1 00:00:38,399 --> 00:00:40,840 Speaker 1: If you want to get the show early and ad free, 2 00:00:41,320 --> 00:00:45,159 head on over to the Peak Kinyonas show dot com. 3 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:48,159 There you can choose from where you wish to support me. 4 00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:51,359 Now listen very carefully. I've had some people ask me 5 00:00:51,399 --> 00:00:53,719 about this, even though I think on the last ad 6 00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:58,159 I stated it pretty clearly. If you want an RSS feed, 7 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:02,600 you're going to have to subscribe through substack or through Patreon. 8 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:07,120 You can also subscribe on my website which is right there, 9 00:01:07,719 --> 00:01:12,000 gum Road and what's the other one, subscribe Star And 10 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,120 if you do that, you will get access to the 11 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:19,159 audio file. So head on over to the pekan yonasshow 12 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:21,760 dot com. You'll see all the ways that you can 13 00:01:21,799 --> 00:01:25,159 support me there. And I just want to thank everyone. 14 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:27,640 It's because of you that I can put out the 15 00:01:27,719 --> 00:01:31,079 amount of material that I do. I can do what 16 00:01:31,159 --> 00:01:33,920 I'm doing with doctor Johnson on two hundred Years Together 17 00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:36,879 and everything else, the things that Thomas and I are 18 00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:40,079 doing together on kindinal philosophy, it's all because of you. 19 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,599 And yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank 20 00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:48,280 you enough. So thank you. The pekan Yonashow dot com. 21 00:01:48,319 --> 00:01:52,319 Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the 22 00:01:52,359 --> 00:01:56,159 Peking Yona Show. Thomas is back and we're going to 23 00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:58,959 start a new series today, So I'm gonna let Thomas 24 00:01:58,959 --> 00:02:02,239 take it away. Thank you, Thomas, how are you doing well? 25 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:11,400 Speaker 2: I believe an understudied aspect not just of the Cold War, 26 00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:18,280 but in twentieth century studies and Marxist Leninist studies as 27 00:02:18,319 --> 00:02:31,280 well as disciplines tending towards scaled sociopolitical behavior. There's a 28 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:37,960 general neglect of democratic Campuccia, which existed from nineteen seventy 29 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:40,319 five ninety seventy nine, that was the Khmer Rouge regime. 30 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:46,960 It's invoked by a lot of these midwid academics as 31 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:51,639 some cautionary tale from history, and these people, part of 32 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:54,680 it's born of ignorance, part of it's born of commitment 33 00:02:54,719 --> 00:03:00,159 to an ideological narrative. They assigned these arbitrary criteria, you 34 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:07,280 categorical categorical criteria to what they call genocides. Conspicuously, of course, 35 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,319 the Soviet Union during the phase or epoch when America 36 00:03:13,439 --> 00:03:19,159 was allied with the Soviet State is conspicuously redacted. But 37 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:26,560 they'll they'll lump together Rwanda, democratic Campuccia, the Third Reich 38 00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:34,439 sometimes Idia means Uganda and declare that these are instances 39 00:03:34,479 --> 00:03:39,159 of genocide. You know, again according to arbitrary metrics, a 40 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:44,240 combination of what they perceive of as the moral depravity 41 00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:50,520 of the government in question and the scale of attrition. 42 00:03:52,759 --> 00:03:55,960 That doesn't really tell us anything. Don't get me wrong. 43 00:03:58,159 --> 00:04:03,719 One of the reasons I evokers Nulty, which is he's 44 00:04:03,719 --> 00:04:12,039 one of the most important gaily and theorists whoever lived. 45 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,519 But he had certain insights into the the way political 46 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:27,199 power is expressed in the late modern period, with a 47 00:04:27,199 --> 00:04:30,800 particular attention of the twentieth century. And there was a 48 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:38,040 severity to political affairs and an intensity to violence that 49 00:04:39,879 --> 00:04:43,879 really isn't precedented before. And so although I'd argue that 50 00:04:45,079 --> 00:04:48,720 some of the excesses of the Jacobin regime were comparable, 51 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:53,959 and I discussed that in my book or my manuscript 52 00:04:53,959 --> 00:04:59,600 that's not published yet. Also, so there's that and really 53 00:04:59,639 --> 00:05:03,959 such I remember that when you if you'd read the 54 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:09,439 National Review where the American Spectator in the nineties when 55 00:05:09,439 --> 00:05:12,360 they were short on a on a boogeyman to talk 56 00:05:12,399 --> 00:05:15,800 about obviously the Cold War was over. It was around 57 00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:21,360 that time. I Paul Pott aka salath Star, which was 58 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:26,120 his actual name. He passed away in ninety eight, and 59 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:29,879 that's when there was this ad hoc tribunal that was 60 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:36,199 bringing Premier Rouge leaders up on charges, and there was 61 00:05:36,639 --> 00:05:40,319 this tendency of neo coons to burn Paul Pott and 62 00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:45,920 Effigy as sort of a lesser satan. The contra, Adolf 63 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,360 Hitler is a greater satan, and this man is a monster, 64 00:05:49,519 --> 00:05:53,040 and he's a perfect example of the evils that were 65 00:05:53,120 --> 00:06:00,319 left all this kind of breathless condemnation. But that doesn't 66 00:06:03,439 --> 00:06:06,240 suggest any sort of insight into the character of the 67 00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:10,040 regime and the historical processes the creator. That quite the contrary. 68 00:06:11,199 --> 00:06:12,879 But other than that, you know, you never really heard 69 00:06:12,920 --> 00:06:19,279 about the regime. There was there's a series of sort 70 00:06:19,279 --> 00:06:23,519 of pop history books by journalists that were full of 71 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:30,160 lurid stuff, casting Paul Pott, salath Tsars sort of an 72 00:06:30,319 --> 00:06:37,600 Ediamine figure, this figurative and then, according to some apocryphal stories, 73 00:06:37,639 --> 00:06:41,959 literal cannibal who was the phase sort of a post 74 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:46,240 colonial savagery when the shackles are thrown off the colored world. 75 00:06:47,199 --> 00:06:50,560 I mean, it's obviously couched and sort of boilerplate liberal 76 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:53,800 moralizing nobody actually believes in. But that was the guts 77 00:06:53,879 --> 00:07:01,680 of it. But then there's other people too, particularly people 78 00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:08,439 who have a sympathy for the orthodox Marxist Leninists perspective. 