There’s 2 questions in this post, really.

1. I started reading J. Sakai’s Settlers the other day. I’m finding it very informative and enlightening so far. I’m about a quarter of the way through it. However I have read in various communist spaces online that its a very flawed work that smears William Z. Foster as a racist, that the author is a C.I.A. plant, that the author is a ultra/Maoist, etc. I haven’t studied the communist movement throughout American history too much so I honestly don’t know a lot about Foster but from what I gather from doing some Googling, he’s a pretty beloved figure. This is definitely a gap in my knowledge. Are any of these criticisms founded?

2. Is the 4th of July a reactionary holiday? I feel like I’m going bonkers because (against my better judgement) I’ve been going back and forth with someone arguing whether it is or isn’t. I don’t think any principled communist should be voluntarily celebrating the holiday for reasons that I consider obvious. The holiday is about celebrating America and being uncritically patriotic. The person I’m arguing with is stating that it’s not a reactionary holiday, that America gaining independence from England led to the collapse of the British empire (even though England still has several colonies right now as I’m typing this?), and that communist leaders such as Mao and Castro understood the revolutionary war to be a positive development. Which I don’t really disagree with, I don’t think England losing a colony is a bad thing. But saying “this was one domino out of hundreds that led to slightly more favorable conditions” is different than celebrating. What is the ML take on the 4th of July? Am I completely off base?