Re: [Marxism] Behind the attack on New York Times Project 1619 | Louis Proyect
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I've just heard that jaw-dropping clip from the president offering his expert warnings about the environmental dangers of windmills. I’m sure that, between them, the various media outlets have given a far bigger and louder platform to his idiocy than they've ever given the advocates of wind power. Such is life for us, as unwilling denizens of the Opposite World structured by the American ruling class. Like the president, corporate media regularly disparages work by anyone whose perspective they’d prefer to dismisses, perhaps especially so for those who've spent years, decades, lifetimes actually studying a subject. Their priority is, first and foremost, showcasing whatever will goose its readership/viewership and the advertising revenues linked to them. In this context, we should welcome the 1619 Project for popularizing what scholars of American History generally have been studying and discussing for half a century: Race cannot be separated from any major event in our history, and the nature of power means that these have been shaped by the imperatives of white supremacy. These insights should actually surprise nobody on a Marxism list, though, if they do, we have all the more reason to praise the project. However, I would not uncritically embrace the New York Times without a few caveats. To state the obvious, causality requires sifting and processed of those diverse motives. In a large and complex population, a broad spectrum of concerns motivates individuals. The nonslaveholders in the Confederate Army or small town kids of all backgrounds enlisting to fight for the U.S. in Vietnam might tell us all sorts of things about their motives. Rather than take these on face value as explanatory of the general cause of the war. Rather we weigh them critically. Then, too, we can't take the outcome of the process as an indication of what motivated those who participated in it. In particular, people my age hopefully have recollections of their parents talking about what hopes they had coming out of the sacrifices of World War II. Most did not struggle because they wanted the permanent warfare state and the Mutually Assured Destruction insanity that emerged. I suppose you could say that this was “one of the principal causes” of WWII—it certainly had to motivate some in power or we wouldn’t have gotten them—but it would be misleading to read this backwards into the past. In the wake of the American Revolution or the Civil War, there were always many people who protested the outcomes as less than they had expected. Certainly, some of the slaveholding gentlemen in slaveholding states opposed secession and became Unionists because they rightly saw secession and war as likely to result in the destruction of the institution of slavery. Did that mean that one of the principal causes of the Union in the Civil War was the preservation of slavery? Some with racialist hypernational politics opposed the Axis in WWII, but that did not mean the Allies favored fascism. At least such erroneous assumptions in these cases would have something from which to leap to a conclusion. To me, though, the fundamental objection to the assertion that the American Revolution was about saving slavery from its abolition by the British are obvious. This refurbished old Tory whitewash of the British Empire is applied over an undercoat of American parochialism. First, the American colonies did not square off against a British Empire eager to abolish slavery. In fact, it did not do so for several generations after the American Declaration . . . Maybe somebody had a TARDIS. Then, too, the empire's move against slavery never emancipated the imperial economy from slavery. Indeed, not only did it make a series of exemptions at the behest of the East Indian Company, but the entire Industrial Revolution rested as firmly on the textile industry, the cotton trade from the American South, and its reliance on African slavery. This British reliance on slavery provided the Confederacy with a strong base of support within the government and provided the Confederacy’s main hope for the salvation of its own independence from the U.S. and the salvation of its “peculiar institution.” Most directly, the American Revolution became an American Revolution—a unitary experience—only after the fact, in the establishment of unified national government with a unified policy. In practice, colonists organized their rebellion through their colonial governments, which forged a common military force and a foreign policy but balked at almost any other move the direction of a national policy. Slavery did not have the sa
Re: [Marxism] Behind the attack on New York Times Project 1619 | Louis Proyect
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * also The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne (NYU Press, 2014) On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 11:56 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: > . . . > As for the British and slavery, this article is worth reading: > https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-revolution-fought-to-save-slavery/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Behind the attack on New York Times Project 1619 | Louis Proyect
