Second Quiz – Major Controversies Re “The 1619 Project”

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johnkarls
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Second Quiz – Major Controversies Re “The 1619 Project”

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Second Short Quiz – Major Controversies Re “The 1619 Project”


Although Peter Wood’s “1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project” contains an incredible amount of detail about, primarily, the 5-6 areas in which “The 1619 Project” has drawn the most fire, the following questions address what we already knew about these topics before focusing on either Peter Wood’s “1620” or the NY Times’ “1619 Project.”


1. Was slavery new to the American colonies and America or, for example, were the Egyptian pyramids built by slaves, those Roman galleys propelled by slaves toiling over the oars, etc., etc.?

2. Was slavery common in the so-called “New World” before the arrival of Europeans – e.g., for cannibalism, for the sport of torture and, in Aztec culture, for the incredible amount of human sacrifice?

3. Was slavery omnipresent in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of the Central America, South America and the Caribbean long before the establishment of any English colonies in North America?

4. Did our 9/18/2019 meeting focus on the UN’s now 21-year campaign against “Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children”?

5. Did our 9/18/2019 Six Degrees of Separation E-mail Campaign point out –

(A) Per the United Nations, the overwhelming source of slaves (most for sex but some for forced labor, organ harvesting, etc.) come from refugee camps whose residents are so desperate to escape intolerable conditions that they are willing to believe the lies of Organized Crime and “jump from the frying pan into the fire”!!!

(B) Although refugee camps are intended to meet basic human needs for a short time, many have existed for decades.

(C) And despite the UN’s [now 21-year] Campaign Against “Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,” the U.N. reports that Human Trafficking is a LARGER business for Organized Crime than illegal drugs!!! And LARGER than illegal guns!!!

(D) There are more slaves today than ever throughout history per Prof. Siddharth Kara, Director of Harvard’s Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery -- indeed, at least TWICE AS MANY people are CURRENTLY TRAPPED in some form of slavery as were traded throughout the 350 years of the transatlantic slave industry!!!

6. Is today’s average retail price of a slave in North America only $5,250 of which organized crime’s profit is $2,400? Is this the reason why the average retail price of a sex act in North America is only $27.50? What other industry offers annual revenue PER "EMPLOYEE" of $90,648 and, after deducting costs (food, shelter, bribes, etc.) of only $32,633, an annual net profit of $58,015 – with no workforce training? Is it any wonder that the average life expectancy of an American sex slave is only 35?

7. Can you order your slave for next-day delivery in the U.S. from Amazon.com?

8. Can you use your slave for things in addition to sex? For example, house cleaning, mowing the lawn, etc.? Or if you own a farm or vineyard, working long days in the fields?

9. Did Prof. Siddharth Kara, Director of Harvard’s Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery, report that in addition to an inability to speak English and having no money as preventing slaves from escaping – A MAJOR FACTOR IS BRUTALITY FOR DISOBEDIENCE SUCH AS BEING MURDERED WITH THEIR THROATS SLASHED IN FRONT OF OTHER SLAVES AS A WARNING?

10. Has the New York Times exhibited any interest in supporting the United Nations 21-year campaign to eliminate modern-day slavery in America???

11. Does Peter Wood’s “1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project” describe in painstaking detail the criticisms of the nation’s most-prestigious historians which focus primarily on –

(A) Nikole Hannah-Jones’ claim that slavery was central to the founding of the English colonies in America.

(B) Nikole Hannah-Jones’ claim that the American Revolution was fought to protect American slave owners from the prospect that England might banish slavery in its colonies.

(C) Nikole Hannah-Jones’ claim that President Lincoln was a racist whose primary intent was to keep Blacks and whites separate.

(D) Nikole Hannah-Jones’ claim that “For the most part, black Americans fought back alone.”

(E) Matthew Desmond’s claim that plantation slavery was the foundation of American capitalism.

(F) The thesis of the entire “1619 Project” that the nation’s history is best understood as a struggle by American blacks against white supremacy.

