Frogblog has posted about the evidence given by Rob Hamill at the trial of Duch, who operated the Tuol Sleng torture and murder prison in Cambodia. A chance, of course, to reflect simply upon the horrors of the Khmer rouge era. Estimates of numbers executed and starved to death by this regime range from 1.2 to 2.2 million people, between a quarter and a third of the population.
The easy target is to throw stones at Keith Locke. It is fairly well known that in his naïve youth he cheered on the Khmer Rouge victory in Phnom Penh as a liberation. Of course he was not the only one, the Lon Nol military dictatorship that had been overthrown was corrupt and brutal. Nobody missed it at the time, it was hoped things could only get better. Few paid any attention to stories coming out of Khmer Rouge occupied territory of the Maoist autarchy imposed on the local population, although images from the early 1970s showed the uniformity and order that they had imposed (ironically published approvingly by a Chinese state propaganda pictorial magazine).
However, my concern is not Keith Locke. He was young and naïve, better to forgive that and his statements about nuclear power only being safe under socialism, and cheering on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, than to dwell a quarter of a century or more later. My concern is also not Sue Bradford, who was cheerleading on Maoist China in the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge’s chief source of funds, arms and ideology. Imagine if a senior National MP had cheered on Pinochet, Franco or Salazar in his youth and how that would be treated by the Greens, but I digress.
It is this statement
“For us in the West what we have to get our heads around is that the Khmer Rouge learnt their ideology in Paris and were able to seize power because Richard Nixon personally ordered a secret bombing campaign that killed half a million. And that US foreign policy, in particular their determination to never forgive anyone that drives them off, allowed the Khmer Rouge to occupy Cambodia’s UN seat until 1993 rather than the government installed by the Vietnamese invasion that ended their rule.”
This statement evades certain facts, and would make you think that it is all the fault of the West and the US that the Khmer Rouge came to power. This is, at best, a side effect of failed policies, and there are others who can carry far more blame.
Yes the Khmer Rouge learnt their ideology in Paris, at the Sorbonne, along with many other Marxists. Radical Maoism was de riguer among many academics, vile as it always has been. However, the Khmer Rouge was active before the US bombings. Why did the US bomb Cambodia in the first place? Because it was being used by the North Vietnamese as a bypass route to infiltrate South Vietnam. “Neutral” Cambodia was a staging ground for invasions of South Vietnam. The US response was to use bombing and then invasion to close the borders, and buy time. The bombing killed between 100,000 and 600,000 (half a million is a high estimate), and certainly gave the Khmer Rouge propaganda to attract illiterate peasants to fight for them. The US backed the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk (a very slimy long time friend of Kim Il Sung) and supported a corrupt and brutal strongman called Lon Nol. His antics also helped fuel support for the Khmer Rouge. However he achieved the primary goal, securing the borders of Cambodia and wiping out North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge was backed solidly by Mao, China supplying explicit financial and material support. The USSR was more interested in Vietnam. So it was China that enabled the Khmer Rouge to fight against Lon Nol. However, it was Lon Nol himself who was so corrupt, incompetent and cruel that caused many Cambodians to join the fight against him. Note that Prince Sihanouk himself backed the Khmer Rouge as well – the “neutral” Prince backing radical Maoists so he could continue to enjoy the trappings of power. The US did not back the Khmer Rouge, it unfortunately backed its hopelessly incompetent and immoral opponents.
So the US was guilty of foolishness in Cambodia, because its goal in Vietnam propelled victims of its actions (and its friend’s actions) to support the Khmer Rouge. However, to say Nixon enabled the Khmer Rouge to seize power is evading two key points:
1. Had the Khmer Rouge not had Chinese support, it may well have failed to takeover, avoiding the massive loss of life its regime caused.
2. The US from 1970 to 1975 armed, funded and backed the Lon Nol military regime, which whilst bad, fought the Khmer Rouge. Had Lon Nol remained in power, it would have been corrupt, and far from free, but would not have been as murderous. A similar analogy is Korea, where South Korean dictatorships and military regimes ran the country from 1953 through to 1988, but which was far less deadly than North Korea for its people.
