headerphoto


Official PatriotUSA update-the MRI from hell

Just a quick update for you all.

I had an MRI today that was the most unpleasant one I have ever experienced. I am claustrophobic from surviving a mine cave in in when I was 22 and in college. I have to get IV sedation to get near an MRI unit. I have fallen five times (last one was about 45 minutes ago and makes two this week) in the last month and my surgeon is extremely concerned as I should not be having the left leg/foot symptoms after this last spinal fusion and I should not be falling.My left leg/foot stuff is not ant better than before this last surgery. I think the permanent nerve damage is much worse than they think. AJ actually kept me from falling down our stairs a few days ago. He broke my fall with his body last weekend, literally blocked the top of the stairs. I am sure AJ is one of my guardian angels. He is a wonder dog. I never trained him to do anything like break my falls. AJ just knows me and in many ways, is my service dog. So blessed to have him in my life.

They gave me the maximum amount of sedation today and it was not enough. It started wearing off half way through the procedure and I almost went over the edge. If it was not for a very fine and competent nurse who had done MRI's with me before, who immediately yarded me out of the MRI unit and gorked me with more drugs, and then talked me through the rest of procedure, I might be in the behavioral health unit tonight. He would not let me leave the hospital for four hours until he was sure I was 'all right.' I am quite bruised up from thrashing about in the MRI tunnel and to top the day off, I fell just a while ago damn it to hell.

The nurse called my surgeon and I am under strict orders to do nothing, I mean nothing for a few days. I have now graduated from IV sedation MRI to now having to get general anesthetic for any future MRI's, probably a smart move. The older I get the worse my claustrophobia becomes. So I HAVE TO BE scarce for a while and the surgeon already called me tonight to check up on me. Very down about all of this and it is just tough sledding here at schloss Homer right now. I am off to be a good, compliant patient and may have to be off the computer for quite some time, again.

Thanks for understanding! PatriotUSA

To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

June 6 is Coming

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

For those of you who don't know who Dr. Bill Warner is, check out  politicalislam.com.

I have been receiving e-mails from several contacts about June 6, which is normally commemorating as the date of the D-Day landings at Normandy that led to the defeat of Nazism and liberation of Europe from German occupation. There is a movement to use that day as one in which bloggers and other social media will post messages on what they think of Islam. This comes in the wake of the horrific murder of a  British soldier by two Muslims in London and our own Boston Marathon attack.

I have decided after some thought to participate in this effort on this site. I confess that both the above incidents have affected me and I feel the need to become more militant, if that is the correct word.

I have already started on the draft because I have a lot to say, and I want to say it as effectively as I can. In the meantime, this is my way of spreading the word.

Below is a message from Bill Warner, a counter jihad activist in Tennessee.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Bill Warner:
Speak Your Mind About Islam Day: Thursday, June 6, 2013

Just this past week we were shocked to witness, in broad daylight, on London streets, the ambush and barbaric murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, husband, and father of a young child. Lee was ambushed by two men, one of whom spoke directly to the camera afterwards. This man made it clear that his motivations were based upon Islam and the numerous verses in the Quran that call for violence against non-Muslims.

Afterward, individual citizens from the UK and around the world flooded social media with their sentiments about Islam, the false narrative that it is a "Religion of Peace" and the blatant falsehood put forth by Prime Minister Cameron that the teachings of Islam had nothing to do with this brutal assassination. Several citizens have since been arrested by the government of Great Britain for comments they made under the influence of grief and anger. These actions by the government are an attempt to suppress free speech and must not be tolerated. We ask that you stand with these persecuted individuals as a unified people.

In response to the British government's attempts to suppress free speech, we wish to declare Thursday, June 6th, 2013 "Speak Your Mind About Islam Day". June 6th is a day of great significance for the free peoples of the world.

In the 1940's, American, Australian, Brit, Canadian, Frenchman, Indian, Russian, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh and countless others were bound together by the common goal of eradicating forever the vile ideology of Nazism. On June 6th, 1944, segments of these diverse allied forces bound together and stormed Fortress Europe marking the beginning of the end of the ideology of Nazism as a force among men.

Let June 6, 2013 once again be that day for us.

On Thursday, June 6th, 2013 we ask that you flood social media with your thoughts on and knowledge of Islam as a clear and unmistakable message to our governments around the world that we will NOT be silenced by blasphemy laws, statutes on "community cohesion", or threats and acts of intimidation carried out by our governments in an attempt to silence us on the issue of Islam and its undeniable ties to religiously motivated acts of terror around the world. Our overwhelming numbers and unified voice must make it clear that we will become increasingly UNGOVERNABLE, without becoming violent, on the issue of Islamic terror. An assault on one will be treated as an assault upon us all; we will stand together as one voice. Political careers will pay a price at the polls for the condescending act of telling us that Islam is what we all know it is not.

Rules of Conduct:
1. Keep it civilized - nothing positive comes from mob-like behavior.
2. Focus on the ideology of Islam, not individuals.
3. No profanity or ad hominem attacks - they cause people to tune out the message because of the messenger.
4. The goal is to unite us, garner group support for the cause, and put our governments on notice that we will not be silenced.

Please share this now with every blogger and social media group you know about.

Speak Your Mind About Islam Day: Thursday, June 6, 2013

Please share this will all that you can. I know what I will be doing June 6th, what say you? PatriotUSA

From Political Islam.

****************************

 

Speak Your Mind About Islam Day: Thursday, June 6, 2013

Just this past week we were shocked to witness, in broad daylight, on London streets, the ambush and barbaric murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, husband, and father of a young child. Lee was ambushed by two men, one of whom spoke directly to the camera afterwards. This man made it clear that his motivations were based upon Islam and the numerous verses in the Quran that call for violence against non-Muslims.

Afterward, individual citizens from the UK and around the world flooded social media with their sentiments about Islam, the false narrative that it is a "Religion of Peace" and the blatant falsehood put forth by Prime Minister Cameron that the teachings of Islam had nothing to do with this brutal assassination. Several citizens have since been arrested by the government of Great Britain for comments they made under the influence of grief and anger. These actions by the government are an attempt to suppress free speech and must not be tolerated. We ask that you stand with these persecuted individuals as a unified people.

In response to the British government's attempts to suppress free speech, we wish to declare Thursday, June 6th, 2013 "Speak Your Mind About Islam Day". June 6th is a day of great significance for the free peoples of the world.

In the 1940's, American, Australian, Brit, Canadian, Frenchman, Indian, Russian, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh and countless others were bound together by the common goal of eradicating forever the vile ideology of Nazism. On June 6th, 1944, segments of these diverse allied forces bound together and stormed Fortress Europe marking the beginning of the end of the ideology of Nazism as a force among men.

Let June 6, 2013 once again be that day for us.

On Thursday, June 6th, 2013 we ask that you flood social media with your thoughts on and knowledge of Islam as a clear and unmistakable message to our governments around the world that we will NOT be silenced by blasphemy laws, statutes on "community cohesion", or threats and acts of intimidation carried out by our governments in an attempt to silence us on the issue of Islam and its undeniable ties to religiously motivated acts of terror around the world. Our overwhelming numbers and unified voice must make it clear that we will become increasingly UNGOVERNABLE, without becoming violent, on the issue of Islamic terror. An assault on one will be treated as an assault upon us all; we will stand together as one voice. Political careers will pay a price at the polls for the condescending act of telling us that Islam is what we all know it is not.

