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NEW BOOK ON LENINGRAD SIEGE SHEDS LIGHT ON SOVIET SECRECY BEHING TRAGEDY
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Leningrad, The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ana Reid</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Walker and Company, New York</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">492 pages</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">2011</div><br />By Juan Montoya<br />Anyone who has a cursory knowledge of the nearly three-year siege of Leningrad knows that the story of the inhabitants of that tortured city is one of valor, misery, starvation and resistance in the face of Nazi aggression.<br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Yet, although the world has been fed that depiction of its inhabitants, it wasn't until the breakup of the Soviet empire and the opening of its files on the siege that we have gotten a clearer picture of the true dimensions of suffering in that anguished city not only as a result of the privations of the siege, but also the terror inflicted upon its residents by the paranoid state apparatus under dictator Josef Satalin.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDKSfIPJrPMwdcAp00t9NEKuYzmYOumMzJWDtsNoYMZx0l12NKm5Td3G4vbnHLGN7fk4PrRJog_34sksHUK8wMX3jsptdecKS92jkOYIzhAYVJV3kmz5UYSGhMulyTLIZh0HT6MBQin0/s1600/Russia+during+world+war+2+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDKSfIPJrPMwdcAp00t9NEKuYzmYOumMzJWDtsNoYMZx0l12NKm5Td3G4vbnHLGN7fk4PrRJog_34sksHUK8wMX3jsptdecKS92jkOYIzhAYVJV3kmz5UYSGhMulyTLIZh0HT6MBQin0/s400/Russia+during+world+war+2+2.jpg" width="400" /></a>Yelena Kochina's 1941 <em>Blockade Diary</em> has long been the basic text on the travails of the Leningraders. Yet, its account has whitewashed the shortcomings of the Soviet government in dealing with Hitler's blockade of the city. With access to up until recently prohibited government documents, the picture becomes clearer.</div>For those of us uninitiated on the theme, some numbers of the siege of this city of some 3 million by Nazi divisions will give us a context of this calamity. Between December 1941 and July 1942, when the siege was finally lifted, some 750,000 Leningraders died, some 17,000 as a result of German fire and bombardment, the rest, incredibly, of sheer starvation.<br />Think of it. <br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">During the 872 days of siege, between one in three or one in four of its city residents perished from cold and hunger. It has been documented as the deadliest blockade of a city in human history. Between September 1941 and January 1944, 30 more times civilians died in Leningrad than in the London blitz. In fact, four times as many people died there than in the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima put together.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Yet, the blockade was just the latest in a series of disasters that afflicted its residents. They had already been through three wars: WW I, the civil war between Bolsheviks and the Whites, and the Winter War with Finlnad. They had endured two famines, one during the civil war and another during the disastrous collectivization of farms during 1932-1933. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Additionally, Stalin's paranoia and depravity had also resulted in two waves of political terror that decimated the leadership of the Party, the military and intelligentsia. In short, as poet Olga Berggolts wrote of Leningraders: "We measured time by the intervals between one suicide and the next."</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The groundwork for the siege was laid way back in 1939 when Stalin and Hitler negotiated their non-aggression pact that divided Poland and gave the Soviet regime the false hops that the pact would keep Germany from invading Mother Russia. Just prior to that, between 1937 and 1939, Stalin's terror resulted i the arrests of more than 40,000 of Russia's military forces. Fifteen thousand o them were shot, the rest sent off to gulags all across Russia. The damage done to the military was disastrous and in fact made it easier for the German army to sweep into western Russia. Three out of five Marshals of the Soviet Union were arrested and shot. Fifteen out of 16 army commanders were also liquidated as were 136 out of 169 divisional commanders and 15 of 25 naval admirals. In short, Stalin's terror decapitated the Soviet armed forces just before German invaded.