History & the Current Context (April, 2020)

research from the Committee for the Study of
HISTORY AND THE CURRENT CONTEXT
[HistoryAndCurrentContext.blogspot.com]

* CovertAction Magazine Archives (covertactionmagazine.com/index.php/archives/) [archive.is/QghRY]

* "CounterSpy: 27 Issues of the Infamous Magazine That Exposed the CIA (& Others)" (altgov2.org/counterspy/) [archive.is/A3zzy]

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* "The Emergence of the Alabama Black Liberation Front" (Birmingham and the Long Black Freedom Struggle pp 137-152, via link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137340962_8) [archive.is/M0az7],
- [abstract]: The ABLF emerged within the specific context of post-1963 Birmingham, but it could trace its origins to the neighboring state of Georgia. It was there, in early 1970, that Wayland “Doc” Bryant and Michael Reese first met and began their collaboration in black radical politics. The manner in which these men both encountered and tried to implement “black power” is crucial to a full understanding of the scope and scale of the wider movement associated with that idea. Understanding how and why Bryant, Reese, and the other members of the ABLF felt compelled to establish such an organization enhances our understanding of the ways in which many African Americans responded to black power during those years. Thus, before turning to the activities of the ABLF, it is important to first understand its origins and development. To that end, this chapter explores the experiences and motivations of the men who founded and joined the organization. What emerges from that exploration is the story of a group of black southerners who— having experienced the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and the other major events of the 1960s—determined that the concerns facing their communities required a response on the order of what the BPP was providing in cities around the country.
- [begin excerpt]:  The ABLF emerged within the specific context of post-1963 Birmingham, but it could trace its origins to the neighboring state of Georgia. It was there, in early 1970, that Wayland “Doc” Bryant and Michael Reese first met and began their collaboration in black radical politics. The manner in which these men both encountered and tried to implement “black power” is crucial to a full understanding of the scope and scale of the wider movement associated with that idea.
Understanding how and why Bryant, Reese, and the other members of the ABLF felt compelled to establish such an organization enhances our understanding of the ways in which many African Americans responded to black power during those years. Thus, before turning to the activities of the ABLF, it is important to first understand its origins and development. To that end, this chapter explores the experiences and motivations of the men who founded and joined the organization. What emerges from that exploration is the story of a group of black southerners who— having experienced the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and the other major events of the 1960s—determined that the concerns facing their communities required a response on the order of what the BPP was providing in cities around the country.
 The Georgia Black Liberation Front -
 Doc Bryant and Michael Reese began their work together as members of an Atlanta-based organization known as the Georgia Black Liberation Front (GBLF). The GBLF operated out of the Vine City neighborhood, a center of black power activism perhaps best known for its connection to Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Atlanta Project. 1
 Although sources on the organization are few, it is possible to piece together information about the group from documents within the Birmingham Police Department’s surveillance files. One such document is a letter that Atlanta police sent to their counterparts in Birmingham. In that letter, Atlanta police identified Bryant as the GBLF’s leader and painted a wholly negative picture of the group. Describing the GBLF, they wrote, “They advocate violence, [are] also described as ignorant and dangerous, [and] their only source of income is selling and distributing hate literature.” Bryant, they noted further, “teaches his followers to hate and kill police.” 2
According to a flyer produced by the GBLF there was more to the organization than what the Atlanta police allowed. 3 The flyer maintained that the GBLF’s focus was not on fostering hate, but rather on countering the effects of poverty in Vine City. Whereas previous generations of “the
underpaid and unemployed” had been afraid to speak out for “human justice,” members of the GBLF were leading a move “towards human rights.” 4 To that end, they had established a “free breakfast for school children” program—an action that the flyer alleged had led to the arrest and imprisonment of three of their members, including Reese, for what Atlanta police reported as “stealing from a grocery store near [the GBLF] headquarters.” 5
What is clear, even from these limited sources, is that the GBLF constituted an early attempt by Bryant and Reese to incorporate into their work the programs and ideas of the period’s leading black radical organization, the BPP. It was not mere coincidence that the GBLF initiated a “free breakfast for school children.” The program—and its title—reflected the influence of Bryant who, prior to arriving in Atlanta, had forged a relationship with the Panthers in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Outside of FBI surveillance records, details about Bryant’s experiences before he arrived in Atlanta are similarly difficult to come by. He did provide some detail in an interview with the Southern Patriot, noting that prior to his work with both the GBLF and ABLF, he had been active in “so-called civil rights movements” since at least 1948, when he had worked to integrate his military base in North Carolina. 7 Police files confirm that Bryant had been in the military and offer a few other details about his previous life. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Bryant had been in the Army for fourteen years, ultimately settling, as noted above, in North Carolina. 8 Birmingham police files contain a photocopy of Bryant’s North Carolina driver’s license that was issued in 1966 and listed his residence as Jacksonville, NC, a city surrounding the Fort Bragg military base. [end excerpt]

