Rolling Stone first out of the gate with the true elbow-drop of a headline this news deserves, and a beefy polemic to back it up.
This article, along with every other news site’s, has been sitting there primed and ready to release for years and years, needing nothing but a minor edit to add the relevant details of his passing and the date. Someone at Rolling Stone is delighted today to have finally hit “Publish” .
And too right they should. It’s a great day.
I like to imagine that whenever there was a particularly slow day or someone was particularly stressed, they just opened the prepared article and tweaked and improved it a bit … it’s probably the collaborative work of many people over many years.
Every other news article is like
“Henry Kissinger, diplomat beloved by the wealthy, is dead at 100”
deleted by creator
This is the best summary I could come up with: Henry Kissinger, war criminal and complete piece of shit, has finally died. The world is a better place now.
The world would have been a better place if somebody had made a better decision 101 years ago.
Whilst I would love to think that all that it would have taken for the World to be a much better place since the later part of the XX century was but one coitus interruptus, I’m almost certain that in the US there was and always has been a long line of sociopaths willint to advise the for the deaths of millions of others for personal upside maximization whilst calling it just realpolitik, any of which would’ve taken the place of this one has his daddy chosen to pull out at the last minute.
Had Kissinger raised to be the consiglieri of power in, say, Canada, he would’ve had quite a different impact in the World.
What gets me is this actually. This news of death of Henry Kissinger is nothing but a circlejerk of American’s absolving all their guilty conscious of the warmongering and general malevolent meddling in other people’s businesses and resources. As if they did anything until this asshole reached a very very generous age of 100, all while living in luxury.
The public had done nothing about these unjust warmongering and coups and insurgencies and such, maybe except the hippy times during vietnam war, and their presidents will do nothing to change the American international affairs (while having fairly different internal policies). Both the presidents and the population will keep blaming figureheads like Kissinger, possibly Blinken in the next decade and such names, while complicit in enjoying the benefits of resources acquired at the expense of 3rd world nations and their populations.
Hell after seeing how he lived till 100 in luxury despite the fact that he is such a piece of shit to a global degree, I would recommend aspiring to be such a piece of shit for luxury and power over billions of people.
At the same time, this is one of the great tragedies of Democracy. More than half (when you don’t have an electoral college) need to agree on something for it to be done. If 50.1% didn’t want to prosecute him as a war criminal but 49.9% did, he goes scot free, and there’s no real recourse unless you break the law.
This doesn’t suddenly absolve Americans. A majority still stopped justice from being done. I wouldn’t be so harsh on Americans today though for that 50.1% in the past, they didn’t have any choice in the matter.
Be mad at us instead for what’s happening in the present with Israel. The current generation of Americans has plenty to criticize with just our actions than needing to go back in history. And it’s more poignant imo of an indictment.
Generally speaking though I do agree, the West unfairly enriched itself, and plenty of people are content to clutch our pearls at the history but not to make any material amends.
This is well known, but I think it suits this thread well
Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. […] Witness what Henry did in Cambodia- the fruits of his genius for statesmanship- and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remake at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, under-mined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.
Anthony Bourdain
God damn it, why couldn’t it have been Kissinger who killed himself?
I guess because Bourdain had a soul and Kissinger didn’t.
The wrong people tend to kill themselves in general. Those who commit the worst acts usually have supremely high self-confidence and self-assurance.
RIP my hero… Maybe now you’ll get your chance to introduce Kissinger’s afterlife to your knuckles.
If there is an afterlife, hopefully they’re not in the same place.
Or maybe they are, just to ensure that Bourdain can choke and beat Kissinger every day onwards. Hopefully with the help of all the victims of that fucking “statesman”
I mean, Kissinger can have a layover on his way to hell to get his ass beat by Bourdain. This sounds like heaven to me.
i hope they are, bourdains heaven could very well be hk hell.
Saddest part is that he gets to die living a long, comfortable life after making his mark upon the world, meaning he gets to die happy.
Don’t celebrate that he died. Mourn that he lived.
And the cherry on top is the Nobel ‘peace’ prize.
The world order that he helped to create has spent the last few decades crumbling, so perhaps he wasn’t as happy as you might think. I can only hope.
Yeah, probably the most upsetting thing for people like him is China’s dominance.
They really envisioned a world where the United States’ ruling class says ‘jump’ and everyone else asks ‘how high?’
Or if you take a Buddhist view he died the most miserable and painful death because he finally realized what an evil shit he was.
I don’t think you understand the psychology of sociopaths like him. They care neither for anyone’s suffering nor for anyone’s opinion about them. They care only for the pleasure they derive from the pain they inflict. He probably spent his last waking hours reminiscing over the glory days of the massacres he started.
