Showing posts with label murky history that matters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label murky history that matters. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Up to 45 million people

"Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world"

Historian Frank Dikötter, author of the important book Mao’s Great Famine recently published an article in History Today, summarizing what happened:
Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors by herding villagers across the country into giant people’s communes. In pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised. People had their work, homes, land, belongings and livelihoods taken from them. In collective canteens, food, distributed by the spoonful according to merit, became a weapon used to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. As incentives to work were removed, coercion and violence were used instead to compel famished farmers to perform labour on poorly planned irrigation projects while fields were neglected.
A catastrophe of gargantuan proportions ensued. Extrapolating from published population statistics, historians have speculated that tens of millions of people died of starvation. But the true dimensions of what happened are only now coming to light thanks to the meticulous reports the party itself compiled during the famine….
What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a tale of horror in which Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Correction... Wallace was one of yours.

Rep. Ellison tried to link George Wallace to the GOP, but Republican Rep. Tom Cole immediately called him out with the historical truth.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Wisconsin: The End Game For La Raza?

An interesting archeological site in southeastern Wisconsin is called Aztalan State Park. There are earthen pyramids and physical evidence that the people who dwelt there were in commercial contact with peoples of the Gulf of Mexico. For still unexplained reasons, the site was suddenly abandoned around 1200-1300 A.D.
Platform Pyramid at Aztalan State Park in Wisconsin
 Wiki takes pains not conflate the word Aztalan with Aztlán, but the words are related:
The name Aztalan was given to this place by Mr. [H. F.] Hyer, because, according to Humboldt, the Aztecs, or ancient inhabitants of Mexico, had a tradition that their ancestors came from a country at the north, which they called Aztalan; and the possibility that these may have been remains of their occupancy, suggested the idea of restoring the name. It is made up of two Mexican words, atl, water, and an, near; and the country was probably so named from its proximity to large bodies of water. Hence the natural inference that the country about these great lakes was the ancient residence of the Aztecs.
Liberating Aztlán is the end game for La Raza and even more sinister groups. That the ancient Aztec Empire extended to Wisconsin appears to be one gringo's fantasy. But whose fantasy is it that the Aztec Empire once included the American Southwest?
I hear more and more Mexicans talking about la raza—to build up their pride. Some people don’t look at it as racism, but when you say ‘La Raza,’ you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and it won’t stop there. Today it’s anti-gringo, tomorrow it will be anti-Negro. We had a stupid guy who just wanted to play politics with the union, and he began to whip up La Raza against the white volunteers, and even had some of the farm workers and the pickets and the organizers hung up on La Raza. So I took him on. These things have to be met head on. On discrimination, I don’t even give the members the privilege of a vote, and I’m not ashamed of it. No, the whole business of discrimination can’t exist here. So often, these days, the leaders are afraid, and even though they feel strongly against racism, they will not speak out against it. If the leadership is united, then it can say, ‘All right, if you’re going to do things that way, then you’ll have to get rid of us.’ You have to speak out immediately, the first time. ~ Cesar Chavez