79 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:12,439 There's a few of them left anymore, but in the 80 00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:15,279 eighties and nineties, I mean, they were very much around, 81 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:18,439 especially an academ they'd sort of just avoid the issue, 82 00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:22,319 where they'd cast Paul Pott as some sort of dictator 83 00:07:22,439 --> 00:07:27,079 strong man of a secular nature who didn't really understand 84 00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:32,199 Marxist Leninism and who only was able to capitalize on 85 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:41,000 conditions of chaos and punctuated disruption owing to the Cold 86 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:46,519 War proxy conflict emerging in Southeast Asia. Then there's a 87 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:53,199 Maoist type schismatics and they just sort of avoid the 88 00:07:53,240 --> 00:08:00,600 subject matter. And there's a reason for that, and there's 89 00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:02,879 a few reasons for that, and it's not just for 90 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:08,680 the sake of appearances. Paul pat Zealavsar was very educated 91 00:08:09,480 --> 00:08:14,000 and he was something of the counterpart to Ho Chi 92 00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:19,720 Minh in various respects, and he he had a deep 93 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:25,720 understanding of Marcist Leninism, far more i'd say than most 94 00:08:25,759 --> 00:08:34,399 of the Soviet client apparatics in Eastern Europe. And what 95 00:08:34,519 --> 00:08:38,960 happened in Cambodia. It's a pure example of historical processes, 96 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:47,840 and the communist Zeitgeid is taking hold with Hellvish consequences 97 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:52,480 only as symboled and reduces these things to the machinations 98 00:08:52,519 --> 00:08:55,879 of individual men. And that's just not the way human 99 00:08:55,919 --> 00:09:03,720 affairs develop. Cambodia also is a very very strange society. 100 00:09:04,039 --> 00:09:06,919 I don't mean that pejoratively. I find it incredibly fascinating. 101 00:09:07,799 --> 00:09:14,039 It's not. It's far more like India than it is 102 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:19,440 like China, and it's more like subser in Africa than either. Okay, 103 00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:23,919 there was a very racially coded aspect to the Khmer 104 00:09:24,039 --> 00:09:31,159 Rouge Revolution. There was a horrible racial animis between them 105 00:09:31,159 --> 00:09:33,960 and the Vietnamese, and that's one of the things that 106 00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:40,480 Kissinger recognized in Nixon's foreign policy and national security team, 107 00:09:40,559 --> 00:09:45,240 capitalized on and exploited. One of the things, you know, 108 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:50,279 as we talked about Kissinger for arbitrary reasons, is one 109 00:09:50,320 --> 00:09:53,320 of is like some boogeyman and armies for no apparent 110 00:09:53,399 --> 00:09:57,000 reason is I think people know well. One of the 111 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:06,159 many alleged sins of Kissinger was after when not on Sahanok, 112 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:11,720 who was the king of Cambodia, who'd been ousted by 113 00:10:11,799 --> 00:10:17,679 lawn Noall, who was an American client, sort of right 114 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:24,360 wing military type. After nineteen seventy it was lawn Nall 115 00:10:24,399 --> 00:10:27,320 who was in the seat of government. The Khmer Rouge 116 00:10:27,799 --> 00:10:33,559 conquered Phenomen Penn in April seventy five. That was the 117 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:36,080 end of the Lawnonoul regime. During this time, Sahanik was 118 00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:39,600 in exile and holding himself out as the government in exile. 119 00:10:41,759 --> 00:10:45,799 America recognized the Khmer Rouge regime at the UN as 120 00:10:45,879 --> 00:10:51,559 the seat of government obviously because they were at war 121 00:10:51,639 --> 00:10:58,919 with Vietnam, and the Khmer Ruse regime went down when 122 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:07,200 the People's Army of Vietnam assaulted and occupied the country, 123 00:11:07,279 --> 00:11:14,600 and they occupied until nineteen ninety because something that's also 124 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:20,799 not really understood, I don't think by most people, including casual. 125 00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:23,559 As soon as the Cold War, after the Son of 126 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:27,080 Soviets split, a genuine proxy war broke out between the 127 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:32,639 Communists Juggernauts, culminating in the war between the Khmer Rouge 128 00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:40,519 and Hanoi and then between Hanoi and China, and America 129 00:11:40,639 --> 00:11:44,879 obviously backed the Khmuir Rouge against the Vietnamese, who were 130 00:11:44,919 --> 00:11:50,080 a very very strong client of Moscow, and this all 131 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:59,679 this had dramatic ripple effects. Okay, I argue, and I'm 132 00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:02,480 sure people would take exception of this because they think 133 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:06,720 it's a Neo Connage point. It's not. It's people like Lutfact, 134 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:13,399 like Richard Pearl, like from like Schlessinger. They were speaking 135 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:15,679 of them in the whole team b Caadre. They were 136 00:12:15,720 --> 00:12:19,600 speaking of of a strategic reality. How they interpreted that 137 00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:25,600 is questionable, but I think it's indisputable. The Communists were 138 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,440 winning the Cold War in military terms. It didn't matter 139 00:12:28,519 --> 00:12:34,720 that their political societies were basket cases, because if they won, 140 00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:38,519 it wouldn't have mattered because then there'd be no alternative. 141 00:12:39,519 --> 00:12:48,759 But Nixon and Kissinger were able to neutralize the fall 142 00:12:48,799 --> 00:12:54,440 of self Vietnam by decoupling pet King from Moscow and 143 00:12:54,480 --> 00:13:01,360 then back in Camp Buccia against Vietnam and the Soviets. 144 00:13:01,519 --> 00:13:05,759 And like I said before, in my opinion, the shadow 145 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:09,960 executive of the Soviet Union during the bresion of Era 146 00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:14,759 was and drop of Ustinov and Gramco. With a drop 147 00:13:14,759 --> 00:13:22,159 off being out front as it were, the Soviets managed 148 00:13:22,159 --> 00:13:26,759 to flip India to the Soviet camp. So Washington in 149 00:13:26,799 --> 00:13:31,399 turn was able to convert Pakistan into a client regime 150 00:13:31,399 --> 00:13:36,559 which remains to this day, and the India Pakistan War 151 00:13:36,639 --> 00:13:43,159 owed it that which led to the Soviets insinuating a 152 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:49,279 communist regime into Kabul, which then after the Iranian Revolution, 153 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:54,399 they feared was going to pivot to the West under 154 00:13:54,440 --> 00:14:01,879 domestic auspices of fealty to an is lonist ideology. And 155 00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,919 like we've talked about before, that would have been catastrophic 156 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:13,039 because Afghanistans within decapitation range of what was Star City, Kazakhstan, 157 00:14:15,279 --> 00:14:18,840 which constituted the Warsaw Pax command and control capability in 158 00:14:18,879 --> 00:14:22,080 the Pacific theater. So the event of nuclear war, they 159 00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:25,960 would have been annihilated. And thus you have the Soviet 160 00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:30,559 intervention in Afghanistan. Okay, So this was not a minor thing. 