.
This
fascinating memoir by Eileen Brand divulges the inside story of bizarre
events that propelled
the author’s husband to prison in a bitter union/political power
struggle.
It
discloses the wheels within wheels that spun through the weird Goodyear
Aircraft ballot box burglary in 1943.
Unique
individuals populate a dynamic era:
-
The Congresswoman who voted against two World Wars, and at age ninety
marched against
the Vietnam War; the imprisoned pacifist who won a million presidential
votes;
the man who began his presidency with a snooze.
-
Labor titans Mother Jones and Joe Hill, John L. Lewis, Harry Bridges,
Walter
Reuther.
-
J. Edgar Hoover’s effect on paupers and presidents.
-
The Phi Beta Kappa All-American football player, magnificent singer/
actor barred
from attending performances in theaters where he had starred.
Bodacious depicts problems of
anti-Semitism, racism; workers’ struggles; military-industrial
depredations and budget devastation; endless warfare (trenches,
foxholes, atom
blasts, killer drones, nuclear terror).
Zest,
humor, humanitarian concerns enliven this personal, controversial book.
It includes
surgical trauma of the author’s childhood, life on the farm,
university education,
Depression, World War II, labor today, the American Dream, helping each
other
help ourselves
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