* "Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party" (product page, dukeupress.edu/liberated-territory) [archive.is/hQN2W], abstract: With their collection In Search of the Black Panther Party, Yohuru Williams and Jama Lazerow provided a broad analysis of the Black Panther Party and its legacy. In Liberated Territory, they turn their attention to local manifestations of the organization, far away from the party’s Oakland headquarters. This collection’s contributors, all historians, examine how specific party chapters and offshoots emerged, developed, and waned, as well as how the local branches related to their communities and to the national party.
The histories and character of the party branches vary as widely as their locations. The Cape Verdeans of New Bedford, Massachusetts, were initially viewed as a particular challenge for the local Panthers but later became the mainstay of the Boston-area party. In the early 1970s, the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, chapter excelled at implementing the national Black Panther Party’s strategic shift from revolutionary confrontation to mainstream electoral politics. In Detroit, the Panthers were defined by a complex relationship between their above-ground activities and an underground wing dedicated to armed struggle. While the Milwaukee chapter was born out of a rising tide of black militancy, it ultimately proved more committed to promoting literacy and health care and redressing hunger than to violence. The Alabama Black Liberation Front did not have the official imprimatur of the national party, but it drew heavily on the Panthers’ ideas and organizing strategies, and its activism demonstrates the broad resonance of many of the concerns articulated by the national party: the need for jobs, for decent food and housing, for black self-determination, and for sustained opposition to police brutality against black people. Liberated Territory reveals how the Black Panther Party’s ideologies, goals, and strategies were taken up and adapted throughout the United States.

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* "1967 Vietnam War protest photos show savagery by police in Oakland" (2017-11-07, sfchronicle.com/chronicle_vault/article/1967-Vietnam-War-protest-photos-show-savagery-by-12338190.php) [archive.is/823Te]:
Amid the chaos of the Vietnam War across the Pacific Ocean and the protests at home, a conflict in the Bay Area proved inevitable.
Fifty years ago, anti-war demonstrators took a stand, shutting down the Oakland Induction Center, a governmental hub where draftees were processed before being sent to the armed services. The response from authorities was swift and, at times, savage. The images from the conflict in mid-October 1967 remain stunning.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the draft was a cloud that lingered over the nation and, especially, the heads of those born from 1944 to 1950. More than 600,000 young men were drafted in 1966-67, and more than 200,000 of them were sent to the theater of war, where U.S. casualties topped 11,000 in 1967 alone.
Nationwide protests escalated, with Stop the Draft Week in mid-October 1967 in the Bay Area building into the largest demonstration of the anti-war movement.
In San Francisco, young people were urged to turn in their draft cards at the Federal Building. The Rev. Anthony Nugent summed up the feelings of the resistance: “If a young man wants to fight in Vietnam, that’s one thing. But I don’t think he should be drafted into a war he morally opposes.”
In Oakland, the week’s organizing committee announced that rallies designed to close the induction center would begin the morning of Oct. 16, stating “participants in this action should expect arrest.” An article in The Chronicle on Oct. 17 reported that while 125 people were arrested, including Joan Baez and her mother, the demonstrations were relatively calm with the group composed almost entirely of pacifists. “There was an air of ‘entente cordiale’ between the Oakland Police Department and demonstrators,” the story read. The day’s activities, however, proved to be the calm before the storm.
The headline across the top of The Chronicle’s Oct. 18 front page read “THE BIG DRAFT BATTLE” then “A bloody attack by police — clubs, tear gas and boots.” The previous day, Oakland police had faced off against at least 2,500 protesters, mostly students from UC Berkeley and Stanford University. In a turn from the relative peace of the previous gathering, violence was the order of the day.
Chronicle reporter Charles Howe provided a vivid description of the events. Demonstrators started showing up at 2 a.m. at the Oakland Induction Center’s examining station. By 6 a.m., “hundreds ringed the building, marching, chanting and singing.” A police order to disperse came from a bullhorn. Within a few minutes, police, sheriff’s deputies and CHP officers came pouring out of a parking garage.
- image caption: Police use Mace to move war protesters blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 17, 1967.

“Shortly after 7 a.m., police made their move,” Howe wrote, “beating their way through a thin, running line of frightened demonstrators. ... Charging down Clay Street, officers squirted liquid Mace and rattled clubs against anyone who didn’t move out of their way fast enough.”
Halfway down the block, 100 demonstrators were blocking the side entrance to the station, sealing it off with their bodies. After facing off for a few minutes, “officers suddenly surged, their hard wooden sticks mechanically flailing up and down, like a peasant mowing down wheat,” Howe wrote.
Several members of the media were beaten and Maced during the melee. Among them were Chronicle photographer Gordon Peters and KGO-TV news anchor Jerry Jensen. Oakland Police Chief Charles Gain said the media had been ordered twice to clear the area. “Police had a job to do,” Gain said, “and the press were where they didn’t belong.” The journalists said they never heard a warning to leave the area.
- image caption: Police use clubs and Mace to move anti-war demonstrators blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 17, 1967.

The violent force used by police had made headlines not only in The Chronicle; this was coast-to-coast front-page news. A statement released by Lt. Gov. Robert Finch on behalf of Gov. Ronald Reagan, however, saluted law enforcement officers for their “exceptional ability” during the demonstrations. The statement read: “Their actions in upholding the law are to be commended and should serve as a reminder throughout all California that law must be obeyed.”
After the fighting, dozens of arrests and incidents of violence sprang up in the last three days of Stop the Draft Week in Oakland, but police tactics were more restrained. The Oakland Induction Center was the site of many more protests and arrests into the early 1970s, but the riots of October 1967 remained the bloodiest confrontation.
On Jan. 28, 1973, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announced an end to the draft, and the all-volunteer army era began again.
- image caption: Police move a demonstrator who confronted an officer away from the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 17, 1967.