The truth is that China provided succour to the Khmer Rouge, the US lamely fought against it, but the biggest supporters of the Khmer Rouge were often Western academics.
The Greens skirt over the Khmer Rouge years. The years when umpteen Western academics embraced the Khmer Rouge, including the fool Malcolm Caldwell who decided to go visit them, and got murdered as a result. The years when leftwing pinup Noam Chomsky declared stories of mass murder and starvation from Democratic Kampuchea as CIA propaganda (the man has slithered in evasion of this statement ever since). This thesis talks of the "Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia" being "Democratic Kampuchea symbolized their wildest hopes and dreams. From the classroom to the politburo, the new Kampuchea was, to these scholars, theory becoming reality" says Sophal Ear.
You see the Khmer Rouge represented the idealistic vision of so many on the left. More on that in Part 2.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia for various reasons, including a border incident, concern over the Khmer Rouge treatment of ethnic Vietnamese (Vietnam knew only too well what was going on there), Soviet support for Vietnamese expansionism (as Vietnam was not backed by China – as was seen in a brief border war between the two in 1979).
You may find it odd that a party that opposed the US overthrowing the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, overthrowing the Taliban dictatorship and includes many who opposed the US kicking Iraq out of Kuwait, so warmly receives (or at least glosses over) Vietnam invading Cambodia.
Let me be clear, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia was moral, purely because it ended the Khmer Rouge horror, even though nobody could dare claim that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was free or respected individual rights, it fell short of the mass executions of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge had been brutal to Vietnamese on both sides of the border. However, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge does not fit well with Green Party rhetoric against imperialism and war, particularly since the government installed by Hanoi was little more than an extension of its own.
The Greens claim the US allowed the Khmer Rouge to occupy the UN seat of Cambodia rather than the Vietnamese installed regime because of a fit of pique at losing the Vietnam War. This is an element of truth evading several facts and with the wrong motive.
The seat at the UN was held by the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, shared by the Khmer Rouge, FUNCINPEC and the KPNLF, the latter two being royalist and anti-communist. This was maintained because China and the US both vetoed Soviet and Vietnamese requests for the seat to be taken up by the Hanoi led government. Of course when the Cold War ended, all of this fell away. Vietnam had withdrawn from Cambodia, and the pro-Vietnamese government engaged in a coalition with FUNCINPEC and the KPNLF, whilst the Khmer Rouge tried to continue fighting.
So why the history lesson? Well it is understandable to write about Rob Hamill testifying at Duch’s trial. It is a tragic NZ element to one of the most vile events of the 20th century. Indeed so vile it demonstrates that what is worse than war is government turning on its own people. However, the Greens couldn’t use the occasion to simply deplore the Khmer Rouge, deplore Maoism and condemn totalitarianism and communism. No. It was used to blame the United States, by selective use of the facts and evading the fundamental blame for the Khmer Rouge – Marxist scholars, Chinese Maoists and the embrace of the ideology that individuals only exist for the greater good.
The Greens implicitly endorse the Vietnamese invasion and conquest of Cambodia, because it overthrew a murderous tyranny, but don’t support the US doing the same in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So, why would the Greens selectively report history to bash the US? Why not bash China for providing the greater succuour to the Khmer Rouge? Why not bash communism generally? Why ignore the US backing of the Khmer Rouge's opponents over sustained periods? Why not slam the apologists of the regime from leftwing academia (which included your own)? Why not criticise Norodom Sihanouk for letting Cambodia be a vehicle for Vietnamese communist insurgency (attracting US attention), and then being a vehicle for the Khmer Rouge to have legitimacy?
Or better yet, why not shut the hell up about a party and government that represented an idealised vision of a society without any capitalism (money was abolished), without carbon based energy, where everyone was equal, there were no possessions, where peasantry had been raised to the highest level, where everyone was meant to get what they needed, and nobody was rich. Then ask yourself, before the consequences of this vision were obvious, would you too have supported it?
