Did somebody say real mayo?
Posted on 10/23/2005 3:39:47 PM PDT by spanalot
"The most meticulous estimates by demographers who have researched the famine toll are mostly lower than this book's: Judith Banister estimated 30 million; Basil Ashton also came up with 30 million; and Xizhe Peng suggested about 23 million. Simply plucking a high-end estimate out of an article and embracing it as the one true estimate worries me; if that is stretched, then what else is?"
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
By that does the NYT mean not the Mao portrayed in the NYT over the last 80 years?
"Finally, there is Mao's place in history. I agree that Mao was a catastrophic ruler in many, many respects, and this book captures that side better than anything ever written. But Mao's legacy is not all bad."
I was startled for a moment, because the NYT was sounding rather anti-communist for two whole pages, but they reverted to form here, just after quibbling over a few too many million that the book's author included in the death tolls here and there.
That's a killer beat.
Only 30 million dead? Oh, well, then Mao must not have been such a monster after all. Which is, coincidentally, what the NYT would have had us believe all along.
Let me guess: Mao made the trains run on time, or something like that.
LOL, I've always thought it was "Papa Ooh Mao Mao," you know, sort of a subliminal paean to the "great father" or something. Kind of like they were trying to out-communist Lennon's "Imagine," in a less-eurocentrist manner?
Did somebody say real mayo?
"Let me guess: Mao made the trains run on time, or something like that."
No, the author of the NYT book review actually seemed to think that "land reform" ameliorated 30 million (give or take a couple million) deaths.
If killing "only" 23 million makes him not such a bad guy, I guess Ted Bundy should have been set free with a civic virtue award.
"But Mao's legacy is not all bad. Land reform in China, like the land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today. The emancipation of women and end of child marriages moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea"
Yes - China is a wonderful place for woman - especially if you avoid being aborted because of the "one child" program -
"Oh, well, then Mao must not have been such a monster after all. Which is, coincidentally, what the NYT would have had us believe all along."
From page three of the NYT review:
"Another problem: Mao comes across as such a villain that he never really becomes three-dimensional."
Well, we certainly wouldn't want to overemphasize villainy, here. Kristof goes on to provide a few of the warmly humanizing, three-dimensional qualities that he believes Mao requires in order to present the proper historical image.
Then again, they're still trying to defend Walter Duranty's '32 Pulitzer for jackin' 'ole Stalin's virtues. (An old blog of mine on this here)
They said the same things about Stalin and Lenin.
Proof that Stalin was right about one thing. He said: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
I guess the amazing thing is that the Times printed the review at all. Its usual response to books that shatter liberal icons is to pretend they don't exist.
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