The hallmark of the true communist/socialist: the atrocities they perpetrate are invariably perpetrated in the name of purifying society.
The hallmark of the communist/socialist apologist (of the Vidal ilk): they justify the atrocities, while crucifying America for her much less egregious ‘faults’.
In order for said purification to occur, one set of men must determine the definition of pure, and impose its definition on others. And, invariably, the other (less deserving of a voice) set of men (women/children) generally wind up sacrificing their individual lives and liberties (and usually many of both) in order for the men bent on purification to achieve their self-made definition of a pure society. It all boils down to the imposition of one’s set of beliefs on others. And it is the others who do all the sacrificing, while the self-proclaimed leftist gods merely dictate the terms, and then summon their apologists to provide the justification. Is there anything more arrogant?
In the name of radical Maoism, and voicing the desire to turn Cambodia into an agrarian utopia, all Pol Pot ever claimed he was doing was creating a ‘pure’ communist society. His altruism simply appeared to be atrocious to those who didn’t comprehend his noble aims.
....who can ever fathom the evil that men do? We stand disbelieving before genocide, when women's throats are slit with sharp palm leaves, when children's heads are smashed against tree trunks, when men are slaughtered with the crack of a hoe. These things happened every day in Cambodia for 3 1/2 terrible years, and when the world learned of it, people could only respond with dumb horror....[Pol Pot] never admitting his appalling conduct, never regretting the countless executions, the million more dead of starvation and overwork, the living population maimed in body or mind, the entire country reduced to Stone Age survival....Terry McCarthy, in 'The Butcher of Cambodia'
Vidal, while not necessarily cut from the same cloth as the Pol Pots of this world, is cut from the socialist apologist cloth….and the former could not continue to propagate without the support of the latter. America is a breeding ground for socialist apologists…. those who choose to ignore the genuine man-on-man atrocities that occur in this world, and who, instead, choose to denigrate every potentially questionable action that America has ever taken (her treatment of the American Indian, her acceptance of the institution of slavery….) and paint it as evidence that America is, and always has been, the source of evil in the world.
It is interesting that perhaps the most imperialist, tyrannical, sovereignty-destroying actions ever perpetrated by America occurred during the reign of a socialist/socialist apologist President. And those useful idiots, like Vidal, who are ever ready to point the critical imperialist finger at America, somehow turned a blind eye.
There were those (in Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia…) who were deafened by the apologists’ uncharacteristic silence.