12. Re the claim that slavery was central to the founding of the English colonies in America, did Yours Truly carpe the diems occasioned by the cancellation of our 4/11/2018 meeting for lack of a quorum by researching thoroughly the fact that Harvard University was known for the first TWO CENTURIES OF ITS EXISTENCE as “Cambridge University in New England”?

13. Following Henry VIII taking the English branch of the Catholic Church away from The Vatican in 1534, did England experience a long-term religious-based civil war that resulted in the execution of King Charles in 1649? Was the University of Cambridge the center of rebellion even though rebellion existed all over the nation from town to town and family to family? Were the Puritans (modern day Congregationalists) who landed at Plymouth Rock MA in 1620 victims of religious persecution? Did they found in 1636 “The University of Cambridge in New England” to educate their own clergy and physicians? Did it morph into a university in its own right with the establishment of Harvard Divinity School in 1816 and Harvard Law School in 1817?

14. Re the claim that the American Revolution was fought to protect American slave owners from the prospect that England might banish slavery in its colonies, did the New York Times not only face massive criticism from the nation’s most-prestigious historians, BUT ALSO AN ARTICLE IN POLITICO WRITTEN BY ONE OF THE 1619 PROJECT’S OWN HISTORY CONSULTANTS THAT SAID SHE HAD WARNED THE NY TIMES THAT THIS WAS WRONG???

15. Did the NY Times 5 days later on 5/11/2020, retreat by saying that only “some of” the colonists thought England might banish slavery in its colonies?

16. Does Peter Woods correctly point out that anyone who has passed a course English knows that “all” (as claimed by Nikole Hannah-Jones) means approximately 2.5 million colonists out of approximately 2.5 million colonists? And that “some” only means “more than one” out of the approximately 2.5 million colonists? Accordingly, does the NY Times retreat appear to be an attempt to confuse the public with what we have always called “word-smithing”?

17. Have we always pointed out that President Lincoln receives a lot more praise than he is due?

18. For example, isn’t his so-called “Emancipation Proclamation” of 9/22/1862 credited with freeing American slaves?

19. But wasn’t Lincoln’s stated reason for fighting the Civil War “to preserve the Union” which succeeded in persuading 6 (count them, six!!!) “slave states” to remain in the Union?

20. And wasn’t Lincoln’s 9/22/1862 “Emancipation Proclamation” nothing more than AN ULTIMATUM issued pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief power (A) to declare free ONLY THE SLAVES who WOULD BE AS OF 1/1/1963 “held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people of which shall be in rebellion against the United States….” and (B) to offer each of the Confederacy’s slaves freed pursuant to Part A (IF ANY, of which there were very few) immediate employment (for those who met military standards) in the Union Army/Navy?

21. Did the actual freeing of the slaves in the 11 Confederate States have to wait until the Union Army/Navy actually freed them (NB: Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before the end of the war)?

22. And did the actual freeing of the slaves in the 6 “slave states” that did NOT join the Confederacy (and, accordingly, were NOT freed according to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation/Ultimatum) have to await the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which did not occur until after the end of the war?

23. But who cares whether or not Lincoln actually wanted to free the slaves and integrate them into American society??? Isn’t it wonderful that the northern states fought a long and bloody civil war against The Confederacy in which 750,000 soldiers died (putting aside civilian deaths) BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO ABOLISH SLAVERY!!!???

24. However, isn’t Nikole Hannah-Jones correct that “For the most part, black Americans fought back alone” because “Reconstruction” following the Civil War soon gave way to “Jim Crow”?

25. And didn’t the “Jim Crow” era feature America’s WORST PRESIDENT EVER (at least in the opinion of the participants of our past meetings)?

26. Didn’t the “Gentleman from Georgia” (Woodrow Wilson) not only fool the public by surreptitiously loading passenger ships (such as the Lusitania) with munitions for Britain IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW vis-à-vis neutral (vs. belligerent) nations, knowing/hoping that they would be sunk IN ACCORDANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW?

