Left-Wing History, Fake Radical History, and Antislavery - Matt Karp

On The Jacobin Show, historian Matt Karp discusses the different schools of left-wing history and what socialists can learn from the mass politics of the antislavery movement.
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[@HarveyJKaye-lb6do]

The time has come for us to remember who we are and what that demands. The time has come for us to embrace our radical history. The history of how a generation of Americans high and low and in all their diversity not only turned their colonial rebellion into a war for independence, but also imbued American life - whether they all intended it or not - with radical imperative and impulse by declaring a revolutionary promise of freedom, equality, and democracy for all. The history of how generations of radicals and reformers served as the prophetic memory of that promise and how generations of ordinary men and women, native-born and immigrant, struggled to make real the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and to expand not only the We in We the People, but also the powers of the people. And most especially in view of the crises we ourselves face, the history of how our greatest generations confronted and prevailed over the forces that threatened to destroy the nation and bury its revolutionary promise in the 1770s, 1860s, and 1930s and 1940s (not to mention the 1960s), by acting to make the United States - both inspired by Washington, Lincoln, and FDR and pushing them to go further than they might otherwise have gone - radically freer, more equal, and more democratic than ever before. The time has come to take hold of that history and make America radical again.

[@bengallup9321]

Awesome talk. This is why I think history is so important to understand.

[@odieseventeen1077]

Great convo and Jen is clearly in love with Matt and so am I

[@JacobinMag]

Everyone is in love with Matt

[@odieseventeen1077]

@@JacobinMag fixed

[@mafuyu9063]

He's pretty good looking 🥰

[@bbqnice1]

@@mafuyu9063 yes I want to congratulate everyone on loving him despite the ease of envy and resentment, which I feel toward him for his smarts and good looks

[@thepracticalextremist8301]

Zinn talks about all of the struggles in his book what are you talking about, it’s also the case that industrialists in the north had a series of political disputes with the south, the two exist simultaneously, you can’t just say it feels like it was mass movement that did it not the motivating forces of capital therefore that’s the case lol, complete uncharitable read of zinn without dealing with a single one of the claims

[@JosephMitchellMitchell]

😢 AH "" U KNOW, AH , EH 😢 THESE ARE TERRIBLE PUBLIC SPEAKERS
OH OM OM 😮

[@johnmeyer2072]

Matt is spot on about so much about how movements and social revolutions can become effective in achieving their goals.

[@rickgoodman3687]

While I don't think Prof Karp fully grasps Howard Zinn (or he didn't communicate very convincingly about Zinn in this short talk), I do want to read his articles and book.

[@majinbuu518]

Its ok Karp, don’t blame you for ducking Dinesh, he’s too op for you.

[@knicklas48]

Karp is all "ah,ah,ah, yuh know, ah". And this person teaches in an Ivy League school?? How the mighty have fallen.