From Breitbart TV (via Tom Maguire and Don Surber), here’s the Darling of Davos, John Kerry, laying out some Brahman truthiness for the proles on C-Span:
Sen. John Kerry said during a C-Span appearance that fears of a bloodbath after the US withdrawal from Vietnam never materialized. He says he’s met survivors of the “reeducation camps†who are thriving in modern Vietnam. An award-winning investigation by the Orange County Register concludes that at least 165,000 people perished in the camps.
Well, sure. But those were just the stubborn ones who refused to be “re-educated.” And sometimes you have kill off 165,000 people to save them.
Not to mention a couple million Cambodians — though the “war protesters” of that era, and their historical apologists, like to lay those deaths at the feet of Nixon and Kissinger in precisely the same way today’s anti-war crowd is angling to lay any Iraqi civil war and sectarian purge at the feet of Bushco, once they’ve forced a retreat and created a power vacuum.
I’m not sure what I find most troubling about Kerry’s historical revisionism: the fact that he seems actually to believe it, or the fact that he seems to think that “re-education” camps contributed in some way to today’s “thriving” Vietnamese. Or, at the very least, it didn’t much hurt them.
Call it tough love — the communist version of Scared Straight.
Is it any wonder, when we can watch a prominent Senator who was within spitting distance of the presidency cheerfully embracing the entire substructure of Stalinist thought, that we have, since the Vietnam war era, seen the rise of the PC culture, the undercutting of Enlightenment rationalism (through the social project of multiculturalism), and the ascendency (and subsequent entrenchment) of a leftist intelligentsia in the academy that has worked tirelessly to bring about the kind of anti-intellectualism and enforced groupthink that stands directly at odds with classical liberalism and the primacy of the individual?
“Progressivism,” in its contemporary form, is anathema to the founding ideals of this country. John Kerry’s blithe acceptance of (or implied apologia for) these “re-education” camps and the fallout of his own previous perfidy, is simply an emblem of the ideological embrace of a political philosophy that is at odds with the political philosophy upon which this country was founded, and under which freedom is best served.
Related, from today’s Rocky Mountain News:
The highest-ranking Khmer Rouge leader still alive denied any responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the party’s brual 1975-1979 rule, saying unhesitatingly Thursday that he is ready to be judged by an international tribunal.
“I will go to court and don’t care if people believe me or not,” said Nuon Chea, chief ideologue for the Khmer Rouge.
Meh. He should have held out for a Senate seat.
****
update: Olby launches the chickenhawk attack at the President and the current Nazi regime.
Of course, he’s blind to the irony that were he really in a fascist country, he’d right now be hanging from a meat hook for publicly airing such statements, his patented Olby sneer permanently ossifying on a face softened to stew stock by the billy clubs of Bush’s imperialist storm troopers. But then, when you’re claim to fame is intoning “put the biscuit in the basket” over the highlights of Blue Devil games, I suppose its unfair of us to expect you to be all rigorous and such in your thinking.
(h/t Dan Collins)
Dr. Sanity calls it the “Neo-Marxist Fascism of the Left”
And to think this guy ran for President.
And that people actually voted for him.
Isn’t the First Rule of Re-education Camp: Don’t speak ill of Re-education Camp?
Is it me or have failed Democratic Presidential Candidates replaced former boxers as the most blindingly myopic group on the planet? George Foreman’s insistence on returning to the ring year after year, or second after second when color commenting on a fight, makes more sense than anything Gore or Kerry have done since losing. Why can’t they just fade away like Dukakis or Mondale? But given the fact that Jimmah Carter is still comfortable in showing his face & sharing his “world vision†after losing 49 of 50 states might have been the catalyst for this particular trend.
But the George Foreman Grill is great.
Hot dogs cooked on one are to die for.
I don’t think most people look forward to fading away like Dukakis.
Of course, Olby is out serving the impoverished in soup kitchens and the like when he’s not on air . . . or bagging some underwhelmed groupie in a hotel room.
TW: Epic Connaught, (yes, the contrast with Cuchulainn is extreme)
Point taken about Dukakis, Dan. I’m not sure anyone would like to emulate that particular political buffoonery is what I meant. At least Bush Sr. or Dole had the self respect to quietly accept their losses to a lesser man, which in their case Clinton actually was. I guess that depends upon what your definition of “was†is though.