27. But didn’t Woodrow Wilson also fire all of the Blacks from U.S. government employment??? And didn’t he SEGREGATE the U.S. armed forces with an Executive Order???

28. Re Matthew Desmond and his claim about the foundation of American capitalism, hadn't we already become aware of Prof. Desmond when his “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” was the focus book for our 5/18/2016 meeting and when he still taught at Harvard (John L. Loeb Professor of the Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Justice and Poverty Project)?

29. As a preliminary matter in considering America’s treatment of its Permanent 30% Under-Caste, haven’t we always concluded that the basic problem is America’s refusal to provide a decent education for said Permanent 30% Under-Caste? Which results primarily from America’s insistence on financing K-12 public education with property taxes while America’s inner cities have no significant property-tax base? Though there are many other reasons such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Parents vs. Seattle School District No. 1 which was the “last nail in the coffin” for bussing and WHICH CONSTITUTED (IN JONATHAN KOZOL’S TERMS) “THE RESTORATION OF APARTHEID SCHOOLING IN AMERICA”?

30. BTW, haven’t we documented that the New York Times has a long history through the present-day of OPPOSING providing America’s Permanent 30% Under-Caste with a decent education?

31. NEVERTHELESS, in terms of Matthew Desmond’s claims about American capitalism (as distinguished from lack of education) as being the true “root cause” of American poverty, haven’t we always agreed that American capitalism features a “War on American Workers” 1993-2016 which featured exporting American jobs to China and other low-wage countries?

32. Has the N.Y. Times ever shown much interest in combatting America’s “War on Workers” and the exportation of American jobs?

33. So wouldn’t it be more accurate, instead of viewing the nation’s history as best understood as a struggle by American blacks against white supremacy – rather as best understood by our study at our 2/14/2008 meeting 13.5 years ago, of “Homo Politicus” by the Washington Post’s long-time liberal OpEd Columnist, Dana Milbank, who is syndicated nationally, and “The Squandering of America” by Robert Kuttner, Brandeis U Prof and former long-time liberal columnist for Business Week who continues to write columns for The Huffington Post and The New York Times?

34. Wasn’t the thesis of both Dana Milbank and Robert Kuttner that “The Establishment” (defined as the billionaires who “own” both political parties, who “own” many, if not most, members of the Mainstream Media, and who “own” many members of academia) have conducted a “War on American Workers” since 1993 in the form of exporting American jobs via so-called “free trade” agreements and in the form of REVERSING THE OUTCOME OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR by importing “slave laborers” (illegal immigrants who cannot complain about any conditions meted out to them for fear of being reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, aka I.C.E.)?

35. Was our study of Dana Milbank and Robert Kuttner the main reason why we have ever since called the American government “the best government money can buy”???

36. Despite all the turmoil regarding the historical accuracy of “The 1619 Project,” is the real reason why it has become such an explosive political issue in America as dozens of American states have banned, or are considering banning, the teaching of “The 1619 Project” in their public schools -- really the result of the lesson plans with which it is taught? Do those lesson plans often teach students to self-identify on the basis of skin color and to hate fellow students who have white skin?

37. After all this “sturm and drang”, isn’t the wisest approach to take vis-à-vis “The 1619 Project” the one adopted by Condoleezza Rice in CBS’ “Meet the Press” on June 6?

38. For those of us who don’t recall her credentials, did Condoleezza Rice serve (inter alia) as Provost of Stanford University (1993-1999); U.S. National Security Adviser (2001-2005); U.S. Secretary of State (2005-2009); Stanford U. Political Science Professor 2009-2020 (while wearing a “second hat” 2010-2020 as Stanford Business School’s Director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy); and since 9/1/2020 as Executive Director of Stanford U’s Hoover Institution?

39. Are her comments contained in our 6/12/2021 weekly newsletter announcing the focus for our 7/14/2021 meeting which is available at viewtopic.php?f=645&t=2071&sid=37d13465 ... 3c7376ef2e?

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