Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 October 12

= October 12 =

Henry Kissinger
Having lived for almost a century, friend and mentor of Hillary Clinton and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Henry Kissinger is quite a polarizing figure. Venerated as one of the greatest Secretaries of State by many international relations scholars and even compared with fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama as a practitioner of realism, Kissinger is also hated and condemned by many particularly those on the left as an alleged war criminal, moreso than Bush and Blair. I lose count of how many times I see #HenryKissinger trending on Twitter outside of his birthday. Why do so many people hate Henry Kissinger so much when there are ton of other Americans who did similar things and killed as many if not more people? Are they the same people who has been accusing Obama of war crimes for the practice of double tap strike?

Curtis LeMay killed hundreds of thousands of civilians when he firebombed Japan during World War II. Robert McNamara killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians with fragmentation bombs, napalm, and Agent Orange. Lyndon B. Johnson and his administration directly assisted Suharto in exterminating 1 million tankies in Indonesia and later administrations supported the Indonesian occupation of East Timor which includes a genocide. Many administrations also supported the Guatemalan government in the Guatemalan Civil War and thus are complicit in a genocide. StellarHalo (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Seymour Hersch is a well-known journalist who almost dedicated his career to denigrating Kissinger, but in recent years Hersch has taken a strange turn into almost being a propagandist for the Pakistani Army/ISI, for whatever that's worth... AnonMoos (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Kissinger has a complex legacy. While he's well known for various de-escalations and ending of conflicts, including ending the Vietnam war, detente with both the Soviets and the PRC, etc. etc., he also was well known for continuing the long tradition of his various predecessors of signing off on meddlesome U.S. involvement in propping up right-wing nationalist dictators and military juntas who opposed leftist factions; i.e. the Dirty War, the Bangladesh Liberation War, the ousting of Salvador Allende and the propping up of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.  At heart, he was deep in the domino theory international politics that greatly influenced other U.S. officials like John Foster Dulles and Robert McNamara in their policies.  -- Jayron 32 12:22, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Crediting Kissinger with "ending the Vietnam War" for the Paris Peace Accords is rather an exaggeration (which is why Le Duc Tho declined his half of the Nobel Prize). See Paris Peace Accords. --174.95.81.219 (talk) 18:48, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I did not credit him with it. I said he is known for it.  The OP's question was about public perceptions of Kissinger.  One of the things Kissinger is publicly known for is ending the Vietnam War.  Perception is rarely much about truth... -- Jayron 32 11:52, 14 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Given that North Vietnam started the war invading the South in the 1950s, they certainly did not deserve a Peace Prize (perhaps Putin will accept the Nobel after winning in the Ukraine). A guy who hated Kissinger with an nearly insane (?) passion was of course the late great Christopher Hitchens. And I guess he hated him most for Pinochet. Looking at Venezuela, perhaps Cuba and Soviet Russia really were about to take over Chile? As Hunter S. Thompson (post Vietnam) wrote in Rolling Stone: the dominos have fallen, just like Dulles said.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 11:44, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you should not forget that the division between North and South Vietnam started with the British invading and occupying the south of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in September 1946, soon to be relieved by the French. In the eyes of North Vietnam, the State of Vietnam created by the French was a puppet regime controlling occupied territory. South Vietnam also sabotaged the elections, agreed upon in the Geneva Accords, meant to reunite Vietnam. --Lambiam 17:35, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Anti-Woke European politicians
Besides Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Elisabeth Moreno Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, who are the European politicians who publicly said that they oppose wokeness? StellarHalo (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Dutch minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. --Lambiam 05:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Giorgia Meloni for sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBkO6FxkbFM&ab_channel=VistaAgenziaTelevisivaNazionale --82.54.87.89 (talk) 06:29, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Since "woke" is by now mostly a conservative meme without any clear definition, most non-populist politicians in Europe don't seem to see a need to discuss it at all. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * By usage, its intent has already been long established to mean something akin to "not being an asshole". -- Jayron 32 14:37, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true. In Europe however, the american expression is not one that's much familiar everywhere. And all those politicians, and the related public opinions, are basically installed in a reaction against several BLM inspired particular local initiatives, similar to the so-called defaming of the Statue of Louis XVI in Louisville, Kentucky in may 2020. --Askedonty (talk) 17:07, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In Europe, the notions of "wokeness" and "cancel culture" are equated by some pundits and politicians and viewed as an extreme and intolerant activist ideology that is not compatible with democracy (as they see it). This has become a talking point of the right. --Lambiam 07:15, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is a very readable opinion piece on the use of these terms in Dutch media. It was written in response to another opinion piece that characterized wokism as "an illiberal radical left-wing ideology which strives for a set of required outcomes". --Lambiam 07:25, 17 October 2022 (UTC)