In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage

[promethean]

This looks like a very interesting book.

" Left-wing historians' sympathy for American communism is an example of ideological bias and self-deception comparable to Holocaust denial, according to this uncompromising manifesto. Haynes and Klehr, historians and authors of The Secret World of American Communism, rehash major Cold War controversies-including Moscow's financial subsidies to the American Communist Party, the espionage cases against the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss, and American communists' support for the Hitler-Stalin pact-in light of material from recently opened Soviet archives. But their focus is on the response of what they see as a left-wing "revisionist" academic establishment to new revelations about Stalin's crimes and American communists' subservience to Moscow. Taking on leading history journals and prominent scholars like Ellen Schrecker, Eric Foner and Victor Navasky, the authors accuse revisionists of ignoring, downplaying and distorting the mounting evidence of communist espionage and subversion in the United States. Instead of facing facts, they argue, revisionists have propagated a mythology of American communism as a benign, idealistic, home-grown progressive movement destroyed by McCarthyite persecution, a caricature that "resembles more the chaotic New Left of the late 1960s than the rigid Leninist party it was." The authors champion a liberal, anticommunist "traditionalist" historiography, asserting that America's post-war campaign against communist subversion (McCarthy's excesses aside) was "a rational and understandable response to a real danger to American democracy." While their confrontational tone and penchant for academic score-settling will inflame rather than settle these rancorous debates, their incisive analysis and meticulous attention to evidence make this a formidable rejoinder to left-wing orthodoxies. "

amazon.com/Denial-Historians-Communism-Espionage/dp/1893554724/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

[Nolan]

Oh no they're hiding under our beds again!

[Nolan]

Do you agree that many left wingers engage in historical revisionism?

As in the article? This value-laden book is really just a massive monument to hypocrisy. When the US arrests and detains supposedly Soviet funded communists in the US, it's all good. But when the USSR or Cuba lowers the boom on foreign-astroturfed movements, it's because they're "totalitarian."

The people who wrote this book are idiots because they also have to explain the Trotskyists and the anarchists the US suppressed. I suppose they were on the Soviet payroll too. :rolleyes:

[graymouser]

Why are you posting up a summary of an anti-communist book as a discussion topic on this forum? Do you think there are "uncomfortable truths" it should bring out? McCarthyism devastated the broad progressive movement in its attacks upon the Stalinists and really laid the class collaborationist groundwork for the subsequent waves of attacks upon the unions and the working class as a whole.

The truth is, the CPUSA in the '30s was a mixture of homegrown progressive movement and hard-line Stalinist party, particularly in its anti-racist work. If you read the detailed histories of the period this is fairly clear; the directives from Russia came along and they were really enforced, but in pragmatic terms they were often detached from the more positive work that was going on. The form of some of the CPUSA's work in the period was distorted, such as the lack of democracy in the Steel Workers Organizing Committee that was basically CP-run, but the million people who went through the Party during the Depression years were mostly not cynical Stalinists but genuinely progressive men and women, many of whom were sold out by their Party. (Such as the Japanese-Americans who the CPUSA suspended and then ordered to report to internment camps.)

There's a lot to understand in the CP's history - a lot of heroism and a lot of betrayal, much of it going on at the same time. A one-sided anti-communist rant is not going to get you much closer to the truth than the one-sided memoirs and biographies the CP has put out over the years. The right already gives enough press to anti-communists, the left doesn't have to join the choir.

[Nolan]

Why are you posting up a summary of an anti-communist book as a discussion topic on this forum?

It's really quite obvious, isn't it?

[Nolan]

Suggesting there is some grand communist conspiracy in American academia and recommending outdated works like the "Black Book of Communism" are two sure-fire ways to tell that the person you're listening to is a raging, right wing idiot. I can hear it any time I want on FOX News, so no thank you.


This thread is pointless. Comparing the trials and injustices faced by the USSR to Hitler's outright extermination of all but the "master race" is comical. Accusing the Soviet Union of mass-murder when the US, Britain, and others would be found guilty of multiple genocides in any academia with a grain of justice? Now that's apology of the first degree.

[graymouser]

The history of the CPUSA may be otherwise, but this book also exposes Stalin's apologists in today's academia. So it is more than just the history of the CPUSA.
OK, and again - this is important why? Grover Furr may be vying for the Order of Lenin from the Icepick Brigade, but that doesn't mean we should be promoting anti-communist trash that tries to "expose" him. He and the other leftover hardline Stalinists do fine on that for themselves - revolutionaries should not be redbaiting.

[Nolan]

So, you support Stalin?

Erm, he's a Trotskyist.


Even if it's filled with propaganda, I know they teach about Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky in any American highschool.

[Kibbutznik]

So what? Some academics still act as Stalin's apologists.
Name some, please.

Because I'm pretty sure that the standard for "Stalinist apologist" that is being invoked here is anyone who protests at the hyperbolic, counterfactual drivel that the right promotes as "history" in America.

