In his support for #1619Project historical falsification and #MeToo witchhunting, Jeet Heer remains true to the traditions of the publication for which he writes, The Nation. 1/
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1491900200310513665
This rotting flagship of American liberal reformism is ineradicably marked by its endorsement in the 1930s of the Moscow Trials and the Stalinist terror, which resulted in the extermination of the entire generation of Russian Marxists who had led the 1917 October Revolution. 2/
Trotsky described the editors and writers of The Nation as the "priests of half-truths," that is, as the most cynical of liars. Trotsky related their alliance with the Stalinist bureaucracy to the political and intellectual bankruptcy of American reformists. He wrote: 3/
"Their philosophy reflects their own world. By their social nature they are intellectual semibourgeois. They feed upon half-thoughts and half-feelings. They wish to cure society by half-measures... 4/
"Thus, these people, living by half-truths - that is, the worst form of falsehood - have become a genuine brake upon truly progressive, i.e., revolutionary thought." Later, commenting on The Nation's coverup of an attempt by the Soviet secret police on his life, Trotsky wrote: 5/
"What an infamous reptile breed these radicals of the Nation! But they will not escape their punishment: we shall teach the American workers to appreciate them as they deserve – to despise them." This was written in 1940. The Nation has not improved with age. 6/
The Nation has been deprived since 1991 of the Soviet bureaucracy's patronage, but the "reptile breed's" hatred of Trotskyism - that is, revolutionary socialism -- has not diminished. And along with that hatred, lying remains a key component of its writers' modus operandi. 7/
Heer denounces the WSWS exposure of the #1619Project as a "vendetta," as if the systematic factually grounded refutation of demonstrably false statements about the American Revolution and Civil War are the equivalent of a revenge-driven blood feud. 8/
The foundational claim of the 1619 Project is that the American rebellion against Britain was a counter-revolution undertaken in defense of slavery, supposedly threatened by Britain's plans to abolish the institution. Does Heer agree with this claim? 9/
As for his attack on the WSWS's opposition to #MeToo witchunting, why doesn't Heer tell us with what progressive, let alone socialist, tradition the denial of presumption of innocence and due process is identified? 10/
As for the latest episode at Harvard, aside from the allegations made against Professor Comaroff by his accusers, what are the established facts upon which Heer bases his support for the scholar's removal from his teaching post? There are none. 11/
Were an allegation of harassment to be made against Heer himself, would he accept as legitimate his immediate firing and the blacklisting of his writings? Would he expect, as a matter of course, to be deserted by his friends and colleagues? 12/
Finally, in an act consistent with his unquestioning defense of MeToo's principle that allegation signifies guilt, would Heer abase himself before petty-bourgeois public opinion and denounce himself? 13/13
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