Saturday, February 21, 2015

Rare Historical Photos

Brotherly love without boundaries. 

Joe O’Donnell, the man who took this photo at Nagasaki, was sent by the U.S. military to document the damage inflicted on the Japanese homeland caused by air raids of fire bombs and atomic bombs.

Over the next seven months starting September 1945, he traveled across Western Japan chronicling the devastation, revealing the plight of the bomb victims including the dead, the wounded, the homeless and orphaned. Images of the human suffering was etched both on his negatives and his heart.

In the photo, the boy stands erect, having done his duty by bringing his dead brother to a cremation ground. Standing at attention was an obvious military influence. Looking at the boy who carries his younger sibling on his back, keeps a stiff upper lip, tries so hard to be brave is heart-breaking. He has epitomized the spirit of a defeated nation.

Sometimes later Joe O’Donnell spoke to a Japanese interviewer about this picture:

“I saw a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby on his back. In those days in Japan, we often saw children playing with their little brothers or sisters on their backs, but this boy was clearly different. I could see that he had come to this place for a serious reason. He was wearing no shoes. His face was hard. The little head was tipped back as if the baby were fast asleep. The boy stood there for five or ten minutes.”

“The men in white masks walked over to him and quietly began to take off the rope that was holding the baby. That is when I saw that the baby was already dead. The men held the body by the hands and feet and placed it on the fire. The boy stood there straight without moving, watching the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood. The flame burned low like the sun going down. The boy turned around and walked silently away.”

Inventing a New Nation at Gettysburg

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 Confederate General Richard Taylor

Few actors in history have been hallowed in as many points of the political compass as Abraham Lincoln. During the 1930s, portraits of Lincoln appeared at New York City rallies of American fascists and in the publications of American Communists. He was also the favourite of the most reactionary industrialists and the most advanced liberals of the time. “Getting Right with Lincoln,” as the historian David Donald has described it, has been requisite for all political elements in the United States.1

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is widely regarded as the definitive description and rationale of American nationhood and is the cornerstone of his fame. It has been memorized and declaimed by generations of schoolchildren. Its cadenced phrases are part of the American vernacular and have moved millions around the world.


One might wonder why this short and rather abstract composition, hardly remarked upon at the time it was given at Gettysburg a few months after the great battle there, has achieved such importance. Part of the answer is surely Lincoln’s great rhetorical skill. In the Gettysburg Address (and other orations) he performs successfully the difficult feat of having it both ways. He appears in the famous brief oration as both the conservator of the sacred old Union and the herald of “a new birth of freedom.” Rhetorically, he encompasses right and left, the revered past and the longed-for ideal future.

Santification of the Address has not gone entirely unchallenged in America, however. The iconoclastic Henry Louis Mencken, writing in 1920, described Lincoln as “the American solar myth, the chief butt of American credulity and sentimentality.” Of the Gettysburg Address, Mencken wrote:

“Anarchy Can Never Work”?

Via Michael Downing via NCRenegade

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Semantic precision – for the purpose of this post, “anarchy” means a complete absence of coercive rulers; “social good” means a beneficial economic or social result for ALL participants in a given transaction or activity.

Frequently we hear statists proclaim that anarchy can never work. Let’s give that some thought.
For starters, they invariably neglect to define that term as they understand its meaning. The implication that must be drawn however is that they view anarchy, not as defined above, but as just another political system like democracy. The thought that anarchy, since it involves no ruler(s), is in fact the absolute opposite of a political system never seems to occur to them.

Photos: War II: Life in Chicago

Via Cousin Colby

Mrs. Lenore Radway, left, and Miss Sherley Becker polish a torpedo flask in 1943 at the Amertorp Torpedo Ordnance Corporation in Forest Park, Illinois. As many as 6,500 workers churned out hundreds of torpedoes per month, a long-forgotten but crucial part of the war effort.
Mrs. Lenore Radway, left, and Miss Sherley Becker polish a torpedo flask in 1943 at the Amertorp Torpedo Ordnance Corporation in Forest Park, Illinois. As many as 6,500 workers churned out hundreds of torpedoes per month, a long-forgotten but crucial part of the war effort. 