Stalin was not a nice guy. No one here denies this. And most of us here are pretty firmly in the anti-Stalinist camp, myself included.

Stalin's Russia was a brutal, undemocratic regime. There's no denying that. But he is not guilty of half the things that the right portray him as being guilty of. It starts with inflating the numbers to ridiculous proportions, counting every death, whether inflicted by the Nazis or by the NKVD as victims of the Soviet regime, and all manner of other statistical nonsense, and it escalates from there.

So while you dig up those names of Stalin's apologists, just consider for a moment the simple fact that before Khrushchev's secret speech, almost no one had any real idea what was going on in the Soviet Union. It was all smoke and mirrors, and lots of innuendo, and very little hard facts. No one pretended that Soviet Russia was a nice place to live, but they felt that what was happening was a simple direct function of capitalist encirclement and economic backwardness.

Well, that's only partly true, as hindsight can show us. But you're being way too hard on the people who supported the Soviet Union in that era.

[graymouser]

So, you support Stalin?
No. That doesn't mean I go around touting anti-communist trash that tries to redbait Stalinists working in the universities. It's unprincipled and just gets used as an argument against Marxism. History is something that requires a nuanced understanding at times, including understanding the history of Stalinism both in the US and the USSR. Any anti-communist tracts you can find have little regard for the truth, and any resemblance to it is coincidental.

[Thirsty Crow]

So...every single communist in USA was a member of CPUSA (who, as far as I can tell, is the only object of historical investigation and evaluation)?

[Bilan]

So what? Some academics still act as Stalin's apologists.

Who exactly? And how?

[Nolan]

This thread is a prime example of how use of the word apologist is sometimes just a tactic used by people who don't want to engage their opponent's arguments. If you don't think Stalin killed 50 million, 120 million, 400 quadrillion, or the highest number they last read, lol you must be an apologist because everyone knows Stalin was evil. Only in Stalin discussions will you see such an unholy marriage of bandwagon arguments and Godwin's law as shown by the text quoted above.

[graymouser]

I don't know. I was just quoting the review.
Why quote from a "review" from some person on the internet who's doing nothing more than repeating the usual right-wing line about the USSR? Did you look up any of its claims or are you just repeating them? Stalin apologia does exist, the only one mentioned in your review who I'm familiar with is Grover Furr - I can't say I'm a fan, as he repeats the slanders and lies against the Bolsheviks that the Stalinist government made in the 1930s. But I don't consider this a bigger issue than so-called patriotic apologia for, say, the genocide of the Native Americans - objectively a much bigger crime than any that Stalin committed. If you want to be a "Marxist" you're going to need to learn how to get some perspective on this.

[Apoi_Viitor]

This thread is pointless. Comparing the trials and injustices faced by the USSR to Hitler's outright extermination of all but the "master race" is comical. Accusing the Soviet Union of mass-murder when the US, Britain, and others would be found guilty of multiple genocides in any academia with a grain of justice? Now that's apology of the first degree.

What if I accuse the Soviet Union, Britain, and the US of mass-murder?

[Nolan]

What if I accuse the Soviet Union, Britain, and the US of mass-murder?

Well then you are a trooper.

[Barry Lyndon]

Sure there are some Stalin-apologists in academia.

But contrary to right-wing fantasies, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the apologists for European colonialism, neo-liberal sweatshops, Zionism, neo-fascist Latin American rightists, and American imperialism all over the world, that infest the field of history and throughout academia generally.

The fact that war criminals like Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld have honorary chairs at Ivy League Universities should put things in perspective.

[Invader Zim]

Do you agree that many left wingers engage in historical revisionism?

I do, leftists challenge the typically conservative residue that taints many outmoded interpretations of the past.


Comparing the trials and injustices faced by the USSR to Hitler's outright extermination of all but the "master race" is comical.

True, but comparing Stalin's own acts of genocide to that of Hitler is not comical in the slightest; and anybody who denies that Stalin's regime did not preside over a genocide is a liar or is woefuly ignorant. Even the allegedly pro-Stalin 'revisionists' cited, such as J. Arch Getty (which is a false charge, Getty's work, while utterly pointless given the massive problems with the sources, calls for a more sober investigation of Stalin's regime not a whitewash of his regime), do not deny that Stalin's regime was genocidal. Rather they seek to examine the genocide/persecution while employing a purely archival methodology (which in my opinion is rather short-sighted, given the massive problem given the imfamously shocking state of the Russian archives). Of course, I doubt this criticism will be well recieved by the Stalin apologists on this board, who wax-lyrical about Getty, et al. However the realities of historical research dictate that any study of a bureaucratic agency such as the NKVD (which is only one cog in the wider mechanism being debated) is always going to be woefuly incomplete. As a graduate history research-student, I am all too familiar with the problem of research even a small bureaucracy. The institution I worked on existed for considerably less time, had far fewer staff, and performed a considerably more refined role in the State system than an institution such as the NKVD. However, the institution produced far in excess of a million individual files of documents that still survive today. That excludes the many many massive gaps in the material. These gaps are the result of a vast array of issues ranging from incompetent filing, random destruction of vast swathes of files to make room, loss, water damage, bombing, and State classification of files that still imposes restrictions to this day 65 years after the demise of the institution.

