By Bruce D Price
Virginia Beach, VA
RantRave.com
Starting in 1975, Pol Pot and his Communist revolutionaries killed almost 2,000,000 Cambodians, out of a total population of 5,000,000. Why??
Pol Pot lived in Paris for many years where he became a Marxist intellectual. Sitting in classrooms and cafes, he visualized the perfect Cambodia. He went back to Cambodia to eliminate foreign influences, purge educated people, and thereby create an agrarian workers paradise.
Pol Pot was a fanatic, a true believer. The best one-word summary is to say that Pol Pot was an ideologue. He had ideas in his head; he knew they were right; and he was thereby entitled to kill millions of people to make those ideas prevail. Pol Pot, some may object, is a monster and too horrible to contemplate. I would counter that contemplating Pol Pot is one of the most useful things we can do. Let us declare April (said by Eliot to be the cruelest month) as Ideology and Mass Murderers Month.
Students in public schools especially should be urged to contemplate the ravages of ideology. So many of them are its victims.
Ideological extremism is relatively rare in the United States; many people may be lulled into thinking it does not exist at all. However, for several years I've suspected that the only way to explain the failures in American education is to look at the ideological extremism of the people in charge.
Pol Pot is one of the great monsters of history and obviously very rare. But the thing to focus on is that once he committed to his ideas, he believed there were no limits, no rules, no restrictions. That's the mark of a true ideologue.
What happened in America is that around 1900, all the leaders in education were Socialists, Collectivists, or Marxists of some stripe. They believed their views were correct and that it was their duty to prepare the country for Socialism. When they dumbed down schools and leveled children, John Dewey and his fellow ideologues believed they were doing a noble service. The point is, so did Pol Pot and his gang. Ideologues always believe they are doing good deeds. That is why they are so dangerous.
The "killer" part of Dewey's ideology is he felt he was above American society. He did not need the approval of Congress, the president, the Supreme Court or the voters. All of these obstacles had to be circumvented and this is where Dewey's ideology got us into real trouble. Maybe they weren't murdering people; they were definitely murdering truth and transparency.
Dewey and his fellow conspirators worked in secret from their headquarters at Teachers College in Manhattan. Their plot was to indoctrinate future teachers, send them out to the schools in the countryside, and use the classroom to steer the US to socialism. Ideology made secrecy seem respectable.
This machinery, once in place, got out of control, as you might predict. The Russian Revolution circa 1920 and the Great Depression circa 1930 galvanized our left-wing educators into thinking that their time had come, all arguments were settled, and big bold steps must be taken.
So now we see one of the most destructive events in American history: circa 1932 educators abruptly imposed Look-say on the children of America. This was a bogus, unworkable system whereby children were supposed to learn to read by memorizing the shapes of words. Memorizing a few hundred sight-words is doable, and thus the illusion is created that children are making progress. But virtually nobody actually goes on to read with whole-words. Typically, more than half the class will belatedly evolve into reading phonetically. But a third will stay mired in whole-words and become functional illiterates. We have 50,000,000 of them.
The simplest way to explain this tragedy is to say that ideology caused it. I think the same pattern repeated itself with New Math circa 1965. Both these gimmicks are grotesque in their manifest inability to do the purported task. It's as if you go to the store to buy white bread and someone sells you a lump of styrofoam.
I would argue that the same pattern repeats itself many DOZENS of times, as our Education Establishment devised numerous so-called methods that never seemed to work as promised. Only ideology could produce such a ditzy parade of failure. Clearly, the methods were not supposed to work educationally; they were intended to work ideologically.
One of the distinguishing traits of American education today is that the people in charge have not only dumbed it down, they have also wrapped the entire subject in propaganda, alibis, excuses, sophistries, deceptions, and confusion. The public is trained now to blame children, parents, television, computers, drugs, sex, rock 'n roll, internet, cell phones, especially parents. Anything but the real perps.
Typically, when large enterprises fail, we blame the leaders and replace them. That's what we should do here. But the Education Establishment is brilliant at deflecting criticism. The last thing they want you to realize is that they are ideologues, and all of us are victims of their ideology.