- image caption: A protester holds a “resist tyranny” sign while confronting police outside the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image  caption: Police escort busloads of inductees through war protesters trying to block access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 16, 1967.

- image caption: Joan Baez and other anti-war demonstrators are arrested for blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 16, 1967.

- image caption: Police form a wedge against anti-war demonstrators trying to block access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 17, 1967.

- image caption: Police form a line and move toward thousands of war protesters blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: Police win the first round against Vietnam War protesters trying to block access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 17, 1967.

- image caption: Police charge war protesters, sending several sprawling to the pavement, on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: War protesters, attempting to shut down the Oakland Induction Center, face off with police on Oct. 22, 1967.

- image caption: Oakland and California Highway Patrol officers face off against draft and Vietnam War protesters at the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 17, 1967.

- image caption: Police use Mace against war protesters blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 18, 1967.

- image caption: John Ibetinis, an intern at Highland Hospital in Oakland injured when police moved against war demonstrators blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center, tends to another injured demonstrator on Oct. 17, 1967.

- image caption: Club-wielding police move war protesters blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: A police officer grabs a war protester by the shirt on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: Doctors and interns tend to a demonstrator injured as police moved war protesters to keep them from blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: Police stand ready to confront demonstrators marching against the Vietnam War and the draft at the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 22, 1967.

- image caption: Police arrest war protesters blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 18, 1967.

- image caption: A shield is little help as police use clubs and Mace to move war protesters from the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: War protesters block the intersection of 15th and Grove streets in Oakland on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: War protesters jeer police outside the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 20, 1967.

- image caption: Police form two lines to enable inductees to pass through war protesters blocking access to the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 16, 1967.

- image caption: Police escort buses carrying inductees down Clay Street in Oakland toward the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 18, 1967.

- image caption: Police arrest a war protester at the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 22, 1967.

- image caption: Demonstrators march against the Vietnam War and the draft at the Oakland Induction Center on Oct. 22, 1967.

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The Hips voice (1970, Sante Fe, N.M.)
Bimonthly
Vol. 1, no. 1 (Mar. 15, 1970), Latest issue consulted: Vol. 3, no. 2 (Mar./Apr., 1971).
"Peace through Understanding, Love through Harmony," 1970.
Available on microfilm in Bell and Howell Underground press collection.
* (eroplay.org/the-hips-voice-august-26-1970/) [archive.is/Rq6Sg]:

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* "Free Spirits (2007)" (imdb.com/title/tt1100090/) [archive.is/s0nCh]
- (imdb.com/title/tt1100090/plotsummary) [archive.is/B5BEa]:
The incredible true story of the Renaissance Community commune, one of the largest, most controversial intentional communities of the 1960s and 70s, and its flamboyant founder, Michael Metelica Rapunzel.
Free Spirits" documents the unusual 20-year history of the Brotherhood of the Spirit/Renaissance Community, focusing primarily on its mercurial leader, Michael Metelica Rapunzel. When high school and Hell's Angels dropout Michael Metelica and eight hungry teen-aged friends retreated to a rural Massachusetts tree house in 1968, they never imagined it would grow into one of the largest, most controversial New Age communes of the 1960s and 70s. At its peak in the mid 1970s, it grew to 400 full-time members, with real estate in four Massachusetts towns, an airplane, national rock band (Spirit in Flesh), and a million dollar a year income. Many stayed a decade or longer, committing their youth, sweat, and worldly possessions to creating an example of brotherhood and spiritual awareness they hoped would serve as a model for the world. "60 Minutes," "People Magazine," "Look," "The New York Times," "Wall Street Journal," "National Geographic" and countless other media came calling on this outlandish group of young people whose belief in their cause was only exceeded by their disdain for the norms of contemporary society. For some members, their time there was to be the highlight of their lives, filled with humor, danger, intense personal and spiritual growth, and daily absurdity. For others, it became a cultish nightmare. Their story, as told in "Free Spirits," reflected the 1960s generation, as they survived the intense hostility of the towns around them - fire-bombings, the brutal murder of an eighteen year old member - only to fall because of internal pressures, not the least of which were the changes in their founder and leader, Michael Metelica Rapunzel.
* "For Spirit in Flesh, Voices of Commune, The Trip Is Visual" (1971-09-24, nytimes.com/1971/09/24/archives/for-spirit-in-flesh-voices-of-commune-the-trip-is-visual.html) [archive.is/maISv]
* "Spirit In Flesh" catalog citation (1971, via discogs.com/Spirit-In-Flesh-Spirit-In-Flesh/release/4216293) [archive.is/4SGyH]
- (discogs.com/release/4216293-Spirit-In-Flesh/images) [archive.is/kdSEK], detail [archive.is/KKFPu]

- [comment]: Spirit In Flesh was the "house band" for the Renaissance Community, an aquarian cult/commune based in Turners Falls, Massachusetts that was founded by the band's lead singer, Michael Metelica. He later called himself "Michael Rapunzel" and used that name on the group's second album, in 1979.
* "Spirit in Flesh poster crew, 1971" (photo, credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/muph011-bin-i071) [archive.is/j5oQ7], full image [archive.is/voqH1]
* "Spirit In Flesh ‎– II" catalog citation (1979, via discogs.com/Spirit-In-Flesh-II/release/7001227) [archive.is/1hJbx]
* "Spirit in Flesh rally in front of St. James Episcopal Church, 1971" (credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/muph011-car-i039) [archive.is/xZxy0]: Community members hold Spirit in Flesh posters along street corner.