It’s not about the pain and and misery they inflict - that’s just the Hollywood portrayal of sociopathy and psychopathy, which is really just the literary Badie who is evil for the sake of being evil - which isn’t real except in some exceptionally unusual cases who have other problems and are way too ill adjusted to stay out of jail long.
No, the usual psychopath and sociopath (and apparently they add up to around 3% of peole), including all of the so-called “well adjusted” ones (which Kissinger definitelly was) couldn’t care less about how others feel, either way, as they have no empathy and thus will not feel inside themselves through empathy what others are feeling, be that joy or pain.
(Actually, they do “care”, intellectually: for a “well adjusted” sociopath making others feel positive or negative emotions is nothing more than a tool for manipulating them, whose effects they intellectually understand whilst themselves being unaffected by it, hence why it’s so common for them to be highly manipulative)
And if you read the article you’ll see inklings of that about Kissinger - such as his obsequiousness to those in power and quite different treatment of those not in power - which is actually a pretty standard display of multiple faces towards different people of those whose relation to others is entirelly an intellectual construct because they have no empathy and hence not emotional-level reception of the feelings of others.
Kissinger did what he thought was better for himself with no care at all for the impact of his actions on those who couldn’t hurt him back for that (as you can see from how he climbed into the top circle of power through advice that prollonged the Vietnam was for years and killed hundreds of thousands more than would otherwise have died) and hence why in his own experience as he felt it, he had a wonderful long life as he pretty much got all that he wanted and didn’t care about the loathing of those who couldn’t negativelly impact his interests.
I feel like that’s just coping tbh.
Anthony Bourdain, a well spoken man who reached his boiling point with existence a fair bit to soon, always had a lot to say about Kissinger. An excerpt from a book he wrote “about” culinary tourism from, if anyone wasn’t aware…
The title is strong, but article itself is brutal
three and four million people
That would make the list go: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Kissinger. With the difference that the US has been a terrorist state for over a hundred years, while the other names on the list have been individuals while Kissingers was part of a greater evil.
The ‘Behind the Bastards’ 6 part series on him was fucking brilliant, well worth a listen. Also, if BtB has to do a 6 part series to cover all the fucked up shit you did…? You’re one of histories greatest monsters…
Robert also did six parts on McMahon which I thought was… weird
Ed McMahon?
Vince
Jim?
Bones?
You think because the names you listed were leaders of their countries doesn’t make them part of a greater evil? No one person commits atrocities alone; there must be some backing.
One single name doesn’t get to make decisions… There must be a greater body at play. There has to be support of some sort, otherwise the people would have just said no, and killed that person.
I’d rather not have an internet argument, but I’ll give you a pointer that you can use to google for more information of the issue is of actual interest to you:
-
Mao, Stalin and Hitler were tyrants that forced their way to leadership and killed everyone who opposed them. Kissinger was the advisor of a terrorist government that existed long before him and will continue to exist.
-
“just said no, and killed that person” is a naive Disney fantasy. In actual reality people that “just say no” get vanished, tortured and killed. And their neighbours suddenly turn reaaally quiet after that. However, there is always a certain joint guitl and complicity, I agree with that. And it weighs especially heavy if “the people” are very free to protest their nation’s terrorism but don’t do so.
There is a big difference between a single dictator being a plague upon the world for the 10-50 years he’s in power, and an nation with constently changing leadership being a permanent plague upon this world for 100+ years.
That’s the reason why Kissinger sticks out of the list: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Kissinger*.
I agree with your overall thesis but your characterizations of the three tyrants are casually backwards.
Mao was a leader of a militant group first. He won political power in that group and that group won a large following of people over several decades. His status as tyrant emerges from that history and cultivated in a desperate militaristic role which is already predisposed to authoritarian rule.
Hitler was similar, his authotarianism, is on display much earlier in the process, and part of his charismatic attraction. It was clear early on that Hitler was going to mow down anyone in his way. Still, he needed to acquire popular and then political power. He leveraged existing sentiment and thuggish groups such as the Freikorp.
Stalin was just a bureaucrat.
Just kidding. I know very little of Stalin’s rise to power except that it was internal to a party that already had seized power.Great analysis thanks
-
That’s true but group think requires a strong leader with a vision and a willingness to direct the group towards his own goals vice the best interests of the people. So I believe there’s an argument to be made for targeting and removing specific people from power to prevent atrocities from happening. Group think is a psychological concept, so here’s some more information about it. There are other factors involved, so removing one person still might not be effective.
