this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Nothing here says he's a fascist. His "genocide denial" stance stems mostly from the idea of being anti-capitalist and not trusting US-centric sources. Its not entirely without merit. Noam Chomsky for example is accused of the same thing for the Pol Pot genocide, though at the time he was right for the same reasons -- accusations started flying in the US based on completely banal sources.
I used to be like this, its not entirely harmful. And in any case, I don't give a shit about his politics. We should be thinking about how to separate peoples politics from the platform, and the work hes done on Lemmy does exactly that.
It is extremely harmful when people like them go around non-tankie left wing subs and eventually gain control through nefarious means and eventually transition it into yet another tankie propaganda sub. Or when they moderate a supposedly general left wing sub but any criticism of authoritarian communism gets you muted and called a liberal, eventually allowing their propaganda to seep through to regular socialists as any criticism is shot down. /r/GreenAndPleasant is guilty of the latter.
It's not really the politics but the way power hungry people get.
You're giving Chomsky's version of the story, but it's such a weird story because one of the only communist projects Chomsky ever spoke in favor of was easily one of the worst ones (along with Peru), ones that even hardcore "tankies" disavow. Like, wasn't this the motherfucker that said the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a victory for the "left"?
Granted, there is misreporting on Cambodia, which started when it was contemporary and continues to this day, but that misreporting is mostly on the magnitude of the crimes committed, not the basis of calling them crimes (i.e. they were still awful).
Anyway, Chomsky is a shitty left-neoliberal [PDF]
He didn't speak in favor of it. Sources came up saying millions were being killed in Cambodia. Chosmky questioned the sources saying "where the fuck is this coming from? Nothing supports this". Thats his version of the story, yeah but hardly any evidence he supported Cambodia.