I see on checking the collected works, that Marx praised Lincoln with the striking phrase that he was "an average person of good will."
>This should BTW call into question Chris' contention that Marxism
>invariably defends the right to national self-determination. The
>Confederates invoked consitutional arguments in favor of the right
>to succession.
No it does not. I see Marx analysed the American Civil War as a Civil War, and was clear that there were only class reasons for secession; the interests of 300,000 slave owners. No where does he describe it as a struggle for national self-determination.
>Interestingly enough the French anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
>supported the Confederate side, precisely because of his support for
>national and regional rights to self-determination. Chris' position on
>self-determination seems closer to Proudhon than to Marx, and should
>logically lead him to similar to political positions.
I have not bothered to study Proudhon in detail, and do not intend to start just because Jim F wants to false foot me on this.
Lenin argued in Critical Remarks on the National Question, 1913:
"there is only one solution to the national problem (insofar as it can, in general, be solved in the capitalist world, the world of profit, squabbling and exploitation), and that solution is consistent democracy."
If armchair revolutionaries contemplate "cruise missiles liberals" with contempt, let me say to the former, that no technical semantics can conceal from the public, (only from your eyes) the utter fascist nature of what is being done to the people of Kosovo.
If you regard it as acceptable on your continent, it is not acceptable on ours, the homeland of the holocaust.
That you should use arguments about the civil war against slave labour in the USA to appease a situation in which slave labour is being imposed in Kosovo now, to force Albanians to bury their massacred dead, and prepare defences for the fascist army of occupation, is quite unworthy.
You can lazily and dogmatically assert that Blair is the same as Thatcher.
While Serb fascists are bombing out Albanian houses, you can have any cheap shots you want against bomber Blair, but you cannot explain why he should be facilitating autonomy for the Welsh and the Scots, who are to vote next month, and apparently has solely the motive in Yugoslavia of oppressing the poor smug Serb nation.
Only revolutionary blindness explains your position.
Chris Burford
London