So I can assure any readers here that there no way that Getty, or anybody else has got ever close to emaning all the potentially relevent files; indeed it is an absolute certainty that many of those files simply do not exist any more, and that many more are inaccessable, for a whole plethora of reasons.

[Barry Lyndon]

True, but comparing Stalin's own acts of genocide to that of Hitler is not comical in the slightest; and anybody who denies that Stalin's regime did not preside over a genocide is a liar or is woefuly ignorant. Even the allegedly pro-Stalin 'revisionists' cited, such as J. Arch Getty (which is a false charge, Getty's work, while utterly pointless given the massive problems with the sources, calls for a more sober investigation of Stalin's regime not a whitewash of his regime), do not deny that Stalin's regime was genocidal. Rather they seek to examine the genocide/persecution while employing a purely archival methodology (which in my opinion is rather short-sighted, given the massive problem given the imfamously shocking state of the Russian archives). Of course, I doubt this criticism will be well recieved by the Stalin apologists on this board, who wax-lyrical about Getty, et al. However the realities of historical research dictate that any study of a bureaucratic agency such as the NKVD (which is only one cog in the wider mechanism being debated) is always going to be woefuly incomplete. As a graduate history research-student, I am all too familiar with the problem of research even a small bureaucracy. The institution I worked on existed for considerably less time, had far fewer staff, and performed a considerably more refined role in the State system than an institution such as the NKVD. However, the institution produced far in excess of a million individual files of documents that still survive today. That excludes the many many massive gaps in the material. These gaps are the result of a vast array of issues ranging from incompetent filing, random destruction of vast swathes of files to make room, loss, water damage, bombing, and State classification of files that still imposes restrictions to this day 65 years after the demise of the institution.

So I can assure any readers here that there no way that Getty, or anybody else has got ever close to emaning all the potentially relevent files; indeed it is an absolute certainty that many of those files simply do not exist any more, and that many more are inaccessable, for a whole plethora of reasons.

Valid points, but alas you do not have much credibility on this issue given your record of denial when it comes to the genocide of the Native Americans. Your quibble endlessly about the definition of genocide when it comes to them(even though they were clearly victims of genocide by all criteria set up by international law), but when it comes to Stalin you freely throw around the term with no explanation whatsoever. And I'm saying this as a harsh critic of Stalin.

[Invader Zim]

but alas you do not have much credibility on this issue given your record of denial when it comes to the genocide of the Native Americans.

I don't have any credibility to discuss the state of the Soviet archives because I know more than you do about the decline of the indigenous Americans? Sound logic there, Champ.

And what record would that be? Proving that individuals such as yourself deliberately distort the historical record, and trivialise genocide, in order to support a political point and are far too intellectually dishonest - in fact, too dishonest period - to admit it? Is that what you're refering to?


Your quibble endlessly about the definition of genocide

Not at all, my point was that to be a genocide there must be intent to committ a genocide (you know, one of the criteria set under international law (that you claim to grasp) to define a genocide). Unless you can provide some evidence that the European settlers/explorers had a sound enough grasp of immunology, epidemology, etc, to grasp the consequences of contact with the indigenous population then there manifestly the destruction of some 80%+ of the native population was not the result of a 'genocide'. That isn't a quibble, rather it is a fact; that you don't see the relevence of intent, in the very definition of genocide, tells us a lot more about your ability to credibly discuss the topic than it does mine. Now the actions of the European settlers, once we discount the impact of disease both in terms of outright population decline and the subsequent impact on birth-rates, are another matter worthy of serious and honest discussion; which naturally discounts you from being a part of that discourse.

[Amphictyonis]

Stalinists in the USA. Pfft. My grandfather was in the Young Pioneers, a training camp for the American 'vanguard'. One of the songs he had to sing is as follows-

" We're marching towards the morning,
we're struggling comrades all,
our aims are set on victory,
our enemies must fall,
with ordered step red flag unfurled,
we'll make a new and better world.
We are the youthful guardsman of the proletariat."

We talked a lot about it before he died. He said there was strong authoritarian streak in everything they did (Stalins fingerprints were there). As he got older he was told the working class need 'guidance' under the communist parties power. All of the curriculum was provided by the communist party (songs, books, lessons etc). He said one of the goals was to break American kids away from American culture. The Stalinists saw American culture as an expression of capitalist domination and indoctrination.

The way he explained the Young Pioneers made the whole thing sound elitist and authoritarian.

