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Ron Ridenour
Born in the US Military Empire, in 1939, Ron Ridenour rejected the American Dream in 1961, and has since acted as an anti-war, solidarity, and radical activist (Long Hot Summer, 1964, in Mississippi; Wounded Knee AIM 1973; anti-Vietnam war organizer). He has lived in many countries and worked as a journalist-editor-author-translator for four decades, including for Cuba’s Editorial José Martí and Prensa Latina (1988-96). His most recent of 13 books is, “The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert” (June 2018, Punto Press, NY); six books about Cuba (“Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn” and “Cuba at Sea”), plus “Yankee Sandinistas”, “Sounds of Venezuela”, and “Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka”. His website is, www.ronridenour.com ; email: ronrorama@gmail.com
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https://ronridenour.com/index.htm
Journalist-author-editor-activist for peace, equality and justice is how I describe my life. I have written for the mass media until blacklisted, for the underground and for social media. I have written thirteen books plus co-authored three. I was born in the "devil's own country", October 1, 1939, of a WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon protestant) military family. Growing up I experienced the pains and indignities of US chauvinism and racism at home and abroad, its imperial domination, its brutal jingoistic wars. Before I understood the essence of US imperialism, I joined the US Air Force, at 17, to fight the Soviet "commies" when they occupied Hungary, in 1956. Posted to a radar site in Japan, I witnessed approved segregated barracks at the Yankee base, and the imposition of racism in Japanese establishments. I protested and was tortured by my white “compatriots”, who held me down naked, sprayed DDT aflame on my pubic hairs, and held me under snow. This, and the fact that we had orders to shoot down any Soviet aircraft over “our” territory in Japan—which never appeared—while we flew spy planes over the Soviet Union daily, led me to question American values. In shame and anger at what the US really does against peoples at home and around the globe, I took responsibility. My first demonstration was in Los Angeles, April 1961, against the Bay of Pigs invasion.The Cuban revolution, which sought equality and an end to racism, inspired me to become an activist, and I joined the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. I helped build the budding student and anti-war movements just forming when I entered college in Los Angeles. I also participated in the civil rights movement in Los Angeles. I was an activist during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign to force the state to allow black people the right simply to vote. I later supported the Black Panther Party, and other liberation movements inside the monster as well as revolutionary movements throughout Latin America. I was with the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee occupation (1972). I aided AIM and wrote about their resistance for the Los Angeles Free Press. Most of my activism, though, until May 1, 1975 was in support of the Vietnamese people's fight for their country, Laos and Cambodia as well. I am most proud of that anti-war movement for having performed an important role in their victory over the US invaders. International solidarity helped shorten the length of the long war. Here are remarks attributed to a leading Vietnamese military figure. “The nationwide antiwar movement in the U.S. was a major contributing factor to Vietnam’s victory”. “Our intention was to break the will of the American government to continue the war. The U.S. ‘second front’ — consisting of millions of American civilians and GIs who expressed their opposition to an unjust war — helped bring it to an end.” During the 1960s and 70s, I was jailed a dozen times for activism, once for half-a-year, and spent a week in a Costa Rica prison for trying to travel to Cuba during the October 1962 missile crisis. After the end of the war against Southeast Asia, I obtained 1,000 censored pages of dossiers various National Security Council agencies kept on me. FBI, CIA and Los Angeles Police Department's red squad tailed and harassed me, even to the point of forging tax return papers in an attempt to convince the left and anti-war movement that I was a US military spy. I began working as a reporter in 1967. I was fired from three dailies (Hanford Sentinel, Riverside Press-Enterprise, Hollywood Reporter) for failing to self-censor my reportage and for union organizing efforts, as well as support for the Black Panthers. The FBI visited at least two work places to get me fired. In the 1970s, I reported for and edited several alternative“underground” weeklies, including the "Los Angeles News Advocate“, "Los Angeles Free Press” and the “L.A. Vanguard”. In 1980, I moved to Denmark for love of Grethe. Between 1982 and 1996, I lived for a year in Nicaragua and worked for the Nicaraguan Sandinista government; and eight years in Cuba where I translated, wrote and edited for its foreign publishing house, Editorial José Martí, and its news agency, Prensa Latina. I later traveled to Venezuela and Bolivia and wrote about their revolutions. I did PR work for Bolivia's ambassador in Denmark 2008-10, and was one of two PR persons for President Evo Morales during the United Nation's COP 15 Copenhagen climate summit, in 2009. Between 2009 and 2015, I wrote many articles and a book in support of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, and spoke at many venues in India and London on the book and for solidarity, in 2011.
I have been a special correspondent or free lance for many publications in the US and several Latin American and European countries—among them: The Morning Star, New Statesman, The Guardian (US and England), Playboy, Liberation News Service, Pacific News Service, Coast, Qui, Skeptic, Sevendays, and Pacifica Radio...
I have written for many Danish publications: Copenhagen weekly, Politisk Review weekly, Relief, Information... I have also worked in ecological agriculture (Svanholm collective farm), lectured in schools, and held odd jobs in Denmark. I have been an anti-war activist and have acted in solidarity with Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombian guerrillas and Palestine liberation forces. In latter years I have written for several websites.
My published books are: "Winding Brook Stories," Literary Vagabond Books, Los Angeles, November 2019. "The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert", Punto Press, New York, June 2018. “Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka”, New Century Book House, Chennai, India, November 2011 (English here)
“Sounds of Venezuela”, NCBH, India, November 2011 (English and Tamil)
”Cuba: A Revolution in Action”, NCBH, India, November 2010 (Tamil)
“Cuba at Sea”, Socialist Resistance, London, May, 2008. (Sailing aboard five Cuban ships as a volunteer merchant marine.)
“Cuba: Beyond the Crossroads”, Socialist Resistance, London, October, 2006. (A look at how Cuba is managing the special period.)
"Cuba: A `Yankee´ Reports", PapyRossa, Germany, 1997. (Only in German but English manuscript is in themes here.)
“Cuba at the Crossroads”, Infoservicios, Los Angeles, California, 1994. (A look at the early special period.)
“Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn”, Editorial José Martí, Havana, 1991, and in Germany, 1994. (How Cuba protects itself against CIA.)
“Yankee Sandinistas”, Curbstone Press, Connecticut, 1986. (Testimonies of US citizens living and working with the new Nicaragua.) Self-published mini-books are: Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy (2106 on websites) https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/725283 Sojourn in Spain (2017 on websites) http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/upload/telechargements/228.pdf https://ronridenour.com/about.htm -----------------------------------
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