1976 Pol Pot renames Cambodia

History.com(This Day in History) ^ | 01/05/2017 | staff

[Kid Shelleen]

On this day in 1976, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot announces a new constitution changing the name of Cambodia to Kampuchea and legalizing its Communist government. During the next three years his brutal regime sent the nation back to the Middle Ages and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1 to 2 million Cambodians.

Pol Pot, who was born Saloth Sar in 1925 to a relatively well-off Cambodian family, became involved in the Communist movement as a young man studying in Paris. After he returned home to Cambodia, which gained its independence from France in 1954, he rose through the ranks of his homeland’s small, underground Communist Party. Influenced by China’s Mao Zedong, by the mid-1960s, Pol Pot, also known as Brother Number One,

[dfwgator]

Pol Pot, who was born Saloth Sar in 1925 to a relatively well-off Cambodian family, became involved in the Communist movement as a young man studying in Paris.

Further proof, that all evil movements in history have one common denominator, Paris.

[Buckeye McFrog]

also known as Brother Number One

Sounds like the title of a movie Pam Grier would have been in.

[VanDeKoik]

Never learned how to pronounce that, so it was always Cambodia.

And it’s called BURMA, no Me-am-maar, and I still love the name Bombay, not Moom-bi!

[Dilbert San Diego]

And Beijing used to be Peking.

I have wondered— when Peking became Beijing, did they also change the name of Peking duck to Beijing duck???

[gundog]

Ho Chi Minh was a pastry chef at The Ritz, in Paris.

[Organic Panic]

Obama so wants to be like Pol Pot.

[dfwgator]

The Paris Commune was the inspiration for many a Communist.

[dfwgator]

And Beijing used to be Peking.

Even Old New York was once New Amsterdam.

[PGR88]

Pol Pot was another consequence of US involvement in (and democrat politically based abandonment of) South Vietnam

There are many similarities to Iraq and ISIS.

The USA should absolutely not engage in such wars unless we intend to win, and intend to stay for a minimum of 50 years.

[Dr. Sivana]

Further proof, that all evil movements in history have one common denominator, Paris.

Dang. Your right. I was ready to come up with counter examples. But Karl Marx didn't just go to Paris, it's where he became a socialist.

Then I tried Margaret Sanger, figuring her to have British or German influence. "From Scotland we went to Paris to pick up, wherever possible, the customs and means which had given the French peasants the knowledge to control their birth rate and to limit their families."

Freud: "In October 1885, Freud went to Paris on a fellowship to study with Jean-Martin Charcot, a renowned neurologist who was conducting scientific research into hypnosis. He was later to recall the experience of this stay as catalytic in turning him toward the practice of medical psychopathology and away from a less financially promising career in neurology research."

Mao Tese-Tung: Mao’s last decade, which had opened with manifestos in favour of the Paris Commune model of mass democracy,

Hans Kung: "He then continued his education in various European cities, for example at the Sorbonne in Paris."

Feuerbach: In 1831, shortly after graduating, he went to Paris to work with the noted philologists and linguists Chézy, Bournouf and Remusat. France had recently experienced the July Revolution, and Friedrich met with some of the French utopian socialists of the time (e.g., Pierre Leroux).

Okay, at least Spinoza did not have any formation in Paris. That's pretty thin pickings.

Paris was a huge influence on Nietzsche, too. So if Paris can take blame for Nietzsche and Marx, their spiritual heirs Hitler and Stalin partake of the same blame.

And all these years I have been a self-hating part-kraut blaming that part of my ethnic heritage for all these bad German theologians and philosophers.

[HombreSecreto]

Agree. His new name is Smoke Pot.

[Jim W N]

Reading about Pol Pot reminds me of Obama. Unruffled, quiet, no drama, while systemically attempting setting up a totalitarian and corrupt dictatorship. Fortunately, the roots of America’s Free Constitutional Republic ran too deep for Obama to finish what he started.

[rjsimmon]

Even Old New York was once New Amsterdam.

And Istanbul was Constantinople...

Istanbul

[vikingd00d]

>>>>And Beijing used to be Peking.
>>Even Old New York was once New Amsterdam.

Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople...

[Dr. Ursus]

The age of reason and the enlightenment were evil?

[Dr. Sivana]

The age of reason and the enlightenment were evil?

Let's get past the slanted names, and down to specifics. Yes, the French Revolution and Reign of Terror were evil. Rousseau was evil. Descartes wasn't malicious, but he set some nasty stuff in motion.

All of the aspects of the 19th century "-isms" that tried to find a simple, one word root for man that excludes God (Marx [Economics], Nietzsche [Power], Freud [sex]) set the stage of the mass slaughters of the 20th century.

[Uncle Miltie]

Beijing was even earlier Beiping, translated as “Pacified North” because the Ming were so happy to have thrown out the Yuan (Mongol, Kublai Khan-established) Dynasty. Under Kublai Khan, it was “Khanbaliq”, or City of the Khan.

[dfwgator]

And where was the Ayatollah Khomeini living before he returned to Iran?

[To Hell With Poverty]

And Istanbul was once....well, you know.