Century of Genocide

National Geographic has a very disturbing article on 20th-century genocide in its Jan 06 issue.

While the graphic they chose is compelling enough, it is also misleading.

Let's see if you can spot the difference in interpretation between these two presentations of the same data.

The first is National Geographic's:



The second is mine, drawn from their data:



Whereas NG seems to wish readers to believe genocide to be ubiquitous---everybody does it, throughout the 20th century, the facts are a bit different. Communist and fascist governments in particular show a taste for genocide, and the very effective structure of their totalitarian regimes when it comes to murdering their own citizens make the butcher's bill that much higher.

You'll also note that despite the claims of the moonbats, the United States is not on this list.

More disturbingly, you'll note some omissions. Che Guevara's efficient system for murdering Cubans didn't make the cut. South Vietnam is listed, but Ho Chi Minh's murder and "reeducation" campaign after Saigon fell didn't earn a spot, despite the fact that this was what led the Vietnamese "Boat People" to take to the high seas in any way they could.

That's not to say that National Geographic has not done a useful service in presenting this information to its readers. They have. It will certainly open some eyes as to the bloodthirsty nature of communist regimes, a fact which deserves wider dissemination. It might just make a couple of moral equivalence types think twice.

Nonetheless, it demonstrates amply how the same facts can be presented in factual yet very different manners depending on the message the author wishes to convey. That's a truth well worth keeping in mind as one consumes information.