* "Michael Metelica with Spirit in Flesh, 1972" (credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/muph011-bin-i142) [archive.is/YFwY3]: Metelica sings with Spirit in Flesh.

* "Spirit in Flesh giving concert to Brotherhood members, March 1971" (credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/muph011-bin-i029) [archive.is/DcQCt]: Spirit in Flesh performs concert for the Brotherhood. View from the stage. PLACE Warwick (Mass.)

* "Spirit in Flesh Diamond Reo transport truck, 1972" (credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/muph011-bin-i066) [archive.is/jPuhh]: Back of the Spirit in Flesh truck, painted and inscribed "Whether you pass or not, stay behind Spirit in Flesh"

* "Metelica Spirit In Flesh Commune Documentary - 1971" (youtube.com/watch?v=MFIwTEgicYk) [archive.is/4Vu3d]: What a fascinating story this guy Metelica and his commune in Massachusetts was. There's a lot to see and alot to read about them but this “documentary” is unique in that it captured them in 1971 at a time when they were at their height with a rock band, a commercial store and adventures in hippie living, etc.

* "Michael Metelica (Brotherhood of the Spirit) Photo Album - Beth Hapgood Collection" (scua.library.umass.edu/collections/galleries/metelica.htm) [archive.is/2MD5D]
- image caption: Michael Metelica on cover of Real Paper, Boston, October 11, 1972

* "Whatever Happened to the Renaissance Community?" (2019-11-12, via ic.org/whatever-happened-to-the-renaissance-community/) [archive.is/nZ8j3]

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* " ‘The Hard Stuff’ Review: Motor City Mayhem; The influential Detroit band the MC5 mixed fuzzed-out blues with wild ’60s political provocation" (2018-08-10, wsj.com/articles/the-hard-stuff-review-motor-city-mayhem-1533928657) [archive.is/Ek7ZZ]
- image caption: Wayne Kramer (center) and the MC5 in Mount Clemens, Mich., 1969.

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April 11th, 1944 – liberation of Kerch (Crimea) from Nazis.
Picture: waving a Red flag on the Mount Mithridat (on the place of former residence of Mithridates VI of Pontus, a ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus, and a long-time antagonist of the ancient Rome).

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* " ‘Driven by hatred & envy’: Czech president slams tearing down of monument to Soviet marshal who liberated Prague" (2020-04-12, rt.com/news/485624-zeman-konev-monument-prague/) [archive.is/dz2RT]

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* "Russia slaps US for ignoring Gagarin on Spaceflight Day" (2020-04-12, AP newswire, via fox40.com/news/national-and-world-news/russia-slaps-us-for-ignoring-gagarin-on-spaceflight-day/) [archive.is/tDKY2]
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* "Psychedelic Renaissance in the Czech Republic" (2016-08-01, psypressuk.com/2016/08/01/psychedelic-renaissance-in-the-czech-republic/) [archive.is/cM7j7] [begin excerpt]: As elsewhere, the 1960s and 70s were the golden age of psychedelic research in Czechoslovakia, when the country used to be one of the most prolific countries in the field of psychedelic therapy. LSD served as the foremost experimental object, then manufactured under the name Lysergamid. Psilocybin was another profusely studied substance under the name Indocybin. Some even took an interest in compounds like atropine or scopolamine which, in contrast to traditional psychedelics, can induce genuine hallucinations.
In 1974 Czechoslovakia became the last of all European and North American countries to ban research of LSD. Up until then, LSD had been used in therapy as well as research, at times with an unrivalled bountifulness. During the last few years Dr. Petr Winkler from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has lead the systematic research to review the psychedelic research that was done in those years of legal research of LSD.The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic hosted no less than five centres for psychedelic research. A clinic in Sadska, near Prague, was once amongst those most experienced in the clinical uses of psychedelics. The Psychiatric Research Institute, co-founded by the indisputably principal figure of this time was Stanislav Grof, a famous psychiatrist, researcher, and founder of transpersonal psychology. The Institute was later renamed to the Prague Psychiatric Centre, from which the current, far more extensive National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) originated.
Less known yet equally experienced was Milan Hausner, who supervised over 3000 psychedelic sessions with intoxicated individuals and groups. Hausner most liked to apply LSD in the context of community care, but also explored its possibilities as part of ambulatory treatment for neurosis. [end excerpt]
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Moscow, September 1993 — A brave young man, holding a flag of the Soviet Union, stands against riot police forces during the days of popular uprising against the corrupted puppet-regime of Yeltsin.

