On the other hand, it’s no more unrealistic than Hitler’s belief that he could conquer the USSR supported by Britain and the US. Self deception is a dangerous thing, especially when surrounded by sycophants. (Obama take note!)

Skanderbeg’s history lessons are always interesting.

First of all, I love this sentence, “I am my forefathers’ daughter and I love the America I remember and that we are fighting to preserve.”

Secondly, here is a story about another apartment on Ashland Avenue:

On the eastern side of Ashland at 90th Street was an apartment building with several dozen units. My father’s car lot was on the western side of the street, facing this building.

Several storefronts were on the streetlevel of the apt building, one of which housed Carlo The Barber. Much of the time his shop wasnt open, he spent in the converted gas station which was my father’s place.

Even back then, I was becoming folicly challenged. ‘What you want to do is go down in the pit, under the cars, and rub some axle grease on your hands,” Carlo told me. Then maybe I would keep my hair.

Carlo’s barber shop was tiny, and he lived on a cot in the back of it. Here is my real point:

‘I spent World War II in Italy,” Carlo once told me. He had gone there to study music, and showed me a clarinet from those times. The war had broken out, he had survived it there, and somehow emerged as a barber rather than a musician.

In the years that I knew him, Carlo had a problem with the bottle. He still gave good haircuts but it was best not to go too late in the day. He had some sort of a disability check, which he gave once a month to my father, and which was parcelled out to him during the month.

I told Carlo once I was losing so much hair he should only charge me half. Half! he laughed. I should charge you twice: once for finding it and once for cutting it.

I have been privileged to spend time with politicians and financiers, to have spent vacations in Martha’s Vineyard and eaten in some pretty good restaurants.

But the people I met on Ashland Ave still tug at my heart.

Here is one more:

The neighborhood back then was changing, month by month, block by block. In the midst of it all, a twentyish black guy came by the lot with spotted French poodles for sale.

‘Want to buy a poodle puppy?” he asked me. I couldnt help saying that I had never seen a spotted poodle.

“Oh, those aren’t spots. That’s Miss Clairol spots so the lady I took them from won’t take them back,” he said.

This is some of what Ashland Avenue was like back then.

Ashland’s story above made me feel I could share one that comes from that same era and can help visualize the times. It also connected to Skanderbeg discussion about the changes in the countries, their names and sovereignty.

I warn you—the book can drive the most cynical and jaded of men into dispair.

http://www.amazon.com/Rising-44-Battle-Norman-Davies/dp/0143035401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251069492&sr=1-1

There is something very sad about the First Lady’s ability to say that she had never before been able to be proud of it.

Granted that her ancestors had a horrific journey to get here. Granted that they suffered discrimination and barriers to success.

But had they not made that journey, the life she might have had in Africa would probably be a shadow of what she and those dear to her have here.

She went through excellent schools, practiced law with a first rate firm, got paid $300k a year for something of a made up job at the U of C Medical Center, and now rents a 30-acre estate for vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.

If she can’t appreciate that what the Founding Fathers did in 1787 made it possible for all that to happen, one has to feel sorry for her and her friends.

I’ve lived in Kansas, California, Illinois, and Florida. Commuted ‘tween Chicago and Detroit one very long summer, and I wouldn’t call that “living” by any stretch. Don’t know much about my ancestors’ European roots–the ones whose geneologies we know, came over in the 1600s, one as a seaman (Aquila), the other as a tanner (Adam). One of Adams’ great-great-….sons wrote a book about his experiences trading and travelling on the Santa Fe trail. I am my forefathers’ daughter and I love the America I remember and that we are fighting to preserve.

The story of your mother’s cousin is heart-rending, thanks for posting it.

Can you some time address 1848? I was listening recently to Teaching Company course on 19th Century Europe. The instructor suggested that with all the disruptions of that year, when France allowed universal suffrage, one would have expected liberals or radicals to be swept into power.

Instead, the French electorate showed itself much more conservative than that, and chose, simply based on his name, Louis Napoleon.

I am curious as to whether there may be any parallels between France even in the throws of revolution showing it to be much more conservative than expectations, and America’s conservative blowback to the Democratic wins in both houses and the Presidency.

Actually the Obamas and her family lived on the better side of the tracks.

I went to Bowen High School and remember the softball game between the Jews and the Mexicans. It was halted when the bat split and hit the Mexican pitcher in the face. You could say we lived between the old South Works of US Steel and the City Incinerator.