Pol Pot lived in Paris for many years where he became a Marxist intellectual. Sitting in classrooms and cafes, he visualized the perfect Cambodia. He went back to Cambodia to eliminate foreign influences, purge educated people, and thereby create an agrarian workers paradise.
Pol Pot was a fanatic, a true believer. The best one-word summary is to say that Pol Pot was an ideologue. He had ideas in his head; he knew they were right; and he was thereby entitled to kill millions of people to make those ideas prevail. Pol Pot, some may object, is a monster and too horrible to contemplate. I would counter that contemplating Pol Pot is one of the most useful things we can do. Let us declare April (said by Eliot to be the cruelest month) as Ideology and Mass Murderers Month.
Students in public schools especially should be urged to contemplate the ravages of ideology. So many of them are its victims.
Ideological extremism is relatively rare in the United States; many people may be lulled into thinking it does not exist at all. However, for several years I've suspected that the only way to explain the failures in American education is to look at the ideological extremism of the people in charge.
Pol Pot is one of the great monsters of history and obviously very rare. But the thing to focus on is that once he committed to his ideas, he believed there were no limits, no rules, no restrictions. That's the mark of a true ideologue.
What happened in America is that around 1900, all the leaders in education were Socialists, Collectivists, or Marxists of some stripe. They believed their views were correct and that it was their duty to prepare the country for Socialism. When they dumbed down schools and leveled children, John Dewey and his fellow ideologues believed they were doing a noble service. The point is, so did Pol Pot and his gang. Ideologues always believe they are doing good deeds. That is why they are so dangerous.
The "killer" part of Dewey's ideology is he felt he was above American society. He did not need the approval of Congress, the president, the Supreme Court or the voters. All of these obstacles had to be circumvented and this is where Dewey's ideology got us into real trouble. Maybe they weren't murdering people; they were definitely murdering truth and transparency.
Dewey and his fellow conspirators worked in secret from their headquarters at Teachers College in Manhattan. Their plot was to indoctrinate future teachers, send them out to the schools in the countryside, and use the classroom to steer the US to socialism. Ideology made secrecy seem respectable.
This machinery, once in place, got out of control, as you might predict. The Russian Revolution circa 1920 and the Great Depression circa 1930 galvanized our left-wing educators into thinking that their time had come, all arguments were settled, and big bold steps must be taken.
So now we see one of the most destructive events in American history: circa 1932 educators abruptly imposed Look-say on the children of America. This was a bogus, unworkable system whereby children were supposed to learn to read by memorizing the shapes of words. Memorizing a few hundred sight-words is doable, and thus the illusion is created that children are making progress. But virtually nobody actually goes on to read with whole-words. Typically, more than half the class will belatedly evolve into reading phonetically. But a third will stay mired in whole-words and become functional illiterates. We have 50,000,000 of them.
The simplest way to explain this tragedy is to say that ideology caused it. I think the same pattern repeated itself with New Math circa 1965. Both these gimmicks are grotesque in their manifest inability to do the purported task. It's as if you go to the store to buy white bread and someone sells you a lump of styrofoam.
I would argue that the same pattern repeats itself many DOZENS of times, as our Education Establishment devised numerous so-called methods that never seemed to work as promised. Only ideology could produce such a ditzy parade of failure. Clearly, the methods were not supposed to work educationally; they were intended to work ideologically.
One of the distinguishing traits of American education today is that the people in charge have not only dumbed it down, they have also wrapped the entire subject in propaganda, alibis, excuses, sophistries, deceptions, and confusion. The public is trained now to blame children, parents, television, computers, drugs, sex, rock 'n roll, internet, cell phones, especially parents. Anything but the real perps.
Typically, when large enterprises fail, we blame the leaders and replace them. That's what we should do here. But the Education Establishment is brilliant at deflecting criticism. The last thing they want you to realize is that they are ideologues, and all of us are victims of their ideology.
11 comments:
Why? because he wanted to clean out Cambodia for his Communist bosses idiot.
any kind of political vision like stupid pol pot had that involved killing khmer is crazy and should never be allowed to happened again!
No time now to respond fully to this article.
However, I would most strongly disagree with the statement that the USA is devoid of ideological fanaticism and mass-murdering despotic rulers.