So the Democrats’ theme is now, “Hey, the bloodbaths in Vietnam and Cambodia really weren’t all that bad — so how bad can the impending bloodbath in Iraq be? — unless we can blame it on Bushco.”
Win/win.
“survivors” of the camps — so then, Senator, by implication some didn’t survive. What a tool Kerry is.
And in addition to the 165,000 dead the OC register noted, don’t forget the unlucky Boat People who perished at sea before reaching refuge in Thailand or Hong Kong. Or those who ended in a shallow grave ala’ Hue before ever reaching the camps.
Does any body else think if you painted olby white and attached a pager to him, he’d remind you of that lab assistant on the Muppets?
It would make him easier to watch. Plus, it makes me smile.
beepbeepbeepbeep … BEEEPBEEPBEEP … BEEP!
Interestingly, the CSpan site doesn’t have the Washington Journal clips for the 19th up today. But they are available. I’ve sussed out the url for the streaming clip and found a utility that would convert it.
I should soon have the 20 odd minute kerry bit saved as an .avi. Jeff, if you want it, I’ll send it to you. Also intend to put it on YouTube and give it to Allah.
What a tool.
“I did not see one under-nourished person in Russia.” — George Bernard Shaw, 1933
It continues to amaze me that leftists promote Kerry as an “intellectual” when he’s nothing more than a bombastic, arrogant moron. His is the widest gap between his consideration for intellectual bona fides and his actual brain power.
Survived the death camps????????
Must.Duct.Tape.Head.
My husband and his family are Vietnamese immigrants. His uncle survived a “reeducation” camp.
Kerry should stick to eating pussy.
Kerry – he was the D student who lost to a C student, right?
Zelda:
Your husband’s family and other Vietnamese immigrants who fled their country should have a nice little roundtable chant with Senator Maroon.
He’s too much of a coward to ever do it, though.
“survivors of the ‘reeducation camps'”? How are the dead ones doing Senator dipshit?
I want to see this clip for myself, but I can’t access the link now. I cannot believe he said such a thing.
Please send me the clip, RTO. And Dan — or however knows how to put such things up — please lend me a hand getting it up here.
Thanks.
TW: Testament cautious. Hmm. I think I got cynn’s captchas by mistake.
Olby is ALMOST as big a putz as Kerry. By the by, when and where was Olby’s military service?
SB: hands offenses
Kiiiiii-YA!
Taking a bit longer than I expected. Freeware, and I have to tell it what codex to use–I’ll fire it off as soon as its audible, visible and reasonably synced up.
cynn:
Go to the link above. He says that the reeducation camps “weren’t pretty” but says he met people in those camps who are “thriving today.” To be honest he doesn’t use the word “survivors” but if one follows the link below the conservative number of pure executions is put at about 65,000. This doesn’t invclude those that perished in the reeducation camps from starvation, disease, and accidental death due to the harsh conditions.
http://www.ichiban1.org/html/history/1975_present_postwar/the_aftermath_1975_1978.htm
the fact that he seems to think that “re-education†camps contributed in some way to today’s “thriving†Vietnamese.
Why, they were just state-funded colleges!
Suddenly, those Dem calls for increased education spending have me very, very worried.
Gee, i wonder what those who lose their shit over Michelle Malkin’s “In Defense of Internment” will have to say about their war hero’s endorsement of these camps that murdered thousands.
Mmmmmm….fluffy.
Go to the site below for some lovely pictures of several of these rough and tumble socialist post graduate schools. They look just like Yale’s Quad in the springtime.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
“Darling of Davos” John Kerry is also known as the Boston Buttpuppet.
P Main: Isn’t it amazing though that George Foreman is more coherent and sensible than many senators?
TW: Feeling haunted. John Kerry ought to after that statement.
Everytime this prick speaks in public he reminds me just a little bit more of Doug Neidermeyer.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Senator Kerry isn’t dumb or misinformed, he’s just evil and on the side of communism. How on earth else can you explain his positions and actions regarding Vietnam?
