Warfare with Paratge. Treatment of the Vanquished. Crusades.

 Paratge.  
Crusades.
When the Concepts of the Conquered Ultimately Conquer.

The Crusader as Conqueror.  What traits, for how long successful, what seeds of destruction.

Our Western Crusades. Ideas filled with myths of knights off to do right. We are taught one kind: Those to take the Holy Land in the Middle Ages.  We are not taught so much of the crusades against other Westerners:  Inquisitions, crusades against "heretics" (who is not a heretic, if he or she thinks independently?).  We know less of the kinds of knights that originally rode off to kill other knights, and whom they fought, and why.  Rome and Kings. Send them off. Against any Western or Eastern set of believers whose form took issue with forms supported by Rome and the Kings.  Knights against knights.

1.  Those who lost:  The conquered include knights and cultures with codes of tolerance, basic chivalry in the sense of care, protection, foster an order of the universe. Who are among the losers:  Look at the native Americans, native Hawaiians and Pacific Islandars, the Cathars and others named "heretic" and religious groups ignored as Rome took over, excluding Syriac, Eqyptian , Eastern forms and interpretations.  Those who saw themselves as part of a fluid cosmic whole. Is that so? Rather than here to jockey for power. 

2.  Those who won:  Knights and cultures with codes of autocracy, punishment, enforcement, tight control at the top.

3.  How to describe the mindset of each.  For a brief idea of the difference, look at the lexicon of concepts used in another culture, but with similar parameters:  Malama and Not Malama, from Hawaii, at ://www.noogenesis.com/malama.html/   Look at Hawaii, Pacific Islands, and the concepts there:  find "malama" - a word for protecting, caring, balance, inquiry, freedom, a concept beaten out of the conquered - almost - see Socialist Mop, Malama. Here, we look at which attitudes produced a productive people thereafter. What  What qualities or concepts were lost in the conquering. Is the "universe" and its values served in our western history?

Paratge.

Paratge is a word from the past, beaten beneath marching feet in Western Culture, of religious authoritarians who prevailed as Rome's Empire did a lateral pirhouette into Christian militance, and who were offended by alternate views of Christianity in the East, or "heretic" in southern and other parts of Europe, and who - as a conquering institutions - required uniformity, see :Duty to Paratge.

European culture knew paratge to varying degrees through

• the Cathars,
• the Occitan-speakers in Southern France, Northern Italy and the Pyrrhenees areas of Spain, and earlier, 
• in the sense of incidents of not forcing conversion after victories, the Muslims invading Spain in the 800's or so, and leaving infidel minorities in their communities without expulsion, Jews and Christians, but restricting them and taxing only.  No slaughter.  Just use them, limit them. Is that so?  See chronology at ://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/ottoman.html/ Note the centuries of peace, despite inequality, and the blooming of Muslim culture in Spain during the 8th-14th Centuries.  See Pursuing "dhimmitude" in Spain, Muslim occupation 
  
• also in not forcing conversion after victories, the Ottoman Muslims invading Europe through the Balkans in the 1300's, see chronology at ://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/ottoman1.html/ at the left menu, 1300's ff.  
  

Look at paratge here in the time of the Crusades.

What can we learn about animosities between cultures exacerbated by decisions in those times.

 
In what ways might the Paratge approach be superior, particularly in warfare - a counterintuitive idea.  Have there been leaders whose success in instigating long periods of peace can be explained, at least partially, by their doing paratge as to the conquered.
.
Hearts and minds.

Which approach of the conqueror wins hearts and minds:  the forceful killer, the expeller, the punisher; or the one who incorporates the vanquished and allows some continuity - even if taxed, and restricted.  See Saladin and Richard I of England - the Lionheart.  Richard understood the concept, but could not find it in himself to use it consistently.  Saladin did.  They respected each other, balanced each other, but Saladin's peace lasted.
The battles for Jerusalem, the Crusades, the Middle Ages.  What are some of the roots of present conflicts, racial-cultural-ethnic hatreds. Whose approach of conciliation led to lasting periods of peace (Saladin);  whose approach of slaughter the vanquished led to more violence (Richard I).

• Little blood. 637 CE. The armies of Islam take Jerusalem in 637 Common Era.  It was the time of the Dark Ages in Europe. Who ran Jerusalem before then?  The Christians? Or others?  The taking was followed by four hundred years of peace - no slaughter when the city was taken, just restrictions on numbers of churches that the Christians could build, and taxes on them, but the religious groups lived together.  Amazing.
  
• Eyewitness to History website:  Read an account of someone, identity unknown, but who is reliably believed to have been there, at ://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/crusades.htm/  The description was published before 1101.  They took Jerusalem and slaughtered, slaughtered, slaughtered. 
  
• Sidelight big blood.  1187. In 1187, the Islamic Saladin takes back Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Richard the Lionheart and others formed the Third Crusade to wrest Jerusalem back from Saladin. In particular, King Richard I, known as the Lionheart, of England, See ://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/lionheart.htm/. The had to take Acre first - a city on the way.  With disagreements on terms and delays on payments,and already overextended from the effort in Jerusalem, Saladin could not obtain the release of Muslims in Acre and Richard had them slaughtered. 
• When Saladin (of Kurdish origin, born in Tikrit, what is now Iraq) conquered, he became known for his chivalry and mercy; he did not slaughter all the Christians in the city of Jerusalem, as the Christians had slaughtered the Muslims;  instead he provided a means for getting to the coast and on ships and out. See ://www.answers.com/topic/saladin/  He even invited the Jews to return, see ://www.jerusalem.com/article_544/Saladins-Reign-in-Jerusalem/.
  
• 1270 - fast forward to the Seventh Crusade, after takings and retakings of Jerusalem left it by that time in the hands of the Muslims.  Enter the French.  And see them fail.  See ://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/crusade1250.htm/.  See summaries and historical details on things like the food crusaders ate, at ://jeru.huji.ac.il/ef1.htm/; and at ://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cru2.htm/ and the timeline at ://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cru1.htm
  

Of interest here:  How do the two sides differ in basic opposition philosophy over the centuries.  Who has "honor", or "paratge" (a difficult concept for us, thanks to our own cultural decisions, conquests to exclude those who espoused it). 

Are we, the West as virtuous and such a boon to civilization's march upwards, as we like to think. Is a President justified in acknowledging that we have made mistakes (yes).
.
1. Jerusalem is home to many religions, and its control pivots on many concepts. Are these relevant:

• Historical right, in that so much time passed with one group in control that any later divisions arbitrary by others, must fail (in the view of those there); 
• The Right of Return.  The right of the wrongfully excluded to regain what they lost, according to today's standards, so that original claims remain; or - again, time - 
• Exclusion by Laches.  Did laches take hold, favoring the occupants' claim  (somebody waited too long before asserting rights, so that rights of others who continually occupied, supersede). But then, Has so much time passed since Israel was carved out after Word War II, that their rights similarly have superseded what Palestinians who were on the land all that time, might have been originally opposed. 

No answers. At least, no easy answers.

Stalingrad: The Battle that Turned WWII. Women in War Part II. The Night Witches.

 Stalingrad.  
Women In War Part II.

Sequel to Women In War Part I. 

.
World War II Russia
Civilian and Military
Battlefield, and Bombers
 

Soviet female bomber pilot regiment, the Night Witches.

A.  Cultural Resistance to Women in War: Roots.  

This has not always been so.  

1. The Ancients. Meet Minerva, goddess of war. Clearly female: she guards the Armory at Graz, see ://www.justtraveleurope.com/articles/Travel-Europe_5673.html/  To the Greeks, she was Athena: goddess of war, wisdom, defense, crafts, and "heroic endeavor," see ://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Athena.html/

Minerva, Goddess of War, Graz, Armory, Austria

Mars was the male god of War (Greek Ares). And he was just that.  All War. No wisdom. Battle lust, yes, and civil order, but all macho bluster. See ://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Ares.html/  The wisdom of the ancients in discerning.

2.  Middle Ages:  Medieval armor suited both men and women.

Female and male armor, medieval, Thun Castle, Switzerland. Women in war as part of history, later suppressed, east and west.

3.  Modern times.  In World War II, it is the Russians who first included women in formal military roles in combat, including firing back. Women as bomber pilots, in tanks. Also in support roles - mechanics. Add that to the civilian women defending under siege, particularly at Stalingrad, and our reticence about "letting" women enter warfare becomes clearly cultural, and preservation of turf: not based on ability.