Rules of Conduct:
1. Keep it civilized - nothing positive comes from mob-like behavior.
2. Focus on the ideology of Islam, not individuals.
3. No profanity or ad hominem attacks - they cause people to tune out the message because of the messenger.
4. The goal is to unite us, garner group support for the cause, and put our governments on notice that we will not be silenced.

Please share this now with every blogger and social media group you know about.


Tags: Freedom of speech,Islam and sharia law, Jihad, England, Dhiimmi Cameron, Beheadings, Cultural Enrichment, Muslim Immigration. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

America The Ignorant

How long do you think we have?  As things are proceeding now at breakneck speed thanks to the terrorist “we the people” put in the White House – I would guess we have about a year.  

Who will be America’s Tommy Robinson giving an interview and echoing every word he says?  I don’t know.  There are plenty capable.  All I know is – unless things change drastically here very shortly – this is America’s destiny.

H/T – both videos – @Stonewall_77  
.

.
.
.
.


Tags: War On America; Sharia; Tyranny To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

I put your picture away-Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow

This a sweet, sad song. I enjoy both of these musicians and try to tell me this is not a fine, fine song. PatriotUSA



Kid Rock) Livin' my life in a slow hell Different girl every night at the hotel I aint seen the sun shine in 3 damn days Been fuelin' up on cocaine and whisky Wish I had a good girl to miss me Lord I wonder if I'll ever change my ways I put your picture away Sat down and cried the day I can't look at you while I'm lyin' next to her I put your picture away, sat down and cried today I can't look at you while I'm lyin' next to her

(Sherly Crow) I called you lastnight in the hotel Everyone knows but they wont tell But their half hearted smiles tell me Somethin' just ain't right I been waitin' on you for a long time Fuelin' up on heartaches and cheap wine I ain't heard from you in 3 damn nights I put your picture away I wonder where you been I can't look at you while I'm lyin' next to him I put your picture away I wonder where you been I can't look at you while I'm lyin' next to him I saw ya yesterday with an old friend

(Kid Rock) It was the same ole same "how have you been"

(Both) Since you been gone my worlds been dark & grey

(Kid Rock) You reminded me of brighter days

(Sheryl Crow) I hoped you were comin' home to stay I was head of the church

(Kid Rock) I was off to drink you away

(Both) I thought about you for a long time Can't seem to get you off my mind I can't nderstand why we're living life this way I found your picture today I swear I'll change my ways I just called to say I want you to come back home I found your picture today I swear I'llc hange my ways I just called to say I want you to come back home I just called to say, I love you come back home


Tags: Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Heartbreak, Country, American Music To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

"Let my blood bleed"

A poem by Eatgrueldog  -  


Slowly circling chains

forged with deceit,

hammered out with contempt

are fitted for us.

Freedom bleeds upon

the ground of history

The lifeblood of our nation

darkly pools

As we lay dying

Our choice will be

the chain or the sword

Let my blood bleed

As I will die free
.
.

Tags: War On America; Tyranny; Treason; U. S. Constitution To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Excellent commentary on Zenster's Illiteracy, Crime and the Culture Gap

Comments here at Patriot's Corner have always been feast or famine. I do take this personally and I do not think any of the other contributors take it personally. The articles that have generated a lively discussion have usually been ones that are on Islam. The Muslim trolls have tried to come in here by disguising themselves and that has always failed. Others have been rude, mean and accused us of being 'not patriots, liars, racists, Islamophobic, members of the KKK, far RIGHT wing nuts, you get the picture. If the truth makes me or any other contributor a 'racist' then I suggest the accuser look in a mirror.

Zenster's great article on  Illiteracy, Crime and the Culture Gap has rang up a few comments from my dear faithful friend Findalis, and a fine response from Zenster.

Posted without any additional commentary from me as none are needed. I did add a comment at the end to thank both Findalis and Zenster for their comments and not to concern themselves over the length of their respective comments. PatriotUSA.



*****************************




Findalis said..
After 40 years what else can we expect from the Black Community. Illiteracy, Illegitimate Children, the ability to read only well enough to fill out a welfare forms and lottery tickets.

History (Not cultural anthropology.) is not taught. English is basic, as is Arithmetic and Science (if ever taught). In fact these poor bastards are told their only way out of poverty is either through sports and/or music (Rap). This idea is central to every socialist nation. Scientists and Engineers are looked down upon in the schools, sports stars are glorified. Look at the education system in Sweden, Norway and Denmark for this trend.

The only real education a child can receive is either in the home or a private (usually parochial) school. Why is it that children who receive an education in Catholic schools or Charter schools read, and write? Why are their skills in Mathematics higher than their Public School contemporaries? And why is the price of educating these children lower than the public schools? Could it be the Teacher's Unions? The Liberal Bias against education?

A good way to end this would be to end Welfare as we know it. Instead of getting free housing, free healthcare, free money, free food, etc... They recipients would have to work for their money. What a concept! WORK a dirty 4-letter word to most of them.

I am sorry Patriot for this long rant, but I am furious when my tax dollars are spent foolishly.


Zenster said...
Thank you for commenting, Findalis (even if it was at the expense of your blood pressure).

Here's a bit of Liberal lunacy sure to get your hackles up, AB 420.

Beginning Fall 2013, no student shall be suspended or expelled for a “willful defiance” (48900(k) offense

I would bet the farm that the real intent of this bill is to prevent teachers and administrators from penalizing minority students who don't "act White". As in not showing respect for authority and not being disruptive in class or blatantly ignoring the teacher.

For a real world "boots on the ground" report, please check out comments #3 & #7 at the link. That poor teacher has obviously gotten a bellyful of kids not "acting White".

You are also quite right that America's Black community has dug itself a hole so deep that there is little hope of any substantial recovery. Someone at another website suggested offering young Black women $10,000 to undergo voluntary sterilization before having any children. For many Black females that sum would be irresistible and the reduced population of young thugs and teenage mothers would pay for the monetary incentives ten times over.

Most conspicuous of all is that Black America was more prosperous under Jim Crow. Whatever racist policies aside, there was less Black crime plus there were more stable Black nuclear families and thriving Black-run businesses during that era than there are now. Quite possibly on an absolute scale and not just a per capita basis.

Few other statistics are so damning about Black America. Lack of impulse control, poor future-time orientation and an inability to defer gratification all continue to haunt a huge percentage of the Black population to a point where imprisonment is the most humane measure.

Should anyone doubt that, consider this one single fact:

Imprisoned Black males have a longer life expectancy than those who are not incarcerated.

That one single pathetic statistic tells the whole story.


Findalis said..
Someone at another website suggested offering young Black women $10,000 to undergo voluntary sterilization before having any children.

I have heard that we should give these "well rounded" people $10,000 and a one-way ticket to Africa. If they accept they will not be able to return ever. It would be cheaper than paying welfare forever to them.



Tags: Literacy, Vocabulary, Crime, Public Schools, Common Core Curriculum, Culture Gap, Prisons, School Funding, Scholastic Competitiveness, Illiteracy, Innumeracy, Vocational CompetencyNTER TAGS HERE To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Muslims must reject jihad-Pat Condell

Pat Condell's message to moderate Muslims: "You may be a moderate, peaceful Muslim. But there's nothing moderate or peaceful about your religion, and you know it. The bigots who preach in your mosques, who take sustenance from your religion, are hiding behind you. And your silence is helping them to do it."

