Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m on the road, and my blogging will be light in the next few days.
I’ll probably eat turkey (the fowl, not the country). May PETA forgive me for this imposition.
turkey-chop-sm-url.gif
And hey, if you think slaughtering turkeys poses ethical issues, I suggest a post that Glenn linked which asks a seemingly simple question:
Did Stalin commit genocide?
He slaughtered the Kulaks, but because they were an economic class (essentially the middle class), it doesn’t “count” as genocide. That’s because Stalin helped define genocide, No, seriously:

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.
[…]
Because of the influence of Joseph Stalin, this definition of genocide under international law does not include political groups.

Which means the Khmer Rouge didn’t commit genocide, natch.
I’d write more, but I’m running late.
(No time to debate trollish questions such as whether certain drugs can be genocidal.)


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3 responses to “Happy Thanksgiving!”

  1. Darleen Avatar

    Happy Thanksgiving, Eric! Drive safe and have a wonderful time.

  2. Kathy Kinsley Avatar

    Well, from a ‘the word is the thing’ point of view, they partially correct in their definition. Religious and national should be excluded unless they are also genotypes (sorry Simon, some Jews are in that one – but Nigerian Jews? – not sure).
    We do need another word for Stalin and those like him. I think ‘mass murderer’ will do fine.
    And I agree with Ilya that “…the genocide-mass murder distinction isn’t a morally meaningful one.”
    A mass murderer is a mass murderer. And it really doesn’t matter to the murdered whether they were murdered because of race or economic level, culture, or political or religious beliefs. They are dead just the same.

  3. TallDave Avatar

    FNS played that clip of Stalin with FDR and Churchill in Tehran, it’s sort of eerie to see how happy and normal Stalin looks. Really makes you shiver, in retrospect.
    That’s the true face of evil, a consummate propagandist, smiling and jovial and murdering tens of millions who were inconvenient to his plans.