[Barry Lyndon]

Not at all, my point was that to be a genocide there must be intent to committ a genocide (you know, one of the criteria set under international law (that you claim to grasp) to define a genocide). Unless you can provide some evidence that the European settlers/explorers had a sound enough grasp of immunology, epidemology, etc, to grasp the consequences of contact with the indigenous population then there manifestly the destruction of some 80%+ of the native population was not the result of a 'genocide'. That isn't a quibble, rather it is a fact; that you don't see the relevence of intent, in the very definition of genocide, tells us a lot more about your ability to credibly discuss the topic than it does mine. Now the actions of the European settlers, once we discount the impact of disease both in terms of outright population decline and the subsequent impact on birth-rates, are another matter worthy of serious and honest discussion; which naturally discounts you from being a part of that discourse.

I have posted this elsewhere-

The official definition of genocide, by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide(1948) is any of any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Intent_to_destroy), in whole or in part (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#In_part), a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

a)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robinson_tragedy (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robinson_tragedy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Grant_massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Grant_massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre)
Among many other examples....

b) http://www.bcmj.org/traumatic-pasts-...ceptualization (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.bcmj.org/traumatic-pasts-canadian-aboriginal-people-further-support-complex-trauma-conceptualization)

c)Smallpox deliberately spread by British colonial authorities:
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal...lord_jeff.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html)

Buffalo systematically slaughtered to starve Native Americans:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...lo.html?cat=37 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/206157/history_of_the_buffalo.html?cat=37)

d) Native Americans sterilized in the United States:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJyYL4mpAd8 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJyYL4mpAd8)

e) Indian boarding schools to 'civilize' Native American children:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=16516865 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865)

Just one of these criteria would make what happened to the indigenous population of the Americas a genocide, and the actions of the Spanish, British, French, Dutch colonialists and the United States fulfill all five criteria. Even if not a single indigenous person who died of smallpox is counted(a position that even a liar like you would be hard-pressed to make), genocide was still committed.

When you can point to another pandemic that naturally had a 90% mortality rate, then maybe you'll convince me. Otherwise its an absurd position-even the Black Death had a 1/3 mortality rate.
It is clear that this extremely high mortality rate was created by a devastating disease being hugely exacerbated by warfare, famine, expulsion, destruction of the indigenous people's environment and forced deportation to unfamiliar territories.

The other false presumption is that had their been no disease, the indigenous population would have been allowed to live. This is also exposed as false if one reads political tracts and sermons by English colonists and American settlers praising God for the diseases, making their work of seizing the indigenous people's land all the more easy. Had there been no such epidemic, there is little doubt that the colonialist would hhave murdered the indigenous people's themselves, as they in fact did on many occassions.

You are nothing but a well-trained academic dissembler and apologist for colonialism in left camoflauge, who throws around the word 'genocide' freely when your bourgeois masters give you permission to but then tirelessly work to change the definition of genocide when they are guilty.

[Invader Zim]

Your entire post seems to be based on a misunderstanding of my actual argument. I would put this down to deliberate misrepresentation on your part, but if I'm honest I think that would be beyond you, intellectualy speaking. Rather I suspect it is just a case of a failure to grasp my argument; which was never to deny the acts of massacre and attrocity (several of which I pointed outmyself, including the crude attempts at biological warfare employed by British settlers that you have alluded to). Rather my argument has been to place these attrocities in the context of the primary cause of population decline; epidemic disease. As I told you in the other thread:

"My argument isn't to excuse or absolve the brutalities of European expansion, rather to place them within historical context; and that context indubitably was that, given the impact of European pathogens on the indigenous population, unintentional widespread destruction. Nothing the European settlers could have done, short of turning their boats round and 'undiscovering' the America's, could alter that. Certainly the brutality of the Europeans exacerbated the situation, but even if they had not been brutal, we would today still be lamenting the near complete loss of the origional population of the Americas".

My argument was never that the actions of the European settlers were justified, as you seem to be claiming of me. Indeed, to quote myself in this thread:

"Now the actions of the European settlers, once we discount the impact of disease both in terms of outright population decline and the subsequent impact on birth-rates, are another matter worthy of serious and honest discussion".



The official definition of genocide, by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide(1948) is any of any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Intent_to_destroy), in whole or in part (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#In_part), a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

And can you show, through the actual act of contact, that the European settlers intended to destroy, in whole or in part, the indigenous population of the Americas?



a)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robinson_tragedy (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robinson_tragedy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Grant_massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Grant_massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre)
Among many other examples....

b) http://www.bcmj.org/traumatic-pasts-...ceptualization (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.bcmj.org/traumatic-pasts-canadian-aboriginal-people-further-support-complex-trauma-conceptualization)

c)Smallpox deliberately spread by British colonial authorities:
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal...lord_jeff.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html)

Buffalo systematically slaughtered to starve Native Americans:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...lo.html?cat=37 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/206157/history_of_the_buffalo.html?cat=37)

d) Native Americans sterilized in the United States:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJyYL4mpAd8 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJyYL4mpAd8)

e) Indian boarding schools to 'civilize' Native American children:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=16516865 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865)

