Sidney, Hilton, Cornel, (and David)

JCWisc at aol.com JCWisc at aol.com
Wed Jun 26 17:28:43 PDT 2002


In a message dated 06/25/2002 5:43 PM Central Daylight Time, Max Sawicky wrote:


> Maybe we should all get used copies of David Horowitz'
> econ book and start talking it up. That might be the thing
> that would get him to snap altogether.
>
> mbs

An speaking of, was Horowitz always loony or did he flip at some point before he became a right-winger. Anybody know?

Whenever I hear Horowitz's name, I recall the atmosphere of the SF Bay Area when I lived there from the mid-70s to early 80s. Back then, you often used to see young white leftists trying to peddle Black Panther literature to the lunchtime crowds of office workers in the SF financial district. I was not especially political then, but this struck me at the time as a singularly poor way for would-be activists to spend their time and energy. To my mostly white and Asian working-class co-workers, these people might just as well have been from outer space.

That was Horowitz's line then, which he expounded with great vigor: general and uncritical left-wing support for the Black Panther Party as some sort of revolutionary vanguard, with the white working masses to follow in their train, any day now. Strange as it is to recall now, in the bay area of the day one occasionally ran into lefties who espoused similar views. Loony, no?

And especially so by 1978.

(For several years, I lived next door to the World HQ of the White Panther Party, which, as was said at the time, specialized in organizing straight white male hippies and their old ladies. More strange fruit of a strange era...)

Jacob Conrad



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