20 August 2009
19 August 2009
Protecting Aucklanders' assets
Labour’s latest leftwing pinup MP Phil Twyford has introduced a bill to require a referendum for any privatisation of Auckland local government owned assets. He talks of protecting “our assets”.
I fully agree that ratepayers’ assets should be protected, the biggest risk to them is local government. Local government spends their money on their behalf buying assets that end up being worth less than what they were paid for, without consent from those whose money they spent.
So I propose that the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Bill be amended to be the Local Government (Protection of Aucklanders Assets) Bill, and it have a new Section 5:
The following section is inserted after section 63:
“63A Acquisition of Auckland local authority assets
• “(1) No Auckland local authority shall—
o “(a) buy or otherwise acquire, or purchase any equity securities, shares or title in any property; unless
o (b) the finances used to make the purchase have been acquired with the express consent of those who have contributed.
(2) No Auckland local authority shall—
(a) levy rates on those liable for rates within the territory of Auckland local authorities without the express written authority of those it seeks to levy rates against;
(b) levy any other taxes whatsoever.
Now whose assets was Phil Twyford interested in? The ones that are taken from those who actually pay for councils, or the ones his mates control?
I fully agree that ratepayers’ assets should be protected, the biggest risk to them is local government. Local government spends their money on their behalf buying assets that end up being worth less than what they were paid for, without consent from those whose money they spent.
So I propose that the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Bill be amended to be the Local Government (Protection of Aucklanders Assets) Bill, and it have a new Section 5:
The following section is inserted after section 63:
“63A Acquisition of Auckland local authority assets
• “(1) No Auckland local authority shall—
o “(a) buy or otherwise acquire, or purchase any equity securities, shares or title in any property; unless
o (b) the finances used to make the purchase have been acquired with the express consent of those who have contributed.
(2) No Auckland local authority shall—
(a) levy rates on those liable for rates within the territory of Auckland local authorities without the express written authority of those it seeks to levy rates against;
(b) levy any other taxes whatsoever.
Now whose assets was Phil Twyford interested in? The ones that are taken from those who actually pay for councils, or the ones his mates control?
18 August 2009
Key's simpering apology for torture
Sorry John, you got it all wrong. In fact, the NZ Herald report of John Key's siding with Justice Simon France on the "Makutu" case while not surprising (it being a very big deal for any Prime Minister to criticise a High Court judge), it is disappointing. He could have simply kept his mouth shut.
Apparently John thinks being "misguided and not malicious" should mitigate any sentence someone gets for sustained acts of torture.
So the next time a sadist is up on charging of whipping his son within an inch of his life, and kills him accidentally, because he believed Satan had taken him over, then John will be sympathetic if this violent child abuser gets a community sentence.
The next time this lot have a go at getting rid of a Makutu, and ring the ambulance after whipping, burning or whatever other method of torture they wish to use against the 14yo cousin (who was next in line for their "exorcism"), then John Key and Simon France wont think they are a danger to society.
A man can molest a child and get an injunction against being near children to protect them, but a group of middle aged Maori men and women can threaten to torture someone because of sincerely held religious beliefs, and well let's not worry about that.
Oswald Bastable notes the Crown wont appeal the sentence.
So the next victim of this Dark Ages practice can point fingers squarely at Simon France, the Crown Prosecutor, and of course the PM now, for thinking this sort of precedence doesn't send a signal that "you can torture and get away with it using the "Makutu" defence".
Indeed, if there is one by someone of another religion, I look forward to the appeal on someone's sentence, on the basis that the High Court has now set a sentencing precedence.
Apparently John thinks being "misguided and not malicious" should mitigate any sentence someone gets for sustained acts of torture.
So the next time a sadist is up on charging of whipping his son within an inch of his life, and kills him accidentally, because he believed Satan had taken him over, then John will be sympathetic if this violent child abuser gets a community sentence.
The next time this lot have a go at getting rid of a Makutu, and ring the ambulance after whipping, burning or whatever other method of torture they wish to use against the 14yo cousin (who was next in line for their "exorcism"), then John Key and Simon France wont think they are a danger to society.
