Sound Bite
In this historical novel and legal thriller, a Trump tweet starts an FBI investigation into political bombings and assassinations in the 1970s by the Weathermen, including Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. The narrative alternates between the original crimes and today's attempts to arrive at justice.
The characters on all sides act out of patriotism and their convictions about what America stands for, but their clashing definitions of patriotism show how even an appeal to our sense of values causes conflict in American politics and society.
About the Author
For 40 years Dr. Caleb Stewart Rossiter has been an advocate for a US policy of cooperation rather than domination toward formerly colonized countries.
An activist against the Vietnam War in his teens, he went on to earn a Ph.D. from Cornell University. He moved to Washington, DC, in 1980 to work for the Center for International Policy, the congressional Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus, and Demilitarization for Democracy on such causes as ending US-backed wars in Central America, the anti-apartheid act, the "no arms for dictators" arms trade code of conduct, and the campaign to ban anti-personnel land mines.
In addition to dozens of articles in newspapers such as The Washington Post and journals such as the SAIS Review, Prof. Rossiter has authored or co-authored several major reports on foreign policy, arms control, and democracy.
Dr. Rossiter has also published books on the purposes and uses of American foreign aid in Africa, and on the citizens’ movement against the Vietnam War. His books and articles can be found at www.calebrossiter.com.
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About the Book
Don't Need a Weatherman revolves around a current-day arrest of an aging American anti-imperialist for his role in politically-motivated killings many decades ago.
Real characters, such as Weather leader Bernardine Dohrn and her compatriot Bill...
Don't Need a Weatherman revolves around a current-day arrest of an aging American anti-imperialist for his role in politically-motivated killings many decades ago.
Real characters, such as Weather leader Bernardine Dohrn and her compatriot Bill Ayers and President Trump and his FBI director James Comey, are complemented by fictional characters like FBI Cold Case agent Mar'shae "Black" McGurk and East Coast folk musician Val Shaw. Real political bombings are complemented by fictional political assassinations.
By featuring a number of key historical characters, from 'Weather' leaders to President Donald Trump, and incorporating their actual backgrounds, motivations, actions, words, and voices, the book encourages readers to understand the varied and clashing definitions of patriotism used in American politics. Readers looking for an introduction to the history of the Viet Nam anti-war movement will get the benefit of recent research, because the recent memoirs by various Weathermen as well the latest historical research on the group and their ideology is faithfully incorporated into the novel.
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October 1969: The Decision
A chilling crosswind pushed the white teenager across the quad at the University of Chicago as he walked from his calculus class toward his dorm on 55th, shivering inside jeans and a light Army jacket. At five feet, seven inches and so slight that he had to eat heartily rather than cut weight to wrestle at the lowest...
October 1969: The Decision
A chilling crosswind pushed the white teenager across the quad at the University of Chicago as he walked from his calculus class toward his dorm on 55th, shivering inside jeans and a light Army jacket. At five feet, seven inches and so slight that he had to eat heartily rather than cut weight to wrestle at the lowest class, 118 pounds, Val Shaw didn't have much fat for protection from the lake city's vaunted wind. "Christ," he thought, "only October and the Hawk they warned us about is out already!"
As Val came out of the quad his eye caught the headline from the bright orange Chicago Tribune box: "Thousands Resist Draft, Overwhelming System." Val stopped short, and peered into the box, his eyes moving quickly past the pro-war, anti-hippie Trib's "Flag of the Day" picture to read the first few paragraphs above the fold. The article concerned the very matter that had been on his mind, day and night, for the two months he had been in college. What was the right thing, the moral thing, the patriotic thing, to do about the draft, when he turned 18 in November?
Should he just ignore it, and wait to get caught? Or would the university require him to show registration to stay in school? But even holding a draft card, and not burning it, because he was scared of prison, that would be cowardly anyway, and nothing to be proud of when people asked years from now, "What did you do to oppose the U.S. invasion of Viet Nam?"
"No," he thought, "I have to stand up. I'm not going to hide. I'm going to throw my body into the gears of the machine, like the people stopping troop trains in Oakland. 'The pump won't work 'cause the vandals took the handles'."
Smiling now, and humming the Dylan song that had been revived in anti-war circles a few months before because of another line in it that had been appropriated by SDS's action faction ; "You don;¢t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" ; Val turned the corner and continued on up Ellis, now straight into the nasty wind, finally resolved to resist the draft like the thousands in the newspaper, no matter what came of it.
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More Information
About the Author
In Washington, Dr. Rossiter also served as counselor to the chairman of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he was involved in drafting and pursuing legislation, and writing reports and speeches on the impact on US interests of the decline in America's reputation, US undergraduate scholarships for low-income foreign students, US relations with non-democratic countries in Africa, the US-Iraq security agreement, torture and extra-legal rendition,...
About the Author
In Washington, Dr. Rossiter also served as counselor to the chairman of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he was involved in drafting and pursuing legislation, and writing reports and speeches on the impact on US interests of the decline in America's reputation, US undergraduate scholarships for low-income foreign students, US relations with non-democratic countries in Africa, the US-Iraq security agreement, torture and extra-legal rendition, and congressional authority to approve combat. In 2010, Algora published his book on U.S. policy, The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for America's Global Role.
Dr. Rossiter then became a professor in the School of International Affairs at American University, where he taught courses on African history and politics, US policy toward Africa, the US military budget, and the use of statistics in international affairs such as climate and economic modeling. He has also been a professor at Cornell University and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Then he decided to find out why so few of Washington's African-American students attended his university. He spent three and a half years as a high school math teacher in the capital's high-poverty public and charter schools ; he resigned when ordered to raise failing grades for students who were six years behind and made little effort to catch up. In 2015, Algora published his book Ain't Nobody be Learnin' Nothin: The Fraud and the Fix for High-Poverty Schools, based on his experiences.
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Pages 257
Year: 2018
BISAC: FIC037000 FICTION / Political
BISAC: HIS036060 HISTORY / United States / 20th Century
Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-1-62894-369-6
Price: USD 21.95
Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-1-62894-370-2
Price: USD 31.95
eBook
ISBN: 978-1-62894-371-9
Price: USD 21.95
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