B.  Stalingrad: a war event with full female civil and military participation.

1.  Women at Stalingrad/   Among other sources, we find an anchor for individual examples of women in war in Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-43, by Antony Beevor; a work including information about the women fighting at Stalingrad, including material from German and Russian military reports.

2.  History of Stalingrad. The city was Tsarnitsyn until 1925, when its name changed to Stalingrad.  It is now Volgograd, thanks to Khrushchev's efforts to dissociate from the Stalin era purges.  During World War II, the city was Stalingrad. Keep any city's various names in mind for research. Different results from each. Check all the spellings, metamorphoses.

3.  Stalingrad as a pivot point in WWII.

Many scholars see the horrific Battle of Stalingrad, in the early years of 1942-43, in the Eastern Front, as the real turning point, and not the later Normandy landings. See this school-student-oriented site first, then dig deeper: ://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_stalingrad.htm/. See FN 1. They also note that women at Stalingrad, and in the Soviet military, carried out the same kinds of missions against the enemy as men, and - in medical rescue - filled in the gaps where wounded men were disposable as far as military strategy was concerned.  They were heroic in saving wounded when the military hierarchy wrote them off.  Women in Russian culture, as elsewhere (if we look) have a long history in warfare - strength, stamina and skill.

4.  Significance of Stalingrad.  Find other resources about Stalingrad's siege and defense in book and film, at FN 2.  Stalingrad more important than Normandy, without Stalingrad there could have been no success at Normandy? Vet the issues. Consider.

C.  What Stalingrad teaches

1. About Leadership, both sides. Blunders and egos. 

Plus ca change.  Did petty rivalries and bullheadedness of heads of state here (Hitler and Stalin) drive strategy, more than a realistic assessment of the chance for success.  Should the focus have remained on Stalingrad specifically, for so long. Neither side's leader would let their forces give up. And Stalingrad's civilians held the line.

Why did Hitler want the area at all?  And then stay to fight on when conquest did not come. Why did Stalin force the fight when reasonable retreats, or permitting escape, could have saved hundreds of thousands.

Personal and strategic motivations, apparently. It became too late to turn back; and Hitler forbad retreat.  Plus, there were resources there.  Oil in the Caucasus. To win would mean disruption of the Communications hub for the Russians. To win would mean taking Materiel.  Manufacturing facilities. Why did the Germans keep at it.  Hitler's orders.

Why did the Russians fight so hard - morale? Tradition? Or sound strategy, knowing the stakes if they caved.  Stalin pushed for the city named for him, and it stood for so much Russian.  And the NKVD had taken over the river craft for the military, so civilians could not escape over the Volga. The idea was to motivate the Russian soldiers to fight harder, since families and civilians were there (see Beevor site, below, at 106).

Result:  a tragedy of death unimaginable to us living our lives elsewhere so many decades later. Do an Images search for Stalingrad.

2.  About women as a war resource.

Russia permitted women to fight back, pilots of bombers. Some in tanks. Military as well as civilian women under siege did what had to be done.  Don't think spinning wheels here. Basic reference:  Defending Leningrad: Women Behind Enemy Lines / On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman Machine Gunner, by Christopher Ward, Canadian Slavonic Papers, at://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200009/ai_n8910839/ (herein "Defending Leningrad")

There was clear  fighting prowess in the women, either acquired before, or rapidly learned.  They were tenacious and heroic at this place.  Why at this place. Why did they fight out front. Was it all necessity, or was it also affinity.

Read "Stalingrad, The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943" by Antony Beevor, Viking Press 1998.  Ours is an advance uncorrected proof, obtained at a block book sale, but should be close to the one sold commercially, see ://search.barnesandnoble.com/Stalingrad-The-Fateful-Siege-1942-1943/Antony-Beevor/e/9780140284584/.

Here is what we found as to women in the Red Army:  Page references are to the Beevor site book; other references are fully identified.  Meet the individuals - a long FN 1.

3.  What can be learned from Stalingrad.

Are we educating our kids adequately about the past: leaders need to be kept in objective check.  And are we handicapping ourselves in the west, by excluding because of cultural prejudice and male ego, half the population from participating in the military fully.  See FN 2.

4.  Then see how fast the reversion comes.  Ana Yegorova.


Read about Ana Yegorova, one of the Night Witches.

She was a bomber pilot in the Soviet air force, who served with valor but unfortunately survived her crash landing and was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps for five years. 

ANA YEGOROVA

This Night Witch was captured after crash-landing, and spent five years in Nazi concentration camps. Upon liberation, SMERSH counterintelligence accused her of crossing to the German side, tortured her: She says that SMERSH tortured her. They swore at her, called her 'scum of the earth', accused her of joining the Germans. She says she was treated like an animal, and called demeaning, enemy names.  It took 20 years for her reputation to be restored to her by the Soviets, but by that time she "felt burnt out" and felt no joy at being named, finally, a Hero of the Soviet Union. She was numbed, a spark within her had died. "God save anyone from such treatment (the torture)."

See Tale of Two Night Witches, at://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/02/tale-of-two-night-witches/  The site continues to note that the Soviet Union authorized these women to fire back, and they did, and did it well: then the Soviets tried to shut the female squadrons down after the war.  They were too successful. Is that so?

What do we learn of her fate:  when finally freed, her own government's SMERSH then interrogated her for a prolonged period, with torture, saying she could only have survived if she went over to the German side.  Can you imagine? Would that have ever have been inflicted on a man?  That assumption? It nearly destroyed her, in ways that the experience in the camps did not.  Look at the inability of the men to accept strength and ability in the female. Is that so? Perhaps not.  You go vet.

From conversations with students, we see high schools and colleges turning more toward a study of post-war population movements and social change following major wars.  Where is the study of generals, strategies, human failures, heroisms, mistakes, brilliances, suffering and lessons from slaughter. Is the focus on sociology a wise change? Have we given up learning from the past, or did we never do so anyway.
..................................................................

FN 1 The women of Stalingrad.  Women in the Red Army

From the Beekov book, among others (others separately identified)


66  At the Barvenkovo Salient, 250,000 Russian troops had been compressed in, hemmed in, by Germans.

THE BANDIT BATTALION

A German NCO, a senior officer, 389th Infantry, fought fiercely with a "bandit battalion" (his words). They were women, and their commander was a redhead. Female beasts, he calls them.  Treacherous and dangerous, hiding in straw and shooting the Germans in the back as they passed by.

Li

..........................................................................

87   The NKVD, set up by Beria in 1939 was known for executions of German prisoners of war, but a side task was its interrogation of Germans to gain information as to morale, what approaches might work to turn Axis soldiers to the Russian side.  There was little luck with the Germans, but more with the Romanians captured, who resented their country's perceived capitulation to Axis power control.

LIEUTENANT LEPINSKAYA.

Lieutenant Lepinskaya interrogated every member of a smaller detachment from the 29th Motorized Division (German), 4th Panzer Army.  She was from the political department, SW Front HQ.
...........................................................................

91  The Russian 62nd Army was under attack at the Don River. Officers shot themselves, there was little food, ammunition running out, corpses, carts and camels to transport the wounded at night, high casualties, getting worse.

........................................................

GALYA

Here is one woman's response, she a Russian staff interpreter, to a Russian soldier seeking to surrender:  She saw him take a leaflet from his uniform, and head toward the Germans.  Her words:  "Look at him! The snake is going to surrender!"  Then she shot him.
...........................................................................

106-08  Women womanned the anti-aircraft batteries at the Volga.  Richthofen (who had bombed Guernica, in Spain) was sending carpet-bombers over in relays:  One of the female anti-aircraft batteries hit a German aircraft. The pilot baled out, but his parachute took him directly into a blaze.

................................................................
The 16th Panzer Division faces fierce resistance:

THE GIRLS AT THE GUNS,

"FIRST PAGE OF THE STALINGRAD DEFENCE".

Richthofen's bombers attacked from the skies at Stalingrad, and the Panzer tanks moved nearly unobstructed for some 25 miles.  Then resistance from the Russians at Gumrak intensivied (this from a German division report) with anti-aircraft guns firing "wildly" at the armored vehicles from Stalingrad's northwest. The batteries there were operated by women, young women volunteers, late teenage years apparently. Few had any firing eperience, because ammunition was in short supply, and few had been trained to hit ground targets, rather than aircraft. They aimed for the tanks, the Panzers, whose crews were at that time taking the matter rather like a lark, after so long without opposition. But the young girls operated those guns at zero elevation, causing great surprise and consternation among the Germans.

