If there WAS a broad mass-based left-wing revolution during a Democratic presidency...

[Ken Burch]

62. The thing is, as far as I know, nobody actually WAS asking why Nat Turner was the only revolt leader

DURING the slavery era.


anyone was, they were asking DECADES LATER...talking about history. Genovese implied that white middle-class leftists had been accusing slaves of cowardice, and the charge is a despicable lie. There was nothing wrong at all with asking that question in the 20th Century, when the slaves were long-dead, and the question was asked(as it would always have been)without sanctimony or malice. Genovese's example is a strawman of the worst kind-and it was part of his later years scorched Earth campaign against everyone on the Left. That is why I object so strongly to your invocation of it here.

Genovese is simply one scholar on the Left...a scholar who ended his days as a vindictive scold...and as a person who unjustly bashed the entire Left as evil in his "The Question" essay, he hardly qualifies as a "Gramscian Marxist". Genovese, as a former CP member, simply(and unjustly)applies his own guilt as a one-time Stalinist to everyone else on the Left of sharing his complicity. That essay discredits everything else he wrote(including the essay where he mentioned Nat Turner while accusing people on the Left of asking an insensitive question that hardly anyone actually asked, and that none asked out of malice).

And no, the Democratic Party ISN'T the existing order. The party holds the presidency(nominally)and has a narrow majority in the Senate, but they don't really set the agenda. Corporate power does that, and without any real challenge from most of OUR party's leaders. The political parties simply obey the corporations(with the Democrats being slightly progressive on issues that corporation don't object to progressive change about.

Finally...I'm just one person expressing my views. I'm not "supremely confident"...it's just that I feel I have as much right to post my views as anyone else does. Should I show some special deference to someone here? If so, to whom? or to what?