[lbo-talk] Re: Declaration of War

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Sat May 3 23:53:42 PDT 2003



> Our very first engagement overseas to proceed
without a declaration of
> war was our war against the Barbary pirates under
Secretary of State and
> then President Thomas Jefferson.

Which by the way is immortalized in the first two lines of the Marines' Hymn: "From the Halls of Montezuma, to the Shores of Tripoli." (The first clause of course refers to the Mexican War -- which I think was also undeclared, no?)

As Orwell might have put it: We have always been at war with Libya.

Michael *******************************************************

So, in this 'freest' of bourgeois representitive systems of government, the overwhelming majority of the people still live under a dictatorship of the capitalist class, a class which doesn't require *its* executive committee in the State to follow its own Constitution. Ahem, such is the nature of the State, the governing engine of class rule.

Marx observed, "The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery." (Critical Notes on the Article: The King of Prussia and Social Reform) I think that he was on to something there.

As for moving to Moscow to sell one's skills as Chris suggested (tongue-in-cheekiness), I'm sure most U.S. proles would pass on that option as soon as they computed the relative price of their labour power in that relatively 'unsaturated' market. Even if they did mangae to get a good price for their time, they'd still suffer the insecurities of being a wage-slave.

Best to all, Mike B)

===== ***************************************************************** "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Benjamin Franklin

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