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* "The Almost War of 1938-1939: Russia and Japan's Nearly Forgotten Battle; For all its bluster, Tokyo was taught a lesson it soon would not forget" (2015-09-29, nationalinterest.org/feature/the-almost-war-1938-1939-russia-japans-nearly-forgotten-13956) [archive.is/k26ko] [begin excerpt]: During the Russian Civil War in 1919, Japan sent 70,000 troops to support the anti-Communist White Army. The Imperial Japanese forces nearly annexed Siberia before withdrawing.
There was little love lost between either side, especially in the ultra-militaristic atmosphere of the 1930s. Japan lurched towards fascism while Stalin bulked up Soviet industrial and military power for the inevitable clash with capitalism. [...]
The fuse was first lit at the beginning of the 1930s, when Japan's aggressive Kwantung Army—on its own initiative—occupied China's Manchurian territory in 1931, creating a disputed 3,000-mile frontier between Japan and Russia.
The first serious clash of arms erupted during the Changfukeng Incident (known to the Russians as the Battle of Lake Khasan) in July 1938, when a Japanese division attacked Soviet troops on a disputed hill near Vladivostok. After an attack and counterattack that together cost both sides more than 4,000 casualties, the Japanese withdrew.
Lake Khasan demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. The Soviets had superior firepower and many more tanks, but with its leadership decimated by Stalin's purges, the Red Army was rigid and its morale fragile. Lacking the armor and artillery firepower of its more industrialized rivals like the Soviet Union, the Japanese relied on spirit and the will to win at all costs. At first, it seemed like the Japanese knew best. The Soviets eventually deployed 350 tanks, but nearly a hundred were destroyed or damaged by Japanese anti-tank teams. At one point, a Japanese bayonet charge had routed Soviet defenders, reinforcing the Imperial Japanese Army's belief that determined men could beat machines.
With neither side eager to start an all-out war, a ceasefire was arranged. And then nearly a year later, the real test of arms came. It began in May 1939 with a clash of puppets, as a few cavalrymen belonging to Russia's Outer Mongolia satellite entered disputed territory near the village of Nomonhan (the Russians called it the Battle of Khalkin Gol), only to be ejected by cavalry from the Japanese-organized Manchuoko army. When the Mongolian cavalry returned, the Kwantung Army decided to teach them a lesson by sending in the 23rd Infantry Division backed by 70 tanks.
The Soviets responded with attacks by 500 tanks and armored cars, a mighty force but unaccompanied by infantry. "The unsupported Soviet tanks and armored cars rolled forward and did blunt the Japanese offensive," writes Edward Drea in a U.S. Army monograph on Japanese forces in the battle. "Japanese troops destroyed at least 120 Soviet tanks or armored cars with Molotov cocktails, 37-mm antitank guns and antitank mines."
The battle lines settled into small patrols and raids, but unfortunately for Japan, there arrived a new Soviet commander named Georgy Zhukov, soon to be the nemesis of Hitler's armies. Just as he later did to the Germans, Zhukov unleashed a mechanized blitzkrieg of infantry, armor and artillery that encircled and destroyed the 23rd Division before a ceasefire was declared.  The Japanese suffered 17,000 casualties while the Soviets lost 10,000 men. [end excerpt]
* "Soviet–Japanese border conflicts" (retrieved 2020-04-14, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_border_conflicts) [archive.is/c5uaD] [begin excerpt]: The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, also known as the Soviet-Japanese Border War, was an undeclared border conflict fought between the Soviet Union and Japan in Northeast Asia from 1932 to 1939.
Japanese expansion in the Northeast China region bordering the Soviet Far East and disputes over the demarcation line led to growing tensions with the Soviet Union, with both sides often violating the border and accusing each other of border violations. The Soviets and Japanese, including their respective client states of Mongolia and Manchukuo, fought in a series of escalating small border skirmishes and punitive expeditions from 1935 until Soviet-Mongolian victory over the Japanese in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 which resolved the dispute and returned the borders to status quo ante bellum.
The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts heavily contributed to the signing of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact in 1941. [end excerpt]
- image caption: Japanese light tanks during the Battles of Khalkhin Gol




