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An Online Publication of the Anonymous Anything Society — January 2, 2019


 BROWDER

    You have to have lived in the 1930s and/or 1940s, for that name to have any significance.

    While waiting for something a little less inane to rescue me from total boredom caused by two usually watchable talking heads, who apparently thought by opening their mouths in Times Square... in the rain, something amusing would spew forth, and of course it didn't. It's a common fault of broadcast personalities. I know, because I was one.

    Because it was handy, I flipped through my wife's "Holiday" edition of Vanity Fair Magazine and the person above who is named as the title of this piece appeared in a centerfold spread, to pierce my addled, but perfectly sober, brain pan. Almost right, but off a couple of generations.

     Oh yeah, Browder, B-R-O-W-D-E-R, yeah, I remember him. Back in the mid 1940's, Earl Browder, big buddy of Uncle Joe Stalin. He was the Secretary General of the Communist Party, USA. He actually  made it to the general election ballot when Roosevelt was re-elected and 80,195 real, live "commies" and others in the U.S.A, voted for Comrade Browder to be President.  

    This of course aroused anti-communist crusader, Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee along with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who put an end to the radical labor leader's aspirations. He nabbed Browder for making a fraudulent statement on a passport application and sent him to a Federal Lockup for 14 months.

    Only that Browder was Earl Browder, grandfather of Bill Browder, who is shown above. The Browder above had nothing to do with communism. In fact, he is a very successful capitalist. He did make it to Russia, but as head of Heritage, an investment group, where he made a fortune on the breakup of the USSR.

    Now, Putin wants him dead, he says. Putin once had Spanish police arrest him with the aim of extraditing him to Russia, but Bill talked his way out of custody in Spain in two hours.

    He lives in England now and travels in a three (or four) van entourage of bodyguards, if he goes anywhere.

    He keeps insisting that Vladimir is a crook, something often bad for one's health.

    Some story! Stay tuned. As Yogi Berra said (He really did, during the 1973 World Series), "It ain't over, til it's over."

 

--Phil Richardson, Observer of the Human Condition and Storyteller 

    "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself."—Joseph Menchen

Our unending thanks to Jim Bromley, who programs our Archive of Prior Commentaries


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