Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 18:02:43 -0700
From: David Horowitz <Dhorowitz@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [sixties-l] Re: The Black Panthers
I guess Art gets a few special privileges ("intellectual dishonesty"
"so-called analysis"). The difference you and me Art is that I gave you very
concrete instances of Panther criminality, complete with references. I am
attaching to this post my account of my life with the Panthers which you will
see is full of the kind of detail that can be checked. You are an agnostic on
whether the Panthers killed Betty Van Patter but I'll bet you can tell me
whether Mumia or Angela Davis or the Rosenbergs are innocent or guilty. Why
the big problem here. "Progressive" journalists like Hugh Pearson, David Weir,
Ken Kelley and Hugh Pearson have all written about this case and confirmed
what I have have reported. Before you sling abusive phrases like "intellectual
dishonesty," have the courtesy to confront something I've said with a fact
that refutes it.
Why don't you try your hand at telling us why a black man like you should be
so patronizing to Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, David Hilliard, Elaine Brown and
other Panther leaders. Why would think that they are controlled by their
"lumpen" status, and that criminality was not a choice they made of their own
free will. Do think it serves the black communityh to have the three of them
who are still alive touring the country lying about their pasts, pretending
that the FBI destroyed a Party that they destroyed themselves?
Hugh Pearson is a black journalist about your age who has written a book about
the Panthers, based on interviews with the Panthers themselves. Pearson
idolized them and set out to write a favorable book. What he came up with is
pretty much what I have been saying for the last 20 years. If you are serious
about finding out what happened, you will take a look at what Pearson has
written.
I don't think you understood my point about Melvin or others. I was answering
your claim that "Society" is to blame for the Panthers' crimes. You're right
that just because the Panthers were criminals doesn't in itself refute the
idea of the left (I've made that argument at length in Radical Son and The
Politics of Bad Faith). But it does suggest that the left's enemies in these
battles -- particularly law enforcement -- were far more accurate in seeing
who the Panthers were than the "freedom movement" as you call it. How are you
going to do any better at changing the world (assuming that is a possibility)
if you take an agnostic view of this past and refuse to come to terms with
what the left actually did -- as opposed to what it claims to have done?
On Machiavelli: Look, no political criminal ever said to himself I'm doing
this for me. It's always for the cause. Well, I take that back. In Radical
Son, I recount a scene that was reported to me by someone who was there. It
was after Huey had killed the 18 year old Kathleen Smith -- a prostitute who
made the mistake of calling him "baby" when he was high on cocaine. He told
this friend of mine that this was the first time he had killed someone that
was not for political reasons. Well, he had killed quite a few people,
including Betty, and committed quite a lot of criminal mayhem (drive by
shootings in which he shotgunned the doorman at an after hours club for
example), that only a sociopath would call "political." And that's the
problem.
Young people like you have learned nothing from the past because like previous
generations of leftists you are quick to dismiss the testimony of people like
me, who are the only people who can tell you the truth. You don't have to
agree with my conclusions, but you can't learn if you dismiss what I say
without listening, which is what you have done so far.
Art McGee wrote:
<snip>
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