161 00:14:31,159 --> 00:14:36,519 This is all related and the late Cold War there 162 00:14:36,559 --> 00:14:42,000 was this endless standoff in stalemate in Europe. Obviously, even 163 00:14:42,639 --> 00:14:45,720 when the air of strategic parody made conventional force structure 164 00:14:45,799 --> 00:14:53,000 relevant again the stalemate in Gordon. So Asia became the 165 00:14:53,039 --> 00:14:57,240 primary theater at geostrategic competition, and owing to things like 166 00:14:57,279 --> 00:15:04,799 the promisee of maritime strategic platforms, World War III was 167 00:15:04,879 --> 00:15:07,919 gonna be when it went in nuclear was gonna be 168 00:15:07,919 --> 00:15:12,720 one or lost in Asia. That's what underlay a lot 169 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:20,120 of this decision making. But the personage of Paul Pott, 170 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:29,120 it was incredibly enigmatic. Even his name, Paul Pott had 171 00:15:29,159 --> 00:15:33,320 something like eighteen different names. He'd gone under. People weren't 172 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:37,799 even sure he existed, and then when it became clear 173 00:15:39,519 --> 00:15:43,080 who he was, people thought he was some kind of cipher, 174 00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:45,120 when in reality that meant out front of the Khmer 175 00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:52,440 Rouse movement were the ciphers, and he was the he was. 176 00:15:52,559 --> 00:15:57,360 He was the leneen figure of the movement. He gave 177 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:00,679 very few interviews, one of which he gave an interview 178 00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:05,320 in nineteen seventy seven to Yugoslavian state television. The Yugoslavs 179 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:12,399 never fully hedged by alliing with the Maoist camp because 180 00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:18,960 obviously that would have reignited hostilities with Moscow. They always Tito, 181 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:21,279 until the end of his life, tried to tread this 182 00:16:21,399 --> 00:16:25,000 sort of middle road, at least after Stalin was out 183 00:16:25,039 --> 00:16:28,960 of the picture. But they were always like the Romanians 184 00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:31,279 were they always they were always looking for good offices 185 00:16:32,279 --> 00:16:38,360 with communist regimes outside of Moscow's orbit. So Paul Pott 186 00:16:38,399 --> 00:16:42,120 goes on Yugoslavian television and he gives this whole narrative 187 00:16:42,159 --> 00:16:45,639 of how he was this poor peasant boy who was allterate, 188 00:16:47,799 --> 00:16:54,440 that was a lie sala Tsar his name even Sara 189 00:16:54,519 --> 00:17:01,080 means pale or white, because Salasar was Chinese with some 190 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:07,160 camere blood. Kamiers are a dark skinned people. They probably 191 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:17,359 call themselves black camere Okay, sealeth Star was a lesser aristocrat. 192 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:25,440 One of his female cousins became a concubine to the 193 00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:33,640 then king. There's this uh sort of sanguinary and libertine 194 00:17:33,759 --> 00:17:43,240 sensibility to the royal houses in old Cambodia. A lot 195 00:17:43,279 --> 00:17:46,359 of these kings and princes had dozens of wives and 196 00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:50,200 hundreds of concubines, like a great con or something. And 197 00:17:52,119 --> 00:17:58,799 Sealeth Star's female cousin became one of these concubines, and 198 00:17:58,839 --> 00:18:04,720 then ultimately his older sister did too. And his father 199 00:18:04,799 --> 00:18:12,400 had been a wealthy landowner, and owing to his cousins 200 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:16,000 and his sisters, owing to sell Asar, his cousins and 201 00:18:16,039 --> 00:18:20,240 his sister's position at court, a bunch of his other 202 00:18:20,279 --> 00:18:25,920 relatives became royal officers at the palace and there's this 203 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:31,880 kind of lurid story that apparently is true. When Salasar 204 00:18:32,079 --> 00:18:36,400 was thirteen or fourteen, he was still young enough to 205 00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:39,519 be allowed into harem quarters and people didn't worry about it. 206 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:44,680 And one of his elder brothers or cousins was a 207 00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:47,039 palace guard of the women's quarters, and he'd let him 208 00:18:47,079 --> 00:18:52,200 go in there and want to sell. Assar's boyhood friends 209 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:55,519 would say, salisard go in there and be with the 210 00:18:55,559 --> 00:18:59,319 girls sexually, because the king was this elderly man and 211 00:19:00,039 --> 00:19:02,720 who was by that point probably pause like dementa, and 212 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:07,480 he certainly wasn't having sex with these women. So they 213 00:19:07,559 --> 00:19:10,400 literally had nothing to do, and some teenage boy coming 214 00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:16,720 to visit him made them really happy. But the point 215 00:19:16,839 --> 00:19:21,160 is not to regale people with some kind of pornographic story. 216 00:19:21,559 --> 00:19:27,519 But young Zelasar was literally in the lap of royal decadence. 217 00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:32,160 You know. He wasn't no, he was not a poor peasant. 218 00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:39,119 He was the opposite. And that seems very odd. But 219 00:19:39,519 --> 00:19:47,839 outsiders on the periphery of the core national racial ethnic 220 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:53,519 population that comes to animate the historical process in the 221 00:19:53,519 --> 00:19:56,839 country in question, that seems to be the norm, not 222 00:19:56,920 --> 00:20:00,240 the exception. Where they're talking about Adolf Hitler earlier talking 223 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:09,960 about Napoleon or even Cromwell to some degree, and I 224 00:20:10,079 --> 00:20:14,519 still I speculate, although I'm sure the man himself and 225 00:20:14,559 --> 00:20:19,880 his apologies, such as they still exist in Cambodia, would 226 00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:28,920 never acknowledge this. His mixed cello stars, mixed blood, his 227 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:31,720 education literally at court and in some of the best 228 00:20:31,759 --> 00:20:40,000 schools in Phant and pen but his relative proximity to 229 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:47,039 peasant life and real poverty, if only by observation that 230 00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:53,359 coupled with his instinct and intelligence for power political affairs, 231 00:20:55,160 --> 00:21:01,359 it situated him in a way that was uniquely advantageous 232 00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:04,480 As for a revolutionary career, I don't think he. I 233 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,079 don't think he was particularly committed to Mercus Leninism, and 234 00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:10,680 the way Lenin was or Stalin was. He wasn't a 235 00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:16,640 man living as an outlaw who developed a Parsian sensibility. 236 00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:19,160 I think he looked around him and saw the perobial 237 00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:23,920 writing on the wall, and like many people, particularly in 238 00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:26,200 the colored world as it was called in a less 239 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:30,079 delicate epuck, he thought that Moscow was going to win 240 00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:35,799 the Cold War, so this was the path he chose. 