I don't know who needs to hear this but saying "so and so cited from X that's a neoliberal institution" isn't the gotcha that you think it is, a thread. 1/

When you're working with primary source historical documents you're very frequently going to be citing a "collection." A really good example of this is the Hoover Institute. They're based out of Stanford and have run some very neoliberal stuff, have a lot of them on staff too. 2/

The Hoover Institute also has one of the largest collections of early Soviet Union primary sources, propaganda posters and stuff like that, outside of Russia and the former Soviet Union. 3/

When you cite those sources, if you do it properly in Chicago style you do have to attribute them to the Hoover Institute's collections even if they are unaltered. The researcher is the one analyzing the source, the Hoover Institute is just where it's kept. 4/

There's all kinds of other contextual stuff in archives but they impart no politics onto those sources in isolation. Yes, they may be organized in a manner that is political or serves a messaging purpose but the single primary source is just that in isolation. 5/

"Guilt by association" absolutely does not apply here. If you want to use that logic then the entire British Museum's collection is colonizer bullshit because it's under the roof of the British Museum. Yes, they should give it back but that's not the point I'm making. 6/

All the shit they stole does not magically lose its historical value because it's no longer with the culture that created it. It does lose contextual value, especially if the circumstances of discovery are not properly documented but they're still valid primary sources. 7/

News flash, most archives across the world are government run and/or funded. From my experience with the US national archives, they just confirmed the documents I was asking for existed (because I found them in their records) and asked if I'd like an appointment. 8/

"BUT HOW CaN yOU Know ThAt THEY'rE nOT LyInG?" You don't. That's why you cross reference with other sources and the context of sources. Meticulous documentation only for some months to be missing is cause for question. It's not too hard to intuit things from context. 9/

People have made entire careers in cross referencing memoirs of famous people with other primary sources and showing how and when they lie. That's basically any rigorous academic biography of a nazi official. 10/

TL;DR: The original physical versions of your precious "leftist theory" are probably inside a building that has taken neoliberal government funding at some point.

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