Todd Archer wrote:
>
> Nice to see he mentioned Marx and
> Engels' thoughts on America (shows he reads more than the basics)(they
> felt a peaceful revolution could be possible there), but I don't think M
> & E meant it in quite the same way as he did.
>
It's been a long time since I read those observations (and I don't even remember which work they occur in), but I'm pretty sure the reason Marx gave was that the U.S. and England (_at that time_) did not have an entrenched bureaucracy. Hence there was no need to "smash" the state, which instead, perhaps, could be simply taken over and used for socialist ends.
The U.S. now has immense entrenched bureacracies in the federal government, in the military and police agencies, in the individual states, in the great corporations, and even in many NGOs which enter greatly into the the managing of everyday life. It is a fantasy worthy of the supermarket tabloids to imagine that such a complex machinery could be "taken over" by a coup and turned to working-class (i.e. socialist) ends. Elections are essentially rationalized and (more or less) peaceful coups.
Carrol