He seems to be one of the most hated figures on the online left. From my view, he does have a lot of questionable takes, but also does bring up some good points when it comes to fighting imperialism from a leftist perspective, so I’d like to know what people in this community think about him.
It’s speculation, not proof. All with no stated reason as to why the CIA would do this. If it was an op it should be more clear in the pages of the book. Most of the people who call it an op haven’t read the damn book, and if they try to give a reason why the CIA would write a book like this they only further expose they don’t know what the book is about. So who cares what their speculation is? I have sought out criticisms of the book and it is nearly impossible to find any that aren’t criticizing a strawman or citing an organization that criticizes a strawman but even more sanctimoniously.
The best attempts at discrediting the book I’ve seen are claims that Sakai takes Foster out of context, yet the entire quote fails to undo anything Sakai says about Foster at all and amounts to “Sakai didn’t use the full quote so he is CIA.” Gimme a break. White communists aren’t free from racism. Deal with it.
If you want to discredit the book then do it by reading it and criticizing it, maybe even build an alternative view that you think is more coherent. Im happy to listen and engage with this. Just leave the conspiracy theories that we can’t prove or disprove out of it. And leave any white fragility out of it as well.
Lol the book has an embarrassing lack of sources for a very large proportion of its claims. At the very least it’s a totally unacceptable way to write a “history book” if you want to be taken seriously.
He also never defines his terms which leads to difficult to follow arguments and nonsensical statements about “slave proletariats”. I really don’t understand why it’s taken so seriously. It is an amateurish work to say the least.