Steer in: Answering Muslims




The London horror and jihad denial
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-ba...

Soldier's Islamic murderer should have been arrested years ago, but wasn't
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/edito...

Terrorist proclaimed "an eye for an eye" after attack
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew...

Islamic murderer's former university hosted extremists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew...

Man charged for "offensive" tweets
http://news.sky.com/story/1095026/woo...

85 year-old woman arrested for shouting outside a mosque. Held in police custody.
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfi...

"Woolwich slaughter: sorry MCB, but this IS a school of Islam"
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co...

"Muslims, we must take on this cancer in our midst"
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/c...

Takek Fatah: "It's time to fight the doctrine of jihad"
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tarek-fa...

Taxpayers fund terrorism as benefits go to hate preachers
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/...

What do British Muslims think of the UK? (2010)
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/danielpycoc...

Muslims in Luton, UK
http://vimeo.com/67122707

Violence in the Koran
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/qur...

Doctrinal basis for jihad
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dan...



Tags: Pat Condell, Islam, Jihad,Sharia Law, Persecution, Slavery, Subjugation, Murder, There are no moderates in Islam. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Memorial Day - that was yesterday, right?

It's after midnight.  Work calls in just a few hours.  Memorial Day is another year away now......

Somehow just moving on isn't happening.  There are moments from yesterday keeping me awake.  In my head the past - a video - Vietnam, November 8, 1965, death and those who did not die; the here and now - the haunting picture of a massive eagle sitting on a tombstone; the future - Daniel Greenfield's warning in - The Warrior's Tale.

"The warrior's tale is a simple enough thing.  Strong as steel, but fragile as chance.  It is the wind in his soul and the wall we build around ourselves to tell us who we are.

Before there were cities or nations, and railways and airports, computers and telephones - the tale was told around campfires.  Acted out in pantomime, dressed up in animal furs and cave paintings.  But the tale was the same.  The people were confronted with a threat and they called upon the best and strongest of their men to go out and fight it.  These were their warriors.  What they did in the face of that threat is the tale.

The tale has many variations. Sometimes there are many warriors, sometimes only a handful. They march into the village of the enemy in triumph, or they make a last stand on a rocky outcropping, spending the last of their heart's blood to buy time they will never know. 

There is the weak man who becomes strong, the strong man who becomes weak, the woman who mourns the man who will never return, and the man who goes off to battle with nothing to lose. These tales have been told countless times in the ages of men, and they will be told again for as long as men endure.

It is not only the warriors who need the tale, or those left behind. Future generation learn who they are from this tale. "We are the people who died for this land," is the unseen moral of each tale. "We bled for it. Now it is yours to bleed and die for."

The warrior's tale tells each generation that they stand on the wall against a hostile world. And that the wall is made not of stones, but of their virtues. Their courage, their integrity and their craft.  Theirs is the wall and they are the wall-- and if they should fail, then it will fail. And the land and the people will be swept away."

It continues if one dare read more...
~ ~ ~

.

eagle-in-cemetery.
.

Tags: War On America; Memorial Day To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Illiteracy, Crime and the Culture Gap

Author’s Note: Please pardon the length of this article. Like so many others of late, it took on a life of its own. However, this topic deserves full-length treatment due to how it lies at the heart of America’s future and the quality of life for our nation as a whole. Many commonly held perceptions about the current state of public education will either be turned on their head or cemented for all time.

Hat Tip: Aerogramme Writers’ Studio

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” — James J. Harvey —

Wandering through some links in the course of last weekend’s investigative work, I chanced upon this interesting article with it’s somewhat irritating infographic about children’s books. Let’s face it; a timeline about “The Most Loved Children’s Books” that omits any mention of A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” but lists the more recent “Twilight” series definitely cannot be firing on all cylinders.

Nevertheless, that infographic still contained these unsettling statistics:

· Middle income neighborhoods: 13 books per child
· Low income neighborhoods: one book per 300 children
· Absence of parental involvement can lower reading scores by 74%
· 1984: 9% of 17-year olds never read for pleasure
· 2004: 19% of 17-year olds never read for pleasure
· 2007: Only 30% of 13-year olds read every day
· 2008: Only 13% of 13 and 17 year-olds report reading on their own for fun

The otherwise useful article also managed to cite (and misquote) a far more disturbing Forbes magazine piece by Steve Cohen titled, “A $5 Children's Book vs. a $47,000 Jail Cell -- Choose One. It provided a few insights regarding illiteracy and crime that, for the uninitiated, might prove a little shocking.

· Texas uses fourth grade reading scores to project the number of prison cells they’re going to need 10 years later.
· 60% of America’s prison inmates are illiterate; and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems.
· Today, fully 67% of American fourth-graders can’t read at the fourth-grade proficiency level; and 33% score below the basic competency level.

While the method that Texas uses to anticipate prison construction is more nuanced than what is shown above, it demonstrates a clear connection between illiteracy and crime. The fact is that the average American prison inmate’s reading skills are below those of the typical fifth-grader. All of which means that if you are not reading at grade proficiency by age ten, incarceration probably will be a feature of your adult life, if not a whole lot sooner.

One of my responses to the Aerogramme Writers’ Studio piece reads as follows:

In the course of my morning’s research I came across this prophetically damning quote from “A Nation at Risk”, (the 1983 report of American President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education), that is attributed to James J. Harvey:

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

The above quote, when taken in combination with the following two, paints a particularly bleak picture.

“Consider that a 12th-grade student who scored well enough on the verbal portion of the SAT to get into a selective college has a vocabulary somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 words. Do the math: acquiring such a sizable vocabulary by rote would mean learning 10-20 new words every day until freshman orientation, assuming you came home from the delivery room having learned your first few dozen words.”Robert Pondiscio

“The most secure way to predict whether an educational policy is likely to help restore the middle class and help the poor is to focus on the question: ‘Is this policy likely to translate into a large increase in the vocabularies of 12th-graders?’ When questions of fairness and inequality come up in discussions, parents would do well to ask whether it’s fair of schools to send young people into a world where they suffer from vocabulary inequality.”E.D. Hirsch Jr.

Quite clearly, we are at war with an academic mediocracy whose insistence upon social conformism (e.g., Political Correctness), has amounted to a war against America itself.
------------------------ End of Comment ------------------------

As many readers of this blog know, academia in America and Europe rank among the most enthusiastic advocates of Cultural Marxism. The Great Leveling that has been going on in America over the past fifty years now threatens the very core of this country’s foundations. This catastrophic process requires an electorate flush with intellectually stunted and enfeebled minds to vote in an incompetent buffoon like Barrak Hussein Obama. His administration’s categorical assault upon America’s constitution could only occur in the sight of a populace blinded by abject ignorance.