Then German planes, the stukas, arrived.  One Commander Sarkisian, Russian, would watch one anti-aircraft gun after another get hit, fall silent, and believe the batteries were wiped out.  Not so - each time the guns resumed. When Sarkisian told of the events to a writer, he described the girls' efforts as the "first page of the Stalingrad defence."

MASHA

Back to the anti-aircraft batteries and Commander Sarkisian's reporting. He said that the girls refused to to go relative safety underground. Masha, one of them, remained at her gun post for 4 days, achieving some 9 hits. Even if the numbers are not exact, the bravery is.  The Germans, the 16th Panzer Division, reported that the fight meant they had to return shot for shot against 37 Soviet positions, manned (womanned?) with great resilience by "tenacious fighting women until they were all destroyed."

The reaction of the Germans when they learned they were firing at women?  Horror.  There is then a footnote, by the author, that the German Sixth did not know about an early culture, the 'Sarmatae of the lower Volga ' that were an "interbreed of Scythians and Amazons, according to Herodotus."  But the author or Herodotus, which, then says that the Sarmatae "allowed" their women to go to war. 

If they were indeed of Amazon stock, they asked noone for permission.

Chivalry:  cultural illusions fell apart for the Germans, who felt obligated for their own honor to find some reason why these women were so effective in war.  It must be that they are fully trained for combat, write one, says the book, because they certainly are not merely skirted soldiers.  "Russian soldiers treat such women with great wariness."   No wonder. 

•  Note that that that declaration of preparation does not gibe with the other reports of girls just out of high school undertaking military tasks without any training, and succeeding. They must have been trained, those girls, thought the German, probably because he saw himself as so formidable they otherwise could not have withstood the onslaught so long.

............................................

MASHA KOVAL

Do a search for "Masha Stalingrad" and find another Masha, Masha Koval, who survived to tell her story, see The Voice of Russia, at ://www.vor.ru/55/Stalingrad/History_6_eng.html/ At eighteen, she kept crawling under the fire at Mamayev Hill to bring back the wounded while a blizzard blew,  ultimately found two who had already died, and in the cold, lay down to sleep between them, being then picked up as though dead by others - who found she was still alive, and brought her back to a dug-out, and she lived.

Mamayev Kurgan, or Mamayev Hill, is also noted with narrative of events and people at Andrea Smith, The Courage of a People: The Russians in World War II, at ://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/History/Online_Narrative_History/ONHJ09/Stalingrad.pdf/

...................................................

LILYA LITVAK

The White Rose of Stalingrad

Meet a fighter pilot who began flying solo at age 15.  During World War II, she was posted to male units because of her skill, see Dariusz Tyminski's WW II Aces at  ://209.157.64.200/focus/f-vetscor/1656761/posts/  Many names of other WWII women ACES are included there. She was finally killed in 1943, after 168 missions of different kinds, and 12 enemy planes shot down, plus 3 in concert with another pilot.  Read her record, specific sorties. Gorbachev posthumously awarded her as Hero of the Soviet Union.

The nickname:  She painted a lily on her plane fuselage, a YaK-1, it was confused with a rose.  It is said that the Germans avoided her YaK-1, identified from the flower.  It took eight German planes to down her.

...................................................

THE NIGHT WITCHES

"The Night Witches" - nickname first for the 588th Women's Night Bomber Regiment, then for other Night Bombers, including the 46th Night Bombers Guards Regiment.  See ://mysite.pratt.edu/~rsilva/sovwomen.htm/  Read the numbers of women serving, and the branches of service. The photographs show - you go look. At that site.  The BBC did a documentary, see ://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2009/11/091102_night_witches.shtml/ (watch all 23 minutes). There, meet:

................................................................

 NADEZDA POPOVA

She was a Night Witch, in the 46th Night Bombers Guards Regiment, as a pilot.  She said that the name of "Night Witches" referred to their never allowing the Germans any sleep. The Germans, impressed with their night vision, ascribed that acuity as from an unknown chemical treatment injected. How else to see in the blackness,

Find more about the Night Witches, and photos of them, at Tale of Two Night Witches, at ://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/02/tale-of-two-night-witches/  Many were teenagers at the time. They were called "Night" witches, it says here, because they idled their engines to glide silently over the target cities at night.
...................................................................

109f  The woman battalion commissar.

THE WOMAN MECHANIC BECOMES COMMISSAR

There was a technical university at Stalingrad that had been bombed, and its teaching staff helped comprise a "destroyer battalion". One professor became company commander.  A woman mechanic, fresh from the tractor factory, because battalion commissar.  The plant had been converted to build other equipment (T-34's, the Russian tank considered superior to any other in WW2, see ://www.2worldwar2.com/t-34-tank.htm; see photo there).

 ...............................................................

154  Women as medical orderlies, signallers.

Serving as medical orderly or as a signaller meant great privations. The young women in the garrisons could be cut off for days, enduring harsh conditions of smoke, dust, hunger, thirst. There was no fresh water after a critical pumping station at Stalingrad was destroyed.  Soldiers would shoot at drains to get a few drops.

.......................................................................................

157-58  BATTLEFIELD MEDICAL SERVICES

For the Russian command, a wounded soldier was a liability, one who could not fight any more, so had to be replaced.  Healing and his safety were far down the list of concerns.  Thus, the medical services in the Red Army were given low priority.  It was the females, often students or recent high school graduates, who showed great bravery in getting a wounded soldier back from the field.  The women acted despite only basic first aid training.

ZINAIDA GEORGEVNA GAVRIELOVA

One of the female commanders of the "sanitary company" units, one at the 62nd Army, had 100 women under her command.  She was Zinaida Georgevna Gavrielova, age 18, a medical student.  She had been serving in a cavalry regiment, and was recommended for the job.  Her medical orderlies were as young as she, and overcame terror as they crawled out on the field, under fire, to bring back wounded, drag them out of the way. Then they carried them on their backs.  Physical strength, spiritual strength, both were noted by their commander Gavrielova.

Read further at that section about these:

GULYA KOROLOVA (or KOROLEVA)

She was a 20-year old mother who brought back over a hundred wounded, and killed 15 fascists on her own. We are looking for corroboration, or other accounts, and so far find none.  Ah - here is one, linking her with Natalya Kachnevskaya.  See The Courage of a People: The Russians in World War II, by Andrea Smith 2009, at ://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/History/Online_Narrative_History/ONHJ09/Stalingrad.pdf/ (herein Smith, Courage of a People).  The spelling there is Koroleva. The site credits her with pulling hundreds, not just a hundred, wounded.

NATALYA KACHNEVSKAYA -

Nurse with a Guards Rifle Regiment, formerly a student of theater, rescued 20 soldiers in one day and threw grenades at the Germans. She is included at the Smith, Courage of a People site, with Gulya Koroleva, saving hundreds of wounded.  The spelling is variously given as  KOCHNEVSKAYA, or is that a different person? - at the 157-158 page range, this spelling is for someone carrying 20 wounded out of a firing zone in one day, but adding that she was was wounded twice and kept on bandaging and carrying.

KLAVDIA STERMAN -

A former maternity nurse.  She found, with others in her ground-crew staff, thousands of wounded left at the side of the Volga, and, after doing what they could, decided to transfer to the front lines in a medical unit.

YEKATERINA PETLYUK:

She was a member of a tank crew, although few women so served. She is also named as fighting on the ground, see Smith, Courage of a Nation, http://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/History/Online_Narrative_History/ONHJ09/Stalingrad.pdf/ at p.8. She is named along with:

GALINA ALEXEYEVA

She was sixteen, began doing gopher-type tasks, then became a communications officer, with an armored battalion. She was allowed to fight within the city of Stalingrad ultimately.  Courage of a Nation at 9.

