Before you follow the link, guess who is being defended with this sentence.

[james_davis_nicoll]

But is forced radical de-urbanization a crime against humanity, in a world where urbanization is leading us to an environmental crisis that could result in millions of deaths from similar causes and where forced urbanization through government land-grabs has yet to be put on trial?

seen via celestialweasel

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Nope, didn't guess that one!

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

The Khmer Rouge are misunderstood fluffy bunnies? Oy.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I guessed the topic.

The New Internationalist has obviously jumped the shark. Pity: they used to be good.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

I was thinking Stalin; wasn't too far off, I see.

It's odd for the NI to be publishing something like this. I mean, really really odd. I used to subscribe to the magazine and it was very good. This kind of thing is not their usual line at all. I don't know what they were thinking.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

AFAIK, Stalin encouraged urbanization, whether in the form of industrial cities in the Ural, convict cities in Siberia, or apartment buildings for farmers. He just sometimes would move a city from one spot to another.

It's Mao who liked peasants best.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

Urbanization is generally understood to be a good thing when you have large populations, since you don't want them all on ranch homes on a quarter acre, using up all the arable land...

Unless the writer just thinks there's too many people, to which the response is, "You first."

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd count the suburbs as urban and I bet Pol Pot would have as well.

Unless your nation is very small and selling to a global market, having most of the population on farms probably means that your nation is poor.

[hattifattener]

I usually think of the suburbs as not quite urban ... sort of "sub-urban", if you will.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

No no, suburbs are urban, it's the exurbs that are sub-rural.

The real problem with suburbs is generally that the life style of the people who live in them is wasteful of water and energy - with the only bit of wastefullness that's entirely unavoidable being the distance they are from food and supply distribution centers.

And I hate suburbs.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Pol Pot, is my guess.

[rosefox]

...what...

...what...

...what...

sinboy says, "They nuked the fridge while it was jumping the shark!"

[mikedavsi.livejournal.com]

Huh, I was way off! (I guess George W. Bush/Michael Brown)

[dhole.livejournal.com]

This was one of those "is it a real leftist, or a parody leftist" quizzes. This time, I got it wrong.

[avram]

Urbanization is leading to what, now? The average New York City resident has one-third the carbon footprint of the average American.

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Pol Pot is pretty much the only name that comes to my mind when someone says "radical de-urbanization" and "crime against humanity" in the same sentence. Out of curiousity, who else did you think people would suspect?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I guessed Pol Pot, with Chavez as backup.

Jordan had a post recently about apologetics for Cambodia, without saying what had prompted it; I wonder if he'd seen this.

Gah. Things like this are why I like distinguishing "liberals" from "leftists", sometimes.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Chávez may be the second most Dubya-like leader of a Western Hemisphere nation [1], but one of his main bases of support is the urban poor. Attributing a forced radical deurbanization policy to Chávez is a little like attributing a forced radical pro-atheism policy to Franklin Graham.

[1] Much luckier than W, though, if having historically high oil prices can be counted as luck.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I had a vague idea he'd been encouraging rural re-settlement, not really forced or radical. It was a distant second to Pol Pot.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

I was guessing Mao.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Me too, but I guess Pol Pot makes more sense.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

I guessed Pol Pot - I'm sad to see I was right.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I got it right.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I correctly guessed before looking. More knowing what you get worked up about rather than any insight into human nature.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

What the frak.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

*choke*

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Orson Scott Card? :-)

[martinl-00.livejournal.com]

They'll be rehabilitating Francisco Solano López next. His work also aided the agrarian cause.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Er, I'm in the middle of _Arslan_, so I thought of that. But I guess it's not recent enough or famous enough to talk about the political politics from inside the frame in that tone.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

SFWA tapped M.J. Engh as their next Author Emerita so she and her book may be a little better known now than six months ago.