Which is all totally anachronistic, and a responce to an argument nobody has actually made. Nobody has denied the brutality of European settlers, the point I made in the other thread revolved around the impact of disease being the primary cause of the population decline. But even if we accept your strawman (which I don't), and deal with it on its own terms as if I had made that argument (which I haven't), then we are still left with the issue of characterisation. For example, was the Sand Creek Massacre, which you cited, an example of genocide or an isolated act of unauthorised and unsanctioned mass murder conducted by a group of war criminals without the knowledge or consent of their superiors? In other words, is it part of a deliberate multi-national policy? Furthermore if we accept this action, then presumably we must also place equal weight by the attempts of European settlers, and indeed later actual governments, to improve the conditions of the remaining elements of the indigenous population; such as attempting to quell outbreaks of various epidemics among the indigenous population. What does this tell us?

In other words are these massacres a part of a deliberate wider policy towards the indigenous population or something else? This is what needs to addressed in order to justify or reject a charge of genocide. And as I said, that is a topic for serious debate (and one which is ongoing within the academic community as we speak). But again, it has little baring on any argument I have actually made.


Among many other examples....

Me: "Now the actions of the European settlers, once we discount the impact of disease both in terms of outright population decline and the subsequent impact on birth-rates, are another matter worthy of serious and honest discussion; which naturally discounts you from being a part of that discourse."

Again, my argument has always been about the actual impact of contact on the indigenous population, and nothing more.



When you can point to another pandemic that naturally had a 90% mortality rate, then maybe you'll convince me. Otherwise its an absurd position-even the Black Death had a 1/3 mortality rate.

This is, of course, a very stupid argument, as I pointed out in the other thread:

"This argument doesn't work. It basically boils down to the contention that because the black death only killed a third of Europeans (which is actually a relatively low estimate, some go as high as suggesting upto 60%) therefore it is impossible that an entire series of pathogens all with multiple pandemics, which incidentally also inclued the plague, such as small pox, mumps, dysentery, measles, etc, could therefore not, over the course of a hundred and fifty years and many major outbreaks not reduce the continents population by an order of magnitude. This is an association fallacy.

Indeed, it seems that not only do you fail to grasp the basic historical events we are discussing, but you also have failed to apply basic arithmetic. On the assumption that each individual outbreak would only kill 20% of the population, which actually under-estimates a considerable number of individual outbreaks, such as the 1520-21 small-pox outbreak which is estimated to have killed upwards a quarter to a third of the population Mexico and Peru, among the most populous regions in the period, then it would still only require half a dozen individual outbreaks of that magnitude to reduce a population of 40 million to a quarter of that sum. And there were far more than a half dozen outbreaks of near biblical proportion, and that is how they were literally were described, over the course of the first 150 years of contact. Then it is necessary to consider the impact such widespread outbreaks of disease would have had on fertility, agriculture, and the basic economics of the society. At that point it doesn't require any leap of the imagination to understand why there was a population decrease of 80%, and that is before we factor in the brutalities of European expansionism"

You, and the other idiots I was arguing with in that thread, were incapable of building a coherant responce to that point then and instead chose to simply ignore it; so I very much doubt that I'll get a responce worth reading now either.



It is clear that this extremely high mortality rate was created by a devastating disease being hugely exacerbated by warfare, famine, expulsion, destruction of the indigenous people's environment and forced deportation to unfamiliar territories.

Where is it clear? You see accounts from the period describe entire regions being largely depopulated before the Europeans had even reached them, as I also pointed out in the other thread. Provide your sources or fuck off back under your rock.



The other false presumption is that had their been no disease, the indigenous population would have been allowed to live.

Well Barry, this forum is the history forum. History is the study of what actually happened, not contemplating fictional realities that may have occured had we lived in some alternative and alien reality. If you want to postulate such a scenario I suggest you post it in the cultural section of the board, or chit-chat, with the rest of the creative writers who call this board home; and leave the history forum for the discussion of actual historical events.


This is also exposed as false if one reads political tracts and sermons by English colonists and American settlers praising God for the diseases, making their work of seizing the indigenous people's land all the more easy.

Which necessarily ignores the multitude of sermons and writings of individuals who decried the decline of the indigenous population and also decried the treatment of the indigenous peoples. And of course, you also assume that because some settlers greated the desruction of the native population, at the hands of various pandemics, that had these contagions not existed a similar scale of destruction would have been wraught, or even could have been wraught, by European settlers anyway. Where is your evidence for this? Remember we are discussing history, the historical record is built on source material eminating from the periods under discussion, again what you are indulging in is creative writing.


Had there been no such epidemic, there is little doubt that the colonialist would hhave murdered the indigenous people's themselves, as they in fact did on many occassions.