MARINA RASKOVA:

She was an aviator who led a women's bomber regiment.   Killed.  The Soviet Earhart. From review of Reina Pennington's narrative book, Wings, Women and War, see ://www.amazon.com/Wings-Women-War-Airwomen-Studies/dp/0700615547/ref=pd_sim_b_4/, Marina Raskova was the Soviet counterpart to Amelia Earhart, the one in 1941 to persuade Stalin to establish the female regiments.  The 46th Guards, Night Bomber Aviation Regiment was staffed throughout the war with women, as pilots, navigators, commanding officers, and mechanics. They flew about 5-15 sorties per night, slept 2-4 hours a day for 4 years, flew a total of over 24,000 missions, dropped 23,000 tons of bombs, and received 23 Hero of the Soviet Union Awards.  Of the 800,000 to a million in the military, over 200,000 received honors. In an integrated regiment, the 125th Guards, Dive Bombers, there were integrated tail-gunners, ground-personnel, and a male commander.  Inclusion of women was not for propaganda or because men were scarce.  Their service commenced at a time when Russia had a shortage of planes, not pilots. Not all women were noble.  See references to the sisters Kazarinova, using their power for personal vengeance, apparently (not read that book).

160  Women from surviving gun crews were reassigned to other batteries.

207  A German wrote home: fair use quote -

"...[t]he time has come for every sensible man in Germany to curse the madness of this war. It's impossible to describe what is happening here. Everyone in Stalingrad who still possesses a head and hands, women as well as men, carries on fighting."

224  To be continued.

.............................................................

105:  Domestic heroism, stamina.

VICTOR GONCHAROV'S WIFE;

AND GONCHAROVA.
  

It was not only the female military personnel who acted so heroically. Civilians showed resourcefulness and courage. A mother was seen to drag her daughter out from the open to get her home, when no male driver would assist.  Most of the men were at the front, or otherwise mobilized, leaving women to cope.  One, Victor Goncharov's wife, buried her father's body in the yard, after a direct hit, helped by an 11-year old son.  They could not find the body's head. Another woman, her mother in law,Goncharova, was lost somewhere - wife of a Cossack veteran. The women survived in bunkers for five months. In the chaos, they did not find each other again for 3 years.

Then:  Memoirs of the defense of Stalingrad, by these women, source: Defending Leningrad at ://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200009/ai_n8910839/.  Look to that Defending Leningrad source also for the full citations to works referenced here.  For the magnitude of women's contribution, note that 800,000 women served in the Soviet military.  Of them, or on their behalf, we have these, as examples:

Diaries or memoirs: either those in actual combat, or as a soldier, or engaged in partisan activities behind lines, or other; and translators and editors of personal journals

• Elena Skriabina, Siege and Survival: The Odyssey of a Leningrader; and After Leningrad: From the Caucasus to the Rhine (she did not engage in actual combat)
  

• Nina Kosterina:  The Diary of Nina Kosterina (she did not engage in actual combat)
• Zoya Matveyevna Smirnova Medvedeva (any relation, Medvedev?), On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman machine Gunner, translator Kazimiera Cottam, see ://www.amazon.com/Road-Stalingrad-Memoirs-Machine-Gunner/dp/0968270204
  

• Kazimiera J. Cottam - translator and editor of personal journals of two women, a partisan and a soldier; also translated and edited Soviet Airwomen in Combat in World War II, and The Golden-Tressed Soldier, and Women In Air War: The Eastern Front 0f World War II;  see also Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers, at ://www.amazon.com/Women-War-Resistance-Selected-Biographies/dp/1585101605/ref=pd_sim_b_5
• Reina Pennington, Wings, Women and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat, at ://www.amazon.com/Wings-Women-War-Airwomen-Studies/dp/0700615547/ref=pd_sim_b_4/ Of particular interest from the review - the Soviets were first to allow female pilots. There were three all-women units, one as dive-bomber pilot, one as fighter pilot, one as night bomber; as well as those serving with men.  Women were also navigators, mechanics, bomb-loaders and others.
  

......................................................

FN 2  Most of us in the West are enamored of the Western Front.  Is that so? All noisy on the western front. All the PR, the  correspondents,  photographs, narrators speaking our own languages (European), multiple branches of everybody's military, naval and air services, water landings, liberations.  And we take for granted that women do not fight out front.  Never did, never should.  Our cultural blinders? Do we really know our own history?

Read Stalingrad, novel by Theodor Plievier, see ://www.amazon.com/Stalingrad-Theodore-Plievier/dp/0881841080/.

See the film, Stalingrad, based upon it at http://www99.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu-1072969/mvie-review-FE2-A99B421-38AC6718-prod6/

Shipping Battlefield. World's Merchant Seamen. Civilian Resources, in Peace and War. Pan-Earth, All-Cuisines Restaurant.

The Mariners: Civilian Resources

US Merchant Marine, Europe's Merchant Navy,
Merchant Sailors, Merchant Seamen

A. In War;

B. At Peace;

C. In Literature

We think we know the merchant marine.  They load and unload, move around the seas, port to port, lots of people who may look different, hover around the docks, set off again.

Wrong.  They enter battle zones, require human connections including food, contact with home, healthcare and support. Our global prosperitye depends on those who move product, including military. Go to a dock. Watch.

Better, walk some, and eat there.  Meet the Pan-Earth All Cuisines Restaurant in Antwerp, at the dock.  They serve whoever appears, and offer the dishes from home.

• Antwerp: The Bonaparte docks. Find world cuisine for merchant sailors here, at the Pan Earth All Cuisines Restaurant, with a skilled chef serving whatever someone asks for, within reason; and the basics of most nationality favorites. Fufu, dishes from India, the Pacific Islands, Africa, China, all available. Ours was first rate. Someone go there and have this fine owner-operator (we can't find his name).  Ask him to write a cookbook.

Pan Earth All Cuisines, Bonaparte Dock, Antwerp; Dan Widing and owner-chef, name unknown to us. He is much admired. Artists pay tribute on his walls.

Carol Widing, Dan Widing, and hostess, Pan Earth All Cuisines, Bonaparte Dock, Antwerp

Artists' tribute to owner-chef, Dan and Chef-owner, , Pan Earth All Cuisines, Bonaparte Dock, Antwerp

Look deeper, farther, who are the clientele, besides us.

6. Training. US. The United States can boast an excellent Academy for training its Merchant Marine officers - the US Merchant Marine Academy, a New York institution, listed as one of the top 371 colleges in the country for academic program. This coveted ranking is from the Princeton Review, an annual survey of colleges and universities. See ://www.usmma.edu/The US Department of Transportation runs it. Go, government.

Uses of and roles for civilian Seamen in war; as well as peace. US Merchant Marine. A labor and service force, in the US the Merchant Marine is an adjunct to the Navy (not uniformed) and available to the Navy in war, thus enabling military activity as well as commercial shipping, cargo and passenger, around the globe. First target of the U-boats, WWI. Since 1936, they have been considered military. Although they enabled the Normandy landings in WWII, and participated under fire in battle areas, mariners who served in war were not recognized as veterans for purposes of benefits until 1988. Overview, of course, for preliminary purposes at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine

Foreign merchant marine: Merchant Navies, a common term in English speaking countries. See the BBC account of the British Merchant Navy activity in WWII at ://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/79/a2152379.shtml/ "Sailor" - term with a long history, obviously rooted in sailing ships, now applicable to any locomotion-type vessel, see ://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Sailor/ Some US ports restrict access to shore for foreign crews, a 9/11 concern but making life even more difficult for the workers, see Life at Sea section at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_transport/ and the union for US merchant workers at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_of_Masters,_Mates_%26_Pilots/

Purely commercial shipping, under flags of some third-world countries (owned elsewhere) may provide substandard conditions on board. After discussion here of wartime service of merchant navies, see what assistance is given and by whom to peacetime transport workers. Legal, counseling, and social-spiritual help at the ports. For foreign ships, a lonely business. US: more protections. In 1908, however, see the push for outsourcing - shippers in US ask for "open door" policy to hire foreign crews so the shippers can pay less and better compete globally, see ://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F0DE7D91739E333A25754C0A9649D946997D6CF

A. Wartime: Conflicts

1. Roles. Historically, the Merchant Marine has had a foot in peace and a foot in war. See ://www.usmm.org/faq.html/ In WWII, they were subject to the draft if they took more than 30 days' shore leave. See://www.usmm.org/faq.html/

Although heavily involved in warfare, they were not recognized as veterans until 1988, and legislation is pending regarding payment for their service during WWII, see issues at ://www.theheraldbulletin.com/local/local_story_224233003.html

Mulberry Harbor, Normandy, WWII, Avranches area. Merchant Marine were there to transport materiel, make the docks.

.