241 00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:46,319 One of the premier rouge field commanders who was very 242 00:21:46,319 --> 00:21:54,640 close to Cellar, he said subsequently, long after the Khmer 243 00:21:54,720 --> 00:22:00,240 Rouge had been deposed, but we're still carrying on military 244 00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:07,759 activity on the periphery of the country, he relayed. I 245 00:22:07,799 --> 00:22:12,920 was in command of tens of thousands of men, and 246 00:22:13,559 --> 00:22:15,759 I had no real authority. We were all just trying 247 00:22:15,799 --> 00:22:21,359 to ride a proverbial beast that was out of control 248 00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:25,440 and desperately trying to direct it towards some sort of 249 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:31,039 constructive or at least less catastrophic purpose. And that that's 250 00:22:31,079 --> 00:22:34,519 not an alibi. If you've got millions of bodies on 251 00:22:34,559 --> 00:22:36,279 you at least, and he has the world, you're not 252 00:22:36,599 --> 00:22:40,960 gonna drop alibis. That's something that's something a myth enormy. 253 00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:44,319 It's the same sensibility when people claim, oh, everyone in 254 00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:47,240 prison claims they're innocent. No, they don't, because there's no 255 00:22:47,279 --> 00:22:51,640 reason to anymore. If you were in the if you 256 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,839 were in the proverbial court of Paul pot and this 257 00:22:55,960 --> 00:23:01,680 planet and the dominant our political cadre is declaring you 258 00:23:01,799 --> 00:23:07,119 killed two million people, what are you gonna say, Sorry, No, 259 00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:14,279 You're gonna describe what conditions were as you experienced them. 260 00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:18,119 People who claim otherwise don't understand the human mind. It's 261 00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:20,200 not a matter of conscience or anything like that, or 262 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:25,839 feeling worse. There's just no percentage in it. And standing 263 00:23:25,839 --> 00:23:28,920 on ceremony is something people do who have normal liars 264 00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:48,079 that aren't impacted by apocaal events the and interestingly, but 265 00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:56,160 when Penn fell on April seventeenth, you know, weeks before 266 00:23:56,200 --> 00:24:00,519 the fall of Saigon, and that was great to find 267 00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:07,720 both the Pig King and the khmure Rus themselves. US 268 00:24:07,759 --> 00:24:15,039 officials claimed that the final assault on the Cambodian capital 269 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,599 was spearheaded by People's Army of Vietnam units backed by 270 00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:25,200 combined arms. That's not true remotely, but I don't think 271 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:29,279 that was propaganda. A lot of comminators subsequently said that 272 00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:34,160 was US propaganda aimed to effuse kid the situation, as 273 00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,880 well as to mitigate the perceived and ability of American 274 00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:42,599 impact outcomes. I don't. I think people believe that because 275 00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:44,920 they had no understanding of Cambodia, they had no understanding 276 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,079 khmir Ru's movement, they had no understanding what was developing 277 00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:53,720 in brass tacks terms between the Soviets and the Chinese. 278 00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,839 They didn't understand the depth of hostility between the camera 279 00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:04,759 and the Vietnamese. There was a handful of people who understood, 280 00:25:06,559 --> 00:25:12,079 at least in broad conceptual terms, some of the concrete 281 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,599 particulars here, and I believe Kissinger was one of them. 282 00:25:16,319 --> 00:25:22,519 But I don't think that was disinformation. And that's one 283 00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:28,640 of the things that brought attention particularly of what was 284 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:36,160 then called the Second World as well as a lot 285 00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:40,759 of non state actors who were engaged in the service 286 00:25:40,799 --> 00:25:45,440 that communists cause. That's something that brought their attention to 287 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:54,839 Southeast Asia. Obviously, victory by the People's Army Vietnam was 288 00:25:54,880 --> 00:26:00,200 imminent then, but that was a massive proxy conflict. The 289 00:26:00,279 --> 00:26:05,160 Khmer Rouge had no outside assistance really. They got some 290 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:12,319 small arms from China, but even China's attention primarily was 291 00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,599 on Vietnam, where they shared a border, and China had 292 00:26:16,599 --> 00:26:20,559 a bizarre relationship with the Vietnamese. It's one characterized for 293 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:26,240 all time, including today, by hostility. But before the Sino 294 00:26:26,319 --> 00:26:34,079 Soviets split, there was an effort by the Chinese to 295 00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:40,599 steer hand Oi away from the Soviet orbit, with you know, 296 00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:46,039 the incentive being material military support and owing to the 297 00:26:46,079 --> 00:26:50,720 shared border. There was a handful of American servicemen who 298 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:59,119 were shut down need in proximity to the Sino Vietnamese border, 299 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:04,920 but who crashed over Vietnamese territory and were captured by 300 00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:09,519 People's Liberation Army forces who were manning the Triple A batteries, 301 00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:15,960 and they spent years in Chinese captivity. So it was 302 00:27:16,319 --> 00:27:25,359 a complicated convergence of military intrigues and overlapping spheres of control. 303 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:33,480 In reality, no Vietnamese force other than special operations than 304 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,640 you know, capable elements and non conventional, non uniform forces 305 00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:43,599 and fought on the ground of Vietnam since nineteen seventy three. 306 00:27:43,759 --> 00:27:52,319 And obviously there's another myth that won't die, this idea 307 00:27:53,039 --> 00:27:58,039 Nixon is responsible for the disaster of democratic Campacchia because 308 00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:03,400 invading Cambodia stabilized it and this gave rise to an 309 00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:08,160 opportunity that came here Rouge to capture the capital. That's asinine, 310 00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:13,519 and it's it's more of this idea that nothing in 311 00:28:13,559 --> 00:28:17,599 the world is approximately caused by anything other than America's 312 00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:24,480 decision to intervene or not by way of hard power elements. 