A man can molest a child and get an injunction against being near children to protect them, but a group of middle aged Maori men and women can threaten to torture someone because of sincerely held religious beliefs, and well let's not worry about that.
Oswald Bastable notes the Crown wont appeal the sentence.
So the next victim of this Dark Ages practice can point fingers squarely at Simon France, the Crown Prosecutor, and of course the PM now, for thinking this sort of precedence doesn't send a signal that "you can torture and get away with it using the "Makutu" defence".
Indeed, if there is one by someone of another religion, I look forward to the appeal on someone's sentence, on the basis that the High Court has now set a sentencing precedence.
17 August 2009
You can assist people by choice
One Idiot Savant doesn’t understand. When referring to huge families on welfare he says:
“those children exist, and their need is real… If we want them to have any chance of a decent life (rather than creating or perpetuating multi-generational poverty), they need to be provided for.”
Why do these children exist? Who is primarily responsible for meeting their needs? Why should people who choose not to have children or to have few children be forced to fund a decent life because some parents ARE feckless? Why should people currently on welfare get more welfare if they breed more? Why is the money forcibly taken from others, a right?
However, his lack of imagination, the fundamental failure of morality shared by virtually all on the left is this statement here:
“What exactly are the right proposing here? Denying assistance to those whose need is greatest? Leaving people to starve?”
Who is leaving who to starve? Who denies assistance? Who is stopping anyone from providing assistance? Is Idiot Savant suggesting that if the beloved state doesn’t pilfer taxes from him, pay bureaucrats in the process then hand it out in welfare, that he wouldn’t help people in need?
Why are taxes, a tax collection bureaucracy and a money handout bureaucracy a sign you care, but charity – something you choose to give, through people who want to help – an anathema?
In other words – why do you need to be forced to care?
Furthermore, why is it ok to bash the people who are forced to pay welfare, but not to demand accountability and appreciation from those who get it?
“those children exist, and their need is real… If we want them to have any chance of a decent life (rather than creating or perpetuating multi-generational poverty), they need to be provided for.”
Why do these children exist? Who is primarily responsible for meeting their needs? Why should people who choose not to have children or to have few children be forced to fund a decent life because some parents ARE feckless? Why should people currently on welfare get more welfare if they breed more? Why is the money forcibly taken from others, a right?
However, his lack of imagination, the fundamental failure of morality shared by virtually all on the left is this statement here:
“What exactly are the right proposing here? Denying assistance to those whose need is greatest? Leaving people to starve?”
Who is leaving who to starve? Who denies assistance? Who is stopping anyone from providing assistance? Is Idiot Savant suggesting that if the beloved state doesn’t pilfer taxes from him, pay bureaucrats in the process then hand it out in welfare, that he wouldn’t help people in need?
Why are taxes, a tax collection bureaucracy and a money handout bureaucracy a sign you care, but charity – something you choose to give, through people who want to help – an anathema?
In other words – why do you need to be forced to care?
Furthermore, why is it ok to bash the people who are forced to pay welfare, but not to demand accountability and appreciation from those who get it?
16 August 2009
McCarten's usual non-analysis on healthcare
It is pretty damned obvious that more often than not I'm going to disagree with Matt McCarten, this week using smears and distortions to spread the typical leftwing lie of American healthcare bad, socialised healthcare good. Simple concept. I'm sure it's one that the vast majority of New Zealanders agree with. Most have heard the propaganda about Americans dying in the streets without healthcare, turned away from hospitals and being ruined because of the high cost. Most of it is nonsense of course, but it suits the vested interests who profit from a state controlled and taxpayer funded system. What? Profit? Yes. You see that's one of the many points Matt gets very wrong. So what did he say?
"You only have to look at the United States to see what a nightmare it is when you mix profiteering with healthcare" Really Matt? So when healthcare worker unions go on strike demanding more pay from people who are unable to choose whether or not to take their money and go elsewhere, that isn't profiteering? Or is it ok for employees to engage in rent seeking from taxpayers? Perhaps you could look at Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands or others that have significant private sector involvement? Oh no, doesn't fit with your binary view of private sector untrustworthy, bad, rips people off vs public sector, benevolent, efficient, kindly, does it?