2. The Wartime Mariners. Merchant marines' battlefield: on their own ships. Carrying materiel in World War II, for example, the Atlantic convoys came under repeated attack, see ://www.usmm.org/ww2.html/. Military efforts on the ground in Europe depended on what could get there. For these sealifts, the number of Mariners increased from 55,000 in peacetime, to 215,000 during WWII. One in 26 died at sea, a far greater percentage than ground troops. In 1942, 33 Allied ships (not just US) were being sunk per week. Seventeen Allied merchant ships (5 US) were sunk at Bari, Italy in WWII; 1000 Mariners killed. That is called the Second Pearl Harbor. Of those, hundreds died when one of the ships, carrying its secret cargo of mustard gas bombs, exploded, and the gas killed those around - and many civilians. Crew and officers on the SS Nicolet were massacred after capture by the Japanese near Sri Lanka. Of the 100+, after a rescue effort began, only 23 survived. See also ://www.armed-guard.com/index.html/

The Battle for the Atlantic (WWII) was not for area, it was for control of shipping lanes.

Look back to WWI: the German U-boats were highly successful in destroying merchant ships. Read about specific battles, both wars, South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Pacific, every invasion, at the American Merchant Marine site at ://www.usmm.org/ww2.html/ Anzio, Normandy. These were not all Naval Academy ships - 2700 at Normandy were Merchant Marine. They landed the troops and the equipment, all under fire.
.

How could the Army get over there, if it were not for the Merchant Marine. Army Uncle Sam recruiting poster WWI. Merchant Marine ferried troops to landings and battlefields.

A thousand US Mariners brought and sunk obsolete Blockships to create the artificial harbors at Normandy, known as Mulberry - also at Utah and Omaha beaches. Merchant ships ferried troops, material, airplanes, bombs, fuel. This poster is on display at Montreal's miitary engineers' museum.

3. News. Piracy and Seamen. They are in the news recently because they have been and are being highjacked especially around the East coast of Africa, some thwarted, see http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Pirates+hijack+Turkish+ship+Gulf+Aden/1771690/story.html; some successful, some still evolving, see ://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jAue5-tyv2whwH27bBcykL1vYqyA/; and now, a ransom request as to the Arctic Sea ship, highjacked apparently, but no details, see Voice of America News at ://www.voanews.com/english/2009-08-15-voa23.cfm/.

In any event, highjacked or other reason, with long time no word; the Mariners are at risk. Their occupation alone is risky - injury, illness, overwork, long periods from home. Adding highjacking? Pay attention, world.

4. Global - Mariners by numbers and country. How to read the figures? China is first at 1,822? Sounds too low. US has 422? That puts us 12th. Again, sounds very low. What is the multiple, if any. No idea. See ://www.globalfirepower.com/merchant-marine-strength-by-country.asp/.

You can also look up comparative military personnel numbers at that site. If we do that, and do nothing to multiple up the figures, China the global number one and has 2,255,000 active military; and the US comes in a global second at 1,285,122.

5. The value of merchant navies in wartime: all these are not the domain of the merchant marine, some may be privately owned and operated, but show the kinds of vessels they may be staffing, depending:  see the variety of vessels available. So: navies developed to protect nations' merchant ships; and now the merchant ships fill in for the navies - to varying degrees.

• bulk carriers for ore or foodstuffs,
• container ships, 
• ferries for people and vehicles, 
• reefer ships with temperature controls, 
• coastal traders with shallow hulls, 
• roll-off roll-on ships, 
• tankers for fluids,
• cruise ships, 
• cable layers laying cables, 
• tugboats, 
• dredgers, 
• barges, then a new one for us - 
• the "semi submersible heavy lift" ships or OHGC for open hatch general cargo. 

 See photos at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_transport/. Then go down to the Chesapeake and name them as they pass on their way to the port of Philadelphia.

In some countries the merchant fleet is sufficient to slide over into the military.  In the United States, not so.  The Navy must still do its own, see The Navy as a Fighting Machine, by Bradley Fiske, online at ://www.gutenberg.org/files/17547/17547-h/17547-h.htm/  Do a find for merchant marine. Germany, for example, had a large merchant fleet available; and has such now.  Japan's merchant ships are also numerous. Do not underestimate the resource of merchant ships for wartime, the book suggests. The law of self-protection, shown in having this secondary asset pool? 

B. Worldwide community of seamen on merchant ships.

1. People not in the glory light. People doing hard work while others get recognition for the end result. The merchant marine. In many cases, the forgotten laborers responsible for our standards of living. We are dependent on them. In peace and war. Is that so?

2. Volunteers and agencies. In some ports, there is help when the merchant sailors come ashore. Look for that. Arrive in any port city, go to the docks, and in most parts of the world, find the Seamen's Church Institute (we have no connection to it, but it deserves applause and support).

Seaman's Institute: an organization dedicated to the full-spectrum well-being of merchant seamen around the world, including advocating as they may be able for better work conditions, reaching out and providing, and laws (US), and in the US, even adult education for captains and pilots inland, see ://www.sciphiladelphia.org/, and a slideshow about the Philadelphia port agency work including secular-need oriented ship visitors at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkfyF7SK1Q. Beacon place. Or its equivalent with information and a welcome, for places to bunk, even solve a problem, onshore contacts. FN 1

3. History, risks, weather, what it is like, see this collection of articles at ://www.experiencefestival.com/merchant_marine/ Longshoremen at sea for many.

There are legal protections for United States mariners, see ://www.careeroverview.com/water-transportation-careers.html; and The Merchant Marine Act, 1920, see://www.answers.com/topic/merchant-marine-act-of-1920-1the regulations for bringing an action re unfavorable conditions, see http://www.fmc.gov/home/550RegulationstoadjustormeetconditionsunfavorabletoshippingintheforeigntradeoftheUnitedStates.asp?PRINT=Y#550.601%20Actions%20to%20correct%20unfavorable%20conditions./

4. For many merchant sailors in the world, a hard life, away for a career, in some countries, for minimal pay. Dangerous work, poor health treatment, food handling iffy.

5. Explore a little of the places by the ports. Walk the docks. See how humans stay human, or try to as merchant sailors who are far from home, low pay, hardship for health and comfort, hard work. Needs - to socialize (yes, overnight) and get in some recreation before returning to work. Just walk in, have a seat. Soon you will find if it is a place for you - some do not serve food at all, as in some storefront places in Antwerp - but you will get friendly waves, and we felt perfectly safe on those docks.

C. In Literature

1. Famous! Jack Kerouac, Beatnik generation novelist, writer, painter, discharged from the Navy for "angel tendencies" (schizophrenia, apparently) was also a Mariner, see ://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/14/DD8J193T9B.DTL/ and swapped his sweater for a harpoon, transaction with an Eskimo while Kerouac was stationed in Greenland/

For a long list of ex-mariners, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine. Find John Paul Jones, Jim Thorpe, Allen Ginsberg, Carroll O'Connor, Peter Falk, and our favorite, Popeye 1933, the sailor man (merchant marine early in his career, later identified as navy), and see and hear the song at Youtube - ://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=popeye+the+sailor+man+song&qs=AS&docid=1121365262348&mid=F7493F07215AE0FAF91BF7493F07215AE0FAF91B&FORM=VIVR20/ "Strong to the finish 'cause I eats my spinach...." and see Brutus, Betty Boop and Olive Oyl and an Aargh or two.


2. Reread "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Read it aloud at ://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html/ No fair quitting before you are done, so get comfortable. Have room for gestures. Practice elocution and volume and tone. Go.

3. The Shipping News, novel by Annie Proulx, see ://www.curledup.com/shipping.htm; and 2001 film same name, at ://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120824/ - Newfoundland.

Routine shipping news today in Duluth at ://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/127896/ Find a bridge and watch.

...................................
FN 1 Needs of the merchant sailors in our and global ports. Who cares? Some do.

Some organizations are worth careful looks and appreciation, whether secular or religious. The Seamen's Institute is a religious organization doing secular and ecumenical work as a social service arm, a pragmatic place. It was begun in 1834 - with actual floating chapels - and is an ecumenical effort, begun by Episcopal Church and extended to all forms of care, meeting needs, and now including treatment for the effects of piracy. Amazing. No other worldwide group has stepped up to do anything like it. It is a fully volunteer agency. See ://www.seamenschurch.org/474.asp/ Here is an archive slide show, at ://www.seamenschurch.org/775.asp/ Apparently 80% of the seamen never get off the ships, and can be on board for 10 months at a time, even longer. That from the Youtube film.

Opinion Implants in News Slots. Fact-Check as Peacemaker.