* "Soviet invasion of Xinjiang" (retrieved 2020-04-14, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Xinjiang) [archive.is/t21WZ] [begin excerpt]:
In 1934, two brigades of about 7,000 Soviet GPU troops, backed by tanks, airplanes and artillery with mustard gas, crossed the border to assist Sheng Shicai in gaining control of Xinjiang. The brigades were named "Altayiiskii" and "Tarbakhataiskii" [6]. Sheng's Manchurian army was being severely beaten by an alliance of the Han Chinese army led by general Zhang Peiyuan, and the 36th Division led by Ma Zhongying [7]. Ma fought under the banner of the Kuomintang Republic of China government. The joint Soviet-White Russian force was called "The Altai Volunteers". Soviet soldiers disguised themselves in uniforms lacking markings, and were dispersed among the White Russians [8]. [...]
Battle of Dawan Cheng -
Ma Zhongying was chased by a mixture of White Russian, Mongol, and collaborationist Chinese forces. As he pulled back his forces, Ma Zhongying encountered a Soviet armored car column of a few hundred soldiers near Dawan Cheng. The 36th Division wiped out nearly the entire column, after engaging the Soviets in fierce melee combat and toppled the wrecked Russian armored cars down the mountain. When a White Russian force showed up, Ma Zhongying withdrew. [14][16][17]
During the Battle of Dawan Cheng, Ma Zhongying for the last time tried to retake initiative from invading Soviet troops. His men dug trenches in a narrow mountain pass and blocked the advance of Soviet troops for weeks. However, mustard gas air bombings of his positions, affecting about 20% of his troops, forced him to withdraw his forces at the end of February 1934 from Dawan Cheng to Turpan.
Conclusion of operations -
During Ma Zhongying's retreat, he and 40 of his Chinese Muslim troops, fully armed, hijacked lorries at gunpoint from Sven Hedin, who was on an expedition from the Nanjing KMT government. When Hedin showed him his passports from Nanjing, Ma Zhongying's men, who were technically under Nanjing's command, responded by saying: "This has nothing to do with Nanking. There's a war on here, and no passports are valid in wartime."
The Chinese Muslim forces also reminded Hedin that since they were serving Nanjing too, the lorries should be put under their command. Chang, who was in the service of General Ma Chung-ping, one of Ma Zhongying's subordinate generals, explained: "Military matters come before everything else! Nothing can be allowed to interfere with them. Nanking counts for nothing in a war in Sinkiang. For that matter, we are under Nanking too, and it ought to be in both your interest and Nanking's to help us."[18][19][20]
Hedin and his party were detained in Korla by Soviet and White Russian forces. Hedin personally met General Volgin. Torgut Mongols and White Russians served under the Soviet forces and joined them in occupying numerous cities.[21]
The White Russians first advanced from Davan-ch'eng and then to Korla via Toqsun and Qara-Shahr. The Torgut and Russian army marched into Korla on March 16. Russian Cossacks were seen serving in the Soviet forces. Ma Zhongying had warned Sven Hedin to avoid Dawan Cheng due to the battle going on between Chinese Muslim and Russian forces.[22]
General Volgin then met with Hedin and started verbally attacking Ma Zhongying by saying: "General Ma is hated and abused everywhere, and he has turned Sinkiang into a desert. But he is brave and energetic and sticks at nothing. He isn't afraid of anything, whether airplanes or superior numbers. But now a new era has begun for Sinkiang. Now there is to be order, peace, and security in this province. General Sheng Shih-ts'ai is going to organize the administration and put everything on its legs again."[22]
General Ma Zhongying's retreating army often hijacked lorries to assist in their retreat. Volgin noted that Ma Zhongying often destroyed Russian lorries during battle. A White Russian informed Sven Hedin that "We have been coming here from Qara-Shahr all day, troop after troop. Two thousand Russians arrived to-day, half White, half Red. There are a thousand Torguts here, and two thousand troops of all arms have gone straight on to Kucha to attack Ma Chung-ying without touching Korla. Most of the two thousand who are in Korla now will continue westward to-morrow. We were five thousand strong when we started from Urumchi."
When the White Russian started to brag about what their army had done, Sven Hedin concluded that the Russian was lying, giving as one example of these lies the White Russian's exaggerated number of lorries they used.[23]
The Mongol soldiers were reported to have ill treated the people of Korla.[24]
Hedin met another two White Russian officers serving under the Soviets, Colonel Proshkukarov and General Bekteev, who demanded an explanation as to why Hedin's lorries were in the service of Ma Zhongying's forces.[24]
Before Ma Zhongying himself retreated from the front line, he sent an advance guard of 800 troops under General Ma Fu-yuan to defeat the Uyghur forces of Hoja-Niyaz, who were armed with weapons supplied by the USSR, and to assist Ma Zhancang in the Battle of Kashgar (1934) to destroy the First East Turkestan Republic. Thomson-Glover stated that the Soviets gave Hoya Niyaz "nearly 2,000 rifles with ammunition, a few hundred bombs, and three machine guns".[25] Hoja Niyaz's Uighur forces were defeated by the advance guard at Aksu, and he fled to Kashgar with 1,500 troops on January 13, 1934. During the Battle of Kashgar, he and the Turkic forces failed in all of their attacks to defeat the Chinese Muslim forces trapped in the city, suffering severe casualties.[26] Ma Fuyuan's 800 Chinese Muslim troops, along with 1,200 conscripts, routed and bulldozed the East Turkestani army of 10,000.[27]
Ma Zhongying and his army retreated to Kashgar, arriving on April 6, 1934. GPU Soviet troops did not advance beyond Turfan. Ma was chased by provincial forces of White Russians, Mongols, and Sheng Shicai's Chinese troops from Manchuria, all the way to Aksu, but the pursuit gradually abated. Ma arrived in Sven Hedin's hijacked lorry, with the final part of his army, the rear guard, behind the advance guard. His forces were reported to be superior in hand-to-hand combat, but the Soviets continued to bomb his positions.[28]
General Ma told the British consulate in Kashgar that he immediately required assistance against the Russians, pointing out that he owed allegiance to the Chinese government, and that he intended to save Xinjiang from the grip of the Russians. Ma Zhongying consolidated his position at Maral-Bashi and Fayzabad, establishing defensive lines against the Soviet/provincial attack. Ma Hushan directed the defense against the provincial forces. Bombing runs continued at Maral-Bashi in June, Ma Zhongying ordered his forces to shift from Kashgar to Khotan. However, for unknown reasons, Ma Zhongying himself crossed the border into the Soviet Union and was never heard from again.[29] [end excerpt]

* "Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937)" (retrieved 2020-04-14, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_rebellion_in_Xinjiang_(1937)) [archive.is/Qynkg]
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* "Sutter's Republic (U.S.)" (crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-sutr.html) [archive.is/jMYUO]:
Phil Abbey, 12 October 1998
Sutter's republic existed mostly in his own mind. Mexico was infirmly in the saddle but in the saddle nevertheless.
At the time all this was going on the population in California was overwhelmingly Mexican and Native American. The Native Americans probably were unaware of any overlordship and certainly didn't acknowledge any loyalty to any nation. The Russian influence in Northern California was confined to one location, Ft. Ross, a commercial establishment. Spain's and Mexico's administration reached little farther north than San Francisco along the coast. Russia's influence along the coast was confined to trading with Native American's for furs and such with the base at Fort Ross a tiny place that was more agricultural/commercial than anything else. The UK and the U.S. jointly occupied Oregon and what is now British Columbia but civil administration was very weak, nonexistent really, and confined to the settled area around Ft. Vancouver (near present day Portland, Oregon) and south into the Willamette Valley.
On the whole between 1790s and 1840s, the Northwest coast between Alaska and San Francisco was generally unadministered, peopled mostly by Native Americans, claimed by Russia, UK, USA, and Mexico/Spain. Inland, away from the coast, there was no government, no people in residence except Native Americans and a very few traders employed by fur companies.
Yes. The flag of Spain, Russia, UK, USA, and Mexico flew but the influence was weak.