"Given that tens of millions of American citizens have no healthcare" Really? Nearly 85% of Americans have health insurance. Of the 15%, over a third live in relatively wealthy households (US$50,000 per annum plus), so prefer to pay for healthcare directly rather than through insurance. Let's bear in mind that all of the elderly and the very poor are covered.
So 10% of Americans have no healthcare. Bear in mind that in New Zealand (and the UK), healthcare is not always available when you need it too. Matt somehow thinks a majority will throw away what they have, but he forgets, a majority of Americans don't trust the government like he does.
"Seemingly ordinary people are mobilising noisily to oppose reform and keep their overpriced, inaccessible, ruthless health system. None of this universal, open-access health coverage for them. Apparently that's socialism" Yes Matt, maybe they know something you don't? Maybe the fact that this high price happens to deliver some of the best health professionals, leading edge procedures and technology in the world? Maybe because there isn't queuing?
Yes Matt, forcing everyone to pay for a monopoly state provider than you cannot demand service from IS socialism. You embrace socialism, are you scared of the word?
He says it is because "they've never known anything else so they can't imagine what it might be like not to live under a fear-based system". Of course Matt hasn't either, ignorant he just assumes the people campaigning are stupid. He also forgets that there is a fear based system in New Zealand as well, such as fearing when you'll get the operation you are queuing up for, when you are in pain or it is life threatening. No, forget that.
Then he completely misrepresents capitalism, describing democracy instead "a good chunk of Congress has been bought and paid for by the interests that stand to lose the most if Americans were to change their system. So it's not madness at all, it's just capitalism doing what it does best - fighting hard, and dirty, to protect its interests" Capitalism doesn't involve using the state to give privilege, no that's rent seekers, moochers, seeking state force to get what they can't get from persuasion.
However, Matt isn't into persuasion, he is into using state force to promote interests. Yes, the greatest corruption of government ARE those who use state force to get their interests - hardly surprising that health providers would do it. They do it in New Zealand, through monopoly associations and unions, but Matt thinks that's just fine.
Now he is right that some claim Obama's socialist ideas are about compulsory abortion or euthanasia, yes there are some wingnuts, but he uses that to smear the lot.
"US is becoming more a negative than a positive role model. And we can learn a lot from it, about things like keeping corporate money out of politics, about defending what we have and opposing the encroachment of the private profit-makers into matters that involve the public good." Well of course it's ok to have union money in politics, and confiscating private money for so called "public good". He loves the public good, but when it fails individuals they should just shut up and stop being selfish - I mean it's only health right?
"There's an argument that another even less savoury element underlies the screaming and yelling in America - racism. The mad-dog "birthers" who deny Obama is a natural-born citizen are its most obvious face, with those who labelled the new Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor a racist." Yes the birthers are mad, but Sotomayer DID make a racist comment, but in the world of leftwing doublespeak a Hispanic woman saying someone of her race can make better decisions than a white man - but if it was the other way round, McCarten would shout racism.
However, in the end Matt offers nothing of substance. Nothing to suggest what is wrong with the US other than it isn't government provided for all - he can't even conceive that it isn't a free market because he thinks businesses rip people off, but unions and governments are benevolent and always give good service to those who pay.
You see there is reason to have concern about costs in the US system, there are enormous distortions that privilege employer provided insurance over individually purchased insurance, costs through litigation that has become increasingly non objectively based, and the government provided medicaid and medicare systems are facing significant inflation. However, Matt has an ideological opposition to private provided healthcare, or insurance based models, even though many universal systems are dominated by private providers and insurance. Have a quick look at wiki, Singapore for example is virtually entirely private, with the government only topping up care for the poor.
Though you wouldn't expect a former Alliance Party President to spread that sort of information would you?