News is no longer reliable.
Turn to a fact-checker to foster peace.
Would that work?

Do We Need Some Version of a Fairness Doctrine Again?
A "certified" news presenter category?

The pipedream of world peace - it takes reliable dissemination of fact.

Scratch that. Too many facts involved. Inter-ethnic peace. No, won't work. Nobody will value other ethnicities. Regional peace. No, that's out. Facts will be spun to suit the powerful. Inter-religious system peace. That's worse. They want belief, not facts to challenge it.

What would help? Is war the only ultimate settler. What to rechannel? Is it reliable dissemination and discussion of fact, the content in an issue? Opportunity to explore options, as we do with sibling rivalries? Perhaps. But even that takes a calming down first.
.
Is there any way to instill a discipline, to get facts and explore options, before forming firm opinions? Won't work. There is money in forcing opinions without spending time and cash on gathering and presenting information. Besides, with informataion, your personal interest may not prevail. Can't have that.
.
So: What do we have instead:

.

1. Distract the people with entertainment: Opinion-Churning. Present a battle of opinions. The new media blood sport.

.

News via Talk Show; unknown information impersonator

.

2. Poll the people before they are offered the facts.

3. Control the Information Flow;

4. Promote Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - FUD - Before They Have the Facts..

5-6. Who has the money and dedication

to counter the marketing, perception management that run our democracy.

Could discussion of facts before commitment avoid wars?

1. Distract with Entertainment

A. Opinion- churning:
.

It works like porn in marketing --
Add some opinions, make them spicey, and you get people's attention.

.

Watch with us. How exactly are we distracted from the main business at hand. Start here:

This is the news! Background music revs up, visuals pan around, headlines pop. Big event here, and another there! Just look at that!
.

Fact-finding mission, China. Who focuses on the nice fact to the right there, with all those Opinions behind.

.

And there is a vital fact, over there, at the bottom right.

If that fact goes unnoticed, the whole story, the whole significance of the issue fails. And yet - is anyone paying attention? No!

Nobody is paying attention because there are Opinions back there, big Opinions! and nobody is paying attention to the linchpin fact over there.

How is it done through the hearing? And watch the weasel words, the unattributable statistics, the vague, "some people say", that papers the walls of CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Weasel words in places where facts, attributable, verifiable facts, are vitally needed for this democracy.

Skip the words. We got visuals. Oh, my - get an eyeful of those Opinions.

Instant gratification of the senses even in politics wins in the attention department. Thinking function? Step aside while these nice people distract you from other things that matter.

• For the purveyor, satisfy the imagination, and reality diminishes in importance. Is that so?
• For the immediate, subject consumer, all those Opinion Implants in the news slots can look good, but over time, watch the sagaway. FN 2. Does anyone tell the high school seniors who get them as graduation gifts about that?.

While they hold up, the opinions can be great fun, titillating indeed, entertaining, marketing opportunities, Compare them to somebody else's opinions, and before you know it, your life is gone -- just like the hour-long ersatz news show that had no news to add to the debate in it.

We agree this is a bit much. The implant image is not a friendly one when looked at more closely, in another context. The whole analogy may be a bit much, but the principles remain the same: window-dressing serves lots of egos at the time, sells for the short term, but does not get the real job done. What is correlation between the window-dressing and vital decisions to be made. And we just love it anyway. Lead me astray, please.

The parallel to TV? They say this is a news segment, but all you get is commentary. Is that it? Back to the polls. Ask the people polled what basis in fact they use. We bet the stares will be blank ones. Ask them whose opinion they heard and relied on, and you will get clear answers. Opinions of regular people are based on opinions they hear on TV or read in the news slants. Is that so?

Got to grab their attention and sell what we got because this is a market - and regardless of the real issue. Like the girls draped over the hoods of the old cars. Glitz up the news with the hate about it on one side, and the gush on the other. Forget the car - we got the ladies and the band. This celebrity. That talking head. That hoary legislator in the bubble.

Who can remember the issue with all that excitement going on. Barnum would love it.

Car show, Kosice, Slovakia

But look at the consequences. We are whisked away because we got ourselves swayed by Opinions, into a war or other persuasion mentality.

B. Present Opinion-Churning as a Blood Sport for the news industry.

Drawing blood draws an audience, so surely we can pollute news with opinions so we can see the match-ups. In our nice home colisseums.

.

Opinion Fight. Old print.

.

Shows pit one Opinion, turn of a phrase, against another. "Ooooh!" goes the audience, impressed, and waiting for more. Show a fight, violence, verbal catfights, a mudwrestle, political or religious Survivor fighting political or religious Survivor, cannonading Opinions to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, volley and you know. Thunder. Get out the nearly nude roller derbies of competing Editorializing, and you got sport, man, you got sport.

What was the fight about? Who cares. We got ourselves a fight. Pop the can, edge in closer to Watch.

2. Polling Shmolling
.

Poll numbers come in.

Ten minutes of an evening news show stems from reporting on the poll; but the question asked leaves so many loose ends, so many qualifiers are hovering out there, that the answer depends on how the pollee filled in the gaps himself or herself.

Ten minutes lost from reporting the content of the latest policy initiative, the content of opposition policy initiatives (if any), content that we could use for analysis.

Then another ten minutes panning from opinionator to opinionator churning other peoples opinions on the stuff we aren't getting the facts about. Look at the weasel words - ://www.answers.com/topic/weasel-word/; ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word/, a site that itself warns the reader about weasel words in it. Even the contributors use them.

.

Polls. Opinion tracking.

What are they good for when we get opinions instead of news in the media and papers. So long as people get more "opinion" than "news" on TV and in the papers, the poll results reflect people's opinions -- that the people themseles arrived at, from being exposed to a hundred media celebrity opinions.
.
Opinions On The Move. Old print.
.
Who knows what facts the celebrity - political, religious, talk show - used or rejected. Somebody will assume it is grounded.
.
None of that gets vetted. We train people to follow celebrity and to demand "entertainment" - so the news uses entertainment marketing techniques, inserts opinions and opinion wars into the news, and soon there is no time left for the news. And celebrity views - political, religious, showtime celebrities - become more important than the facts. Is that so?

Why not ask what is important:

• What facts do you understand about this issue or that issue.
• Where did you get your facts.
• Do you have a computer? Do you ever use a fact check?
  
• How much time do you spend watching opinion shows.
• How much time do you spend watching or seeking out hard facts about news.
• Whose opinions do you value most.
• How much time do you spend listening to the opinionator's opposition

Political celebrities, religious celebrities, media celebrities, all with a shtick, all tools for propaganda. Persuasion, not information. Is that what we watch when we see all those opinions instead of "news." Shall we teach children how to spot it?
.

3. Control the Information Flow
.

Governments and markets know that free communications, more information, can be dangerous, because they may lead to less support for a cause or a drug, not more. The more people know, the more they may exercise independent judgment. Therefore, enforce opacity - not transparency - and the troops muster faster. Is that so? Catch their emotions before they have the facts? See Fear of Fog: Emoticon Dominance.

.

Conflict requires dedicated opponents, each with a single-minded viewpoint. How to get that. How to get the citizens to come down on your side.
.

a. Woodrow Wilson. Committee on Public Information.

As to government efforts on the force side, see Woodrow Wilson and the Espionage Act of 1917, that allowed us to imprison those people criticizing the WWI effort, interfering with the draft. See ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1344.html/ It was amended by the Sedition Act of 1918.

False statements. False reports.

Those were crimes then when we were at war. Hello, Dick. What about today? See ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1345.html/ Schenck v. United States - Supreme Court upheld restrictions on speech.

That was the great Oliver Wendell Holmes.

b. Fairness Doctrine. The medicine worked but the patient died.

Look back at the 1941 Mayflower Ruling - not a law, just FCC policy, but it established The Fairness Doctrine, later judicially upheld in 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, so that the FCC could deny a broadcast license if the person or group did not serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity."
.

Read about those in the google book Propaganda and Mass Persuasion, by Cull, Culbert and Welch, at page 410 ff (long URL) at ://books.google.com/books?id=Byzv7rf6gL8C&pg=PA410&lpg=PA410&dq=Woodrow+Wilson+war+persuasion&source=bl&ots=Wk2aooy31Z&sig=Tqg-2XwfONISnzIWBlzzWDB09vc&hl=en&ei=YkM4SqbQIM-_twe4k_njDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6/. Read there as well:

"The United States is the largest consumer and disseminator of propaganda and persuasion in history."