313 00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:30,799 That's incredibly ignorant because it may the widening of the 314 00:28:30,839 --> 00:28:40,160 war to Cambodia was essential if America intended to finally 315 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:53,480 obviate the ability of Hanoi to arm and equip na 316 00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:58,359 say elements in the south that were largely wiped out 317 00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:02,319 by the Tet offensive. But the supply lines along what 318 00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:05,720 is called colloquily the Hochim and trail were obviously going 319 00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:10,319 to be used to reinforce whatever conventional element assaulted across 320 00:29:10,319 --> 00:29:18,880 the seventieth parallel. So it was the right play. Lan 321 00:29:19,079 --> 00:29:22,279 Nall was not the right man to be installed after 322 00:29:22,319 --> 00:29:29,640 the removal of Sahanak, but beggars can't be choosers. You 323 00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:38,480 work with the mentioned material you have, including the leadership element, 324 00:29:42,079 --> 00:29:47,920 and of course then Saigon fell on April thirtieth, seventy five, 325 00:29:50,559 --> 00:29:59,200 the upon Khmieru's victory. A man named Ang Sorry born 326 00:29:59,359 --> 00:30:06,720 Kim Tran. He was one of six members of the 327 00:30:06,759 --> 00:30:13,880 Standing Committee of the Communist Party at Tampluchia. He was 328 00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:20,519 the spokesman for all practical purposes of the Communist Party 329 00:30:20,519 --> 00:30:25,720 at Tampluchia, and as of April seventeenth and seventy five, 330 00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:32,240 he was held out by Western observers, media personage, diplomats, 331 00:30:32,519 --> 00:30:36,759 American military official dumb as the leader of the Khmer rouge, 332 00:30:37,119 --> 00:30:40,559 which is fascinating, and he was cast as a sort 333 00:30:40,599 --> 00:30:46,839 of grotesque villain, you know, in reality. Well I did 334 00:30:46,839 --> 00:30:49,880 to give you an idea. It was some years later 335 00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:53,720 this one British diplomat, So I think I think he's 336 00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:58,440 a guy who'd been the ambassador briefly. He talked about 337 00:31:00,759 --> 00:31:07,079 having lunch with Sorry and Sorry's wife, and he likened 338 00:31:07,079 --> 00:31:12,920 the man to Fred West and his wife, these two 339 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,920 sex deviants who were serial killers in England. That the 340 00:31:16,039 --> 00:31:19,400 hyperbole was just ridiculous. But I think this is interesting 341 00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:27,880 because this was before you know, the the identity of 342 00:31:28,319 --> 00:31:33,920 the true control group of the the Pomers, Perdy Campucci 343 00:31:34,079 --> 00:31:38,000 was even known. Then later, when Paul Pott was sort 344 00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:42,839 of insinuated into the role in Western narratives and everybody 345 00:31:42,839 --> 00:31:56,960 had forgotten about everybody'd forgotten about being Sorry, this diplomat 346 00:31:57,039 --> 00:31:59,839 was still holding him out as his bugeyman, replete with 347 00:32:02,079 --> 00:32:06,960 this lurid history onic narrative of him being no different 348 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,640 than a serial killer, because they say, what a lazy 349 00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:19,680 script there is for these Anglo American government types. But 350 00:32:19,839 --> 00:32:28,039 moving on the true depth of Paul Pott Salad Star's secrecy. 351 00:32:30,279 --> 00:32:35,240 Really the only intelligence record of him at all came 352 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:41,440 from Stahano secret police. He'd been identified in a dossier 353 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:49,119 along with dozens of other communist intellectuals, identifying him as 354 00:32:49,119 --> 00:32:57,200 a former school teacher, and in nineteen seventy two even 355 00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:02,720 identified by US intelligence as chief of the Military director 356 00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:09,240 to the Khmer Rouge front, alongside non Cha, who is 357 00:33:09,359 --> 00:33:15,720 chief of the political Directorate. And what's fascinating is when 358 00:33:15,759 --> 00:33:21,200 Sahanok was desperately trying to manage a collapsing situation placating 359 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:26,480 the Camier Rouge, the United States and Hanoi, he took 360 00:33:26,519 --> 00:33:31,400 to visiting Camier Rouge held areas to try and negotiate 361 00:33:31,599 --> 00:33:39,359 some sort of concord. And there's there's photographs of Sahannah 362 00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:44,279 talking to these random Camuer Rouge officers who are obviously 363 00:33:44,319 --> 00:33:48,240 being held out as the local commander. And you'll see 364 00:33:48,279 --> 00:33:52,559 Paul Pott sitting in the corner and assumingly observing things, 365 00:33:54,519 --> 00:34:01,160 you know, obviously totally invisible to the royal entourage. There's 366 00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:06,559 a certain brilliance to that. There's other times where during 367 00:34:06,599 --> 00:34:16,079 official Camier Rouge awards, ceremonies or victory celebrations during the 368 00:34:16,119 --> 00:34:21,039 struggle years, he'll be sitting literally in the back row 369 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:30,000 of the theater or the assembly area, essentially totally invisible. 370 00:34:30,559 --> 00:34:34,360 He stands out again because it is pale complexion. But 371 00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:42,599 that's only stands out going to hindsight, you know, Otherwise 372 00:34:42,599 --> 00:34:53,639 it would just be an oddity. The people believe too, 373 00:34:54,440 --> 00:35:05,599 at least throughout the first U several years. But what 374 00:35:05,679 --> 00:35:09,960 came to call the Cambodian Civil War, which pitted Lawn 375 00:35:10,079 --> 00:35:16,679 Knowle's government, you know, which again was this client regime 376 00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:24,440 of Washington against the Khmier Rouge. The leading Cambodian commress 377 00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:31,480 intellectual with Q Sampan he went proud to support against 378 00:35:31,519 --> 00:35:38,320 the Hanouk in the sixties as being this sort of 379 00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,239 social justice advocate and you had to hit a reputation 380 00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:50,079 for not being corrupt, which was remarkable among any political 381 00:35:50,159 --> 00:36:00,679 figure then, especially as the war heated up and he 382 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,800 was viewed as other than Ho Chi Minh, Sampan was 383 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:16,360 viewed as the most significant Southeast Asian communist intellectuals. He 384 00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:21,079 was technically defensive minister, even though it was generally recognized 385 00:36:21,119 --> 00:36:24,199 that it was men commanding forces in the field who 386 00:36:24,199 --> 00:36:27,639 had real authority in their regard. But this ruse was 387 00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:31,920 so convincing. Sampan was invited to Beijing to meet Mao, 388 00:36:33,519 --> 00:36:43,800 And when communicates were issued not just to not just 389 00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:46,599 to Mao and the Chinese pollet Bu, but across the 390 00:36:46,639 --> 00:36:57,480 communist world, they were signed by Sampan. And if you 391 00:36:57,559 --> 00:37:06,639 wanted to meet with formal comuirus representation, because you'd earned 392 00:37:06,679 --> 00:37:20,000 that clout by contributing arms, advisors money, you want an 393 00:37:20,039 --> 00:37:27,800 audience with Sampan. But that was a smoke screen. The 394 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:32,199 Sampan had no real power in the movement. I don't 395 00:37:32,199 --> 00:37:37,159 even think people in Cambodia committed to the cause. We're 396 00:37:37,199 --> 00:37:41,079 reading what he was producing, but I mean that itself 397 00:37:41,119 --> 00:37:47,039 is brilliant because in a scaled down way, he was 398 00:37:47,639 --> 00:37:50,480 performing the function of the common turn or later it 399 00:37:50,599 --> 00:37:56,519 became common form for the East Block. He was putting 400 00:37:56,559 --> 00:38:11,039 on a civilized, lucid, intellectually articulate and doctrinally sound within 401 00:38:11,079 --> 00:38:19,119 the parameters of Marxist Lennonist ideology face for the outside world, 402 00:38:19,639 --> 00:38:27,840 with a particular eye to courting the resources and assistance 403 00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:43,480 of sympathetic actors, both nonstate and and and states alike. 