[lbo-talk] More on Wikipedia: Now the US army is whitewashing myarticles

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Mon Jul 18 19:12:20 PDT 2005


On 7/18/05, Lance Murdoch <lancemurdoch at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/18/05, Gar Lipow <the.typo.boy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But when I saw some
> > damned idiot denying the Cambodian holocaust took place, I lost my
> > temper and commented. I don't know why idiots on my side get my goat
> > more than the idiots on the other side. I suppose I have expectation
> > that being a leftist means opposing genocide no matter who commits it
> > - as Noam does.
>
> You talk about a holocaust that happened in Cambodia, and then about
> some "damned idiot denying the Cambodian holocaust took place". Well,
> please tell us what happened then. When did this holocaust in
> Cambodia take place? Who carried it out? How did people die?
> Through what means did you find this out?

Like a lot of people, on issues that are not my main focus, I tend to get my info from Noam Chomksy and some of the other people who tend to work closely with him; not that they are perfect - but if I am going to devote limited time to an issue I find them the most reliable. An example from Zmag on this issue:

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/hermansept97.htm http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/hermanjune98.htm

Note that neither of these articles deny that there was a Pol Pot led Cambodian Genocide. Quite properly they point out there was an earlier phase of that genocide under the U.S., and the U.S. supported the genocidal monster after he was ousted by people we did not like. They also point out the comparable genocides were ignored because they were committed by U.S. allies. But they also


>Why wasn't their a big protest in the US when the US government
embraced people just fresh from killing one fifth of their population (according to the CGP
> page)?
>
> Lance

Because the left was not strong enough to mobilize mass pressure around the issue. Because many of the non-leftist critics of Pol Pot were critics as part of their support for the official line; when the official line changed, Pol Pot dropped off their radar. Any other rhetorical quesitons?

-- Please note: Personal messages should be sent to [garlpublic] followed by the [at] sign with isp of [comcast], then [dot] and then an extension of net



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list