Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. — Anthony Bourdain, A Cook’s Tour (2002) If a heavy resume of crimes is a guarantee of longevity, then surely Henry A. Kissinger (HAK, for short), must count as a good specimen. The list of butcheries […]
Image credit: Left Voice. The history of Marxism has a parallel history of counter-Marxism — intellectual currents that posture as the true Marxism. Even before Marxism came into being as a coherent ideology, Marx and Engels devoted an often-neglected section of their 1848 Communist Manifesto to debunking the existing contenders for true socialism. As the […]
“Unknown to most Americans, the US ‘totally destroyed’ North Korea once before” — Irish Times Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later that someone of high notoriety would blurt out the truth about the American genocide in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and lift for a moment the curtain of imbecility that keeps why-me-worry […]
The post Suckered into Stupid Wars first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was one of the most prescient philosophers, whose influence is felt even today. It could be said about him that he is read wherever printed literature or optical fiber has reached. But what does Marx mean to us today? How do we interpret Marx for our changed times? I remember that by 2005-2006, most people would mockingly remind me that Marx had become outdated and therefore his proper place was his London cemetery. But then, out of the blue came the 2008-2012 economic meltdown.
Amazingly, the history of the Vietnam War is still being fought over in the United States. There seems to be an effort to reframe that horrific and shameful campaign into some honorable intervention. For example, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 authorized the U.S. Secretary of Defense to conduct a program to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. In 2012, President Obama signed a proclamation stating that the commemoration would begin on Memorial Day (May 28th) 2012 and would continue until Veterans Day (November 11th) 2025.
In 1928, Ho Chi Minh was in Thailand while his Chinese wife, Zeng Xueming, remained in Canton. He sent her this letter:
From the day we parted, already more than a year.
I miss you with such anguish, it needn’t be said.
Borrowing rosy wings, I send a few lines to reassure you.
Such is my desire, and I wish your mother ten thousand good lucks.
Clumsily yours.