404 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:53,960 Somebody liking Paul Pott to a Hollywood director, he has 405 00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:58,400 a master at creating appearances and assigning people rolled within 406 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:05,679 these artificial paradigms. It was tannel into creating a Potemkin 407 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:14,000 village of human beings and confatuated personages and doing it 408 00:39:14,079 --> 00:39:19,960 utterly convincingly. Paul Pott said, after the revolution, or after 409 00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:27,840 the conquest at Penpen, he said, the CIA, the KGB 410 00:39:29,079 --> 00:39:33,719 Sahani's police, the Vietnamese knew who I was, but they 411 00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:40,239 did not know what I was, And I think that's true. Interestingly, too, 412 00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:50,119 there was the CIA, apparently at least by nineteen seventy four, 413 00:39:51,159 --> 00:39:57,000 owing to one of Lan Knowl's Intelligence Service agents, he'd 414 00:39:57,039 --> 00:40:03,320 gotten close to Paul Pott, and he related that Paul 415 00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:09,360 Pott had some significance with the party apparatus of significance. 416 00:40:12,559 --> 00:40:21,360 So after early nineteen seventy four there'll be references in 417 00:40:21,559 --> 00:40:32,360 CIA memos to a mysterious Paul who the agency had 418 00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,559 identified as a person of significance within the premier communist movement. 419 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,400 But to them he was just some mid level functionary. 420 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:56,960 And it really wasn't until probably a year after the 421 00:40:57,039 --> 00:41:07,039 fallow Penn Penn, when the Megacittle Praxis was fully underway, 422 00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:14,719 that it became clear to the intelligence services, which back 423 00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:18,159 in those days were actually reasonably confident, if not the 424 00:41:18,159 --> 00:41:25,639 world at large, who, if not what Paul Pott formally 425 00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:36,559 selloth Sar was was significant to Like I said, I'm 426 00:41:36,639 --> 00:41:48,599 jumping around a bit. Zelosar's upbringing. His father owned a 427 00:41:48,639 --> 00:41:56,519 plantation of approximately fifty acres, and he was by far 428 00:41:56,639 --> 00:42:01,920 the wealthiest man in the village. The acres of rice 429 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:08,000 Patty was about ten times what the average freehold farmer 430 00:42:08,559 --> 00:42:15,559 owned in those days. That's pretty remarkable. And it's all 431 00:42:15,559 --> 00:42:18,840 a little more remarkable, I mean even in the obviously 432 00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:23,119 in those days there was it was more difficult to 433 00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:31,440 track and identify people. But owing to the prestige and 434 00:42:31,559 --> 00:42:38,039 notoriety of the man's family, it's pretty amazing he could 435 00:42:38,079 --> 00:42:42,639 just disappear the way that he did and manipulate perceptions 436 00:42:42,639 --> 00:42:48,639 in that way. That again, that suggests a real brilliance 437 00:42:49,599 --> 00:42:54,480 quite literally for political soldiery, especially that sort. But again, 438 00:42:54,559 --> 00:42:59,719 owing to the fact that he was born to a 439 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,599 land aristocracy, he was the equivalent of a lesser Mandarin. 440 00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:12,119 He had Chinese blood, his family was racially different from 441 00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:16,320 the population at large. He was inevitably inundated with a 442 00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,079 strong historical consciousness. And then when his young female cousins 443 00:43:20,079 --> 00:43:24,000 and sister sort of becoming concubines with the king, his 444 00:43:24,119 --> 00:43:27,280 first sexual experiences were literally with Harem girls of the 445 00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:34,719 royal palace. You know, how could you not, if you 446 00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:42,239 had the mind for it, develop an aptitude for deep history, 447 00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:50,800 and coupled with that the aggressiveness and the fearlessness and 448 00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:55,360 the ruthlessness for political soldiery. It's sort of a perfect 449 00:43:55,559 --> 00:44:03,760 biography for a man to get a revolutionary cadre or 450 00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:19,679 a splendid convergence of psychological traits rather well within historical memory, 451 00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:27,079 if not direct living memory, then too the Vietnamese sense. 452 00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:35,679 Even sometime after the French established to protectorate in the 453 00:44:35,679 --> 00:44:42,079 eighteen sixties, the Vietnamese came to feature as a boogeyman 454 00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,440 within the camera cultural mind, and not entirely without cause. 455 00:44:47,599 --> 00:44:50,400 There was this a powable story at all. Camer kids 456 00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:57,239 learned about a Vietnamese warlord who'd invaded Khmer Land and 457 00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:01,760 then he buried three men in the triangle configuration up 458 00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:06,239 to their necks, and every night he'd stoke a fire 459 00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,679 between them and balance a rice pot on their heads. 460 00:45:10,679 --> 00:45:16,400 And that was supposed to be a metaphor for the 461 00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:23,000 relationship of the Vietnamese the Camere. They're this hated racial overlord, 462 00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:40,440 and French missionaries relaid that during times of rebellion Vietnamese 463 00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:47,760 constabularies they'd take people suspected a partisan activity and blind 464 00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:52,519 them and bury them alive. So this wasn't just a 465 00:45:52,559 --> 00:45:58,800 fantasy or some sort of mythology built of racial animis, 466 00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:06,039 you know, such as crazy sort of shit lives going 467 00:46:06,039 --> 00:46:09,559 around believing that you know, white people are going to 468 00:46:09,599 --> 00:46:11,760 go around and like hang black people at a moment's 469 00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,519 notice about hegitation if you know, they cease worrying about 470 00:46:16,679 --> 00:46:20,079 being picked up by the FBI. This wasn't like bougie 471 00:46:20,199 --> 00:46:23,639 fantasy stuff. I mean, there was a reason the Vietnames 472 00:46:23,639 --> 00:46:32,639 were hated and feared, and racial warfare and the specter 473 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,440 of it tends to have a brutalizing effect. This is 474 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:51,840 a fact. Interestingly, the Ties had perennially been brutalizing premiere 475 00:46:52,679 --> 00:46:57,440 within coveted territories, and there wasn't the same sort of 476 00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:01,239 fear and animus, which can go to a few different things. 