Zelda – I mentioned here before that my better half left the roof of the American embassy, where her father was employed, with the aid and the assistance of the US military. In much broken English and Vietnamese, I discussed this with my father-in-law this afternoon. The sheer shock on his face told me most of what I needed to know. He said that in his family alone, they lost more than 20 people in the re-education camps. After a couple of cognac’s at a Vietnamese wedding in Houston earlier this summer, some of the more elderly started telling some rather chilling stories about what happened after the premature withdrawal from Viet Nam.
Have I ever mentioned how out of place one feels when you are 6’3″ tall, and the only white male, in a room full of 500+ Vietnamese?
It puts the biscuit in the basket or it gets the hose again.
cynn:
Well, if a highly educated MIT professor can blithely dismiss what was going on in Cambodia, I don’t see why a politician isn’t going to denigrate the suffering that went on in Vietnam.
“Thriving.”
(Oh, for a preview option so I can see if I screwed this up or not…)
TW: atmosphere held, because explosive decompression really blows.
Sigh… and I didn’t notice my clip was the one JeffG already posted.
Yep, preview would be nice.
So What is Obama’s excuse?:
SUNAPEE, N.H. (AP) – Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right nowâ€â€where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strifeâ€â€which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said.
Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, said it’s likely there would be increased bloodshed if U.S. forces left Iraq.
That is a compellingly articulate (and clean!) case for genocide there. He’s turned me around here. Genocide. The right thing to do. The right time to do it.
Is it me or have failed Democratic Presidential Candidates replaced former boxers as the most blindingly myopic group on the planet?
PMain , upthread .
They’ve got nothing on These Guys
Dear Sen. Obama:
There has been a decided lack of Congolese terrorists flying planes into buildings, infiltrating the West to recruit sleeper cells, Congolese-supremacist rhetoric on the Innertubes and in private meetings, Congolese scientists building atomic weapons, and threats to wipe another country and ethnicity off the map.
Oh. And our economy doesn’t depend on Congolese exports. Sorry.
As it turns out, the Congolese may be a danger to themselves, but they pretty much leave others alone.
Yours truly,
Someone who uses both hemispheres of her brain to split atoms
oooooh, so we could finally pull our troops from Kosovo Sen. Obama?
Everytime I hear the “well why aren’t we going into THIS hellhole” argument for pulling out of Iraq I wonder if the folks who do that think the Coast Guard should stay home if they can’t rescue everyone from a particularly nasty storm.
OK, does anyone know how the spammers get past the captcha?
They don’t. It’s a human asshols.
Hi, human Leftist asshole. Fuck off.
Patrick: Although it is discouraged, the unoffical Coast Guard motto, from the old USLSS, is “You got to go out, you don’t got to come back.”
Somehow, I think the senator would disapprove of that.
TW: just heirs. Yes, the USCG is a worthy heir of the organizations that preceded it.
BJ,
You may be on to something.
Jeff, if memory serves, that’s a Flannery O’Connor reference! Love it! Didn’t hear anything beyond stupid in the first part, but I would have liked to hear his response to the second part: is Al-Maliki against us? That was either unanswered or edited out. I would like to know which. Don’t expect a follow-up, though. Too Paul Harvey.
It’s a lot easier for Jeff G to use Kerry as a punching bag when he’s unwilling to take his own position on what would happen if the U. S. did the type of redeployment the Congressional Dems are advocating. I also don’t see Jeff making much of a comment on the tens of thousands or is it hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths as a result of our gloriously successful war (I think it was RTO Trainer who informed me of the delusion that we’ve been making steady progress all along). And about right now, I wish I had a cutesy Goldsteinesque pop culture allusion in relation to “collateral damage.” How about “Iraq needed us to invade them like a fish needs a bicycle.” Hmm. Maybe that’s already taken. Still fits though.
My own take on what would happen with a U. S. withdrawal? Not much really. Neither an al-Qaeda victory nor a Shiite genocide of the Sunnis has much likelihood of occurring. The jihadis and Sunni insurgents have never been strong enough to overthrow the Iraqi government and the jihadis especially would be weakened by a U. S. withdrawal. Ultimately, the Shiite army, miliitias, and police are a stronger force than anything the Sunnis or jihadis can put up. Still, there isn’t much danger of genocide either. Genocides generally occur when one side has overwhelming power compared to the people they are destroying. The imbalance between American whites vs the Indian nations would be a good example of the kind of condition under which genocide occurs. Although the Shiites have a definite edge over the Sunnis in Iraq, the Sunni population is more than well enough armed to protect themselves from genocide. My view is that an American withdrawal would leave Iraq looking like El Salvador during the civil war years. That’s better than it looks now.
