An OPEN SHOUT to Heather Cox Richardson
An OPEN SHOUT to Heather Cox Richardson
I have a big bone to pick with HCR, and because of how unreachable she is I am attempting to pick some of that bone here... The more this is shared the more possibility it will reach her...
I also have some history with HCR, which reveals a little bit in this piece…
WHEN are you going to stop being merely a publicist and social influencer for Biden, and an apologist and intellectual shield for the neoliberal middle and ruling class status quo in the face of world collapse, and begin to make an honest and articulated stand for a CEASEFIRE in Gaza and Palestine...??? As a start on some responsibility regarding the major influence you wield...??
By your increasingly ongoing lack of actions and words, your well considered and articulated distractions, and your selective "head in the sand" ways since Biden was elected, you are continuing to give huge numbers of middle and upper class neoliberals, over whom you gained some opportunistic and serendipitous influence with your early, scholarly and intelligent “letters” mostly in opposition to Trump, more and more excuses to keep pretending the world looks exactly like the pretty and safe “walls” of their expensively maintained, decorated and furnished bubbles, with just a few select, highly spun, propagandized and filtered flashes of reality allowed past their guarded and regulated ideological gates...
With you being one of their major gatekeepers... Along with of course all the many highly paid corporate mainstream "media mirrors," "personalities" and “liberal” talking heads, who along with you reflect back to them only what supports their adamantly held on to isolation, views, self imagery and beliefs...
In other words more and more refined, well-reasoned and defended excuses, sort of like 'walled-thinking' examples, for all your neoliberal followers to adopt and identify with, so as to help maintain their collective big-bubble beliefs in separation from all the very real and urgent concerns and experiences of the large majority of people in the U.S., the literally overwhelming majority of people in the world, and not to mention separate (in identity & ideology) from our planet, our natural world’s rapid decline, climate upheavals, and countless declining and disappearing life forms...
And this irregardless of all the "bleeding heart" faux environmental and social concerns they and you like to display on your ideological identity "boards,” aka puffed up chests… And also all the while as they and you continue to neither allow nor recognize any sort of actual concessions or (god forbid) real changes to your extremely affluent, resource, labor (other people's), technology and energy dependent lifestyles, positions, relative wealth, and privileges...
You are also, since early in the Trump "administration," being hugely financially rewarded for maintaining all these class facades of appearance and deception for your peers, superiors, admirers, followers and sycophants... Literally many millions a year these days just from Substack, going by informed reporting from people who are familiar with Substack...
And if you dare to claim to believe that these huge financial rewards have no influence on your keeping all these neoliberal class bubbles of belief going, intact and defended, you will only and merely reveal yourself to be just as disingenuous and dishonest as all of the very same people you appear (pretend?) to oppose...
The functional point here being that there can be no reasonable, repeat reasonable financial fears (other than greed) behind your NOT speaking up... You have also acquired some huge social and political power and influence, in company with some extremely powerful friends and connections... So it is also very un-likely that Boston University would be able to fire you... Something I’m sure you know…
In these current historical (emphasize "historical") moments of Gaza and the Middle East, and with your present lack of words and action in these regards, you are helping all these middle and upper class neoliberals that have gathered around you to also continue to believe that all of the "head in the sand" privileges, affluence and entitlement, that they and you are immensely "used" to and identified with, is righteous, pretty, logical, reasonable, filtered, clean, unchallenged, good, and, most importantly, “ideologically safe"...
In other words you are helping all these aforementioned folks excuse, rationalize and maintain yours and their "simple" binary world(s), as in "we are the good guys and all them others are various levels, dimensions and degrees of the not-so-good and bad guys"... The thing about shared delusions like these is that everybody needs everybody else repeating all the same delusions to each other, so they can keep feeling good and "wise" about their collective malformed beliefs...
You keep giving them an anchor, "rational" feel-good stories, ideological walls they can easily identify with, and most importantly a neoliberal scholarly expert “center” (you), around which they can keep swirling all their intertwined identities, without ever having to feel lost from their also unique individual delusions and self imagery…
All the while as you are also clearly maneuvering to gain ever more privileges, affluence and entitlement, by continuing to "prove" yourself through fighting "against" Trump and the Repugs, and by aligning and entrenching yourself ever more deeply with the U.S. liberal ruling classes and their mainstream “elites,” oligarchs and powerbrokers...
To excuse yourself by saying you are only an "American historian" or a "historian of America," conveniently of course forgetting that America is far, far more than merely the U.S. (and most importantly "forget" Manifest Destiny), is to continue the very same illusions of an "American" world stage grandiosity that continues to be dominated and manipulated by the politically powerful, wealthy and elite classes of our country, for-bloody-ever (so to speak)...
In other words the illusions that only U.S. “American” history matters, and even then only via the perspectives and points of view of "our" (your) affluent "educated" liberal classes... Which just keeps reinforcing, more and more, Biden and his administration's actions and beliefs that the U.S. is separate (apart, above, isolated) from and therefore the continuing primary and necessary holder of power over the rest of the world... A "position" that the U.S. took over and expanded out of the remnants of European colonialism after WWII...