477 00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,559 I the Ties are less alien to the Camere than 478 00:47:06,559 --> 00:47:09,280 the Vietnamese. I think and again I'm not some regional 479 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:13,000 studies got and I'm not an expert on Asian ethnicities. 480 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:22,480 But if we're gonna adopt the sort of French cultural 481 00:47:22,639 --> 00:47:27,920 anthropology anthropological paradigm of South, they stags are literally being 482 00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:33,920 into China with these two civilizational tendencies meet. All right, Well, 483 00:47:34,519 --> 00:47:39,320 there's as much of India in Thailand as the risk China. Okay, 484 00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:49,840 the Vietnamese are very different when you think of freedom. 485 00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:54,199 This is too colloquial or simple minded, but drawing in 486 00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:57,480 very basic broad strokes, when you think of gung ho 487 00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,079 industrious Asians, you think of your thinking of people like 488 00:48:01,119 --> 00:48:09,599 the Vietnamese. I think that goes without saying. And the 489 00:48:09,679 --> 00:48:15,280 Vietnamese this much as they have this deep hostility to 490 00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:21,800 the Han, they're very much alike. The Vietnamese are far 491 00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:26,719 more of a martial race, which is fascinating. But that's 492 00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:36,159 a discussion for another time. Cambodia, however, and again I'm 493 00:48:36,199 --> 00:48:41,119 not saying this pejoratively at all, and I'm not just 494 00:48:41,159 --> 00:48:47,840 making this observation from some diletons, understanding people who've lived 495 00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:53,039 and labored there for decades and have made a study 496 00:48:53,039 --> 00:48:57,679 of the culture over a lifetime. They insist Cambodia is 497 00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:03,239 more like Africa than like China, from the fact that 498 00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:10,320 it was characterized by these kings who would take literally 499 00:49:10,599 --> 00:49:13,400 dozens of wives and hundreds of concubines who would be 500 00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:18,159 bound to them because the king's virility, literally the ability 501 00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:22,440 of the king to impregnate hundreds of women, that's a 502 00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:30,400 sign from the heavens that the land is fertile. You know, 503 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:38,920 this idea of the camer viewing themselves as black quite 504 00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:51,400 literally contra enemies from without who exploit them, which isn't untrue. 505 00:49:53,199 --> 00:50:03,280 These extended kinship networks at tribal level that determine outcomes 506 00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:12,880 in the social strata, all these things, and in contrast 507 00:50:15,119 --> 00:50:21,199 to those tendencies, you know, young Salasar brothers and sisters, 508 00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:32,360 they were inundated with Buddhism. And there's something fascinating. I'm 509 00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:37,519 not at all a religious studies expert or anything. I 510 00:50:37,639 --> 00:50:41,159 know something about Islam other than that I can't really 511 00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:45,159 speak to other people's confessional heritage other than mine own 512 00:50:45,559 --> 00:50:54,079 and Bible prosism. But this odd nihilism that came to 513 00:50:54,199 --> 00:51:00,519 characterize the premier rouge attitude towards homicide at massive scale. 514 00:51:03,639 --> 00:51:07,920 There's something of a Buddhist stamp on that. I'm not 515 00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:12,519 saying Buddhism is evil or tends towards megacide at all, 516 00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:23,119 but there's if you read Schopenhauer in the World as 517 00:51:23,199 --> 00:51:26,639 Will in Representation, and if you read Julius Evela's book 518 00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:29,920 on Buddhism well in which are really interesting. I mean, obviously, 519 00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:33,079 I mean the World's will representation is essential reading the 520 00:51:33,119 --> 00:51:36,119 eve them and Buddhism. I find that stuff interesting, but 521 00:51:36,119 --> 00:51:40,559 it's probably not for everybody, but both make a reference. 522 00:51:40,639 --> 00:51:44,920 There is primarily an e vetic concept, I believe, correct 523 00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:51,239 me if I'm wrong. In the comments meditative and spiritual 524 00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:58,480 practice called tapas. It's usually associated with a sort of 525 00:51:58,559 --> 00:52:07,239 extreme and deep as seam, but topass literally means burning, 526 00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:13,960 burning away, not just of impure thoughts and desires, but 527 00:52:14,039 --> 00:52:19,599 of desire itself and connection to the world, and release 528 00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:28,599 from all things corporeal and related to appetite and passions. 529 00:52:28,639 --> 00:52:39,960 And there is precedent for pious Buddhists literally burning themselves alive, 530 00:52:41,599 --> 00:52:47,960 you know, and I know that this has been held 531 00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:57,280 out as an example of Hindu savagery and what have you. 532 00:52:57,639 --> 00:53:00,920 I'm not even saying that's incorrect. I know in one 533 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,039 of those Mando films, it might be shocking in Asia, 534 00:53:07,119 --> 00:53:10,679 which interestingly was held out as a legit documentary despite 535 00:53:10,679 --> 00:53:13,800 the fact like Gorgon, you know, this isn't gonna mean 536 00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:17,519 anything good youngsters, but the footage and it's not like 537 00:53:17,559 --> 00:53:20,519 face is a death and Iman's real footage. You know, 538 00:53:20,559 --> 00:53:22,960 there's these people, and this is in the mid seventies, 539 00:53:23,559 --> 00:53:26,239 when India is even more of a backwater than today. 540 00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:34,599 There's some poor people. They'll they'll find a holy man 541 00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:42,440 to cremate their loved ones when they're dead, and then 542 00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:45,920 they pour the ashes in the Ganges because they can't 543 00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:51,559 afford a proper, you know, mausoleum or whatever. But then 544 00:53:53,639 --> 00:53:57,039 there's people obviously bathing in the Ganges, which is full 545 00:53:57,079 --> 00:54:06,159 of human detritus. It's fetted, and this footage was exhibited. 546 00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:09,760 I mean, I believe that the guys who shot it, 547 00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:12,400 they probably had this passionate view, which you'd have to 548 00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:20,760 if you're gonna immerse yourself that way primitive cultures. But 549 00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:23,719 it was obviously being showcased for kind of lurid reasons. 550 00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:26,440 And I mean, I'm not gonna lie like I find 551 00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:30,920 that revolting. I'm I'm Anglo teutonic, I'm a clean freak. 