When one considers how a primary objective of Political Correctness is to reduce individual vocabulary, the impact of this insidious policy upon society as a whole becomes unavoidably apparent. In his appendix to “1984”, this is what author George Orwell had to say about vocabulary. From “The Principles of Newspeak":

“To give a single example - The word free still existed in Newspeak, but could only be used in such statements as "The dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.” [emphasis added]

A classic example of Newspeak is its use of modifiers like “un”, “plus” and “doubleplus”. Accordingly, if something is bad, it is “ungood”. If it is worse, it is “plus ungood. The very worst becomes “doubleplus ungood”. What is vital to notice is that there is no longer anything that is actually “bad”. There are now only various shades of “good”. A world stripped of polar opposites loses its dualistic perspective of thought. The detriment that this poses to general intelligence and critical analysis cannot be overstated. Orwell knew this with crystal clarity and we are all damned by our collective inability or unwillingness to perceive the evil of Politically Correct speech for what is.

In his Wall Street Journal article Hirsch also notes how:

“All verbal tests are, at bottom, vocabulary tests. To predict competence most accurately, the U.S. military's Armed Forces Qualification Test gives twice as much weight to verbal scores as to math scores, and researchers such as Christopher Winship and Anders D. Korneman have shown that these verbally weighted scores are good predictors of income level. Math is an important index to general competence, but on average words are twice as important.” [emphasis added]

Got that? The ability to read, write and give or receive an order is twice as important as accurately counting ammunition or performing range finding for an artillery piece. Imagine that? What does it say when the military—as in those who are first in harm’s way—places more importance on the ability to communicate clearly? In turn, just how dim are the survival prospects for a society that cannot convey or precisely record its own thoughts, much less even think them in the first place? Especially when Politically Correct thought has the explicit intent of destroying that already diminished capacity.

In another article, Robert Pondiscio cites Hirsch’s observation that:

“there is strong evidence that increasing the general knowledge and vocabulary of a child before age six is the single highest correlate with later success”.

Pondiscio rightfully implores us to note that Hirsch specifies “general knowledge AND vocabulary” and not vocabulary alone, but the connection between articulation and literacy cannot be denied. There appears in the comments appended to this piece a pair of particularly succinct remarks. The first is by reader and educator, Peter Ford:

When I go to the nearest Apple Store in Manhattan Beach, CA, you can hear distinctly how parents communicate with their children: complete sentences, thoughtful sentences, rich vocabulary.

Now, let me go to the Wal-Mart at the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza in LA, and you hear a completely different type of conversation: “SHUT THE H@LL UP!” “GET YOUR A@# OVER HERE!” “PUT THAT DOWN, DAMN!”

No teacher should be surprised when that child is 11-13 years old and talking that same way in school, and even worse can’t read a grade-level textbook.

There’s your achievement gap, and it would take a 7-8 year continuum of stellar teachers and schools to make up even half of it, which is simply not the reality anywhere let alone our urban cores.


To which another participant named John Webster, in part, replied:

Peter (comment 13) distills the achievement gap into two sentences, and renders superfluous tens of thousands of pages of books, articles, essays, and dissertations. I’ve made the same observations for at least 20 years, although in many quarters it would be very un-PC to verbalize those thoughts.

Very “un-PC” indeed! As our schools, textbooks, literature, mass media and popular culture are increasingly flooded with Politically Correct Newspeak, the concomitant shriveling of personal vocabulary is not just unsurprising, it is to be expected. As an example of this, in his article “Vocabulary is the New Black”, Pondiscio notes how:

Even the simplest texts tend to have more rare and unique words than even the richest spoken language (the language of children’s books is more linguistically rich and complex than the conversation of even college graduates).

Later in the previously mentioned thread, Ford makes yet another interesting contribution:

A student during the school year spends less than 5% of their time in my presence in a classroom; if you include the summer, it drops to well under 4%. If a student spends only 24% of their time around teachers, and the other 76% is chaos and dysfunction, 7-8 years of Marva Collins’, Ron Clarks, and Jaime Escalantes would not have most of them applying to UCLA or Stanford.

I do not consider it ‘culture’ that accounts for at least the tone and tenor of your conversation with your children. My grandparents had barely a HS education but did not talk that way around my parents, who both had college degrees. They may not have read Shakespeare, but I know they read the King James Bible, which is very language rich. The real (and avoided for many) issue is ETHICS, which of course we don’t engage well at all in public schools.


To expand upon Ford’s laudable assertion, just as with ethics, neither do we want our public classrooms teaching morals. Equally important is the fact that, while ethics can be legislated, morals cannot—regardless of repeated efforts to do so by Left and Right alike. Schools have been attempting to teach morals for decades now and they’ve made an unspeakable dog’s breakfast of a task better left to parents and community. This remains the central issue throughout America today. Like any good revolution, ethics, morals and education all begin at home. If they are not put in place—at least to some nominal extent—before school age then, through default, that task devolves to educators or, worse yet, the schoolyard. With the necessary abdication by educators—who suffer from an overload caused by massive student teacher class ratios—the schoolyard now mentors our children in this race to the precipice.

As Hirsch points out, “Analyses of schoolbooks between 1940 and 1960 show a marked dilution of subject matter and vocabulary.” Concurrent with a drastic reduction of complex content and rich language in American public school textbooks, there has also been a sharp decline in this nation’s ethics and moral fiber. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the halls of state and federal government. What are the implications of allowing such morally and ethically void politicians to vote upon funding and approve the curriculum of America’s public schools? Can anyone blame parents for enrolling their children in private academies or resorting to the arduous task of home schooling?

In an article by David Shenk titled, “The 32 Million Word Gap”, he describes the findings of Kansas psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley as they investigated why—despite being funded to the tune of $7 billion annually—America’s federal preschool program Head Start barely manages to improve the academic success of its three and four year-old wards. While it does keep a small percent of low-income children out of poverty and steer them away from a life of crime, it shows only marginal gains in literacy or vocabulary and zero impact on mathematical skills.

The following three excerpts illuminate just how severe the “culture gap” is with respect to parental involvement in the stimulation and encouragement of learning in their own children.

The differences were astounding. Children in professionals' homes were exposed to an average of more than fifteen hundred more spoken words per hour than children in welfare homes. Over one year, that amounted to a difference of nearly 8 million words, which, by age four, amounted to a total gap of 32 million words. They also found a substantial gap in tone and in the complexity of words being used. As they crunched the numbers, they discovered a direct correlation between the intensity of these early verbal experiences and later achievement. "We were astonished at the differences the data revealed," Hart and Risley wrote in their book Meaningful Differences. "The most impressive aspects [are] how different individual families and children are and how much and how important is children's cumulative experience before age 3."

In 2003, a national study reported the positive influence of early parent-to-child reading, regardless of parental education level. In 2006, a similar study again found the same thing about reading, this time ruling out any effects of race, ethnicity, class, gender, birth order, early education, maternal education, maternal verbal ability, and maternal warmth.

Hart and Risley also found that, in the first four years after birth, the average child from a professional family receives 560,000 more instances of encouraging feedback than discouraging feedback; a working-class child receives merely 100,000 more encouragements than discouragements; a welfare child receives 125,000 more discouragements than encouragements.
[emphasis added]

Backing up this “culture gap” in education is the following article, “Smart vs. cool: Culture, race and ethnicity in Silicon Valley schools”. An excerpt:

Using surveys of 90,000 secondary-school students, Harvard University researchers found that white students were more popular when they had higher grade-point averages. But black students' popularity sharply declined when their GPAs reached a B-plus. For Latinos, the price of good grades was even costlier: Popularity peaked at a C-plus, then plunged.