The fear of oppositional propaganda leads to a strong government response - a) muzzle the media, while using its opportunities to reach more people, more effectively, where they cannot defend, and the history of how to do that is frightening. Or b) fake the news: plant the plants. See The Fodder Site: Any Propaganda Today;. World War I was not the beginning. Read our efforts back to colonial times.

The Fairness Doctrine. is there something left there, to slide us away from the polarization, the vitriol, the killing by abortion vigilantes and other extremists, that comes from long-steeping in one sided, manipulated information. Is it time to reconsider, to offer an immediate, visible other source.
.

When there was scarcity in the bandwidths or whatever, the Fairness Doctrine was useful. The FCC could require steps in the public interest: balanced productions of news: seek out community affairs, offer counter-statements to opinion. See Fairness Doctrine, about U.S. Broadcasting Policy, by Val E. Limburg at ://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm/.
.

Can it return where there is not that scarcity, on grounds that there is no effective place to turn any more for the public interest information. All the "bandwidths" are taken up by the spewers. We have different kinds of fact checks, or public media; but too many people don't even have computers. The idea was that there is no longer that scarcity, so the function of the Fairness Doctrine is not useful, and it may even have led reporters to shy away from difficult stories because of the obligation to show other sides. But it didn't work. The marketers simply took over.
.

So the Fairness Doctrine fell away, both as FCC policy and legislation, by the time of the Reagan era, and revival legislation was vetoed by President Bush in his time.

• So what happened? "News" is virtually gone. With editorializing now fully open season, that is all we get. Facts, actual information to add to the debate, zip. We've cut the Hartford Courant and moved to the New York Times, and perhaps a few good national papers could do the job after all. Let the locals slip in a section for state news. But that only addresses the few of us who are left who like a morning paper.

News time slots are overwhelmed by Opinion and Churning Opinions, offered without the needed underlying facts so we an evaluate the Opinion. Chatterers pit one Opinion against another like a blood sport. A fact here? Quick - cut to Opinion. More facts? Skip it. All the real excitement, to get the adrenalin running, entertain and gratify the viewer, use the soundbite, the flasher technique, on Opinions. Sell them first. Market everything.

c. J. Edgar Hoover. Easy to get a foothold, my dear.

Then fast forward to the post WWI era and the social issues of immigration, then the Red Scare, who followed whom and the rise of J. Edgar Hoover - see ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1343.html/ We just have more ways to do it now. Is this part of our children's education, our own history? The human hard-wired idea, get what you want any way you can, pound the facts like bread dough and see what rises, is not new.
,

d. Edward Bernays over it all. All the world's a market.
.

Flower market, Croatia

Selling ideas like little blossoms.

How does this lack of news, and just sales talk for whatever idea someone will buy, impact upon the drive to war and polarization.

Lack of news, or carefully chosen, spun news. For the master of the skill of manipulating opinion, see Edward Bernays, 20th Century market, propagandist, American, at ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edward_Bernays/

He would be proud of the current technique of opinion implants in news programs. Opinions Gone Wild. Mesmerizing! Getting nothing but opinions also pushes people to positions of extremes in viewpoint, since the facts behind the opinion are seldom vetted. Unbridled opinionating is a prerequisite to war or any conflict.
.

What if the facts, if known or discussed, would not support the person's or the group's or the government position.

Suppress it; or distract from it.

If you were president, you could establish a Committee on Public Information. Woodrow Wilson did, see ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Committee_on_Public_Information/.

Promote polarization for the cause. Against the defined enemy. What time do we dedicate in media to getting facts out. Test it. Turn on your gadget. Time the time given to Opinion and churning opinions, and the time given to objective facts about the event or issue itself, to edify the debate. FN 1
.

Bewailing, identifying issues and warning are not enough, however. We expect that power in commerce, politics and religion will manage the information, control the flow.
.

4. Promote Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt;

Not an Alternative Substantive Plan

What does all this marketing of opinion do? It dumbs us down. Maybe we are too far gone. Maybe Sam Zell is right - the readers want puppies and entertainment.

It skews the polls. We don't have the facts we need to form our own opinions. We parrot people we like to identify with, like celebrities in politics or religion..

It opens us to fear, uncertainty and doubt about what is on the table, without the mongers putting out their own alternative substantive plan. Opinions are not a measure of the merit or substance of the issue. Opinions, when people have no immediate access to a full fact source, are stagecraft.

Polls reflect the measure of FUD - the fear, uncertainty and doubt the opinionators raise who have no substantive alternative in policy or agenda. Ask Gene Amdahl and IBM. Nothing new here. Identify with the opinionator, not with an analysis. The train wreck of business-interested media influencing policy continues.
.

5. Who has the money to change anything.

Is there a way to jumpstart anything without money?

News gathering and presentation is expensive, and takes wits.

Churning opinions about news that somebody else reports, and on part of a topic, is cheap, and takes no wits.

So what do we see on TV and in the papers? Politicians, ex and current; with party lines out their ears like clotheslines. Adding no facts to the debate. Just whether people should like this or like that. Lots of O-Pin-Ion. Opinion wars are not news.

Nonetheless opinion wars are what we get, with people who used to be journalists and newscasters at the helm. Pit this against that.

Smackdown between Cheney's latest fantasy and whoever. Insert something for the imagination, even verging on the prurient by use of words and imagery, dominance and power, and watch the dozer's attention focus. Facts? Everybody sleep. Might even disagree.What have we lost in civility, in intelligent inquiry about issues, what could we gain by reinstating a form of fairness doctrine.

Is polarizing good for democracy, communicating with intent to polarize, not inform..

We expect fancy advertising and psycho-skews to titillate the faithful. Gain the converts. Get attention. Sell. Sell. Buy. Buy. Any special interest will engage in news manipulation. And even where the control is not feasible - as in Iran currently, because of cell phone capabilities and internet and other immediate outlets - the government has another additional advantage. Consider the opportunities for eavesdropping, monitoring who is saying what.
.
Daniel Widing and The Presidents, Madame Tussaud's. Real and fake information sources, intermingled.

P.S. Trust Dan.

Do we need certified news presenters.

People who swear to uphold truth, full and balanced, un-agenda'ed information presented to the people.

The conflict: government hiding some or all of its activities, people demanding transparency.

So we have these warring camps. In many areas - religion, politics, culture. And all from the extremes going nonstop, with no reliable, convenient, fast source to check on what is being said, what other viewpoints may be. Step back a moment.

Editorials and opinions alone are not the problem.

It is the squeezing off the stage of the factual underpinnings. That was not anticipated when the Fairness Doctrine was trashed. Look at the result of our preoccupation with opinion and slant, rather than analysis. Do we have extremists of our own to rival any elsewhere in mayhem? Yes. Why? Guess. A partial, contributory factor at least.

Did you keep reading in hopes of getting some more opinions? Here you go.

Oops. Camera slipped. Darn. Now we've lost you.

Do we really need all this entertainment? Guess so. So much for the public interest. Skip a role for reasoned analysis in war and conflict decisions. Let the poison waft over the airwaves whether it increases or decreases information, or instead steers toward the likelihood of war and conflict on any issue.

Who gets to decide. Does an election mean that the voters vote out their own rights to information and assessment, in favor of those matters concentrating in secret halls of the winner's government. Does an election mean that the airwaves and other means can spew at will, with people not getting it as to opposing views, but revving higher and higher in the decibels until someone or some group explodes. There are no lone wolves.

6. Conclusion so far,
and a small rant.
.

The most visible sign of voter exclusion from decisionmaking, from necessary facts, is the premature polarization of views. The camera cuts from the event it briefly covered, to hordes of Opinion about the few facts revealed. Whether pulp paper on the driveway, or broadcast, cable or internet..

We get Opinion before we even get or can find the facts. What are these Opinions based on? The facts fade in air-time as Opinion takes over. Wars of opinions. Churning Opinions instead of news.

Churned Opinion is not news. What this puppet thinks is not news. What that puppet thinks is not news. What you or I think is not news. News is information, objective facts about events, persons involved, who, what, why, where, when. History, Background. Actual provisions.

Hear instead five words from the President about a new policy framework, and immediately cut to the opposition's Opinion. Then someone else disagreeing with the opposition's opinion and more opinions. Where is the factual underpinning, the real framework?