A hold that U.S. ruling class liberals, as well as ruling class conservatives, MAGAs, fascists, libertarians and otherwise, all agree must be protected and extended at all costs, no matter how much it becomes “necessary” to sacrifice truth, lives, interconnections, natural environments, the earth’s climate, whole other countries and ethnicities, and whole other classes of people... Paying for the most part merely lip service, along with some occasional superficial acts mostly for appearances and campaign purposes, to all of our world’s very real collective concerns regarding all these human and natural matters...
THESE are the illusions that you continue to promote in spades, by your behavior and highly visible absences from current reality... Shovel-fulls in fact... Separation, separation, separation, and of course all the illusions of power and privilege these imaginings of separation seem to give you and the people you serve....
Instead, you "could," IF you actually cared about more than merely yourself and the people living within your ruling and middle class neoliberal bubble(s), put some actual fire and influence to the feet of (aka the neoliberal political ground under) Biden, AND to the feet of aka ground under all the people that are around him and supporting him...
But no, instead you are too busy building up your credentials and clout, so you can keep joining with them in larger and larger ways...
And, by doing so, you are joining with Biden in actually HELPING TRUMP (or, if the effort to keep the orange menace off the ballot is successful a more intelligent and palatable MAGA Repug fascist clone replacement candidate) gain more and more possibilities of winning in November... And of course, if THAT happens, all your highly refined, educated and "intelligent" (calculated) influence will have backfired hugely on you, as well as on all the people you keep aligning with... Just as it backfired in 2016, with Hillary and the DNC blocking Bernie via DNC political machinations and manipulations…
But the worse part is of course what it will do for most of the rest of us here in the U.S., for the people of the world, for the environment and other life forms, for climate change, etc., etc... Even you know that Trump (or a replacement Fascist clone) in the White House, in light of all the many, many broader and very serious circumstances nationally and globally, is not going to be held back or stopped…
But of course, you and the upper echelons of the classes you align with and serve will be able to "buy" get-out-of-jail-free cards even in a rightwing fascist "American" totalitarian oligarchic feudal nationstate... All ruling class neoliberals know this instinctively – that is, know that most of your privileges and entitlements will still be purchasable...
Trump or a clone may do "dirty" with a few “liberals,” special examples perhaps, but most, if fascists actually gain the White House, will tacitly join with them… JUST as most of the upper and middle class "liberals" did in Germany in the 30s and 40s... And EVEN as the world, societies, communities, climate and the environment as a whole, for the rest of us (humans and non-humans) will be destroyed and trampled under (as in what is happening in Gaza right now), even much greater and faster than Biden and his administration is presently ALREADY wrecking, by his actions and inactions...
Biden is well reported via multiple venues as, earlier in his career, saying, in so many words, that if there was not an Israel in the Middle East the U.S. would have had to invent one, in order to have the major influence the U.S. "empire" (my term) needs and requires in the Middle East... When he said that, the Zionist Israelis had ALREADY been killing, containing, imprisoning, displacing, forcing into diaspora and destroying the homes and towns of multiple tens of thousands of Palestinians for over fifty years...
And so, the exact same could easily be said regarding Trump – that if there were not a Trump and extreme MAGAs, Repugs, etc., then ruling neoliberals, the DNC and Biden would have to invent them or similar... In order to have excuses for their own manipulations and machinations, as well as somewhere “else” to blame and project all their own deceit upon… And to some significant degree, however unconsciously or not, they (and you) actually did and do have a large hand in Trump, his clones and the fascist extremists continuing to come into more and more power and influence...
And just as it is presently backfiring in spades for the U.S. and its "Western" empire in the Middle East, it is and god forbid will backfire even worse here in the U.S., if the Biden and DNC and their continuing cultivated ignorance allows fascists to gain the White House... Which they seem to be getting closer and closer to doing...
Calling a spade a spade is not name calling, it is saying to you, Heather Cox Richardson, stop calling yourself a shovel (aligning yourself with separation) and become a bloody functional spade... Well over a hundred thousand civilians, mostly women, children and old people, have now been killed, wounded, maimed and/or buried beneath the rubble in Gaza in just 114 days as I write, via mostly U.S. provided bombs, weapons and other munitions...
This is something that Biden could have, with some wisdom, conscience, heart and backbone, for the most part stopped in its earliest days... But instead he continues to support this latest "historical" holocaust and genocide by an apartheid state politically, diplomatically, financially and militarily...
And it will soon become twice and ten times that hundred thousand, with more U.S. bombs, munitions, starvation, dehydration, lack of medical supplies, and disease... AND yet, it is, even in these moments, STILL possible for Biden to stop it…
But, no, instead, he continues to extend, fan, support and expand this genocide, politically, diplomatically, domestically, financially and militarily... And now he and the U.S. is directly on its own bombing also Yemen and its poverty stricken people, using the Houthi's attempts to stop the bombing and killing in Gaza by blocking shipping in the Red Sea (without yet killing even one person as I write) as an excuse...
