[PEN-L:9469] Pol Pot and Shades of Summers

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

In response to Henry's note about Pol Pot, if indeed it was a reference to
my reference to Pol Pot, let me add a note of clarification. My reference to
Pol Pot, which I should have clarified, was a reference to the vulgar or
propagandized view and the attribution to Pol Pot personally for all the
deaths attributed to him personally and a comment that the neoliberal
globalists have as much death and misery--or even more--than the numbers
attributed to Pol Pot. It does not follow from this that I am personally
attributing those numbers--or that I buy into the conventional
views--attributing massive deaths to one person.

The history that Henry gave is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Indeed,
as I have written repeatedly, imperial social systems engineering campaigns
which include propaganda, embargo, military excursions, alliances etc are
specifically designed to put a country under seige, destabilize, isolate,
demonize, and marginalize in order to generate the crises and forms of
repression that invariably accompany a society under seige--in order to
produce the "evidence" that that society is repressive by nature and that
its targeted system is inherently repressive.

Further, I have repeatedly written against the simplistic and
propagandaistic notion that the alleged crimes or accomplishments of  whole
periods or epochs or whole systems cannot be laid at the feet of any one
person; it is just too simplisitic and jingoistic.

Having said all of that, it seems to me that the Khmer Rouge "excesses" or
"revolutionary excesses", however much a product of history, intra-regional
divisions, famine (I agree that much of the famines were engineered from
outside and by reactionary elements inside Cambodia just as some of the
famines attributed to the Great Leap Forward were also a product of
outside--imperial-- embargoes and machinations as well as inside mistakes)
etc, did indeed help to do some of the imperialists work for them; they gave
aid and comfort to their real enemies.

Absolutely, a revolution is not an invitation to a dinner party. Absolutely,
those who make the conditions and forms of repression that make revolution
necessary share in the responsibility for crimes committed in the name of
revolution; but we cannot simply sweep away mountains of skulls, even when
cynically used by imperial forces for their own propaganda, by saying
"revolutionary excesses." That is one of the things that differentiates
genuine progressives--the willingness to call crimes crimes no matter by
whom or under what banner they have been committed. We can explain, and we
can widen the true scope of responsibility for those crimes, but as Marx
noted in his famous letter to Arnold Rouge:

"If the construction of the future and its completion for all time is not
our task, all the more certain is what we must accomplish in the present; I
mean, the ruthless criticism of everything that exists; the criticism being
ruthless in the sense that it neither fears its own results nor fears
conflict with the powers that be."

Yes, some of the propaganda about the "Killing Fields" is exactly
that--propaganda. Yes Pol Pot was a serious revolutionary deeply committed
throughout his life to the liberation of Khampuchea. Yes, "revolutionary
excesses" were committed prompted partly by machinations from the outside
and deep-seated contradictions inside. Yes, neither sins or accomplishments
can be laid at the feet of any one person no matter how influencial. But we
should also call a spade a spade: real crimes were indeed committed and some
real innocents needlessly suffered and were killed.

That's just my opinion and the true nature ad basis for my reference to Pol
Pot--actually a reference in answer to references made by others. My
comments about the blood and misery produced by neoliberal globalism stand
as well as my reference to the numbers of innocents who have suffered from
the inevitable outcomes of neoliberal policies and programs relative to the
numbers commonly or vulgarly and simplistically laid at the feet of Pol Pot.

Jim Craven

James Craven
Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.
Vancouver, WA. 98663
(360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863
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