I was in Guatemala when the CIA was preparing its attack on the Arbenz government [in 1954]. Arbenz, who was a democratically elected president, mildly socialist. His state had no revenues; its biggest income maker was United Fruit Company. So Arbenz put the tiniest of taxes on bananas, and Henry Cabot Lodge got up in the Senate and said the Communists have taken over Guatemala and we must act. He got to Eisenhower, who sent in the CIA, and they overthrew the government. We installed a military dictator, and there's been nothing but bloodshed ever since.
This event was the watershed for nearly every subsequent protest by the leftist liberals in the Americas (including the U.S.) and was pointed to over and over as the great evil of American patriotism; it has been thrown around every program of socialist interest on college campuses ever since; it is popular among the left-winger-weenies as the calling card or ID card of the politically correct's assertion that the United States of America is the enemy to be hated.
I may strongly disagree with even more such "businesses practices" than has Mr. Vidal, but his ill will toward Americans trying to defend themselves against the ultra-coercions of the nationalizing socialism(s) which he and his followers have favored, has constantly overlooked that very horror, such as this, which we still struggle against --- what the leftists have manifested; see: The U.S. case against the court (ICC) is bogus on its face., Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 2, 2002, by editorial staff (posted by wallcrawlr). My reply there:
Why is there no mention of the truly large atrocities committed by the extreme left-wing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune?
Will Castro and the communists of Cuba be arrested?
Will the communists of Southeast Asia be arrested?
Will the communists of Asia be arrested?
Heart of darkness: Cambodia's Killing FieldsAugust 8, 2001 [CNN online]
By CNN's Joe Havely
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The fields of Choeung Ek on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, carry a dark secret.
Across the baked earth scraps of cloth and human bone poke through the soil and are slowly bleached white by the harsh tropical sun.
In the center stands a glass-walled shrine containing more than 8,000 skulls -- the remains of just a few of those who died here.
These are the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
Here, just a few kilometers from the center of Phnom Penh, tens of thousands of people met their deaths -- entire families wiped out.
Many of those killed were intellectuals or trained professionals -- people considered counter-revolutionaries by the Khmer Rouge leadership bent on turning Cambodia into a [communist, socialist, leftist, fascist] peasant's paradise. (In " [ ] " --- mine, F_S)
Towards the end of its rule, as the regime became increasingly paranoid and turned on itself, many once senior Khmer Rouge cadres also met their end at Choeung Ek.
Men, women and children -- some just a few months old -- were killed here, often in the most violent and brutal ways.
With bullets in short supply, the condemned were forced to kneel before an open grave then stabbed through the head with a sharpened bamboo stake ...
Reign of terror
The fields of Choeung Ek contain more than 100 mass gravesIn the corner of the field stands a tree ...
Against its trunk the heads of babies were smashed by young men brainwashed into believing their actions would free Cambodia from colonial imperialism ...
Reuters contributed to this report.
