. "You'd get to this place, and it'd be like the new world.
This is where Big John's used to be, or this is where Pepper's Lounge
was, where I first saw Howlin' Wolf, or this was Silvio's, and you'd
get there and there'd be like townhouses or modern apartment
buildings and stuff like that. Everything had really, really changed
a lot. And it was interesting, but what was good about it was hopping
in the cab and knowing you were heading over to Pepper's, it really
made me think about all of that."

Certainly, blues has informed even the poppiest of Miller's songs
over the years, from "Livin' in the U.S.A." to "Abracadabra," but
when he re-entered the studio for the first time in about 15 years,
many of the songs he and the band laid down were covers of the
classics by masters such as Robert Johnson, Charles Brown, James
Cotton, Slim Harpo, Elmore James and Bobby Bland. There are some new
originals, too, but the blues was obviously weighing heavy on Miller's mind.

"I think we'll probably break it up into a couple (of albums), but
they'll come out quickly," he said. "I think in today's world there's
no sense in overwhelming people. Go, hey, here's 40 new songs. I like
shorter records, 35, 45 minutes as opposed to 70 minutes of endless
stuff. I was just working on the segueing this morning, and it's
really interesting because there's three records in here and I'm
trying to stretch it to two."

Miller isn't sure whether Capitol, his longtime label, will issue the
music or he'll put it out himself. And when he's asked about the long
period between studio efforts, his answer is quite pointed.

"I mean, the record business sucks. Now I think we can put it out
without having to go through any record company bull----."

Miller said Capitol is already "real chapped" at him anyway, since he
produced and released the DVD on the Coming Home imprint. The
company, which specializes in concert DVDs, spent $2 million
producing the film, which was shot with multiple high-definition
cameras and recorded in 5.1 (Dolby) Surround Sound.

"That's about a million and a half more than Capitol Records has
spent on the Steve Miller Band in the last 15 years," he said. "And
it was kind of fun watching it on a big screen with guys from Capitol
Records who were getting smaller and smaller and smaller in their
seats, realizing that they hadn't done anything. So that's kind of
the record business. But I don't want to bore my audience with
grousing about my boss."

After all, life's too short, and Miller is just beginning to realize
that. Maybe it started with that cab ride through Chicago's south side.

"I'm finally beginning to deal with the fact that I'm gettin' older,"
he said. "I don't feel old, and I work out and I'm in shape and I go
out and play rock 'n' roll all the time. So it's kind of hard to feel
my real age. But I'm 64 this year and, you know, the last 10 years
went by in it seems like about a year. I mean, 1998 doesn't seem that
long ago. So that means the next 10 years are gonna go by twice as
fast, so I'm savoring each tour and each thing we do. Because you
don't know how long it's gonna run and how long the body's gonna hold
up. I'm willing right now. I feel great."

And there's no time like the present.

.