"You only have to look at the United States to see what a nightmare it is when you mix profiteering with healthcare" Really Matt? So when healthcare worker unions go on strike demanding more pay from people who are unable to choose whether or not to take their money and go elsewhere, that isn't profiteering? Or is it ok for employees to engage in rent seeking from taxpayers? Perhaps you could look at Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands or others that have significant private sector involvement? Oh no, doesn't fit with your binary view of private sector untrustworthy, bad, rips people off vs public sector, benevolent, efficient, kindly, does it?
"Given that tens of millions of American citizens have no healthcare" Really? Nearly 85% of Americans have health insurance. Of the 15%, over a third live in relatively wealthy households (US$50,000 per annum plus), so prefer to pay for healthcare directly rather than through insurance. Let's bear in mind that all of the elderly and the very poor are covered.
So 10% of Americans have no healthcare. Bear in mind that in New Zealand (and the UK), healthcare is not always available when you need it too. Matt somehow thinks a majority will throw away what they have, but he forgets, a majority of Americans don't trust the government like he does.
"Seemingly ordinary people are mobilising noisily to oppose reform and keep their overpriced, inaccessible, ruthless health system. None of this universal, open-access health coverage for them. Apparently that's socialism" Yes Matt, maybe they know something you don't? Maybe the fact that this high price happens to deliver some of the best health professionals, leading edge procedures and technology in the world? Maybe because there isn't queuing?
Yes Matt, forcing everyone to pay for a monopoly state provider than you cannot demand service from IS socialism. You embrace socialism, are you scared of the word?
He says it is because "they've never known anything else so they can't imagine what it might be like not to live under a fear-based system". Of course Matt hasn't either, ignorant he just assumes the people campaigning are stupid. He also forgets that there is a fear based system in New Zealand as well, such as fearing when you'll get the operation you are queuing up for, when you are in pain or it is life threatening. No, forget that.
Then he completely misrepresents capitalism, describing democracy instead "a good chunk of Congress has been bought and paid for by the interests that stand to lose the most if Americans were to change their system. So it's not madness at all, it's just capitalism doing what it does best - fighting hard, and dirty, to protect its interests" Capitalism doesn't involve using the state to give privilege, no that's rent seekers, moochers, seeking state force to get what they can't get from persuasion.
However, Matt isn't into persuasion, he is into using state force to promote interests. Yes, the greatest corruption of government ARE those who use state force to get their interests - hardly surprising that health providers would do it. They do it in New Zealand, through monopoly associations and unions, but Matt thinks that's just fine.
Now he is right that some claim Obama's socialist ideas are about compulsory abortion or euthanasia, yes there are some wingnuts, but he uses that to smear the lot.
"US is becoming more a negative than a positive role model. And we can learn a lot from it, about things like keeping corporate money out of politics, about defending what we have and opposing the encroachment of the private profit-makers into matters that involve the public good." Well of course it's ok to have union money in politics, and confiscating private money for so called "public good". He loves the public good, but when it fails individuals they should just shut up and stop being selfish - I mean it's only health right?
"There's an argument that another even less savoury element underlies the screaming and yelling in America - racism. The mad-dog "birthers" who deny Obama is a natural-born citizen are its most obvious face, with those who labelled the new Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor a racist." Yes the birthers are mad, but Sotomayer DID make a racist comment, but in the world of leftwing doublespeak a Hispanic woman saying someone of her race can make better decisions than a white man - but if it was the other way round, McCarten would shout racism.
However, in the end Matt offers nothing of substance. Nothing to suggest what is wrong with the US other than it isn't government provided for all - he can't even conceive that it isn't a free market because he thinks businesses rip people off, but unions and governments are benevolent and always give good service to those who pay.
You see there is reason to have concern about costs in the US system, there are enormous distortions that privilege employer provided insurance over individually purchased insurance, costs through litigation that has become increasingly non objectively based, and the government provided medicaid and medicare systems are facing significant inflation. However, Matt has an ideological opposition to private provided healthcare, or insurance based models, even though many universal systems are dominated by private providers and insurance. Have a quick look at wiki, Singapore for example is virtually entirely private, with the government only topping up care for the poor.
Though you wouldn't expect a former Alliance Party President to spread that sort of information would you?
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