Group Think
- Thinking in which maintaining group cohesion and solidarity is more important than considering facts in a realistic manner
Occurs when:
- Group members are highly cohesive
- Group member are isolated from contrary opinions
- Group is lead by a biased leader who make their wishes known
- Stress caused by external factors, especially time constraints
Signs of Group Think
- Overestimating group’s skills & wisdom
- Biased perceptions and evaluations of other groups and people outside of their group
- Strong conformity pressures within the group
- Poor decision making methods
My point wasn’t that single people can’t be bad, or do bad things, but ultimately to perform terrible acts at scale it requires buy-in from other people. Without support, whether it be through fear, coercion, or otherwise, it’s nothing more than intrusive thoughts.
Hitler was a bad dude but it took a concerted effort by who knows how many people in order to make the sick stuff that happened a reality.
All the names he listed were indeed bad dudes, but I feel saying Kissinger stands out because he had the support of the government while the others just killed millions by themselves is not a fair assessment of what transpired.
I agree with the sentiment in context of these “next level” atrocities, for lack of better way to phrase it.
But I disagree with “No one person commits atrocities alone; there must be some backing”. Plenty of atrocities have happened because one person decided to be a dickhead
I actually can’t think of one on a geopolitical scale. There’s always some other people involved.
Oh yeah, geopolitical is probably a better way to phrase it than “next level”.
That I agree with. I just felt like saying “nobody commits atrocities alone” removes some blame from some monsters out there that have done terrible shit.
Oh absolutely. That’s why I made a point to qualify it like that. Atrocities can go from a mass shooting carried out by one person to a genocide carried out by an entire government.
Also Pol Pot of Cambodia.
Which can be blamed on… Kissinger!
Bingo!
My great Aunt had a terrific joke about Henry:
Nixon is walking outside the Whitehouse near an area of freshly fallen snow.
He sees NIXON SUCKS in yellow snow and asks the Secret Service (and the FBI) to investigate who did it.
A couple days go by and someone from the FBI Forensics Lab comes into the Oval Office to report.
“Well?” Nixon asked.
“You’re not gonna like this.”
“Just tell me.”
“It’s Henry’s.”
“I knew it!”
“Ah. That’s not all Mr. President.”
“What else?”
“It’s Pat’s handwriting.”
Who is Pat?
Pat Ryan, wife of Richard Nixon
Ooh, Nixon’s wife. i looked up the name of Kissinger’s spouses but I had not considered that the joke referenced the then-president’s wife.
Ding dong the witch is dead!
About fucking time, holy shit.
And, about time for some listening to this one banger Free Money! rip on Youtube as a sort of ironic celebration.
Best example of The good die young I have ever seen.
It’s a shame he never faced justice for his crimes.
As is typical for most USA sponsored terrorists, especially those that call the shots in 'murica
And not a single tear was shed.
Plenty of tears >!of joy!< were shed
After reading the article, I’m left with the impression that, if he wasn’t jew, he’d be right at home with the german nazi govt. Not necessarily because of racial bias, but because of his anticommunism and also for being able to direct the military against unsuspecting targets for the sole purpose of solidifying power.
I love that they added the part where he said “Any people that’s been persecuted for two thousand years must have done something wrong.”
Right? Victim blaming pro level there.
So are we all just going to wait for the ruling class to die off like he did or are we going to stand for justice and do something about the other evil motherfuckers in the elite still living?
What are you talking about, we are going to breed our generation of evil motherfuckers.
Can someone please explain what he did to be labeled a war criminal?
Genuine question, because I only know this guy as an asshole who suggested Ukraine should give up it’s occupied territories.
He’s got a 6-8 part Behind the Bastard series about him but the article here is a tldr. Basically he is directly responsible for killing about four million people, basically carpet bombed Vietnam and was in Watergate.
Figures. I don’t think that the Ukrainians who were pissed about his suggested “peace deal” knew about this. Either that, or they didn’t mention it. And I remember his article was widely discussed in the Ukrainian media. Maybe if his background was more widely known, his opinion would have been more easily dismissed.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-kissinger-94160733/
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-two-kissinger-94268769/
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-six-kissinger-94899290/
He (and Ford) came to Indonesia during Soeharto’s New Order and endorsed invasion of East Timor. That was one day before the invasion happened.
He drove us policy for decades, especially “the ends justify the means” stuff.
As a partial explanation, not an excuse, y’all have to remember this was the Cold War. A lot of this was accepted as a necessary evil to prevent the big EVIL. If you thought you had to choose between civilization ending WWIII, vs interfering in a third world conflict, the evil may not be as clear cut as y’all think. Kissinger drove the bus but we all went along.
Falling for however much of that was propaganda is all on us.
We also mostly fell for it in Iraq. If you take anything from this diplomat’s life work, DONT FALL FOR THE PROPAGANDA. it’s easy to see the evil with hindsight and in a different world, but we all need to develop the skepticism and questioning to see this for it is when it happens again.
I’m proud of my country but that includes seeing where we’ve failed and it’s all of our duty to see when it’s stepping off the ideal path and do our part to get it back on track
