Gerald Horne interviewed by Wilmer Leon on Inside The Issues on June 18, 2022, discussing the real and complete history behind Juneteenth, Texas and the Coun...
Not gonna lie just reading that review it's pretty damning. But I don't enough to know if wsws is itself accurate in its analysis here or if they are doing what they accuse Horne of doing, namely being selective in which evidence they focus on to push a particular point of view. I'd like to see a response from other Marxists to not just this review but WSWS greater project of bashing 1619 and anybody who talks shit about the founders basically. Maybe there is a review somewhere of their own book advertised in that review haha. I guess for me I'm going to hold off on forming an opinion about Horne's work until I've read more of it myself and more responses to it.
Lol I just got to the end of it and here's the twist from WSWS
One final fact should be mentioned, which goes some way towards explaining Horne’s willingness to misrepresent facts and sources: Horne is affiliated with the Communist Party of the USA, a Stalinist organization. In 2009, responding to an article critical of the rehabilitation of Stalin in modern Russia, Horne wrote that Stalin’s crimes were no greater than those of the founding fathers of the United States. [47]
In the realm of history this connection is doubly significant. Stalinism, as a counter-revolutionary political tendency, has always been dependent upon historical falsification. Stalin’s consolidation of power in the Soviet Union was built not only on the bones of the revolutionary generation of October 1917, but on the total rewriting of the history of the Russian Revolution to suit the needs of the bureaucracy he represented. Stalin’s historical methods—what Trotsky called “the Stalin school of falsification”—was emulated by acolytes the world over who were once popularly known as “Stalinist hacks.” It is out of this school that Horne emerges.
Largely unchallenged and even legitimized by the historical profession, it is this style of thought, which, laundered through the New York Times’ 1619 Project, is now being injected into the curriculum of schools throughout the United States as a means of dividing working class youth along racial lines.
So his historical errors are due to his being a "stalinist" member of CPUSA (lol) and the NYT is also participating in a Stalinist style plot to divide workers along racial lines. Gee I thought racism against nonwhites served that purpose already, but it is the non-sucking off of the founders that causes "division" by what, hurting white people's feelings? The last few paragraphs really make it hard to take the rest of the review seriously. But as I said earlier I'm willing to withhold judgment on the conclusions Horne makes for now.
Let us turn to the language of the reviews author, and considering the above about accusations of "stalinism", I quote:
"Horne often combines unrelated statements and events, implying a connection where there is none, or suggesting that a particular statement means something different from what the speaker intended."
Now, where and how have I heard this dismissal used before... You mean to tell me that the written history we were taught before was a fabrication? You mean to say they were aware enough of public image and recorded history to obfuscate??
As I parse through the rest of the review, I can't speak to whether or not some of the falsehoods are or arent, but this review author IMO misrepresents Horne's argument quite a bit, and yet again, as is liberal tradition, we are pinning all the "importance" on what one or two people claim to have said rather than the actions and material changes taken.
Listen to this from the writer of the review and tell me this doesnt sound like a milquetoast neolib with absolutely no idea what an actual Marxist view of American history looks like:
"The Marxist view—which dates back to Marx himself—has always held that the American Revolution was a bourgeois-democratic revolution rooted in the development of the middle class in conflict with the ancien régime of feudal property and political relations, nurtured by the ideology of the Enlightenment. Among American historians there has been intense debate over the significance and extent of social conflict among the colonists, and over the relative weight to place on ideological versus economic developments. Nonetheless, there has been universal agreement that the American Revolution gathered force around a series of conflicts over taxation, sovereignty and political representation."
I don't know about you all, but WHEN THE FUCK did any reputable historian actually conclude the American Revolution was ACTUALLY about "taxation" & "political representation" - and I ask for which class/race/group this language referred to? Could this writer not simply do the same thing for the American Civil War and saying it was about "states rights" (which was seen as dog whistle reasoning EVEN BACK THEN as knowledge of the poor image of slavery has been around for centuries).
This writer is quite literally writing in defense of traditional American history, and for this reason I can't take it seriously - plus calling Horne a "Stalinist" and spouting Trotskyist bullshit themselves... Yeah no.