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * "In a more general sense, how North America developed would have been a lot more similar to the development of India/Pakistan or Nigeria - or even Ireland - than it was, with the difference being that outright slavery would have been woven into the overall fabric of US society and the US economy even more than it was." I would have thought more like Australia. In Nigeria, Ireland and India/Pakistan, there were millions of people who were ruled over by a British minority. In Australia, with the obvious exception of slavery, the pattern of colonisation (convict colonies, free European settlers) was similar to that of America. The principle of terra nullius - ie extinguish any "native title", drive off or kill the prior inhabitants and settle the country as though it were empty - was applied in both cases. Similarly in New Zealand, except Maori proved too difficult to simply eliminate with the resources Britain was willing to commit, so a treaty was implemented instead and the land still subsequently confiscated in many cases. In Ireland too, the Irish were widely deprived of their land but they still remained as a potential workforce. In America, the indigenous population were not seen as such, by and large, hence the importation of slaves, which is the main factor that makes America different. On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 7:56 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > * > > On 12/27/19 1:17 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote: > > (As far as the Native > > Americans - they were the ones who truly had no interest in the outcome > of > > the Revolution since British troops would have been used to slaughter > them > > like the American troops were after the Revolution.) > > It's more complicated than that. The British tended to be more > supportive of native land claims because they had no vested interest in > their removal. It was the colonists who were far more threatening for > the simple reason that they coveted Indian lands. > > Joseph Brant, the Mohawk leader, fought alongside the British in the > same manner that some slaves signed up with Lord Dunsmore. When > Washington was victorious over the British, the consequences for the > Mohawks was disastrous. Their villages were burned to the ground and > their women and children slaughtered along with the men. General > Sullivan carried out this attack. My village in upstate NY is in > Sullivan County, named after this war criminal and racist. > > As for the British and slavery, this article is worth reading: > > > https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-revolution-fought-to-save-slavery/ > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/johnedmundson4%40gmail.com > -- The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Behind the attack on New York Times Project 1619 | Louis Proyect
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/27/19 1:17 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote: (As far as the Native Americans - they were the ones who truly had no interest in the outcome of the Revolution since British troops would have been used to slaughter them like the American troops were after the Revolution.) It's more complicated than that. The British tended to be more supportive of native land claims because they had no vested interest in their removal. It was the colonists who were far more threatening for the simple reason that they coveted Indian lands. Joseph Brant, the Mohawk leader, fought alongside the British in the same manner that some slaves signed up with Lord Dunsmore. When Washington was victorious over the British, the consequences for the Mohawks was disastrous. Their villages were burned to the ground and their women and children slaughtered along with the men. General Sullivan carried out this attack. My village in upstate NY is in Sullivan County, named after this war criminal and racist. As for the British and slavery, this article is worth reading: https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-revolution-fought-to-save-slavery/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Behind the attack on New York Times Project 1619 | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Last August, the NY Times Sunday Magazine was entirely devoted to Project 1619, an attempt to root the racism of today in the institution of slavery that dates back to 1619, when more than 20 slaves were sold to the British colonists in Virginia. This assertion in itself might have not touched off the controversy surrounding the project. Instead, it was another claim that the American Revolution of 1776 was a reactionary rebellion to preserve slavery that probably set the gears in motion that led to an open letter from five historians to the NY Times that concluded: We ask that The Times, according to its own high standards of accuracy and truth, issue prominent corrections of all the errors and distortions presented in The 1619 Project. We also ask for the removal of these mistakes from any materials destined for use in schools, as well as in all further publications, including books bearing the name of The New York Times. We ask finally that The Times reveal fully the process through which the historical materials were and continue to be assembled, checked and authenticated. The letter was written by Sean Wilentz and signed by him and four other historians: Victoria Bynum, James M. McPherson, James Oakes, and Gordon S. Wood. All are white with an average age of 71. It is highly likely that the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) that publishes the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) helped organize this campaign since all of the historians, except Wilentz, have granted interviews to it about their objections to Project 1619. It is even more likely that SEP member Tom Mackaman led this effort since he as a professor at King’s College in Pennsylvania and might have used his academic standing to persuade them to take a stand. McPherson probably didn’t need much persuasion since his contacts with WSWS go back to 1999. It is not clear how much contact WSWS had with Sean Wilentz since his liberal Democratic Party politics might have made him much less amenable to any joint project with a bunch of sectarian lunatics. full: https://louisproyect.org/2019/12/24/behind-the-attack-on-new-york-times-project-1619/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