More @ Chicago Tribune

‘This Is A Black Area So F*** Off’ Young Mother Told

Via Joe

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West Midlands have confirmed they are investigation a racially aggravated attack against a white woman who had recently moved to a flat in Coventry.

Sammie Sunter, 24, received a note saying ‘This area is black so f*** off’ after racist locals stuck it through her front door. The attackers, who apparently believed the area should be the exclusive preserve of one social group also smeared the front door with paint and what was described as “human faeces” just five days after she moved in, the metro reports. 

The mother, who lives with her two sons Harvey Anderson, two, and Oscar Rock, five, was told that the flat she had just moved into was ‘for black sisters and brothers’. She was handed the keys from housing association, Whitefriars, last Wednesday and then worked hard decorating her son’s bedrooms. She left the flat at 1600hrs on Sunday to return the next morning to the filth on her front door.

More @ Breitbart

Hysterical NY State Senator Files Bill to Ban Machetes

 NY Sen. Avella with the two scariest Machetes he could find.

 NY Sen. Avella with the two scariest Machetes he could find. 

In yet another example of the sort of knee jerk, over reactive, nanny state governance that we have come to expect from New York, NY State Senator Tony Avella of Queens is proposing to ban people from possessing machetes.

The politician said Wednesday that the sale of machetes should be outlawed after several recent attacks. His bill, S03199, adds “Machete” to the same list of outlawed “Deadly Weapons” in which you will find switchblade and gravity knives. Potential penalties for violations under that section are up to a year behind bars.
The fact that anyone can easily purchase this potentially lethal tool is just crazy,” he said, failing to recognize that this bill suggests that HIS sanity is what should be questioned.
More @ Ammoland

L.A. Times to NRA: Government’s ‘Responsibility’ To Regulate 2nd Amendment

Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP

On February 19, the Los Angeles Times reacted to the growing momentum for Campus Carry legislation across the country by referring to the NRA as “crackpots” and reminding the organization that it is the government’s “responsibility to protect the public through reasonable gun control laws.”

In other words, “shall not be infringed” does not mean shall not be regulated and/or controlled.

More @ Breitbart

The Teutoburg Forest Massacre: Kalkriese Hill Ambush

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Part 4 of a series

Mike Scruggs

There are several Roman historical sources describing the background and events of the Teutoburg Forest Massacre—Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Florus, and Velleius Paterculus—but none of them were there, and there is by no means agreement on the detail. Varus’s route through the forest, the number of days it took, and the events during that time are disputed. Recent archeology discoveries have helped immensely. In 1987, Major Tony Clunn, a British Army officer and amateur archeologist, using a metal detector, discovered a large area of Roman military artifacts and animal and human bones at the foot of Kalkriese Hill near the northern end of the Teutoburg Forest. Yet we must still rely on logical dotted lines to reconstruct the full story, especially the events within the forest itself.

In this series, I have primarily relied upon Cassius Dio, the only writer who describes much of the battle itself; Velleius Paterculus, who knew personally many of the participants; and recent archeology to draw my own dotted lines. Paterculus is important because he was a contemporary Roman cavalry officer as well as a historian. He probably served with Arminius during the Balkan campaign, and he knew Varus personally. In accessing the character of these men, he favors Arminius. In addition, I found the detail of Roman historical and archeological background in Adrian Murdoch’s 2006 book, Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest, invaluable.

In my opinion, some modern historians rely more heavily on the archeology than should be warranted, because the archeology is in abundance only at Kalkriese. A minority even propose that Kalkriese was the only battle, but I find their arguments unconvincing. Recent archeology has also identified a scattering of Roman artifacts over a relatively narrow path 15 miles long.

Late in the afternoon of September 10, Varus probably realized without doubt that he had been betrayed by Arminius and that a large part of the foreign auxiliary cohorts had either joined Arminius or deserted. He probably realized that even his loyal Roman cavalry wings had proved useless in forest combat, protecting his flanks, and effective reconnaissance. Many of his senior officers had been killed or wounded. Varus may have been wounded himself. Only about 8,000 Roman soldiers would be fit for duty the next day. At this point he probably called on his deputy commander and leader of one of the elite cavalry wings, Numonius Vala, to take his remaining force of about 300 cavalry on the best remaining horses and ride for help. There were two other Roman Legions, the 1st and 5th, posted in Mainz, west of the Rhine, commanded by Varus’s nephew, Lucius Nonius Asprenas. They could also ask their Frisian allies to come to their aid. Paterculus, however, claims that although Vala had always been a man of honor before, he rode off with the intention of desertion.