I understand I am not responding to this review with solid refutations, but we all know how twistable reality and wording can be.
Yeah I tend to agree with you, and the more I think about it the more it’s like “of course a bunch of dudes schooled in enlightenment philosophy and who owned slaves would have a vested interest in keeping slavery, and of course they would couch the reasoning in enlightenment philosophy.
If you look at the reviewers own claim that the NYT is pushing this theory to “divide workers along racial lines” where is their evidence? Surely they have some statement by the NYT staff saying “we want to divide workers along racial lines” lol.
Can you link to the critical reviews? I've heard nothing but praise from within the marxist/anti-racist communities I see and frequent
I guess looking back, there's only one really critical review that I read https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/18/horn-m18.html
Not gonna lie just reading that review it's pretty damning. But I don't enough to know if wsws is itself accurate in its analysis here or if they are doing what they accuse Horne of doing, namely being selective in which evidence they focus on to push a particular point of view. I'd like to see a response from other Marxists to not just this review but WSWS greater project of bashing 1619 and anybody who talks shit about the founders basically. Maybe there is a review somewhere of their own book advertised in that review haha. I guess for me I'm going to hold off on forming an opinion about Horne's work until I've read more of it myself and more responses to it.
Lol I just got to the end of it and here's the twist from WSWS
So his historical errors are due to his being a "stalinist" member of CPUSA (lol) and the NYT is also participating in a Stalinist style plot to divide workers along racial lines. Gee I thought racism against nonwhites served that purpose already, but it is the non-sucking off of the founders that causes "division" by what, hurting white people's feelings? The last few paragraphs really make it hard to take the rest of the review seriously. But as I said earlier I'm willing to withhold judgment on the conclusions Horne makes for now.
Let us turn to the language of the reviews author, and considering the above about accusations of "stalinism", I quote:
"Horne often combines unrelated statements and events, implying a connection where there is none, or suggesting that a particular statement means something different from what the speaker intended."
Now, where and how have I heard this dismissal used before... You mean to tell me that the written history we were taught before was a fabrication? You mean to say they were aware enough of public image and recorded history to obfuscate??
As I parse through the rest of the review, I can't speak to whether or not some of the falsehoods are or arent, but this review author IMO misrepresents Horne's argument quite a bit, and yet again, as is liberal tradition, we are pinning all the "importance" on what one or two people claim to have said rather than the actions and material changes taken.
Listen to this from the writer of the review and tell me this doesnt sound like a milquetoast neolib with absolutely no idea what an actual Marxist view of American history looks like: "The Marxist view—which dates back to Marx himself—has always held that the American Revolution was a bourgeois-democratic revolution rooted in the development of the middle class in conflict with the ancien régime of feudal property and political relations, nurtured by the ideology of the Enlightenment. Among American historians there has been intense debate over the significance and extent of social conflict among the colonists, and over the relative weight to place on ideological versus economic developments. Nonetheless, there has been universal agreement that the American Revolution gathered force around a series of conflicts over taxation, sovereignty and political representation."
I don't know about you all, but WHEN THE FUCK did any reputable historian actually conclude the American Revolution was ACTUALLY about "taxation" & "political representation" - and I ask for which class/race/group this language referred to? Could this writer not simply do the same thing for the American Civil War and saying it was about "states rights" (which was seen as dog whistle reasoning EVEN BACK THEN as knowledge of the poor image of slavery has been around for centuries).
This writer is quite literally writing in defense of traditional American history, and for this reason I can't take it seriously - plus calling Horne a "Stalinist" and spouting Trotskyist bullshit themselves... Yeah no.
I understand I am not responding to this review with solid refutations, but we all know how twistable reality and wording can be.
Yeah I tend to agree with you, and the more I think about it the more it’s like “of course a bunch of dudes schooled in enlightenment philosophy and who owned slaves would have a vested interest in keeping slavery, and of course they would couch the reasoning in enlightenment philosophy.
If you look at the reviewers own claim that the NYT is pushing this theory to “divide workers along racial lines” where is their evidence? Surely they have some statement by the NYT staff saying “we want to divide workers along racial lines” lol.