What a cretinous thing to suggest. Firstly, you are discussing events that did not occur, and never could have occured, because diseases did exist. So there is no way you can support your assertions regarding what would have occured, because there is literally no evidence to support or reject your assertions either way. Secondly, you have not provided a shred of evidence to suggest that the European migrants would have been actually capable of inflicting the kind of destruction that would have been necessary to depopulate the continent to the same extent that disease was able to. Thirdly, you allude to various sermons and writings that suggest that elements of setteler society welcomed the destruction of the indigenous population at the hands of disease; and I know that these exist because unlike you I have actually seen some of them in the archives with my own eyes. But by the same token I have seen material in the archives that proves that there were efforts to improve the conditions of the indigenous population. So you have to produce evidence that not only was the views you allude to dominant, but also that they would then translate into a coherant, universal and physical policy of extermination, had the pathogents not existed.

Manifestly you can't do any of the above; thus you're spouting absolute bullshit when you suggest that there is "little doubt" that the European settlers would have exteminated the entire indigenous population anyway; you can't even support the assertion that they would have been materially capable of that kind of wide spread destruction. One of the reasons why the defeat of the indigenous population was so complete was because their people were struck down by disease. By removing disease from the equation you very much the situation.




You are nothing but a well-trained academic dissembler and apologist for colonialism in left camoflauge, who throws around the word 'genocide' freely when your bourgeois masters give you permission to but then tirelessly work to change the definition of genocide when they are guilty.

LOL, when faced with reasoned debate as ever the crackpot authoritarian moron resorts to elaborate conspiricy theory and perjorative. Ignoring the ad hominem perjoratives levelled at my own character, more worrying is the more general dismissal of the wider dismissal of the historical profession and indeed the wider academic community. When the conclusions of these groups are incongruous with crackpot ideologues and demagogues such as yourself, the result is their dismissal, and through association the fruits of their research, on nebulous and un-substanciated grounds of association with shady forces within the upper-echalons of society seeking to disseminate erronious histories for dark and devious purposes that are only vaguely alluded to. Tell me, who are these purported 'bourgeois masters'? How have they infiltrated the historical community and, presumably, 'gotten' to individuals such as myself? What are their aims, and how have these aims been manifested within the academic community?

Indeed, how are you any different from othercrack pots, such as David Irving, whom rather ironically you compared to me in the other thread, who also purport there to be a conspiratorial agenda within academia? Indeed if we slightly alter your assertion, to bring it into line with other charges that have been levelled at me in the past by other groups of individuals with an interest in tarnishing the reputation of the historical profession:

"You are nothing but a well-trained academic dissembler and apologist for international jewery in left camoflauge, who throws around the word 'genocide' freely when your jewish masters give you permission to but then tirelessly work to change the definition of genocide when they are guilty."

[Barry Lyndon]

a)And can you show, through the actual act of contact, that the European settlers intended to destroy, in whole or in part, the indigenous population of the Americas?

b) Which is all totally anachronistic, and a responce to an argument nobody has actually made. Nobody has denied the brutality of European settlers, the point I made in the other thread revolved around the impact of disease being the primary cause of the population decline. But even if we accept your strawman (which I don't), and deal with it on its own terms as if I had made that argument (which I haven't), then we are still left with the issue of characterisation. For example, was the Sand Creek Massacre, which you cited, an example of genocide or an isolated act of unauthorised and unsanctioned mass murder conducted by a group of war criminals without the knowledge or consent of their superiors? In other words, is it part of a deliberate multi-national policy? Furthermore if we accept this action, then presumably we must also place equal weight by the attempts of European settlers, and indeed later actual governments, to improve the conditions of the remaining elements of the indigenous population; such as attempting to quell outbreaks of various epidemics among the indigenous population. What does this tell us?

c) Indeed, it seems that not only do you fail to grasp the basic historical events we are discussing, but you also have failed to apply basic arithmetic. On the assumption that each individual outbreak would only kill 20% of the population, which actually under-estimates a considerable number of individual outbreaks, such as the 1520-21 small-pox outbreak which is estimated to have killed upwards a quarter to a third of the population Mexico and Peru, among the most populous regions in the period, then it would still only require half a dozen individual outbreaks of that magnitude to reduce a population of 40 million to a quarter of that sum. And there were far more than a half dozen outbreaks of near biblical proportion, and that is how they were literally were described, over the course of the first 150 years of contact. Then it is necessary to consider the impact such widespread outbreaks of disease would have had on fertility, agriculture, and the basic economics of the society. At that point it doesn't require any leap of the imagination to understand why there was a population decrease of 80%, and that is before we factor in the brutalities of European expansionism"

d) "You are nothing but a well-trained academic dissembler and apologist for international jewery in left camoflauge, who throws around the word 'genocide' freely when your jewish masters give you permission to but then tirelessly work to change the definition of genocide when they are guilty."