How else to explain the global mass murdering in wars of aggression, torture, illegal "renditions" and imprisonment without trial, etc., waged by various US governments, Republican & Democrat, over many decades.
George W Bush and now Bomber Obummer are every bit as bad as Pol Pot!
Religious fundamentalism, bigotry and capitalist ideology runs rampant....and cultural propaganda effectively hides this truth from most Americans and many other citizens around the world.
Wake up!
http://lemonjuicebruce.blogspot.com/
Not true, only Pol Pot himself will tell us what was his intention. The bother number two/three/four could be used to reveal what Pot Pot might had thought of. Who care about Pol Pot. What we do care khmer people were not supposed to be the subjects of Pol Pol ideology.
Pol Pot was just a dump, an incompetent, not able to complete any skill, he win the war because of Lon Nol weakness and Yuons, not because of his strength.
Per example, he sent Takeo Cambodians who knew nothing about rice to teach Battambang Cambodians to grow rice and we lower a lot of rice crop at that time.
Pol Pot not to order someone under his control to kill anyone, the killer are Yuonese / Vietnamese, from 1975 to 1979 during Khmer Rough / Pol Pot regime under A cruel Vampire Yuonese / Vietnaese hidden faces behind the killing fields, so don't blam to Pol Pot at all, because I am live nearby Yuonese / Vietnamese army when Vietnam war with U-S-A and also one of my cousin brother are Yuonese / Vietnamese secret agent after used him killed him in the year 1977, beofre he die he'd told all my relative know about this. from Cambodian Victim from 1975 to 1979 during Khmer Rough / Pol Pot regime under A cruel Vampire Yuonese / Vietnamese hidden faces behind the killing fields in Melbourne Australia
What mf*is he writing crapy article as such? this mf* is saying that get over it. Pol Pot did it alone. All is for the Communist.
The old generation....through 1965,students from primary schools until finished High Schools,they had to memorize all lessons getting from classrooms.The teachers told students to do so.This was the old school systems in Cambodia.Pol Pot and his officials had used those systems to put them into practice.But now is the GENERATION ME having a big difference,students should know,understand the concepts. They do not memorize like the old generation. The today new young generation people are good thinkers,they discover the new way of thinking,learning ,understanding and put it into practice.
I ain't scholarly an expert of Khmer history, but this author is evidently too lazy to do any research on the deaths of our beloved Khmer, almost nearly two millions of seven millions, not five millions?
Because of my illiterate English is verbly limited, therefore I unashamedly confess that I ain't polisickally, philosophically, and ideologically comprehensive of this author's masterfully flowery sentences, but my common sense is simply telling me the fall of Pol Pot's regime was because of his foolish, selfish arrognance and insanity, not entirely different from SihanoukVarman, Lon Nol, and SenVarman.
1. should not evacuate the people of Phnom Pehn city
2. should not kil all educated folks, including his beloved comrades
3. should visit all the countries side, not just staying only city as a king frog in the gloomy wells
Pot Pot & an utopia communist ideology, let alone the Cultural revolution of Mao Tse Tong, The Soviet Union communist and the Ho chi Minh liberation, their alliance so call against imperialism...
So Pot Pot was not acted alone to defeat Lon Nol young Khmer Republic, hence without the support of the big superpowers including Vietcong and Sihanouuk forces resistance.
Pot Pot and youn clans when rise to power seing they can defeat big power American.
They are so foolisfly pride for their short term victory, the insecurity and dummy ideology to see the world up side down back to a hundred years ago that anything around them: modern technology, educated persons, intellectual,even new born baby etc.... were their enemies until ther are fighting each other within their associate.
Pot Pot and Sihanouk no doubt have carried over the Vietnamese Imperialism, Indochinese Federation, Vietnamization of Cambodia.
So that the plan of Vetcong Ho chi Minh are well established until Pot Pot and Sihanouk blinded eye, a fait accompli and will be coming for Cambodia to Kompuchea krom II in the future...If Khmer not awake to see the real color of youn puppets..
If Khmer still vote to elect CPP for 5 Kg of rice or one krama for temporary living 5 days as for not living the whole country of Cambodia..Please for God sake and cambodia survival of youn Imperialism ..dare to say no to viet Puppet...
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