552 00:54:32,079 --> 00:54:38,119 I find that gross to the million fucking degrees. But obviously, 553 00:54:38,679 --> 00:54:44,079 aside from the kind of mysterial grossness of it, it 554 00:54:44,199 --> 00:54:49,519 bespeaks of a lack of concern, not just with human 555 00:54:49,559 --> 00:54:56,559 remains and proper disposal of these things, but a total 556 00:54:56,920 --> 00:55:05,480 lack of or little apathy about death. Okay, the sort 557 00:55:05,519 --> 00:55:09,519 of rationalist perspective and the perspective of people like Burnham, 558 00:55:10,159 --> 00:55:13,719 James Burnham, I mean was well and the orient life 559 00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:16,320 is abundant and cheap. Yeah, that's part of it, but 560 00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:26,880 that's not the whole story. There's something about that Hindu 561 00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:35,639 and original Buddhist conception about life and death being basically synonymous, 562 00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:42,559 and they're not being anything to lament about an individual 563 00:55:42,679 --> 00:55:45,440 losing their life and there being nothing to fear about 564 00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,199 losing one's own life because it represents a sort of 565 00:55:49,239 --> 00:56:00,239 final release into this collective element that sustains all things 566 00:56:02,239 --> 00:56:08,239 until all becomes ash. And I really believe that. I 567 00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:12,519 know that evil had a sense of early Buddhism and 568 00:56:12,599 --> 00:56:20,440 Hinduism being aryan, and that's not incorrect, but it's a 569 00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:26,840 totally different conceptual orientation about the process of death than 570 00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:33,559 what it represents and filtered down after that racial overcast, 571 00:56:33,679 --> 00:56:40,800 who was the progenitor of these theological orientations is long gone. 572 00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:49,440 It takes on a certain casual banality that habituates people 573 00:56:51,559 --> 00:56:55,719 to certain excesses that I do not think would be 574 00:56:55,800 --> 00:57:05,159 realizable in other kinds of societies. That's probably what I've 575 00:57:05,159 --> 00:57:08,440 said the scope, But that's another thing that's neglected about it, 576 00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:11,960 in part because I mean, in the twentieth century, even 577 00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:19,719 as theological impulses were quite literally tearing down the vessige 578 00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:25,800 of legitimacy of communist governments, people in academ and what 579 00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:35,440 have you still hadn't put together that the hard materialism 580 00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:39,079 and the atheist sensibility of the twentieth century was disappearing. 581 00:57:39,679 --> 00:57:42,360 So this wasn't talked about in the era. I mean, 582 00:57:42,559 --> 00:57:45,960 people are uncomfortable with that sort of subject matter anyway. 583 00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:51,960 But that's one of the reasons I've been researching this 584 00:57:52,039 --> 00:57:57,079 a lot in my fiction The camer Rouge, and it's 585 00:57:57,119 --> 00:58:01,360 a plot device. It's an important aspect of the narrative. 586 00:58:03,199 --> 00:58:06,559 Billy Wam's father is killed by the Khmer Rouge when 587 00:58:06,559 --> 00:58:11,719 he's on the ground fighting as a mercenary of sorts 588 00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:18,719 and the service of Warsaw Pact, and that haunts Billy Wang, 589 00:58:22,639 --> 00:58:30,360 And you know, that's it's gone along in a fascination 590 00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:33,519 of mine. Since I was a kid, I thought the 591 00:58:33,519 --> 00:58:38,920 whole thing frightening, but it's there's something that movie. I 592 00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:40,920 like the new twenty eight years later movies, even though 593 00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,119 a bunch of people currently don't, but you know, the 594 00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:47,559 most recent ones twenty eight years later. And then the 595 00:58:47,559 --> 00:58:51,440 Seagull was literally called the Bone Temple. This massive bone 596 00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:55,159 cathedral is a is a major set piece and aspect 597 00:58:55,199 --> 00:58:58,519 of it, and there's a very Buddhist sensibility around it. 598 00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:00,920 The guy who builds it a white man. He's this 599 00:59:01,079 --> 00:59:05,760 English doctor who lives among the infected because he's trying 600 00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:08,719 to find a way to cure them so that something, 601 00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:14,159 you know, approaching civilized life can be restored. But he's 602 00:59:14,159 --> 00:59:18,119 taken on this momento Moory sensibility. So when people die, 603 00:59:18,559 --> 00:59:21,920 whether they're infected or whether they're you know, a human, 604 00:59:23,039 --> 00:59:26,480 he uh, he takes their remains and gives them a 605 00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:29,800 proper burial. Then he boils down their skull and polishes it, 606 00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:36,480 and he adds it to this massive structure and it's 607 00:59:36,519 --> 00:59:41,039 it's profound, and you know, to this day, there's there's 608 00:59:43,559 --> 00:59:46,880 this whole uh monument of skulls in Cambodia. I mean 609 00:59:46,920 --> 00:59:48,960 he will burn incense and stuff. And obviously it's one 610 00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:54,159 part monument to the the victims, but it's also there's 611 00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:57,159 something totemic about it that you wouldn't find in the 612 00:59:57,280 --> 01:00:00,920 in the West that would upset people like reliquary. It's 613 01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:07,880 literally like skulls upon skulls. You know. The only thing 614 01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:11,800 conval of that is there's the there's the Bone Cathedral 615 01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:15,519 in the Czech Republic. I guess I've only seen photos. 616 01:00:15,679 --> 01:00:17,719 I think that's incredibly cool, but at the same time 617 01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,440 it's also really creepy. I wouldn't want to go to 618 01:00:21,519 --> 01:00:28,920 church there, okay, but that that's also it was built, 619 01:00:29,119 --> 01:00:34,840 I believe during the height of the the thirteen eighty 620 01:00:34,960 --> 01:00:38,559 nine plague, which I think was the worst, so it 621 01:00:39,519 --> 01:00:44,039 you know, it makes sense, is in that capacity when 622 01:00:44,159 --> 01:00:47,480 death is most approximate. Look, yeah, that's that's all I got. Man. 623 01:00:47,519 --> 01:00:51,480 We'll get into the killing fields in the next episode. 624 01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:53,679 That not I mean, I'll mention the film. I mean 625 01:00:53,719 --> 01:01:00,400 the actual killing fields and deal bit more with the 626 01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:05,719 brass tacks of the of the communist mega side that 627 01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:09,079 happened there. I just thought some biographical information was imperative 628 01:01:10,239 --> 01:01:12,000 way the foundation. Well that's all I got. 629 01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:18,519 Speaker 1: All right, good stuff, thank you. I'm going to point 630 01:01:18,559 --> 01:01:22,400 everybody over to Thomas's substack real Thomas seven seven seven 631 01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:28,159 dot substack dot com and thomas His website is Thomas 632 01:01:28,159 --> 01:01:31,079 seven seven seven dot com. The t is a seven 633 01:01:31,559 --> 01:01:34,480 and Thomas has started uploading some stuff to his YouTube channel, 634 01:01:34,599 --> 01:01:38,280 so go check that out too. Yeah, thank you, body, 635 01:01:39,199 --> 01:01:40,880 I appreciate it. Talk to you on the next one. 636 01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:41,239 Speaker 2: Thank you.