I'll respond to your other points later, but here are some of my initial responses right off the bat:

a) Here's evidence of intent right here:

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/JacksonFifthAnnualMessage.htm

"My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."-President Andrew Jackson, 1833.

b) Except Col. John Chivington was never prosecuted, even though it was well-known what he had done. The US military and Congress had full powers to do so, but they didn't.

c) Except the Spaniards landed in Mexico in 1519, so the outbreak was a direct result of their invasion. Once more you are exposed as a liar.

d) Equating me with neo-Nazis. Neat trick.

Yes, we live in a capitalist society. Bourgeois ideology permeates every facet of that society, including academia. Therefore there is a huge interest in downplaying the genocide of indigenous Americans, because it undermines the entire basis of the American capitalist state.
It's so pervasive that even 'critical' 'leftists' like yourself are deluded into thinking that the dominant ideology is 'objective'.

[Invader Zim]

a) Here's evidence of intent right here:

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/J...ualMessage.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/JacksonFifthAnnualMessage.htm)

"My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."-President Andre Jackson, 1833.

This does not address my point at all, which again regards the impact of contact, not what came later. I have made this point repeatedly both in this thread and the previous. Try again.



b) Except Col. John Chivington was never prosecuted, even though it was well-known what he had done. The US military and Congress had full powers to do so, but they didn't.

And what do you suppose that is evidence of? A sanctioned intent to destroy at the heart of government? Of negligence? A desire to cover up for the military? A wider institutional racism? Furthermore, how do you intened to prove any of these to be the actual motive for failing to prosecute Chivington?



c) Except the Spaniards landed in Mexico in 1519, so the outbreak was a direct result of their invasion. Once more you are exposed as a liar.

And? How do you suppose that remotely reflects upon my point, which revolves around contact? Indeed what do you think you have prove, beyond my point for me? Which is that European contact with the indigenous population resulted in pathogens destroying vast portions of the latters population? Furthermore how have I 'lied'? Are you usually this confused? Indeed, do you actually grasp what it is I am arguing? In fact that is an interesting experiment; précis my argument.



d) Equating me with neo-Nazis. Neat trick.

Actually, you are the one who equated, dishonestly and inaccurately, my position with holocaust denial. I'm not actually equating you with anything, rather I am showing where your argument has been employed before. But apparently such unsubtle nuances are lost on you. I can't say I'm supprised.



Yes, we live in a capitalist society. Bourgeois ideology permeates every facet of that society, including academia. Therefore there is a huge interest in downplaying the genocide of indigenous Americans, because it undermines the entire basis of the American capitalist state.
It's so pervasive that even 'critical' 'leftists' like yourself are deluded into thinking that the dominant ideology is 'objective'.

Blah blah blah. I've heard it all before. As usual, all rhetoric no actual evidence provided or answered to basic questions answered. Again, "who are these purported 'bourgeois masters'? How have they infiltrated the historical community and, presumably, 'gotten' to individuals such as myself? What are their aims, and how have these aims been manifested within the academic community."

And again:

"Yes, we live in a Jewish capitalist society. Jewish ideology permeates every facet of that society, including academia. Therefore there is a huge interest in downplaying the murder of babies in Jewish blood ritual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Ritual_Murder) and the fabrication of the holocuast, because it undermines the entire basis of the Jewish world order.
It's so pervasive that even 'critical' 'leftists' like yourself are deluded into thinking that the dominant ideology is 'objective'."

I note your backpeddle too, one moment I am a willing part of the conspiricy, and now I am merely 'deluded' by the structural forces at work.

I'll tell you haw historians really operate; they examine the residue of the past that remains in the present day and attempt to establish facts from said residue. They then analyse those facts and attempt to construct an image of the past based on those facts. There are no 'bourgeois masters'. There is no conspiricy within the community of historians as a whole. You are deluded.

[Thirsty Crow]

@Invader Zim: Can you tell me, what are the basic methodological "devices" which are being employed in historiography when it comes to providing evidence/proving intent?

[Invader Zim]

@Invader Zim: Can you tell me, what are the basic methodological "devices" which are being employed in historiography when it comes to providing evidence/proving intent?

Like in all historical study; empiricism. If the sources exist you can discuss them, if they don't...

In the case of the initial transmission of disease as an act of 'genocide', as alleged by Barry, none because there is no evidence.

[Thirsty Crow]

Like in all historical study; empiricism. If the sources exist you can discuss them, if they don't...

But this is not what I was getting at.
Suppose a source exists...but there should also be an agreed "mechanism" of interpretation when it comes to written documents.
Do you see the problem I have here, with proving intent? It is problematic as hell since "intent" is a psychological phenomenon, and documents are linguistic, historical etc etc. phenomena...In other words, is there a mechanism for establishing links between the two kinds of phenomena?