</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiidG-YsAoB__vP4zTu_4vQNohb_D2BC6ELJzijYqoLdl5C9JwxzbBpOLXYz9ivmpCr2T2NFakQWjeSDiHYBzZcezFu0byidIbFH6DCh0AjlUTV0yTgV6IehwiE5CzxFsUut-_ZqNofrRc/s1600/Russia+during+world+war+2+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiidG-YsAoB__vP4zTu_4vQNohb_D2BC6ELJzijYqoLdl5C9JwxzbBpOLXYz9ivmpCr2T2NFakQWjeSDiHYBzZcezFu0byidIbFH6DCh0AjlUTV0yTgV6IehwiE5CzxFsUut-_ZqNofrRc/s400/Russia+during+world+war+2+5.jpg" width="400" /></a>Even during the spring of 1940, as the German army overran France, the Low countries and Yugoslavia, Stalin held on to the hope that Hitler would not attack Russia.</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">"Notoriously," Reid writes, "the trade commissariat continued to send grain, petroleum, rubber, and copper to Germany right up to the very night of the invasion (June 21)."</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Once the siege was in place, the mortality rate reached unprecedented levels. At the height of the siege, in 1942, 101,881 Leningraders died of starvation in January, 107,477 died in February and another 100,000 died in March. On either side of that peak period, Leningraders died in startling numbers, 52,881 one month, 79,796 on another, and another 53,183 in another month.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The only avenue left the besieged city was frozen Lake Ladoga, and even then Soviet authorities bungled the evacuation of its citizens with a system riddled with corruption where everything necessitated a bribe to some crooked official to get anything done. Reid writes that even as the residents left the city, they had to bear the inadequacy of the truck transports, some of the hunger-weakened passengers simply jolted out because they lacked the strength to hold on.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">"A woman soldier assigned to the route picked up the corpses of half a dozen babies and toddlers each morning, flung from their mothers' arms as the lorries raced to beat the dawn (and enemy planes)," she writes.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In the city, the corpses of the frozen and starved were packed on sleds and pulled to a morgue where they were bunched together with the other dead and dumped in mass graves, today a large park in the city.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After the war, Soviet authorities tried to paint the travails of the residents as a demonstration of Soviet courage and determination against the fascist Hitler regime. Yet, in this new account, Reid lays bare the truth that in many ways, it was Soviet bungling that led to the siege in the first place. <br />As starvation set in, the courage and compassion of the few were offset by the desperation of the many who were not above mugging weaker residents for their precious ration cards, eating cats and dogs, and later, the dead. In some cases, the residents were too weak to carry off the dead and many lived with the corpses of relatives for days and weeks after they died in their homes.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Reid's unsentimental account of the siege of this city is a must read for those students of human nature and institutions in the face of dire adversity. Get it at the public library of buy it. It's worth reading.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-2613140260761646713?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-book-on-leningrad-siege-sheds-light.html
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LUCIO AND OLIVEIRA PUT ON THE MANTLE AS THE SAVIORS OF HISPANICS
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By<strong> Juan Montoya</strong><br />It must be election time.<br />Why else would you have State Sen. Eddie Lucio calling out newt Gingrich (should he gain the Republican nomination for president) to fisticuffs over his statements on Hispanics?<br />You remember. Lucio stepped forward to defend our honor after he was told (because he admitted he never saw or read the remarks) that Gingrich had dissed our culture.<br /><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHc7xLXfgLYFB-bUHBYpKX3-vuLvHmZo7sJriF21WbQeJTgcAgnVoya-AZM46FvzFO4utpuN5VkXX2zLlSuMgVkX6K-1EvLZbMauKySsMizWSc8lDzPRubnf9iIQkU-QSkeu-RJxwOmvo/s1600/ED+CAUGHT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHc7xLXfgLYFB-bUHBYpKX3-vuLvHmZo7sJriF21WbQeJTgcAgnVoya-AZM46FvzFO4utpuN5VkXX2zLlSuMgVkX6K-1EvLZbMauKySsMizWSc8lDzPRubnf9iIQkU-QSkeu-RJxwOmvo/s320/ED+CAUGHT.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Lucio, D-Brownsville, is going on his 21st year representing District 27 in South Texas which includes all of Cameron County, a slice of Hidalgo, and the empty stretches of farmland in Kleberg and Kenedy counties, was "outraged" by remarks Gingrich reportedly made about the Spanish language. <br />In 2007, Gingrich told the National Federation of Republican Women that that Spanish is the “language of living in the ghetto.†In the speech, he blasted bilingual education and the law that allows states to use more than one language on ballots and other government documents. In Texas and other states across the southwest, English and Spanish are used.