Kim Jong Il Thinks He's a God-King: Why Ignore It?

Seth Ackerman SAckerman at FAIR.org
Fri May 26 11:13:39 PDT 2000


Brad De Long wrote:


> >That's a different topic. Did the US know, in 1950 that Sun[g] was a
> >megalomaniac?
>
> He was a client of *Stalin*, for God's sake. Of course it seemed
> likely that Kim Il Sung's regime would be a disaster for the Korean
> people.
>
> Or do you think that Stalin liked to put nice, friendly, benevolent
> do-gooders in power in neighboring countries?
>

Brad, you have a weird view of history: Sung was a client of Stalin... Stalin's a genocidal tyrant... So Sung *must* have been a genocidal tyrant.

Does this historical formula work for our own leaders? Trujillo was a client of LBJ. Trujillo was a blood-drenched dictator. So LBJ was a blood-drenched dictator too, right?

Is that how history works? Democracies always stick with democracies, bound by an immutable communion of shared values? That seems to be part of some catechism for you, but is it true?

Seth



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