Well, it’s off with my kids to the Harry Potter party at the local bookstore. Having seen “Republicans for Voldemort” bumper stickers, I’m surprised that no one’s written anything entitled “The Case for Voldemort” on this site.
Didn’t mean any offense to you Patrick. I just like that unofficial motto. It has so much of a nineteenth century, knight errant, cowboy, Ivanhoe, thing about it. Something the professional political class has forgotten. “You have to go out; you do not have to come back.” means “It isn’t all about you.”
Semper Fidelis and Semper Paratus are not that far apart, are they?
But the US Senate? Aye, that is a different land altogether, laddie.
“My own take on what would happen with a U. S. withdrawal? Not much really. Neither an al-Qaeda victory nor a Shiite genocide of the Sunnis has much likelihood of occurring. The jihadis and Sunni insurgents have never been strong enough to overthrow the Iraqi government and the jihadis especially would be weakened by a U. S. withdrawal. Ultimately, the Shiite army, miliitias, and police are a stronger force than anything the Sunnis or jihadis can put up. Still, there isn’t much danger of genocide either. Genocides generally occur when one side has overwhelming power compared to the people they are destroying. The imbalance between American whites vs the Indian nations would be a good example of the kind of condition under which genocide occurs. Although the Shiites have a definite edge over the Sunnis in Iraq, the Sunni population is more than well enough armed to protect themselves from genocide. My view is that an American withdrawal would leave Iraq looking like El Salvador during the civil war years. That’s better than it looks now.”
Thanks, Ric. I’ve nothing more to say on this subject right now.
Remember when we we stetting up a thuggish, Iranian backed Shiite theocracy that would slaughter everything in sight as soon as it had a chance?
I do.
tw: errors necessary
Well, yeah, I know he has to make them, but does he have to post them?
Your “genocide” is contrary to current academic theory. It is therefore incumbent upon you to desist in this “genocide” or risk invalidating much of the work that has been published in the field of Peace Studies. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Best,
Rice Carrot, PhD
Professor Fluffer drops by to beat us into submission with his stupidity. Nary a day can go by without a dose of babbling.
We withdraw with a not yet stable government, and a not yet fully trained police force and military, and I am quite certain that it will be all kite flying, puppies running in the park, and balloons for everyone. At least between beheadings, death squads, decapitations, and a rape or two thrown in for good measure.
But, since the self(Caric)ature and his ilk succeeded in getting a couple million brown people slaughtered in Viet Nam and Cambodia, we might as well try it again, huh?
“No matter how color-blind the tactics of racism are, it’s still racism.”
How are we supposed to take the good professor seriously, when he is able to type the above sentence with a straight face? Seriously. If you are able to come up with that degree of drivel, isn’t it a natural conclusion that any position you are likely to take is bound to be flawed as well?
dont forget its jengas con
#47
All that puffery and pontificating blather can mean only one thing:
Jon Cary, is that you?
Damn , too freaking late for Bush / Voldemort . Burge / Goldstein , hmmmmmmmm….. sounding better all the time .
Caric, I don’t think that it would possible to have an opinion on Iraq more useless than Larry Johnson’s – but you’ve accomplished it.
Well said, Robin.
Getting back to what Jon Carry had to say:
That’s interesting. I’ve also met survivors of the “reeducation camps,” but they tend to have come here to the USA after having fled an oppressive communist government that, you know, rounded them up and put them in concentration camps.
I’ve never been to Vietnam, so I can’t say as how well-adjusted Sen. Waffles’ in-country acquaintances are, but I can tell you that one of my college roommates had a father who was thrown into such a camp after the fall of Saigon for the crime of being a middle class physician.
For some reason, his family has decided to thrive here in California (by way of being boat people) instead of staying in “Ho Chi Minh City.”
So I guess the “reeducation” didn’t take.
I wonder where the “thriving Vietnam” meme came from, because I’ve heard that in meatspace recently.
Maybe there’s some kind of mystical telepathic bond that liberals share that allows them to spread really stupid ideas and bullcrap almost instantaneously across the globe.
