[PEN-L] Wendell Phillips on the Paris Commune

[Louis Proyect]

While looking for incriminating evidence of bias on the Paris Commune in 
the NY Times archives for the year 1871, I came across the occasional 
exception to the rule, including statements from Karl Marx's First 
International. The one that really floored me, however, was by Wendell 
Phillips the erstwhile abolitionist. It starts:

"Today every letter-writer [ie., correspondent] from Europe caters to the 
worst prejudice by lying about the Commune. Who are the letter writers? 
Nine out of ten of them instinctively know what will please their 
employers. They are sure to find what they were sent to seek."

In other words, the bourgeois media was doing the same thing in 1871 that 
it does today. Oh well. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

You can read Phillips's article here: 
http://www.marxmail.org/wendell_phillips.pdf. Just make sure to scroll down 
to read the beginning of the article, which begins beneath the continuation 
for some odd reason.

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