Nearing the end of high school, my mother said: You can go to college anywhere you want, as long as you live at home, work for your father and pay for it yourself. My father had a used car lot on the corner of 90th and Ashland.

I also worked at Maurice L. Rothschild’s, Bell & Howell Corp. and Foote, Cone and Belding, names Chicagoans would know. I was elected class president at DePaul, graduated with a degree in economics, and left the city in 1969 for graduate school, not to return for several decades.

I have also lived in Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Belfast, N.I. There is no place I have lived that I havent wholeheartedly enjoyed.

My mother is first cousin to the man whose story is above.

Video here
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&cPath=18_23&products_id=283856-1&highlight=

This is the description:

Victor Suvorov, author of The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start WWII (Naval Institute Press; November 14, 2008), talked about his book. He contends that Stalin intended to use Hitler’s army to weaken Europe during World War II, which would have then allowed the Soviet Union to move their forces across the continent. Mr. Suvorov argues that Germany’s attempt to invade the USSR was based on intelligence Hitler received that the Soviets were preparing to attack Germany. Following his presentation, Mr. Suvorov responded to questions from the audience.

Viktor Suvorov was a Soviet military intelligence officer who defected in 1978. He is the author of numerous books, including Aquarium: The Making of a Top Soviet Spy.

I did read about the USSR illegal training of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe corps, but I was left with the impression after reading “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” that Stalin was, at one point, willing to fight the Germans.

The left wing apologists have long covered for Russian atrocities and supportesd their lies. They used Hitler and the Nazis as the eternal symbol of evil, as they were linked to all “right wing” movements, and blamed many Russian atrocities on the Nazis..

As a Pole, I will never forget or forgive Katyn. The Russian massacred the Poles with a ruthlessness and blamed it on the Nazis. Its forgotten history.

The Russians were so ruthless that Germans came fleeing to the Brits and the Americans to surrender.

Skanderbeg, you always write on such important matters; and the historical context of this story related to present day events, cannot be overestimated.

As for the ’39 treaty, it caught a lot of lefties with their pants down, but even back then, for many of them, there was this remarkable facility to quickly reprogram the mind, maintain loyal belief, and go on like nothing happened.
Just like today for our liberal brothers. War, what war? Deficits??

P.S.

Are you from Chicago?

Following is a description one of them made for the Spielberg project, which records such things:

“I remember when the Germans arrived in Chweidan. I was 18 years old. I was in the attic, looking out over what was going on in the town. I saw they were carrying all the elderly people in cars and trucks and taking them out of the city. They were Nazis, dressed in black clothes.

“Then they rounded us up on a Sunday, maybe a day later. That day was a horrible day. There was a Lithuanian by the name of Kolicius. He came into our house. My father was already in the ally. He told my sister that if your brother doesn’t come down, we’re going to shoot your father. My sister said to me, “Come down, Gershon, otherwise they’re going to kill Daddy.” I came down. He had a big gun, a shotgun, but he didn’t say anything. He just motioned with the gun for me to go this way. I walked out and saw in the marketplace women and girls were standing and weeping. They told us, “Schnell, schnell.” Then they closed the truck.

“They took us to a town called Heidekru. The date we left town was June 29, 1941.

“In the truck we were talking to each other, that they were going to take us to do work, nothing else. We didn’t figure they were going to kill people just like that. I was with all the people from my hometown. My friends were there. Their fathers were there. There were also some people collected from the town of Heidekru and people from the town of Schveksnia.

“When we got off the truck, there were men standing there with whips. We saw people getting hit with the whips. I told my father, please run in as fast as you can. He ran in and didn’t get hurt. Maybe a little touched, but he was not bleeding. I ran in like a storm, because I was young and fast. A lot of people were bleeding and crying.

“My father wasn’t with me very long, maybe four or five weeks. They took him away with other people, including the rabbi from our town. They said they were going to take them home. Then the young SS beasts returned and they brought the clothing from the people they had taken. You can imagine the heartache we went through. We started sitting shiva. We didn’t know what to do.

“The guard must have known someone in my family. There was this young guard who said, austrecher, which meant come over here. He gave me a cigarette.

“Later something appeared on my foot, about the size of a baseball. I couldn’t go out and work, so was sitting peeling potatoes. When the Nazis came in to take people away, the young one in charge wanted to take me, too. He said, “You. Come along.” But our foreman said, “You’re not taking him. He is my best worker”. So they left without me.”…

http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Kvedarna/kve-young.html