Floyd D.P. Øydegaard, 1 November 1998
The red star on a white field was the proposed first flag for the 1836 bid for Independence of California from Mexico. This small revolt included many Mexican nationals (headed by Juan Bautista Alvarado) as well as Americans and British (lead by Isaac Graham), in an effort to free California from a disinterested Mexican government, already too corrupted and decimated by internal factions and miscellaneous wars to govern most of the area.
On June 14th 1846 a William Todd, nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, volunteered to make the first Bear Flag. Using unbleached muslin, a donated red petticoat, and his own rough hewn talents, Todd quickly sewed a red star on the upper left-hand corner and a red stripe along the bottom. He hand-printed "California Republic" and he drew a crude grizzly bear just above it.
This "Bear Flag Revolt" made Californios unhappy. To be a separate country was folly as they wanted to belong to the United States. On July 9th 1846, before the British or the French could take over California the Bear Flag was down and Old Glory was in place. The war with Mexico would seal the fate of Alta California forever. California became a state in 1850. It wasn't until 1861 however, when the Bear Flag made another appearance by secessionist hoping to break California out of the Union. In 1911, the Bear Flag was officially adopted as the California State flag.

Possible Flag Design
James J. Ferrigan III, 11 June 1999
[Sutter's Republic flag] image by Dave Martucci, 1 December 1999

John A. Sutter was a Swiss emigrant who took Mexican citizenship. He was granted a large tract of land in the Mexican Department of Alta California. He was also a "justice of the peace", and as such he represented the Mexican government.
It is a matter of historical record that he had a dream of an independent state that would be established in Alta California, however, the arrival of "Los Osos" the Spanish Californian slang term for Americans who came overland. "Los Osos" was the term prior to the later word "gringo".
Whether he planned to call his sovereign state Noeva Helvecia roughly translated New Switzerland, is subject to debate. What we do know however is that is what he did name the fort he established on the American River.
As to what flag he flew the best evidence is that he flew the Mexican Merchant Flag of the 1840's, that is the Mexican Tri-color without the arms. Sutter was a petty official of the Mexican government who answered to officials in the Marina Merchante Department in Mexico. Remember that this was considered a port. Also keep in mind that is was not the custom at remote Spanish and Mexican outposts to make colors every day. So the interest we have in this subject may be giving it more importance than it had at the time.
Some historians have speculated that he also flew the flag of Switzerland,(who knows maybe he also flew Bern, and that's where the "Bear" nickname came from!). Supposedly travelers were welcomed by his display of flags. This was the recollection of Captain Phelps who visited in July of 1840.
In order to bolster his position in Alta California he purchased the Russian Fort on the coast, his ultimate goal was revealed in a letter to Jacob Leese,the U.S. Counsel in Yerbe Buena (San Francisco), "The people [Mexican officials] don't know me yet, but soon they will find out what I am able to do...The first step they do against me is that I will make a declaration of Independence and proclaim California a Republic independent of Mexico."
The only drawing of this flag flying over Sutter's Fort can be found in the children's coloring book by Knill,Harry,The Story of California & her flags to color, Vol.2, Bellerophon Books, Santa Barbara, 1996. p.19.
In this (w/b) drawing Knill clearly indicates that this is a reconstruction and not an actual flag and gives no colors. He cites as his source for the reconstruction, Reminiscences of Old Times by "Bear Flag" J. William Russell, Napa County Reporter, June 2,1861 as reprinted in the Historical Society Southern California Quarterly March 1951."...When I got to the fort the 'lone star' flag was flying. The colors was made up of the old Mexican flag."
The drawing is given the date July 10, 1846 supposedly depicting events that occurred after the Bear Flag Revolt of 14 June, 1846.
The alteration of the Mexican flag at Sutters' Fort most certainly occurred after the events in Sonoma, when the Bear Flaggers returned to Sutters Fort with their prisoners and news of what had happened. The California State Park Historian at Sutters Fort has all of the records and they indicate that the independent California Republic flag hoisted at Sutter's Fort was in fact the Mexican Merchant Flag with a single red star painted on the center stripe.
This is the most likely flag that flew on Sutter's Fort during California brief period of independence.
Whatever flag was flying on Sutter's Fort was hauled down 11 July, 1846 and replaced by a U.S.Navy 27 star ensign to which had been added a 28th star as the ships at Yerbe Buena had run out of 28 star flags to distribute.
To my knowledge none of these flags survived to the present day.
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* "It’s Time for You to Understand Microwave Backhaul Infrastructure" (2016-10-11, commscope.com/blog/2016/its-time-for-you-to-understand-microwave-backhaul-infrastructure/) [archive.is/Tsztr] [begin excerpt]: The first formal use of microwave was a relay across the English Channel in 1931. Data was transmitted over a bidirectional 1.7 gigahertz link, 64 kilometers between Dover, UK and Calais, France. [end excerpt]
* "Microwave Technology: Introduction to Microwave" (cablefree.net/wirelesstechnology/microwave/) [archive.is/3Rp7h] [begin excerpt]: In 1931 a US-French consortium demonstrated an experimental microwave relay link across the English Channel using 10 foot (3m) dishes, one of the earliest microwave communication systems. Telephony, telegraph and facsimile data was transmitted over the 1.7 GHz beams 40 miles between Dover, UK and Calais, France. However it could not compete with cheap undersea cable rates, and a planned commercial system was never built. [end excerpt]
- image caption: Microwave Link over English Channel, 1931