Any rational person knows that education is the sole route out of poverty. How insanely toxic is it for Blacks and Hispanics—or any culture at all—to ridicule the value of scholastic achievement? There springs to mind, in all its racist glory, the concept of “acting White”, a theme that will reappear in this essay soon enough. However, this time—regardless of what the media would have you believe—it is racism against Whites being demonstrated by this hideous disdain for education. What other explanation is there?

The incarceration statistics back this up with rock-solid fact.


Should anyone doubt these numbers, consider this. While making up a bare few (as in 2 or 3) percentage points of the American population—and with nearly one million of them already behind bars—Black males between the ages of 14 and 35 are responsible for over 50% of all violent crimes such as murder, rape, battery and sexual assault. The illegitimacy rate among Blacks is a staggering 73%. If they are not sucking on a crack pipe, imprisoned or cavorting with their player gangsta boyfriends, how many honest hardworking Black women have the spare time to read their children bedtime stories, much less provide them with a continuous narrative of daily activity that enhances learning and vocabulary? Black America stands as stark testimony to the importance of parental involvement with childrearing, learning and education in general.

Another excerpt; this time from “Playing Catch-Up”, by Robert Pondiscio:

“Among students who were ‘far off track’ in reading in 8th grade, only 10 percent achieved college and career ready standards 4 years later. In math and science, the percentage was even lower. And over 40 percent of African American students taking ACT’s EXPLORE exam in 8th grade scored ‘far off track’ in reading–as did 50% in math and 74% in Science. Put that together and you can’t like those odds.”

“’Far off track’ 8th graders who attended schools in the top 10 percent of performance were roughly 3 times as likely to get back on track by 12th grade as the total sample,” Mead observes. ”But even looking at the top 10 percent of schools, the percentage of ‘far off track’ students getting back on track never exceeded 30%.”
[emphasis added]



Clearly, the literacy rates of America’s Black community, especially in the most vital category of being “proficient”, are dismal at best. In fact, between 1992 and 2003, the percentage of actual proficiency did not change at all. The ratio of proficiency between Blacks and Whites—9:1 in 1992 and +7:1 in 2003—shows an almost direct correspondence to the historic ratio of incarceration for Blacks, traditionally about six or seven to one, when compared to Whites. In this matter, literacy itself is not the sole issue. Much to his dismay, Hirsch discovered this while taking time off from his research a University of Virginia to conduct a class at the local community college:

Hirsch's awakening began one day in 1978 in a community college English class in Richmond, Virginia. He had conducted most of his research on reading comprehension and writing at the University of Virginia. On this day, however, Hirsch was testing reading assignments at the community college. The community college students, most of them black, read with roughly the same fluency and comprehension as their U-Va. peers. But to Hirsch's surprise, the students "became baffled when they had to read about Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox. That passage was as incomprehensible to them as a Hegel essay on philosophy was to the U-Va. students." [emphasis added]

The article goes on to note:

Hirsch's book grew out of his concern with the decline of literacy in America. Our schools, writes Hirsch, have produced a generation of "cultural illiterates." To press his point, he cites a recent study showing that half of the 17-year-olds in this country can't identify Stalin or Churchill, and three-fourths don't know that the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.

According to Hirsch, real literacy depends on an "acquaintance with one's national culture" -- thus the term "cultural literacy." He likens cultural literacy to the kind of knowledge that allows a person to pick up a newspaper and comprehend what he or she is reading. It is that shared body of information about mainstream culture that every American must possess to communicate efficiently and participate effectively in society.
[emphasis added]

The counter-arguments from this same article, posed against Hirsch, are equally revealing:

Not only is the method Hirsch promotes suspect by critics, but also the content of the curriculum he prescribes. Among the concerns frequently voiced is: "Whose form of knowledge, culture, vision, history and authority will prevail as the national culture?" In other words, who will be asked to compile this list of core contents to be taught to every student across the nation? Will they, like Hirsch, be white, middle-class males? Forcing every student to accept the "national culture" that Hirsch advocates is a subtle form of racism and sexism. It is an attempt to force on all citizens the values implicit in the culture of the dominant social class. As such it is [socially] unjust. [emphasis added]

Notice those favorite playthings of the Liberals—racism, sexism and Social Justice—rearing their ugly little heads? A more frank assessment of their protests might be termed as “acting White”, and contain far more truth.

Of course, nowhere will these same Liberals ever admit that part of “acting White” means not breaking the law or earning an honest living. This is something that Liberals, and the media that they control, would rather die than ever have come to light. Perish the thought that “Law & Order: SVU” would ever show some minority individual committing a heinous crime—a vast majority of the show’s perpetrators are White males. Nor will these same Liberals disclose that spending more money on schools is not the solution. Some charts: (click following links to enlarge)





America spends an average of over $10,500 per student (in some districts the actual figure exceeds $20,000), each year and yet—in 25th place—barely manages to keep up with Iran in terms of improving test scores. Compare this miserable performance with the tiny country of Poland—flourishing in 7th place—that spends less than $5,000 per year on educating its pupils. Contrary to what Liberals would have you believe, throwing money at this problem will not make it go away.

Thankfully, Robert Pondiscio has the courage to mention “Dead White Males” in the face of “identity quotas” that demand schoolroom curricula follow a “… system whereby the representation of authors must mirror the population in race and gender”. While the Left can be counted upon to screech and wail about their precious Social Justice, several generations of semi-literate, innumerate and vocationally incompetent high school graduates or dropouts—not to mention critically overcrowded federal penitentiaries—all furnish grim testimony as to the efficacy of a Liberal-controlled public education system.

Finally, it’s time for a little global perspective. Considering the abovementioned “culture gap”, try to imagine how monumental that difference is with respect to Muslim majority nations and other cultures where women are intentionally denied access to schooling or literacy. Who will ever read their kids a bedtime story? What chances are there for a Saudi mother to provide her child with a continuous narrative of daily life when she cannot even go out of doors without an older male relative escorting her. Likewise, here in America, many inner-city minority children are also prisoners in their own homes because of how drive-by shootings can turn an outdoor stroll into a fatal excursion.

As it has ever been, real education—and not indoctrination with Liberal pap or rote memorization of the Qur’an that currently is being fobbed off as such—provides the only functional path out of poverty or closes the culture gap. Time will tell if American parents are sufficiently outraged over public schools being turned into minimum-security detention centers whose sole function is to prepare their children for a lifetime of burger flipping. How many more generations will chant the dolorous refrain of, “Would you like fries with that?”


Tags: Literacy, Vocabulary, Crime, Public Schools, Common Core Curriculum, Culture Gap, Prisons, School Funding, Scholastic Competitiveness, Illiteracy, Innumeracy, Vocational Competency To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Memorial Day – Spooky 21 crew finally “home”

My husband read aloud these three installments each day as they came out in the paper which speaks to so many things:  How irreplaceable an individual life is.  That we must NEVER forget those who died to protect others.  And how incredible it is that there are people who spend their every working moment to bring our warriors home.

Spooky 21 - a twin-prop AC47 with a crew of six lost in Vietnam on Christmas Eve, 1965.

