Article discreditng the thesis that Mao "killed millions of people" in The Great Leap

[kandrathe]

I'm in the camp of supporting all speech, even the right to be an idiot with hateful speech, or our quibbling about perceptions of truth. Because, policing of thoughts is a subjective exercise, and prone to be abused by thought police. Consider the argument posed in, Holocaust Denial and Academic Freedom by Stanley Fish. Prof. Fish is a leading activist voice in enacting speech codes on campus. But, the article does express the problem with the ideas of the absurd, or in this case the hateful. How do you not give credence to a nonsense argument, while dismissing it without arguing against it?

In an interesting coincidence, on my trip in this morning the discussion was that both Trump, and Obama agree that the state of discourse in western democracy is damaged by hyper vigilant political correctness. There is a difference between denigrating, or demeaning (rude) speech, and that clarifying positions or thoughts on sensitive issues. We need to be able to have conversations on immigration reform, or affirmative action without resorting to labeling our opponents as racists. It is also clear in the "climate science" debate. In the press, and on the internet, unless you are a full on "believer" you are a heretic, climate denier. For some topics, there is no room for doubt or skepticism.

IMHO, we need to not label people, period.

Calling people names shuts down good discussions. Discussions that might persuade that person to reconsider their views.

Supporting Stalin or Mao ideologically or even their policies, is not racist, regardless of how disagreeable you find them. It isn't the same at all, and to compare the two as even being in the same ballpark just indirectly panders to pro-fascist/Nazi rhetoric of 'free speech', as well as the currently fashionable but intellectually dishonest right-wing notion that fascism is the same as communism. But I think you know this very well already.

So, playing the advocate of the devil here, what is inherently racist about Fascism? In communism, the state is the custodian of everything and it is the state that owns everything. In Fascism, the state has control over everything. In simple words, Communism means state ownership and fascism means state control. But, the important part is that in the dictatorships of Mao, and Stalin the state was in totalitarian control. Therefore, the line between fascism, Maoism and Stalinism is blurry at best.

According to the list we outlined in the "other thread",

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

The ideology could be racist, but the scapegoats could be "the 1%", or "Muslims", or "climate change deniers"... But, I digress. The point I was making, especially regarding revising Stalin, is that the Great Purge had racial, as well as political elements. The non-Russians (Poles, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians) in the Soviet Union were more "terrorized" by NKVD troika. Yet, Stalin revisionists aren't viewed as racist pro-Russian, as much as they are portrayed as trying to sanitize Soviet history. Then, also, there was Stalin's anti-Semitic shift after WWII. Seizing Crimea is likely the result of Putin's neo-Stalinist proto-Fascist nationalism. Whereas, Mao's Great Leap Forward seems to be more of a colossal administrative screw up, with totalitarian denials and cover ups.

I think many more "left-wing demonstrations" lead to violence, usually instigated by external anarchist agitators.