* "English Channel microwave relay antennas 1931" (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:English_Channel_microwave_relay_antennas_1931.jpg) [archive.is/lAFi4]: Description
English: Parabolic antennas used in a 1931 experimental microwave relay link across the English Channel, one of the earliest experiments in microwave communication. The 10 foot (3 m) diameter dishes transmitted voice, telegraphy, and facsimile images over 1.7 GHz (18 cm wavelength) bidirectional microwave beams 40 miles between Dover, England and Calais, France. The microwaves were generated by a miniature Barkhausen-Kurz tube located at the focus of the transmitter dish behind the hemispherical shroud visible in the center; an identical tube at the receiver amplified the received signal. The radiated power was about one half watt. In this image the dish in the foreground is the transmitter, while the receiver dish in the background was located behind the transmitter to avoid interference. The demonstration was sponsored jointly by the International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) and the Laboratoire du Materiel Telephonique of Paris, managed by G. H. Nash for the English and E. M. Deloraine for the French. Although this was planned as the prototype for a commercial microwave system, the sponsors found they could not compete with cheap underwater telephone cables. A commercial 300 MHz link was built in 1935, the first microwave relay system. Note man next to foreground antenna for scale.
Caption: "Two similar parabolic mirrors serve as transmitter and receiver at each end of the cross-Channel link, the receiver placed back of the transmitter to avoid interference."
Date August 1931
Source Retrieved August 5, 2014 from E. E. Free, "Searchlight Radio With The New 7-inch Waves" in Radio News magazine, Radio Science Publications, Inc., New York, Vol. 13, No. 2, August 1931, p. 107 archived on American Radio History website
* "Andre G. Clavier" (leradiofil.com/CLAVIER.htm) [archive.is/biwZL], (machine translation, translate.google.com) [archive.is/b2sV6]
- image caption: Calais Dover link in ultra short waves March 1931

* "RF and Microwave Application and Systems" (2008 edited by Mike Golio, Janet Golio, pg. 2-12, CRC Press, via https://books.google.com/books?id=fNJLcL1LBpEC&pg=SA2-PA12#v=onepage&q&f=false) [archive.is/YvDgb] [begin excerpt]: In 1931 (1894, Andre G. Clavier, 1972) of International Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (ITT) and his team demonstrated 1667 MHz microwave radiotelephone link between Calais France and Dover England.
In 1934, a number of commercial service links in France and England was inaugurated. 
In 1941, Clavier established a number of beyond-the-horizon radio links for German Military.
In 1945, Clavier emigrated to the United States. [end excerpt]
* (1961-06, Air Force Magazine, Volume 44, no. 6, via https://books.google.com/books?id=p0owXA8LX1MC&pg=RA14-PA20), ITT advertisement [begin excerpt]: In 1941, Andre G. Clavier, an ITT scientist, detected the phenomenon now known as tropo-scatter. [end excerpt]

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* "San Francisco’s 1918 Spanish flu debacle: A crucial lesson for the coronavirus era" (2020-04-10, sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-s-1918-Spanish-flu-debacle-A-15191518.php) [archive.is/4fgL8] [begin excerpt]:
The first great San Francisco pandemic came to a close with a citywide celebration, at noon on Nov. 21, 1918.
A whistle blew, church bells rang and citizens who had endured sickness, death and many hard days of sacrifice to battle the Spanish influenza tore off their mandatory masks and threw them into the streets.
“After four weeks of muzzled misery, San Francisco unmasked at noon yesterday and ventured to draw its breath,” The Chronicle reported the next day, describing the scene. “Despite the published prayers of the Health Department for conservation of gauze, the sidewalks and runnels were strewn with the relics of a torturous month.”
Except that wasn’t the end. The flu roared back in January, nearly doubling the death toll, and taking advantage of a city that had completely let down its guard. The Bay Area, up until then a national pandemic success story, became a cautionary tale. [end excerpt]
- image caption: San Francisco residents celebrate the end of World War I with banners and torches and surgical masks on Nov. 11, 1918. Weeks earlier, masks became mandatory in the streets of the city, to halt the threat of the Spanish influenza.


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Overviews of World History before the Modern Age

* "2nd Marquess of Sligo: The Forgotten Irish ‘Emancipator of Slaves’ " (2020-04-10, ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/marquess-sligo-0013541) [archive.is/e6G7p]

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The "Dark Enlightenment" and neo-Reactionary Studies [is.gd/wZHos7]
With a focus on European supremacist ideology, including Antisemitic modalities, and "Racial Science".
* "Jewish Brilliance: Synthetic Like Zirconia" (2019-12-28, national-justice.com/opinion-and-analysis/op-ed-jewish-brilliance-synthetic-zirconia-n2073) [archive.is/v4RyF]

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