"This is a story of that flight, and the nearly half-century it took to find and bring home its six crew members. Guiding that effort through all those years was the pledge that those who go into battle make to each other: No matter what, we will come back for you. You will not be forgotten.  You will not be left behind."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/25/191949/a-long-ago-war-a-missing-plane.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#storylink=cpy
Part One:  A long-ago war, a missing plane and an enduring mystery

Part Two:  Lack of answers tests the faith and mettle of families and searchers alike

Part Three:  After decades of searching, could a handful of debris provide the answer?

An incredible story for which we owe thanks to -
.
.

.
.
.
.
..
Tags: Memorial Day; Spooky 21 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Memorial Day - my pledge

I shy away from claiming to know, or understanding, any of this pain and loss.  I know nothing of the courage required to face an enemy hell bent on destroying good.  My family is steep with Navy, and Marines, and Army, and Air Force (including my own son) who fought in so many wars.  But personally, death in pursuit of liberty has not been my burden to bear, nor my honor to carry.

Still - I know in ever fiber of my body - that were it not for those fighting now, and those who paid the ultimate price - my life would not be as it is today.

I pledge to remember and pass along The Warrior's Tale of those gone before us who made "a last stand on a rocky outcropping, spending the last of their heart's blood to buy time they will never know." 

.Section_60
.
.
.memorial_day_2
.
.
.
.

Tags: Memorial Day To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

'Sentinel' Memorial Day: May 27, 2013

This Memorial day is one where I find myself deeply conflicted. Today is not about me in any way shape or form. Do NOT read that into this at all. Memorial day is not about picnics, barbeques, having a great big party nor is it a day to get drunk, wasted, stoned, wired, you know what I mean. The meaning of Memorial day has gotten lost. In my opinion I feel that it has become somewhat perverted and the true meaning of honoring those who gave their all, paid the ultimate price, contaminated by statist, progressive, regressive re-writing and definitions. I look at who, what is the so called POTUS of our once fine Republic and he, who shall not be named in this post, is not the commander and chief. He is not a leader, but a coward, who is an insult to those who have paid such a high price to keep us free.

Those who sacrificed it all, have served, are currently serving, deserve our honor and respect. They do not need the hollow words of a manufactured traitor, one who would all but spit on the tomb of the unknown soldier and stab our military men and women in their collective backs.

This image of a lone Eagle, seeming to be on guard duty in a cemetery is one of the most powerful images I have ever looked upon. I love Eagles and always have. A sentinel is what came to my mind right away. I know many of you have seen this image, maybe a few times too many if that is possible. For me, it is not.

Thank you to all who have paid the highest price, who answered the call of our Republic when our country needed you. Thank you to all to are currently serving. I stand in your shadow, offering my respect, honor, prayers for your service and dedication. This seems like such a small offering from my heart for those who have served, are serving and who deserve the best we can give them and their respective families.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

May HE watch over each and every one of you, for eternity. May those who have been called home be washed in the bright sunlight of His truth. PatriotUSA


*****************************


                                                  SENTINEL




Isaiah 40:31 

Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.



From the NASB Bible which is what I read and study.



Tags: Memorial day,Tomb of the unknown soldier, American Bald Eagle, Sacrifice, Founding Fathers, Republic, Freedom, Liberty, Courage, Respect, Honor, Love of country, Constitution. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

How the West abandoned Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after World War Two-Part One


This is a portion the history that many Americans do not know very well, or refuse to acknowledge.

A story steeped in the blood of fearless partisans and freedom fighters, to whom I am related to. The story of how badly the West turned it's collective back on Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after World War Two. Being mostly of Lithuanian descent, this hits HOME for me. We had relatives who were among these freedom fighting partisans and sadly I do not know the names. These stories that were shared with me by my grandfather and an uncle I only had the pleasure of seeing five or six times in my life. Stories that were shared as far as I know, with just me and my mother. My two older brothers never cared or showed an interest in history. My grandfather passed away in 1972 and my mother in 2003. I have always loved history. When it comes to U.S., Germany and Russian history, I could never read or research enough. It was my grandfather who got me started in this area of study which ultimately lead me to get my bachelors degree in American military history.

What the West did to these Baltic states is disgusting.

"For several years after World War the Balts believed that the U.S. and other Allied powers would come to their rescue and help to free them from the Soviet occupation. This was fatal.


The partisan leaders were familiar with the Atlantic Charter, which was signed by Churchill and Roosevelt 12 August 1941 aboard the U.S. cruiser Augusta in Newfoundland, a charter later acceded to on 1 January 1942 by all countries involved in the war against Germany and Japan - including the Soviet Union. This declaration stated that all territorial changes resulting from the war would only take place after the population's own desires, and that any people should have the right freely to choose their form of government.


What the Baltic people did not know, was that their case head was not at all discussed when the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Soviet leader Josef Stalin in February 1945 met in the city of Yalta on the Black Sea to lay the conditions for peace and the post-war period. The Baltic States were totally forgotten; but they did not know about it, and therefore continued the impossible fight against the evil superior force until 1953.


It has been speculated that Roosevelt's failing health may have been the reason why Stalin so easily got the upper hand at the Yalta Conference. The outcome was, in any case, very tragic for the Baltic States, and only in 2005 the American president, George W. Bush came here to apologise on behalf of the United States. Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, was also asked to apologise for the atrocities against the Baltic States in the years after Yalta. But Russia still considers that they 'liberated' the Baltics and sees no reason to excuse themselves. It went even so far that Putin declared Lithuania's President Valdas Adamkus 'persona non grata' after the latter refused to come to Moscow to participate in Russia’s anniversary celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany on 9 May 2005.


In the years after WWII a number of Lithuanian agents were amazingly capable of getting in and out of the country several times, and in December 1947 a full delegation travelled to Western Europe to present their case to the Pope and to Western governments. But no countries or leaders dared go into conflict with Stalin's Soviet Union, and Lithuanians call for help was largely met with deaf ears.


Though not quite. Both U.S. and UK intelligence agencies gave their orders to see what might be done to create secret anti-communist organizations and operations behind the Iron Curtain. They also helped to organise the radio stations 'Radio Liberty' and 'Radio Free Europe', which for many years thereafter conveyed useful information to the Baltics. In 1951 came the 'Voice of America' on air, and thus gave hundreds of thousands of Baltic war refugees in the United States a voice back to their home countries at the Baltic Sea.


Unfortunately, the success of the Western intelligence services and their 'relief efforts' very much failed, which in retrospect largely is attributed to the British intelligence officer Kim Philby, the man who in reality was a Soviet spy who unfortunately contributed so actively to the killing of tens of thousands of Baltic people."

There are two parts to this post. The first one I will post up below and the second part will follow tomorrow, yes on Memorial Day with one other post from me. There is a method to my 'madness' regarding the order of these posts. The lessons and parallels from how the West abandoned the Baltic states after WW2 have DIRECT and possibly STAGGERING implications for those of us who treasure true freedom, liberty and our Constitution here in the States, now at this very moment. This history takes on an even deeper, more profound and sobering importance for our children and their grandchildren. PatriotUSA 



******************************


Lithuania 1944- 1953: Europe’s bloodiest guerrilla war

EUROPE’S LONGEST AND

BLOODIEST GUERILLA WAR
LITHUANIA, LATVIA & ESTONIA 1944 - 1953
Lithuanian ‘forest brothers’ from the so-called "Vytis" military district.