<br />“We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English ... so they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,†Gingrich famously said. <br />Lucio, in his best West Texas drawl so alien to his poverty-stricken constituents, he said he was "deeply offended that anyone who wants to be president of this country, a country of immigrants, a country that was formed by taking Mexican land to begin with, would utter such comments,†Lucio said.<br />Well, now, that should make us feel a whole lot better knowing Eddie's taking off the kid gloves and calling out that Nasty Newt.<br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsZ-WJCfrgSj5azJBAqTK-24Z__fyFmZ_BwtVHShY3iOf8dKSoF9i1kgQJNJRlBByj0J8ZnHzGIQZw7v5pty4oCAlrpvR4dU4uW3Mr4Q4U4n1AhuDuSSzLf9Q8Rq9MbyWsvg6eoARYD4/s1600/renejuliet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsZ-WJCfrgSj5azJBAqTK-24Z__fyFmZ_BwtVHShY3iOf8dKSoF9i1kgQJNJRlBByj0J8ZnHzGIQZw7v5pty4oCAlrpvR4dU4uW3Mr4Q4U4n1AhuDuSSzLf9Q8Rq9MbyWsvg6eoARYD4/s400/renejuliet.jpg" width="400" /></a>And how about State rep. Rene Oliveira? You know Rene. He's been wining and dining across the panorama that encompasses his district (and in Austin) on political contributions in between sessions. And he can proudly point out that he has been on the board of directors of the National Council of La Raza. More than one local resident has seen Rowdy Rene imbibing and making like a <em>gavilan pollero</em> putting the move on any strays he might run across at hospitality cocktail hour.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">He also stood up for us downtrodden Mexes by voting against giving local cops the authority to get immigration status identification during traffic stops. He even coined a cute little phrase: "Driving While Mexican" and uttered it on the floor.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But if this unlikely pair of La Raza paladins had really stood up for us, they would not have facilitated the rape of our community college by the UT System by excluding not only UTB-TSC, but also UT-Pan American in Edinburg from funding through the fabulously wealthy Permanent University Fund (PUF). Instead, they meekly came hat in hand and for a passel of lentels held the community down while the UT regents pillaged and raped her. "You want to meet my seester, Mister?"</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Over the course of the 20 years that the "partnership" has existed, it is estimated that "transfers" from TSC to the UT System (UTB) have totalled close to $1 billion. Were it not for the current majority on the TSC board, the System would have acquired some $200 million in community college assets including the real estate, buildings and bank deposits. It took community residents showing up at their doorstep and in hearing sin Austin to let these fine gents know that we weren't going to allow the rape to continue before they finally got the message. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Why is it that of the 15 or so components in the University of Texas and Texas A & M system only those in predominantly Hispanic (let's call a spade a spade, Mexican-American) South Texas are left out of sharing in the oil and gas royalty investment revenues? Even neoconservatives like Dan Rentfro, the TSC counsel, has argued that the local branch of the UT System can well take the system to court and argue that the state is discriminating against us because of our communities' ethnicity.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Isn't that where the paladins of la Raza are supposed to step in and defend our honor?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">No, instead, they argue that such actions would be "contentious." We should just be satisfied that we have the burnt orange longhorn skull affixed to the buildings we pay for and be thankful for it. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">If the folks over at Prarie View had though like out heroes, they never would have forced the UT System's hand and took them to court and got their share of the PUF cash. They didn't care if the dispute got "contentious." After all, they were defending their people (overwhelmingly black) and getting what was rightfully theirs, a fair share of the state's education monies from the PUF.</div>Leave poor Newt alone, Eddie. And if Rene took some time from his partying and womanizing for just long enough to defend our honor in the legislature, we might just believe the Superhero drivel coming from these gallant defenders of our honor.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-2212640843044730196?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/01/lucio-and-oliveira-put-on-mantle-as.html
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