While I was disturbed to read about Oliver Stone's attempt to rehabilitate Stalin and Hitler in the eyes of young people (who need to "walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes to understand their point of view"), considering Oliver Stone's history it's not surprising.

Still, I can't help find myself wondering whether Stone and the leftist professor who's writing for him are planning to factor in how far ahead of their times these leaders were in terms of helping reduce the human footprint on the earth.

We tend to think of Mao, Stalin and Hitler as the greatest mass murderers of all time, but has anyone bothered to calculate out how many tons of emissions they prevented? Sure, mistakes were made, but might these farsighted men have actually been pioneers acting in the long term interests of the planet?

I'm no post-Modernist historian, but I'm thinking the topic -- whether Mao, Stalin, and Hitler weren't ahead of their time -- might be worthy of a doctoral thesis. Moreover, I think that they might be a source of inspiration for youth, especially future leaders in need of role models.

What better way to put mass murderers in context?