EUROPE’S LONGEST AND BLOODIEST
GUERILLA WAR IN MODERN TIMES 
THE BALTIC STATES 1944 – 1953 
Text: Aage Myhre     

Pictures: Mostly from the KGB Museum in Vilnius

Tell a Lithuanian that it was today, the 9th of May 1945, that his country was liberated and peace after WWII restored.  Tell him that this 2010 May it is 65 years since the Soviet Union and the Western world defeated Hitler's Nazi regime, and that Lithuania since then has been a free, happy country in line with what other European countries experienced after they were occupied in 1939 –1940 and liberated in 1945. Do not be surprised if you get an angry and annoyed look back. For while we in the Western world, in Russia and in other parts of the world joyfully could celebrate the liberation and the recovered freedom after the World War, Lithuania, the other two Baltic states, and Ukraine were forced to realize that one war had been replaced by a new, much bloodier and more protracted war, lasting from 1944 to at least 1953.  What we in the west celebrated in May 1945 was by Lithuanians and the other occupied countries experienced only in 1990 –1991.

 

The end of World War II saw Germany dramatically reduced in size. Before long  


it was also divided into East and West. Germany's defeat meant that Poland  


and Czechoslovakia returned to the map of Europe after a six-year absence.    


But not so for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and northern East Prussia

(Kaliningrad) that all remained occupied by the USSR.


Western radio stations told us, who were lucky enough to grow up on the western side of the iron curtain, thoroughly about the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet intervention in 1956, an uprising that resulted in 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet soldiers losing their lives. 

Western television stations showed us in detail what happened when Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1968 by more than 200,000 troops from the Warsaw Pact countries Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria - with the outcome that 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed when they tried to resist. 

However, we got almost nothing to know about the many, many times bloodier uprising against the Soviet that was happening right outside our own front door, in the Baltic States, through nine long years from 1944 to 1953. 

It is estimated that approximately 30,000 Balts and 100,000 Soviet soldiers died in this bloody guerrilla war when Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians withdrew into the woods to organize its powerful armed partisan resistance after the Soviet Union at the end of the second World War, in 1944, pushed the German forces out, and Stalin decided to incorporate the Baltic States into his powerful autocracy instead of giving these countries their freedom and independence back. Today we know that this tragic, involuntary occupation and oppression was to last the whole 47 years, from 1944 to 1991. 

Entering Gulag (a leaf from Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya's notebook)
Entering a Siberian Gulag (leaf from Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya's notebook). During the period 1940 – 1953


Stalin’s Soviet deported approximately 600,000 individuals from the Baltic States to Siberia.

Around 100,000 of them never returned to their homelands. 
 

In addition to the 30,000 Balts who died in direct combats with the Red Army during this nine-year guerrilla war, comes all those who died in or on their way to Siberia, all because of their resistance to the Soviet raids home in the Baltics. It is considered that Josef Stalin was responsible for the deportation of not less than 600,000 Baltic people to the permafrost concentration camps and the gulag prisons during these years, and that probably as many as 100,000 of them died during the stay or during the three-month journey where they were stuffed into icy cold, miserable cattle wagons with thin straw mats as mattresses, and very limited food rations to survive on during the long way to the cold hell, thousands of kilometres north and east.

We speak, in other words, about an almost unimaginable and too little known purges of totally 130,000 people from the Baltic States during the very first years after the Second World War. But let us not forget that also the approximately 100,000 Soviet soldiers who died were victims of the same madness that almost a quarter million people were exposed to by an inhuman despot, still by many is regarded as a hero in Russia, Georgia and other former Soviet republics. The despot Adolf Hitler almost pales in comparison. 

In comparison, 58,000 Americans died during the Vietnam War in the years 1960-75, and we were all fed with regular updates on how the war evolved, almost minute by minute.

The distance between the free, western country of Sweden and Lithuania is less than 300 kilometres, shorter than the distance between Vilnius and Klaipeda. But despite the short distance, there was remarkable little information that reached the West about the tragic carnage that took place so close to our own front doors after the war.

We probably had enough to lick our wounds after five years of occupation and the World War II. Even today there are very few people who know much about the bloody Baltic guerrilla war. This is, for example all my Norwegian Encyclopaedia gives of information: "The armed resistance against the Soviet regime took the form of guerrilla groups in the forests (forest brothers) and had a large scope. Only in 1953 the armed resistance ebbed out." 

 

 

Lithuania’s WWII: Torn apart by two super powers.

Image
Many of the partisans were young men returning to Lithuania from the West after WWII to fight for their beloved home country. Here are three of them, with their official and nick names: K. Sirvys - "Sakalas", J. Luksa - "Skirmantas", B. Trumpys - "Rytis". Very few ‘Western partisans’ returned to the West. Almost all of them were killed by the Soviets.

Partisans, or "forest brothers" as they called themselves, were found in all three Baltic countries, but it was in Lithuania that the major groupings were found. It was also here that the really huge death tolls came. It is considered that 22,000 partisans and 70,000 soldiers from the Red Army and NKVD were killed in Lithuania alone, this in addition to the approximately 60,000 Lithuanians who died in Siberia during the early post war years.

The Lithuanian partisans usually appeared in uniforms, with national insignias and identification of rank as like other nations' armies. It is said that the Lithuanian soldiers always saved the last bullet for themselves; they knew all too well that torture, a symbolic trial and execution by hanging, head shot or group execution awaited them if they were captured.

The post war Guerrilla War in Lithuania is normally divided into three different phases:
- The first phase lasted from July 1944 to May 1946, with violent skirmishes and casualties on both sides. More than 10,000 forest brothers lost their lives in battles and skirmishes during these two years. Partisans captured during this period small towns from the Soviet forces, local quisling units were disarmed and the occupants’ offices were destroyed. But the big losses meant that tactics had to be changed.
- The second phase lasted from May 1946 until November 1948. The Lithuanian units were then divided into smaller groups that hid in well-camouflaged bunkers. During this period a joint command was established for all Lithuanian forces fighting against the occupying army. Contacts were also made contacts with the West in this period, but no help arrived.

- The final phase lasted until May 1953. And despite the brutal oppression and forced collectivization, around 2,000 partisans were still active with their armed resistance against the occupation. During this period, they also worked extensively with informing the Lithuanian people by publishing newspapers, books and leaflets. Circulation varied from a few hundred to 5,000. Such publications lasted until 1959.
There were also parallel battles against Soviet forces in Estonia and in Latvia, but in much smaller scale. Only in Western Ukraine, there was fighting in the same scale as in Lithuania.


 

The Forest Brothers often used cellars, tunnels or more complex

underground bunkers as their hideouts, such as the one depicted here.


The Baltic Partisan War came mostly to an end by May 1953, two months after Joseph Stalin died. But the last active resistance man in Lithuania shot himself, rather than surrender, as late as 1965, and the last partisan did not come out from his hiding place before 1986, 42 years after the guerrilla war in the Baltics started.
In 1955, the Soviet-controlled 'Radio Vilnius’ offered amnesty to all the partisans who were still hiding in Lithuania's deep forests, and in 1956 the KGB repeated a similar provision. Such amnesty-deals were of course meant only to lure the last forest brothers, so when the famous partisan leader 'Hawk' was taken that the same year, he was immediately given a symbolic trial and executed. Hawk was an American-born Lithuanian who had returned to his home country to fight the Soviet occupation.