Whatever Vala’s motivation, he rode off to the north but came to a quick and bloody end. His tired cavalry force was quickly overtaken by a larger Germanic cavalry force, probably German Auxiliary cavalry led by Arminius. Neither Vala nor any of his Roman cavalry survived. This scene may have been in plain view of Varus and his officers. Later that evening, Varus, assisted by a military servant, fell on his sword in expiation for his defeat and perhaps to avoid German torture and sacrifice to their war-gods.  Both Varus’s father and grandfather had died the same way. Many of his senior officers also committed suicide in the same manner. This was considered honorable by the Romans, but it left the remaining Roman force of 8,000 without senior officer leadership.

On the morning of September 11, the two camp commanders (prefects) for the 17th and 18th Legions, Lucius Eggius and Ceionius were left in command of 8,000 Roman troops and many wounded. They organized into two battle groups of 4,000 each, the 17th Legion and the remnants of the 19th Legion under Eggius, and the 18th Legion and the remnants of the auxiliary cohorts under Ceionius.

On September 7, Lucius Caedicius, Prefect for the 19th Legion, had been ordered to proceed to the camp at Aliso (Haltern) with enough men and supplies to set up camp there. Fortunately, he had taken most of the wives, children, and family baggage of the three legions with him. On September 11, Caedicius was just arriving at Aliso. Within days, their palisades would be assaulted by Germanic tribes. But the Germans knew little about laying siege to an enemy camp, and after several days of assaults gave up, allowing Caedicius, his troops, and the women and children to escape across the Rhine to safety. Unable to catch Caedicius, the Germans came back and burned the deserted camp at Aliso.

Eggius led his 4,000-man battle group out of the camp (now called Felsenfeld), to the northwest and found that they were trapped between the 350-foot Kalkriese Hill on their left and impassable marshes on the right with less than 100 yards separating the two. In addition, at least 500 yards of ramparts made of turf, limestone, and sand, about 5 feet high and 15 feet wide, had been built on the slope of the hill, narrowing possible passage. These ramparts were topped with a 4.5-foot palisade of posts connected by flexible tree limbs, protecting a defender up to his chest and allowing the Germans to hurl javelins and shower the Romans with spears, rocks, and arrows. The German ramparts had gates to release cavalry and infantry attacks, panicking and mauling attempted Roman troop formations. Behind the rampart was a drainage ditch to prevent erosion by heavy rains. It probably took the Germans two to three weeks to construct these Roman-style ramparts.  The ramparts were manned by a relatively fresh German force of perhaps 15,000 including the Cherusci, the Bructeri, and now the Anglivarii from the north. The Angrivarii had a reputation for fierce independence. To be continued.

71% of 17- 24 year olds do not qualify for the Army

Via Carl

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.......31 percent cannot join because of multiple felonies and other moral issues such as drug use or other law violations........

................The other major category that disqualifies 17 to 24-year-olds is lack of fitness/obesity and other medical issues........

.........29 percent who could qualify, here is the breakdown that LTC Patton and his staff shared with me. Only 15 percent of individuals age 17 to 24 have any interest in joining the military. Only one percent is serious enough to speak with a recruiter, and only half of a percent join.

South African singer charged with hate speech

Via Nancy

 

The Equality Court sitting in the Western Cape High Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in a hate speech case against Afrikaans singer Sunette Bridges.

 

The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has accused Bridges of hosting commentary on her Facebook page which constituted hate speech, the commission's lawyer Brigit Rubinstein said in a statement on Monday.

"The SAHRC contends that Ms Bridges is in violation of section 10(1) of the Equality Act, in that she has committed hate speech, and is also in violation of section 11 of the Equality Act which deals with harassment on the basis of race.

More @ Times Live