And you Heather continue to offer excuses (especially by all that is glaringly ABSENT from your words), superficial, unrelated and distracting U.S. historical details and Biden campaign memes and narratives to your neoliberal middle and ruling class circles and followers, all in order to help the folks in these "worlds" keep their bubble(s) of exclusivity and privilege ongoing and "secure," supported by your for the most part empty-of-actual-reality-and-substance, class-centered dogmas... You are clearly – purposely, firmly and selectively – leaving out literally anything that threatens their or your illusions of separation and accompanying special identities of entitlement...
You are no longer merely a college historian or even a scholar, you are a HUGE INFLUENCER over some powerful groups of people, aka, and not to belabor it too much more, the U.S. middle and upper class neoliberals, educated "liberal" middle and upper-middle class professionals, and middle and upper level business folks...
When you systematically ignore something, and it is clearly systematic on your part, however much you avoid noticing this about yourself, it gives all these same above mentioned folks an ideological and social license to also ignore it, across the board, without ever looking back... In other words you have become a huge enabler in the highly cultivated and "educated" ignorance that the Biden Administration is right there smack dab in the middle of promoting, distorting and enforcing...
To say you are "only a historian doing my job” is not different than a guard in a WWII German concentration camp saying "I was only a guard following orders"... You are only and merely more "distant," not just in miles but even more importantly in your ideological, class, race, profession, religion, language, etc., etc. attachments and positions, from what are the same horrors, just as everyone here in the U.S. is similarly responsible or not to some degree, who sees what is happening and keeps silent in the face of it... And in our world of today concepts like "distance," whether it be miles or any other of our myriad human dimensions, ideologies and beliefs, are becoming more and more irrelevant and meaningless...
In other words, merely more "distant" from say the cockpits of the pilots who are "just" following orders, as they drop U.S. provided bombs on a civilian population that is largely women, children and old people... More explosive power has now been dropped on Gaza than three (3) Hiroshimas…! And it continues... In an area pretty near the same exact size as Philadelphia, PA...
It was EXACTLY this very SAME "silence" that enabled Hitler and his henchmen to come to power and build a military industrial machine, and for the Holocaust of the 1930s and 40s to happen...
Here is a recently published and clear demonstration of some of the horror that your own dense, deafening and hugely influential, repeat HUGELY influential silence is supporting and enabling: https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=895702239012651
And dear Heather, I have fully earned a right to speak to you in these ways... I put well over 80 hours a week every week for over a year, supporting your efforts in major ways, as the primary admin of a preeminent 39K member HCR “unofficial” discussion room Facebook group... An effort that had some huge appreciation and positive recognition during that time from and by a whole lot of the people around you... An effort that also continues along some different tangents in another much smaller venue, and not near so many hours thankfully... The story of our "old" much larger FB group, and the transition that many of us in our current FB group experienced, can be found here: https://www.unofficialhcr.com/
My thinking and perspectives in relationship to you and your class bubbles have grown and evolved a lot since then, and hugely so since Oct 7... I really and honestly no longer see you Heather as helpful to what ails our world... Not here in the U.S., and certainly not globally...
I actually instead see you now as a central and influential example of what is really a big part of our collective human problem on this planet, all the while as it is being shaped, defined and further distorted by the U.S. government, the U.S. administration, the U.S military, and "our" U.S. centered transnational corporations and financial institutions...
And so you have now also become a perfect sounding board and mirror for all that, as well as a "path" or terrain, in a sense, for delving into some of the deeper and more systemic discontinuities, dis-ease and reasons our country and, through what are some major U.S. empire extensions, the world, is suffering from... Emphasize "extension," for the U.S. empire is the most distinct, powerful and biggest by far "blob" lying at the very core as well as on the face of all that our planet and its human and non-human communities are suffering from...
In other words, the U.S., more than any other country by far, is driving what is happening on our planet now… Environmentally, politically, diplomatically, militarily, climatically, economically, technologically, ideologically, on and on...
The conversational landscape of our species really needs to become MUCH bigger and more open, for all earth-life's sake... And so I continue to attempt to push on some key folks like you, however much or little I can reach them, into some greater conversational terrain, against and even in the midst of a huge lot of ideological, personal, class and societal resistance and backlash…
We humans, and especially I, because it is what my heart says, need to be doing everything possible towards CHANGING, aka evolving, in some positive ways… In other words towards being a whole interconnected species no longer separate from itself, each other, or the rest of earth-life...
My bone of contention with you, HCR, is you could increase the conversational landscape MUCH more vastly, effectively and dimensionally than I could ever even barely slightly hope to do on my own... More than almost anyone else I can imagine right now actually, here in these current U.S. (& geopolitical) circumstances... Plus there is, as mentioned, some extensive personal history, or may I say standing, regarding you, for me...
🙏🌻
Talent, Oregon
Winter 2024