Instead of giving themselves over to the Soviet occupiers, many chose to commit suicide, often by exploding a grenade right in their own faces in order to destroy them so much that they would not be identifiable and thereby create a risk to their relatives' lives. Such suicides occurred until around 1960. Many also managed to obtain false identity and get back into society without being detected. 

Many of the Soviet Union's atrocities against the Baltic States have only come to light in earnest after 1991 when these countries regained their freedom and independence. A large part of the archives that mentioned the said matters were, however, brought to Moscow to prevent the World from having access to these highly revealing documents.

But, strangely, in 1994 a former KGB officer decided to go to the Lithuanian authorities with detailed information about how torture and executions had taken place at the KGB headquarters in the Vilnius city centre. He told that there had been secret burials for the victims, just on the outskirts of Vilnius. When the huge mass grave he had told about was found and opened, several hundred corpses of partisans were discovered, all in Lithuanian uniforms, and all obviously tortured to death.

One can ask whether it was a fatal mistake for a small country like Lithuania to so aggressively a predominance they had to understand they would not be able to defeat. Admittedly, there is a general perception that Lithuania thereby was avoiding most of the ‘russification’ that Stalin and later leaders implemented in all other Soviet republics. The Russians were simply too afraid of the Lithuanians as a result of the strong opposition during the post-war years, hence the proportion of Russians in Lithuania today represents only 6% of the population, compared to more than 30% in Latvia and around 25% in Estonia.

But the bloodshed in the Baltics, and the incredibly extensive deportations to Siberia, as a result of the partisan opposition, made that these three countries lost too many of their best men and women. The hero status they may have achieved around the world never became significantly large. We in the West did not know what really happened, and when we finally learned, far too many decades have passed to achieve a proper attention for the heroes, the very guerrilla war, the deportations and the unbelievable sufferings the Baltic people underwent on the Siberian permafrost during the 1940s and 1950s.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have paid an extremely high price for their rebellion behaviours, and are unlikely ever to receive the honour and the redress they deserve for their courage to fight the injustice they were subjected to during the ruthless Soviet period.

When World War II ended, the West chose to forget Lithuania
 

The historic meeting near the end of World War II, the Yalta Conference, became fatal for Lithuania.  


It involved three key allied leaders. Left to right: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom;

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States; and Joseph Stalin, Premier of the Soviet Union.



For several years after World War the Balts believed that the U.S. and other Allied powers would come to their rescue and help to free them from the Soviet occupation. This was fatal.

The partisan leaders were familiar with the Atlantic Charter, which was signed by Churchill and Roosevelt 12 August 1941 aboard the U.S. cruiser Augusta in Newfoundland, a charter later acceded to on 1 January 1942 by all countries involved in the war against Germany and Japan - including the Soviet Union. This declaration stated that all territorial changes resulting from the war would only take place after the population's own desires, and that any people should have the right freely to choose their form of government.

What the Baltic people did not know, was that their case head was not at all discussed when the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Soviet leader Josef Stalin in February 1945 met in the city of Yalta on the Black Sea to lay the conditions for peace and the post-war period. The Baltic States were totally forgotten; but they did not know about it, and therefore continued the impossible fight against the evil superior force until 1953.

It has been speculated that Roosevelt's failing health may have been the reason why Stalin so easily got the upper hand at the Yalta Conference. The outcome was, in any case, very tragic for the Baltic States, and only in 2005 the American president, George W. Bush came here to apologise on behalf of the United States. Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, was also asked to apologise for the atrocities against the Baltic States in the years after Yalta. But Russia still considers that they 'liberated' the Baltics and sees no reason to excuse themselves. It went even so far that Putin declared Lithuania's President Valdas Adamkus 'persona non grata' after the latter refused to come to Moscow to participate in Russia’s anniversary celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany on 9 May 2005.

In the years after WWII a number of Lithuanian agents were amazingly capable of getting in and out of the country several times, and in December 1947 a full delegation travelled to Western Europe to present their case to the Pope and to Western governments. But no countries or leaders dared go into conflict with Stalin's Soviet Union, and Lithuanians call for help was largely met with deaf ears.

Though not quite. Both U.S. and UK intelligence agencies gave their orders to see what might be done to create secret anti-communist organizations and operations behind the Iron Curtain. They also helped to organise the radio stations 'Radio Liberty' and 'Radio Free Europe', which for many years thereafter conveyed useful information to the Baltics. In 1951 came the 'Voice of America' on air, and thus gave hundreds of thousands of Baltic war refugees in the United States a voice back to their home countries at the Baltic Sea.
Unfortunately, the success of the Western intelligence services and their 'relief efforts' very much failed, which in retrospect largely is attributed to the British intelligence officer Kim Philby, the man who in reality was a Soviet spy who unfortunately contributed so actively to the killing of tens of thousands of Baltic people.

The intelligence organizations' attempts to help the Baltic States irritated Stalin violently, and he therefore imposed increasingly tough measures against the uprisings. His NKVD (later renamed the KGB) had more or less free hands to exercise extensive torture against individuals and groups believed being in league with the partisans.  Vague suspicions were enough to allow use of cruel torture methods. Many were hanged or shot without any real form of litigation. A huge number of relatives and family members of the partisans were sent to slave labour camps in Siberia. All private farms were incorporated into collective farms to prevent them from continuing to provide food to the partisans, and many farmers were deported to Siberia. The West's attempts to help got quite the reverse effect. Tyranny had triumphed, and our close neighbours on the Baltic Sea's south coast were once again suffering in a most cruel way.

Juozas_Luksa-KIA1951.jpg

One of the many killed Lithuanian partisans, Juozas Luksa –


"Skirmantas", "Daumantas", after his death on the 4th of September 1951.

Photo: KGB


Few in the West know that Lithuania 500 years ago was considered Europe's largest country, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Few in our today's West know the proud and honourable cultural history of the Baltic countries, or that these countries were economically fully on par with Scandinavia until World War II, and few know about the heroic guerrilla war these three nations fought against the mighty Soviet Union after WWII.

During five world war years, the Baltic area became the incredibly bloody and sad battlefield where Stalin and Hitler pushed each other back and forth, with fatal and almost incomprehensible destruction and murders of hundreds of thousands innocent people as result. It was here that the Holocaust saw its very worst outcome on Earth, when 95% of the large Jewish population of Lithuania was exterminated. It was here that Europe's longest and bloodiest guerrilla war and the ensuing mass deportations to Siberia took place through more than a decade during and after WWII. 

Hundreds of thousands of our closest neighbours died just outside our own front door (or were deported to the gulag camps in the permafrost of Siberia). These terrible things happened only 300 kilometres away from Lithuania’s closest Western coast, at the same time as we westerners celebrated our new freedom and the beginning of the new era we today know as the proud Western World. Didn’t we know, or did we prefer not to know?





Tags: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, World War Two, Russia, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Cold war, Iron curtain, Stasi, NKVD, KGB, East Germany, Siberia, Gulags, Yalta Conference, 1944-1953, Forest brothers, Partisans, Freedom fighters, The Berlin Wall, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Collectivism.  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!