Or maybe they use e-mail…
Are you sure the perfesser teaches history?
tw; grow coincide
two things the perfesser resolutely refuses to do.
Here’s another deluded fellow who thinks things are going in a positive direction.
Who is this Mowaffak Rubaie? Just Iraq’s national Security Advisor. What the hell does he know? Is he a womyn’s studies professional? Does he know about the right wing cancer? I think not.
Clearly, he’s too close to the trees to see the forest. It’s going to take a genius to set him straight, methinks. Anyone want to volunteer?
Caric is one of those self-involved Berkeleyians who thinks that the world begins only when he becomes engaged with it. Which is the only way he is able to say, presumably seriously, that because I didn’t outline for the billionth time my thoughts on Iraq, the current strategy, the ramifications of civilian and coalition casualties, and the effects (as I imagine them) of Dem success in affecting a troop withdrawal in this particular post, I’m “unwilling” to take a “position on what would happen if the U. S. did the type of redeployment the Congressional Dems are advocating,” as well as reluctant (or afraid?) to comment on “the tens of thousands or is it hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths as a result of our gloriously successful war.”
I’m not sure how many posts I’ve made here, but I’m quite sure I’ve covered these areas rather extensively — and that my conclusions have been either attacked (Greenwald, Mona, Hilzoy, et al) or supported (RTO, Major John, Tigerhawk, Blackfive, Froggy, etc.).
Were Ric to show up here in the flesh, I’d probably kick him in the shin and say, “thus, I refute thee.”
Cynn–
Yeah. I once published a paper on O’Connor’s short fiction that dealt with the fate of her highly educated characters who become divorced from spiritual belief (or whose spiritual belief is perfunctory, or concerned only with “good works”). I consider her a major influence.
The historic parallels to date between Iraq and Vietnam are tenuous at best. The Vietnamese deaths after our withdrawal did not begin immediately after we withdrew. To end the active war, America negotiated a truce between North and South Vietnam that allowed us to withdraw and kept the government in the South in power.
Two years later, the stalwart defenders of freedom in Congress (which party?) decided to de-fund our beleagured allies, the government of South Vietnam, leaving them defenseless against the aggressive North, who – true to character – invaded to finish the job.
(Note that our enemies never give up, never tire of the struggle, victory is always attainable as long as you keep up the fight. Our current enemy is no different; Radical Islam is banking on our giving up the fight in order to win.)
Everyone knows what happened next in Vietnam. I don’t think North Vietnam got UN approval before invading the South, surely that was just an oversight on their part.
If we leave Iraq now, the chaos would be epic. We are the only force providing any semblance of law and order in the Country. The numerous blood-thirty factions that are trying to intimidate the populace would increase their influence. Without the US in Iraq, it would more closely resemble an ’80’s era Lebanon with heavy influence from Syria, Iran, and Saudia Arabia, than Vietnam.
America leaving early would most damage our few allies in Iraq, the ones who are putting their lives at risk trying to improve their country and get it back on its feet. These brave souls will have made the same mistake as the South Vietnamese: they trusted the US to support them even when things got difficult.
The real lesson of Vietnam will be reinforced for the entire world: Don’t trust the US. America may talk about freedom and liberty, but won’t do anything difficult in support of the cause. People who ally themselves with the powerful US are fools.
I worked offshore with a guy in the late eighties who did seven years in a re-education camp. He was really pissed because no matter how much he ate he couldn’t get over a 117 lbs. on his 5’10” frame. He said went into the camp weighing 170 lbs. and came out weighing 88 lbs.
I guess Kerry forgot to tout the weight-loss benefits of communist re-education. I mean, there’s no oily rectal discharge or anything.
yours/
peter.
I bough for the first time Online Contact Lenses and don’t needed a prescription because the Contactlens shop is in the netherlands. can you tell me your experience with Ordering Online contact Lenses on other contactlens shops?
Here’s the link for Buy Online Contact Lens at http://www.onlinecontactlenses.nl/
Or you can try the links below
Online Contactlenzen bestellen
1-day-acuvue.html
Online Contact Lenses
I was studying something else about this on another blog. Interesting. Your perspective on it is novel. – If I were in this business only for the business, I wouldn’t be in this business. – Samuel Goldwyn 1882 – 1974
Thanks for the information very interresting