[Invader Zim]

But this is not what I was getting at.
Suppose a source exists...but there should also be an agreed "mechanism" of interpretation when it comes to written documents.
Do you see the problem I have here, with proving intent? It is problematic as hell since "intent" is a psychological phenomenon, and documents are linguistic, historical etc etc. phenomena...In other words, is there a mechanism for establishing links between the two kinds of phenomena?
This strikes me as a false dichotomy. Why do you suppose that a document cannot simply prove intent because the author states their intentions and then couple those intentions with actions? Take for example, in the case of the holocaust, we have documents that openly state intent (and indeed morbid success in carrying out those intentions) to destroy at multiple levels of nazi hierarchy.

This is also something of a red herring. The European settlers and explorers of the 15th/16th centuries could not have possibility intended to destroy the entire native population simply through contact; they lacked the fundermental knowledge of the mechanisms of infection, and unless it can be proved otherwise this discussion is purely academic. Conversely the nazis, at every level of the heirarchy, knew exactly what would happen if you packed a room full of people, locked them in, and then released poison gas into the room; and then proceeded to turn this act of destruction into a near mechanised process in order to kill as many people as quickly as possible. This specific issue isn't one that requires a complex methodology, though I take your point on a broader level regarding proving intent.

[Nolan]

Invader Zim, if aliens ever come to earth, don't accept any blankets as "gifts."

You've come on here with an overtly rightist attitude toward history. You accuse Stalin of "genocide" without giving any details whatsoever. Tell me, when does it stop being a sober investigation and become a "whitewash" on the part of historians such as Getty? It appears it changes whenever you deem it convenient, since you yourself said "anybody who denies that Stalin's regime did not preside over a genocide is a liar or is woefuly ignorant." That is an appeal to authority/consensus. Getty if anyone does indeed engage in "whitewashing" in that he doesn't start from "Stalin was evil because he was a dictator and ruled a communist state - millions of people died while he was leader ergo he must be fully responsible" and work his way back from there. That's creationist methodology, and academia does indeed enable it when it comes to politically sensitive topics like Soviet history or economics (as Dean and IcarusAngel will tell you, at least). Getty escapes this. The "bourgeois masters" BL speaks of are really not people at all but common values and sentiments that permeate academia. For instance, R. J. Rummel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._J._Rummel) is one of the prime examples. An extremely political researcher, he writes wet dream alternate history fiction and advocates war to spread "democracy." He strongly supports the current imperialist wars. He denies global warming and accuses academia of a leftist bias. Yet somehow he is a major name in 20th century history. He accuses the USSR of an insane number of deaths, the kind you could only get by inflating numbers and putting Hitler's killings at Stalin's feet. He lays all deaths during the civil war at Lenin's feet. Empiricism my ass.

You repeatedly make some stupid comparison between the Marxist use of "bourgeois" and the nazi use of "jewish" (both ultimately their equivalent of "mainstream").

[Invader Zim]

You've come on here with an overtly rightist attitude toward history.

Accusing Stalin's regime of genocide is hardly 'rightist', unless of course commenting on the material realities of the past is inherently 'rightist'.


You accuse Stalin of "genocide" without giving any details whatsoever.

This thread is not about Stalin's genocide, it is about historians and historiography.


Tell me, when does it stop being a sober investigation and become a "whitewash" on the part of historians such as Getty?

I never said that Getty whitewashed anything - quite the reverse.I was actually talking about the 'work' of individuals such as Doug Tottle.

Comprehension clearly isn't your strong suit.

[pranabjyoti]

Men like invader Zim come here with BS deeprooted in their mind and start their arguing from that point. So, basically arguing with them is waste of time. To them, Furr and Getty are biased while bastards are like Rummel are honorable. I don't want to dishonor Kahn and Sears by drawing them in this mud throwing debate.
Why argue with a person who said the there is "no proof" of European colonial genocide and "Stalin is certainly a mass murderer".

[Invader Zim]

To them, Furr and Getty are biased

Me:

"J. Arch Getty [...] calls for a more sober investigation of Stalin's regime not a whitewash of his regime."

From this thread. Hardly an accusation of 'bias'.

0/1

As for Furr, if you employ the search engine tool and filter for posts by me which include 'Furr' you will come up with precisely one post: this one, which gives you an idea of how much I have discussed the man.

0/2


while bastards are like Rummel are honorable.

Well that certainly isn't true, I personally think that Rummel is an ideologue with a serious bone to pick with anything or anyone who isn't part of his weird brand of libertarian. His estimates regarding the alleged death toll of 'communism' are leagues ahead of even the least sober of studies (i.e. Conquest). I also recall reading that he is a bizarre conspiricy theorist who thinks that global warming is a hoax.

0/3


Why argue with a person who said the there is "no proof" of European colonial genocide

A better question is why do you lie when we can simply go back and read the relevent thread in question? From earlier in this thread:


"Now the actions of the European settlers, once we discount the impact of disease both in terms of outright population decline and the subsequent impact on birth-rates, are another matter worthy of serious and honest discussion".

So clearly I don't deny the brutalities of the European regimes in the New World. You're a liar, but worse you are a crass, obvious and foolish one.

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and "Stalin is certainly a mass murderer".

:rolleyes:

0/5

Fail.