1921 The disappearing Communists

The Khmer Rouge was a self-proclaimed communist organization which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Its name is French: Khmer Rouge in the masculine singular, Khmers Rouges in the plural. The term "Khmer Rouge," meaning "Red Khmer" was coined by Norodom Sihanouk and was later adopted in English.

The Khmer Rouge killed 90% of Cambodia’s artists and performers according to the New York Times. The Times Sunday December 18, 2005 edition in a very extensive article reported on Arn Chorn-Pond, a Cambodian who is trying to rescue his country’s traditional music. The article even mentioned that 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge--it just never mentioned that the Khmer Rouge were Communists. Seems like an odd oversight, doesn’t it? As though it was just some quirky Cambodian thang.

The other day at the public library I looked at two 2005 multiple-volume, histories of World War II looking for information on American opposition to the war effort in the 1940s. One was more an almanac type, the other encyclopedic. Would you believe there was no mention of Communists? It’s as though from 1939 through 1945, all those Stalinists and Maoists and CPUSA'ns just behaved themselves and didn’t kill or imprison anyone, and they certainly weren't Communists, unless the indexers were asleep or out to lunch when they got to COM-.

Communist governments in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and in Mao’s Red China killed, murdered, tortured and imprisoned more men, women and children than were killed in all the wars of the 20th century. Millions they just starved to death, the same way North Korea is taking care of business. So why are the Communists disappearing from our books and newspapers?

Could we call it “intentional design?”