Rant. We have learned nothing from the Iraq debacle. Persuading people to go to war there was not a matter of the merits of the issue - it is who wons by opinion. To believe in this and not that. To support a cause. To hate this person, but believe this one is divine. Believe WMD's are there.

Real news about any topic, real time for the Inspectors, background on informants, where someone has a stake in the outcome, has always been suspect. When the goal is persuasion, war is marketing, not necessity.
Does our news morphing into tirade contribute to our ignorant polarization, the ease with which people are led to follow. The demise of the fairness doctrine, while failing to provide any comprehensive, objective news source, parallels the rise in rabble-rousing. Is that so?

Suspending opinion, until facts are in, is a discipline that we neither practice nor preach. Can we couch a fairness doctrine in those terms - first get the facts out, and if that is not feasible because it impinges on someone's right not to give the facts, provide a place where everyone can go immediately for the facts, and then let the implants loose. Fine.

But opinion only after the facts, not before. Or where the facts are immediately available. Then again, if you want warring people, then just sling the opinions around. 24/7/ There. Done.
...................................................................

FN 1 Test the theory. What time on "news" shows is expended on finding and sharing fact, and what time is expended on Opinion. Mislabeling of the entire show? Consumer, beware. There is no obligation to list the ingredients on the label. Not even the place of origin of the views spewed.

Test it out. Take your newspaper and circle in red every slanted word, every choice that tilts your response to favor or disfavor.

Non-news. Searching for facts and there are none; but it sure is entertaining

• Take out your stopwatch when you turn on a half-hour news program. Or get one. Make columns on a piece of notebook paper. First column: factual statements of news. Second column: opinion voiced by a media host or guest. Third column, video of somebody else's opinion. At the beginning of every thirty seconds, put a stroke in one of the columns. Slash, slash, slash, slash, cross-slash.

Consider and reconsider the ramifications. Keep the objective facts off to the side, because with facts, people think. Instead, bring on Opinion, Editorializing, and overwhelm with that before people have facts for thinking. With Opinions, people react. Immediately. From the gut. Reacting is Good. Thinking, and the tools to do that, is Bad. For the polarizer. Is that so?


Successful propaganda requires reaction, not thought, so we get Opinion before we have time to think about the facts. It used to be that there were public interest safeguards so we as voters and the ones most affected got information from a variety of perspectives. We could think before deciding Those safeguards fell away for a variety of reasons - like the Fairness Doctrine. And Opinion took over.

Is this use of Opinion in the news time like using porn in ads, and blood sports. Opinion and editorializing with flashbangs is the way to get people watching, so you then can sell something to them. It may be time to look at the revived need to serve the public interest by ensuring equal access to facts in our "news programs", if not in that same form.
.
FN 2 Think further. The analogy gets worse. Much needed information is not given out before the the commitment is made and the operating room readied. No facts to hold the opinions up for long. Consider the weight. That is not an area where muscle is, is it? Droop as facts change and the premature opinion moots itself out. In time. And the purveyors do not have a great history of reliability: infection and leaks, folks, from botched jobs. Check out the scars in the locker room. Better yet, don't. You've been warned.
.
And when it comes to function, how about the effect of the implant on an important non-ego purpose, the wee babe - where are the studies on the impact of implants on young women who later want to provide the Top Drawer Diet. Who counsels the girls on that. Medicine, where are you? Off to the bank. Mothers? Oh, you got some, too. Lemon-lime or perhaps apples and oranges or maybe a nice set of cantaloupes? All in the catalogue. Opinions taking place of news on news programs, other implants, six of one.

The implant technique on TV is a not-so-cheap temporary fix, uses up time for the lazy or not too bright talker (the host can have coffee while the camera cuts to the legislature, the man on the street, or another talk show), while the opportunity to pass on hard, complete, objective information needed for a real debate falls away.

No time for facts hello goodbye, we're late, we're late, we're late. Alice. Wake up.

What is the danger of all the conclusory statements, views, opinions, and re-churns of opinions we get in the media? The time gets used up, without delivering on content, on information, on facts for the debate. The debate instead becomes a joust of opinions, based on entertainment, or what "stuck" from what the opinionators said. The debate loses its grounding in fact. And Chris Matthews and the rest just laugh and laugh as they churn some more opinions instead of discussing facts, factual bases for all those opining heads. All the way to the bank.

First, You Plan. Genghis Khan, Basil Liddell Hart. War Strategies.

War Strategy.

Plan, but Prepare to Regroup.

Defer Confrontation. No Loss of Honor.

.
A. Genghis Khan.

Eastern warfare tactics include leaving the field. Take time to regroup.
.
No Loss of Honor in melting away. The strategic withdrawal is not quitting the field. It is deferring the confrontation until more favorable conditions may develop. Highly efficient.
.
Western warfare says stand up and fight. Now.

Even the cowardly Lion knew the posture to take, fists up, feet dancing, put-em-up. See ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxTy3JK_qgA/ Even if down we go, put up your dukes. Confrontation, immediate contest. That is the fast time-line to determine who won, who lost. Zero sum. Whatever thing you win, means I lose that thing, and that is it. Win and lose are quantifiable. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum

Eastern warfare: This is a different approach. Defer the confrontation. There is no loss of honor in that. Eastern warfare often provides a different result from Western thinking. If you see that you are outnumbered, and probably will fail, or may, just disperse, preserve your numbers, and regroup later. That is a long timeline. No "arena." Wait out your enemy, take your time. Use indirection.

The East is creative. No rigid mindsets. An example, from the Mongols, shows some of the most effective fighters in history. But they were flexible thinkers, not following some lockstep chivalry notions of the time. No code said that this group wore red, that group wore blue.

They used big or small groups as needed, faked withdrawals, set ruses, ambushed, and raided. See Medieval Warfare, Mongol tactics, at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warfare#Mongols_in_the_West/.

So, Who is Civilized.

Go back to "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" review at://anthropology.net/user/kambiz_kamrani/reviews/genghis_khan_and_the_making_of_the_modern_world/

Learn how Genghis Khan won by following the basics: He

a) prepared and then
c) engaged, and then
c) followed-up.

See also://www.mongolianculture.com/Excerpts%20Jack%20Weatherford.htm.

Genghis Khan looks more civilized than we do, in terms of the planning, the use of good people in the subject peoples, having his own people ready to move in where the slots so required.

How does that apply to us?

Our world is different, and the same, at once.

• Mongols: They were wise beyond our willingness to acknowledge, because they were invaders who won, and we want to downplay that. They are not religious extremists plotting against us, however, and we are not Medievals, or European Kings' armies limited by ideologies and behavior mindsets trapping our heads. We do have our own extremists in many areas, but the lessons for today escape the bounds of our usual mindset and strategy.

• Genghis Kahn and others did not succeed for so long for nothing. Eastern warfare tactics. Eastern military strategy. Pragmatic, sensible, and it works. Don't waste your time on macho. Redefine strategy. Get what you want - no question. But you are permitted to bide your time. It is valid strategy, not weakness.

Torture.

And, the Mongols killed-slaughtered many, in gross ways; but they did not torture. Kill but no torture.

"The Mongols did not torture, mutilate or maim, but their enemies did." See://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h11mon.htm/ quoting from "Genghis Khan and the Mongols."

Do a "find" search for torture and the portion is there. We and our current adversaries are less honorable than the Mongols? FN1. People were killed brutally, in great masses. But the individual, tortured by another individual? No. Amazing. Read the book.

The culture: This site notes that the Mongols felt that God gave them the world, and that their intention was to be a colonizer of Europe, the barbarians.

Mongols introduced the concept of freedom of religion to Europe, and taxed the conquered people - the 10% looks like a tithe. The people retained rights, however. The Mongols were their overlords, but the people continued in place.

Later, the Roman church would initiate the tithe; but they held that unbelievers, heretics have no rights, and that set the stage for the Inquisition. See European History 1220-1289 at //www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/euro53.htm. That approach to the conquered, to declare them anathema, was foreign to the Mongols who would rather use their economic contributions than beat them down. Is that so?



B. Basil Liddell Hart


A British soldier in World War I. Developed theories of indirection in warfare, for infantry tactics. See ://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWliddel.htm/


Lessons:

• Direct attacks do not work.
• Use indirection.
• Upset the enemy's equilibrium.

See biography at://www.spiritus-temporis.com/basil-liddell-hart/


These ideas from Genghis Khan and Basil Liddell Hart have been with us for centuries, and then decades. Shall we try them?